In the article, the authors have raised an urgent topic related to the provision of state support for rural areas. Attention is focused on the deficit of most of the budgets of both the municipal and regional levels, which does not contribute to the development of the infrastructure of the territories. In addition, the low investment attractiveness does not allow relying on private capital. The authors are confident in the rationality of the development of public-private partnership, as the most optimal (...) form of relationship between private capital and public authorities. (shrink)

Nnewi is situated some 30 kilometres South East of Onitsha in Anambra State in the southeastern part of Nigeria. This highly commercial town has undergone rapid urbanisation and industrialisation within the past two decades, since the end of the 1967–1970 Nigerian civil war. The Igbo community of the study area had traditionally employed bioconversion methods and other indigenous technology to process or recycle bio and non-degradable wastes. Industrialisation has enjoyed priority status in this locality as a requirement for modernisation and (...) economic progress. The rapid urbanisation, aggressive industrialisation, and the attendant uncontrolled population growth have had a deleterious impact on the environment. There is now a wide range of industrial wastes that are released daily into the environment. Effects of these activities on the socio-cultural practices of the people, plant genetic resources and the environment are highlighted. In addition to palliative measures suggested here, a call is made to revisit the successful indigenous waste treatment and management technology formerly practised by the Igbo community. The importance of combining modern biotechnological approaches with the indigenous technology, norms and practices of Nwewi people to effect suitable waste treatment and management, as well as improving the living habits and the education of the people about their environment, is recommended. (shrink)

As 'disruption' is currently becoming the new buzzword in boardrooms, this book advocates that the most striking opportunity for business today is making itself relevant to its stakeholders. By presenting a new route via innovative business models, a transformational corporate approach to stakeholder-orientated value creation is advocated in the form of a new stakeholder management framework. This conceptual framework provides both a theoretical and practical management solution for re-inventing the organisation via an enlightened perspective of the purpose of business in (...) society. The new approach transforms the existing business model via an inclusive, collaborative, connected mechanism of stakeholder value creation into an innovative business model through which the corporation mobilises the investment, conversion, and sustainability of the resources it employs in ways which are designed to be optimally relevant to its stakeholders. The overall impact results in innovative business models serving as catalysts for creating stakeholder-orientated value in place of the traditional, more narrowly-focused shareholder profit-maximisation aim of conventional business models. (shrink)

Despite a strong plea for integrating sustainability goals into traditional corporate bonus schemes, a comprehensive implementation of these systems has been lacking until recently. This article explores four illustrative cases from the Netherlands, where several multinationals started to pioneer with sustainable bonuses in the past few years. The article examines the setups and the different elements of bonus programmes used, in terms of performance criteria (focusing in particular on external vs. internal benchmarking), their link to specific stakeholders, type and size (...) of bonuses, target levels and transparency. While sustainable bonuses signal corporate awareness of responsibility vis-à-vis society and stakeholders, credibility varies considerably depending on these elements. Our case evidence sheds some light on the extent to which sustainable bonuses may be a credible sign of corporate responsibility or rather just another perverse mechanism meant to keep up bonus levels (window dressing). A definite assessment is hampered by the emergent state and lack of full transparency—while ‘justified’ by companies for competitive reasons, this raises questions. Insights are offered to appraise current and future systems and provide directions for further research. (shrink)

A flourishing literature assesses how sustainable business models create and capture value in socio-ecological systems. Nevertheless, we still know relatively little about how the organization of sustainable business models—of which cross-sector partnerships represent a core and distinctive mechanism—can support socio-ecological resilience. We address this knowledge gap by taking a complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective. We develop a framework that identifies the key strategic, institutional, and learning elements of partnerships that sustainable business models rely on to support socio-ecological resilience. With (...) our analytical framework, we underpin the importance of assessing sustainable business initiatives in terms of their impact on resilience at the level of socio-ecological systems, not just of organizations. Therefore, we reveal how cross-sector partnerships provide the organizational support for sustainable business models to support socio-ecological resilience. By combining the key features of CAS and the key elements of partnerships, we provide insight into the formidable task of designing cross-sector partnerships so that they support socio-ecological resilience and avoid unintended consequences. (shrink)

This study investigates the antecedents and mechanisms of consumers’ adoption of a public bicycle-sharing scheme as a form of shared sustainable consumption. Drawing on marketing ethics and sustainability literature, it argues that cultural and consumption values drive or deter the adoption of PBSS through the mediating mechanism of ethical evaluation. This study tests its hypotheses using a sample of 755 consumers from one of the largest PBSS programs in China. The results confirm the significance of collectivism, man–nature orientation, materialism, (...) and face-consciousness as key determinants of the adoption of PBSS. Interestingly, these values play mixed roles in influencing PBSS adoption. It also finds that such values and beliefs need to be effectively translated into ethical evaluations of PBSS adoption, and need to be addressed in the specific social context. Thus, ethical evaluation constitutes a cognitive strategy that allows consumers to justify and defend their adoption of sustainability practices. The results suggest that a desirable sustainability program needs to not only cater to the cultural and psychological motivations of consumers, but also reflect the social norms and social context in which the sustainability practices and consumers are embedded. (shrink)

The causal efficacy of a material system is usually thought to be produced by the law-like actions and interactions of its constituents. Here, a specific system is constructed and explained that produces a cause that cannot be understood in this way, but instead has novel and autonomous efficacy. The construction establishes a proof-of-feasibility of strong emergence. The system works by utilizing randomness in a targeted and cyclical way, and by relying on sustained evolution by natural selection. It is not vulnerable (...) to standard arguments against strong emergence, in particular ones that assume that the physical realm is causally closed. Moreover, it does not suffer from epiphenomenalism or causal overdetermination. The system uses only standard material components and processes, and is fully consistent with naturalism. It is discussed whether the emergent cause can still be viewed as ‘material’ in the way that term is commonly understood. (shrink)

Straw burning is one of the important causes of environmental pollution in rural China. As an important green production technology, straw returning is beneficial to the improvement of rural environment and the sustainable development of agriculture. Based on the improved planned behavior theory, taking the survey data of 788 farmers in Shandong, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan provinces as samples, this paper uses a multi-group structural equation model to explore the driving mechanism of subjective cognition on the adoption behavior of (...) farmers’ straw returning technology. The results show that behavioral attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, which represent subjective cognition, all have significant driving effects on farmers’ intention to adopt straw returning technology. Behavioral intention plays a mediating role in the process of subjective cognition driving farmers’ adoption behavior of straw returning technology. Government support has a moderating role in the path from farmers’ behavioral intention to behavioral response. The subjective cognition of different types of farmers has a significant driving effect on the adoption intention of straw returning technology, but the driving strength weakens with the increase of the degree of farmers’ concurrent occupation. This study provides guidance for improving the government’s straw returning policy and regulating straw returning behavior. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the observation that Southern governments start to take responsibility for a more sustainable production of agricultural commodities as a response to earlier private initiatives by businesses and non-governmental organizations. Indonesia is one of the leading countries in this respect, with new public sustainability regulations on coffee, cocoa and palm oil. Based on the concept of governance capacity, the paper develops an evaluation tool to answer the question whether the new public regulation on sustainable palm oil (...) may become a viable alternative to private regulation. ISPO embraces a tremendous governance challenge as thousands of companies and millions of smallholder farmers are expected to participate. It is concluded that, although ISPO has initiated a process of change, it has not yet developed its full potential. The main reason regards ISPO’s rather loose problem definition, weak authority of the implementing organization, and the fact that the reliability of ISPO is still too low to convince of the global market. ISPO may therefore face difficulties in meeting its own targets and solving palm-oil related problems, such as deforestation, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and social conflicts between big plantations and local communities. The main governance challenge regards combining a more authoritative implementation mechanism with a convincing balance between sustainability objectives and economic interests of the sector. (shrink)

Career sustainability is a well-researched issue in academics and other sectors. Technology advancements and COVID-19 have jeopardized career sustainability. Numerous studies have explored the influence of individual characteristics on career sustainability, but few have focused on leadership. In addition, cultural factors must be considered because leadership is rooted in culture. In particular, inclusive leadership reflects traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, based on self-determination social exchange theories, we analyzed the effects of inclusive leadership on career sustainability as well as the roles of (...) thriving at work and supervisor developmental feedback in career sustainability. In total, 363 samples were collected from China. The results revealed that inclusive leadership improves career sustainability through SDF and thriving at work. Theoretically, our study fills the research gap and establishes a mechanism and theoretical framework for inclusive leadership and career sustainability. Practically, we offer guidance for enterprises to cultivate inclusive leadership and improve career sustainability. (shrink)

The tourism economy has become a new driving force for economic growth, and film-induced tourism in particular has been widely proven to promote economic and cultural development. Few studies focus on analyzing the inherent characteristics of the economic and cultural effects of film-induced tourism, and the research on the dynamic mechanism of the sustainable development of film-induced tourism is relatively limited. Therefore, from the perspective of the integration of culture and industry, the research explores the dynamic mechanism of (...) sustainable development between film-induced culture and film-induced industry through a questionnaire survey of 1,054 tourism management personnel, combined with quantitative empirical methods. The conclusion shows that the degree of integration of culture and tourism is an important mediating role that affects the dynamic mechanism of sustainable development of film-induced tourism, and the development of film-induced tourism depends on the integration of culture and industry. Constructing a diversified industrial integration model according to local conditions and determining the development path of resource, technology, market, product integration, and administrative management can become the general trend of the future development of film-induced tourism. (shrink)

Although there are different approaches to sustainability auditing, those considered authoritative use scientific indicators and instruments to measure and predict the impact of organizational operations on socio-ecological systems. Such approaches are biased because they can only measure phenomena whose features lend themselves to quantification, control, and observation directly with the instruments produced by technology. This technocratic bias is a product of the mechanistic worldview, which presumes that all components of socio-ecological systems are identifiable, discrete, and material. In contrast to the (...) mechanistic worldview, indigenous people use animist familial representations. In the case of New Zealand Māori a family tree is used to represent socio-ecological systems. This is a flexible conception, which views socio-ecological systems as both composites made up of interlinking causally-connected parts but also as reciprocating systems that have intangible elements such as consciousness, emotion, and agency. The technocratic approach is ontologically incapable of incorporating intangible elements to such a degree we consider that it incompatible with animist approaches. It is not, however, epistemologically-incongruous for indigenous peoples because of the flexible hybridity of their worldview. This worldview provides a broad moral framework, which avoids discrediting subjectivity and reducing socio-ecological systems to only their instrumental value. Finally, we conclude that the indigenous approach has much to offer the field of sustainability auditing, given that it provides a moral framework, and insight into building assessment systems upon abductive reasoning. (shrink)

Early childhood development intervention has gained considerable achievements in eliminating intergenerational transmission of poverty in rural areas. Paying further attention to rural children’s community inclusion can also promote the sustainable development of the village. However, there is a lack of systematic theoretical constructs on the village inclusion of rural children. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the problem mechanism and solution strategy of community inclusion of rural children using a grounded theory approach of in-depth interviews. Seventeen (...) parents of children in a national-level poverty-stricken county in Inner Mongolia of China were investigated, adopting the strategy of intensity sampling. The results revealed that the content of rural children’s activities demonstrates enhanced participation in the virtual environment and weakened participation in the real community environment. That is, the activities are characterized by more virtualization and individualization. Rural parents and community peers are two major channels for children’s community inclusion, while both the community peer environment and parental community participation show a weakening trend. This may be an important reason for the virtualization and individualization of the children’s psychological development environment. Developmental intervention programs for rural children in poverty-stricken areas should focus on the reconstruction of children’s community peer environment, encourage the community participation of parents, and fully mobilize local-based educational resources. (shrink)

Active participation closely associates with the sustainable operation of co-creation communities. Different from recent studies on the promotion of sustainable operation by identifying the internal and external motivations of user participation, this paper aims to analyze the mechanism regarding how different motivations affect the decision of user participation from group-level perspective. To better understand the mechanism, internal and external motivations are, respectively, captured by return-cost analysis and user interactive network. Afterwards, a network evolutionary game model was formulated to (...) analyze the dynamic strategy selection of all users. In addition, the stable equilibrium and evolutionary path of strategies are analyzed through computational experiments. Results indicate the following: Rewards have an influence on the promotion of active participation. However, with the continued growth of rewards, this promotion does not make sense sustainably. The promotional effect of information noise on the selection of active participation can be found when passive participation is the dominant strategy. However, the inhibitory effect can be seen in populations that mainly adopt active participation. The scale-free feature of user interactive network inhibits the selection of active participation when active participation is the dominant strategy in populations. Results found here is beneficial for managers to implement the specified policies and thus to achieve the sustainability of co-creation community. (shrink)

Consideration of the property of action is proposed to provide a more meaningful definition of efficient energy use and sustainable production in ecosystems. Action has physical dimensions similar to angular momentum, its magnitude varying with mass, spatial configuration and relative motion. In this article, the relationship of action to thermodynamic processes such as the spontaneous increase in entropy of the second law is explained and the utility of action for measuring changes in energy and material distribution is promoted. In particular, (...) the view that increases in entropy and action are equivalent to disorder is challenged. Given that the development of action states may be assigned an economic value and the various sources of free energy assigned a price, action theory may provide a novel mechanism for the economic allocation of resources. The importance of the diversity and redundancy of energy resources and work processes to optimize action is highlighted. (shrink)

Government-sponsored school lunch programs have garnered attention from activists and policymakers for their potential to promote public health, sustainable diets, and food sovereignty. However, across country contexts, these programs often fall far short of their transformative potential. It is vital, then, to identify policies and organizing strategies that enable school lunch programs to be redesigned at the national scale. In this article, we use document analysis of historical newspapers and government data to examine the motivating factors and underlying conditions that (...) allowed South Korea’s universal free, eco-friendly school lunch program to become a tool for advancing social justice and ecological goals at the national scale. We analyze the socio-historical evolution and current status of the Korean school lunch program, combining the multi-level perspective with insights from environmental sociology and critical food studies, in order to shed light on the factors that enabled the program to become an innovative niche and articulate the opportunities and challenges it now faces. We identify the state-sponsored creation of what we call “precautionary infrastructure” as a key anchoring mechanism between the school food niche and agri-food regime. Precautionary infrastructure includes new supply chains, certification standards, and sourcing policies that provide a stable market for eco-friendly farms and small-scale producers, while minimizing the environmental health risks of school lunch by delivering organic and pesticide-free ingredients to on-site kitchens that serve free lunches to all students. This analysis offers insight into how public school-lunch programs can become protected niches that help drive sustainability transitions within agri-food systems. (shrink)

From the perspectives of manager cognition and behavior selection, this paper analyzes the cognitive basis of manufacturer’s green innovation and discovers that the embodied cognition of the manager has an important influence on the selection of green innovation behavior. Next, the behavior activation in the four stages of manufacturer’s green innovation, namely, initiation, termination, change, and solidification, was analyzed, and two behavior selections were proposed: the adaptive legitimacy with institutional logic as the cognitive starting point and the strategic legitimacy with (...) efficiency logic as the cognitive starting point. On this basis, the authors examined four types of manufacturer decisions of green innovation driven by manager cognition and behavior selection. The examination reveals how should the manager, facing the growing environmental pressure, form a correct cognition, select the right behavior, and make the proper green innovation decision, which promotes the green, sustainable development of manufacturers. (shrink)

Human development can be seen as the process of giving more effective expression to human values. Modern business philosophy has a certain viewpoint or perspective on human potential based on the secular humanistic values of the west and the scientific theories on the nature of man and his evolution. We are bound to welcome the New Paradigm in Business because it opens the path for a decisive step forward in evolution from an authoritarian, mechanistic, Taylorian era to a freer and (...) a more humanistic ethos in business. (shrink)

The creation of a specialized executive position that oversees sustainability activities represents a distinct shift in the structure of top management teams and their approach for addressing sustainability concerns. However, little is known about these management team members, namely the corporate sustainability officers or CSOs. We examine CSO appointments and their association with subsequent sustainability performance. Our results indicate that the creation of a CSO position may represent more of a symbolic versus substantive governance mechanism. Further tests suggest that (...) CSO expertise and the firm’s existing sustainability performance affect the association between the CSO and post-appointment sustainability performance. We find no association between CSO appointments and subsequent sustainability performance for firms that were already poor performers, while firms possessing relatively higher levels of prior sustainability performance appointing a CSO begin to experience significant improvements to performance after 3 years. We further find that CSOs with prior sustainability expertise are associated with increases in sustainability performance in firms that were already strong performers, but not in firms with poor sustainability performance. Non-expert CSOs, on the other hand, are associated with initial decreases in performance for poor performing firms, whereas better performing firms hiring non-expert CSOs are able to rely on other sustainability attributes of the firm and benefit from improvements in performance in the long term. We discuss the potential importance of these positions as it relates to symbolic versus substantive governance mechanisms through the lens of top management team literature streams. (shrink)

This paper applies insights from behavioral economics and nudge theory to foster sustainable and responsible investment. SRI provides an opportunity to express and promote ethical values via choice of financial instruments. While policy-makers have tried to encourage greater participation in SRI, the majority of retail investors retain a conventional approach to investment. I develop a conceptual framework to improve the effectiveness of SRI policy-making. The first part of the framework comprises a transmission mechanism which emphasizes the role of SRI (...) as a driver for sustainable development. The second part is a model of the individual decision for or against SRI. The framework suggests that low SRI demand is a case of behavioral market failure, and that nudging is a suitable tool for dismantling behavioral barriers to SRI. A specific example of smart choice architecture is used to illustrate the framework’s potential in the design of an SRI nudge. Assuming the nudge stands up to the rigors of empirical testing, it may well provide a feasible alternative for policy-makers. (shrink)

Neo-capitalistic approaches to value creation have sometimes developed a bad reputation in terms of sustainability and care for the environment. Yet, there are examples to the contrary emphasising a concern for sustainable capitalism. Our literature synthesis suggests that there is a lack of understanding of the sustainability mechanisms—ways of working helping companies to achieve their leadership in sustainability and maintain it over time. We contribute by addressing this deficiency and specifying four discrete mechanisms which we call the 4S model. Specifically, (...) we apply this model to the cases of two leading exponents of sustainability—Unilever and Patagonia—to explain how companies can operate as forces to change business practice and improve sustainability having regard to people, planet, and profits. (shrink)

A long history of research has revealed many neurophysiological changes and concomitant behavioral impacts of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and circadian rhythms. Little research, however, has been conducted in the area of computational cognitive modeling to understand the information processing mechanisms through which neurobehavioral factors operate to produce degradations in human performance. Our approach to understanding this relationship is to link predictions of overall cognitive functioning, or alertness, from existing biomathematical models to information processing parameters in a cognitive architecture, leveraging (...) the strengths from each to develop a more comprehensive explanation. The integration of these methodologies is used to account for changes in human performance on a sustained attention task across 88 h of total sleep deprivation. The integrated model captures changes due to time awake and circadian rhythms, and it also provides an account for underlying changes in the cognitive processes that give rise to those effects. The results show the potential for developing mechanistic accounts of how fatigue impacts cognition, and they illustrate the increased explanatory power that is possible by combining theoretical insights from multiple methodologies. (shrink)

This study explores how different actors operating in a knowledge ecosystem catalyse sustainability-oriented innovation. Through collaborative practices among actors, knowledge ecosystems constitute a fertile ground for sustainability-oriented innovation to grow and flourish by creating value for businesses and society. The current literature on knowledge ecosystems is lacking in outlining governing mechanisms to foster collaborative practices aimed at advocating open innovation for sustainability transition. This study aims to close this literature gap. Through interview data collected in a knowledge ecosystem, we apply (...) precepts of grounded theory to reveal four forms of metagovernance—network design, network framing, network management and network participation. This study proposes a conceptual framework of metagovernance forms as powering layers to foster sustainability-oriented innovation in a knowledge ecosystem. We further discuss potential weaknesses that may jeopardise the development of sustainability-oriented innovation in the knowledge ecosystem. This study contributes to the literature on sustainability-oriented innovation by acknowledging metagovernance as the appropriate governing mechanism that balances the activities and processes of sustainability-oriented innovations for becoming and being sustainable. (shrink)

Thanks to genetic and biochemical advances on the molecular mechanism of circadian rhythms in Drosophila, theoretical models closely related to experimental observations can be considered for the regulatory mechanism of the circadian clock in this organism. Modeling is based on the autoregulatory negative feedback exerted by a complex between PER and TIM proteins on the expression of per and tim genes. The model predicts the occurrence of sustained circadian oscillations in continuous darkness. When incorporating light‐induced TIM degradation, the (...) model accounts for damping of oscillations in constant light, entrainment of the rhythm by light‐dark cycles of varying period or photoperiod, and phase shifting by light pulses. The model further provides a molecular dynamical explanation for the permanent or transient suppression of circadian rhythmicity triggered in a variety of organisms by a critical pulse of light. Finally, the model shows that to produce a robust rhythm the various clock genes must be expressed at the appropriate levels since sustained oscillations only occur in a precise range of parameter values. BioEssays 22:84–93, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Theories of legal causation that identify the concept with probability‐raising generate false positives where the defendant's conduct raises the probability of harm but brings about that harm in the wrong kind of way. Moreover, what the law seeks to deter is not conduct that raises the probability of harm, but rather conduct that is dangerous. A legal or proximate cause is one that harms the plaintiff through the causal mechanism that sustains the lawful generalization that the defendant's conduct was (...) dangerous. (shrink)

Abstract:Implementing creative and sustainable urban planning initiates is rather challenging. This article argues that universities can become more relevant to underserved communities in their hinterlands by conducting town-gown citizen-science programs. Central to the article is a review of the most pertinent literature on public engagement, citizen-science, and other community based participatory methods utilized in the resolution of very complex health, social, environmental, and consumption problems. The research’s analytical mechanism is centered on the triad of Placeless, Place and Non-Place genius (...) loci of socio-spatial town-gown interventions. The curricular and pedagogical innovations identified entail the strengthening of citizen-science and design thinking in both high school and university education. (shrink)

This paper explores whether the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a flexibility mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, has contributed to poverty alleviation in countries that host CDM projects. We argue that the CDM should deliver pro-poor benefits to the communities in which projects are established, since poverty alleviation is integral to sustainable development, which is one of the main purposes of the CDM. After briefly discussing the background of the CDM, we discuss assessment difficulties to which research is prone (...) when evaluating CDM projects for alleged sustainable development contributions. Section 4 brings together and analyses available empirical research on the pro-poor benefits the CDM purportedly delivers to host country communities, concluding that the CDM has failed to deliver poverty alleviation. Therefore, without attempting to be exhaustive, we suggest policy reforms that aim to redirect the CDM to those most in need of assistance. (shrink)

This paper examines the rise of socially responsible investment (SRI) as a sustainable finance mechanism and discusses the potential of SRI to contribute toward a more socially responsible and environmentally sound model of commerce in the Asia-Pacific region. Using a case study approach, I argue in this paper that the potential of SRI to accelerate the private sector toward greater sustainability has been to date largely explored within the North American and European regional contexts and that the future global (...) development of SRI is likely to depend on whether and to what degree SRI becomes a viable financial instrument in industrialized (Japan) and emerging (Hong Kong/China) economies of the Asia-Pacific region. (shrink)

The year 2018 is the 150 anniversary of the Tata group. This article is an attempt to examine the role of spiritual family values in shaping Tata as a sustainable business. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the founder of Tata, was a trained Parsi priest, who was greatly influenced by Humata or good thoughts, Hukhta or good words, and Hvarshta or good deeds toward others. Since its founding in 1868, the Tata leadership legacy has persistently followed those watchwords of the Zoroastrian faith. (...) The extant workplace spirituality literature posits that the role of spiritual and religious values is vital for organizations and individuals to prosper. Employing historical data and biographical method, we trace the history of Tata to examine the causal mechanism between spirituality and sustainable business, under the influence of stakeholder concept, sustainability and family values-based leadership. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

In biosemiotics, some oppose the study of sign relations to empirical work on bio-mechanisms. Urging consilience between these views, we show the value of Alain Berthoz’s concept of simplexity. Its heuristic power is to present molecules, cells, organisms and communities as using tricks to self-fabricate by agglomerating ‘simplex’ bio-mechanisms. Their properties enable living systems to self-sustain, adapt and, at best, to thrive. But simplexity also empowers agents to engage with their surroundings in novel ways. Life thus not only generates know-how (...) but also social organisation. With languaging, people can act and inhibit: they can also simplexify. As a result, we can see a fruit as ripe, feel when things are awry or behave in ways likely to be judged to be apt. While all living beings make situated use of the historical and the local, humans also bind these with the use of both practices and artifacts. As a result, brains come to emulate what occurs in-between persons and their surroundings. In pursuing the basis for our powers, we focus on inhibition. This simplex trick enables a plant to use dormancy, a bird to learn, and a person to mesh languaging with other aspects of action/perception. Indeed, inhibition enriches human style phenomenology as impersonal resources are used to expand our epistemic horizons. Experience links a self-fabricating body, ancient bio-mechanisms, community-based concerns and epigenetically derived know-how. (shrink)

Van Vugt, van der Velde, and collaborators show how cognitive architectures can implement verbal theories of psychiatric problems. They show how one theory of depressive rumination can be implemented in the ACT‐R cognitive architecture by changing the contents of its simulated memory. These manipulations of memory habits lead the model to show impairments in a sustained attention task‐‐a plausible impairment given that people who suffer from depression have concentration complaints.

This paper examines the ethical implications of the Clean Development Mechanism, the United Nation’s climate change initiative that provides incentives to countries and firms in developed countries to motivate investments in greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing countries. Using the tenets of agency theory, we present a solid waste management project in El Salvador as an illustrative example of how the CDM can produce a disproportionately high social cost for the most marginalized populations in the developing world. We suggest (...) that the UN needs to reformulate the CDM so that it more effectively aligns the divergent goals of multiple actors and upholds the UN’s principles for sustainable development, including ethical firm-level behavior. By providing incentives for environmental, economic, and social value creation, the CDM would not only promote ethical norms for profit-seeking firms that participate in the program but also reinforce the UN’s twin pro-poor and environmental objectives. (shrink)

Efficient knowledge sharing is an important support for the continuous innovation and sustainable development of scientific research teams. However, in realistic management situations, the knowledge sharing of scientific research teams always appears to be unsustainable, and the reasons for this are the subject of considerable debate. In this study, an attempt was made to explore the interactive mechanism of knowledge hiding behaviors in scientific research teams between individual and collective knowledge hiding behaviors and its impact on knowledge sharing by (...) adopting grounded theory to comprehensively understand this situation. The results show that knowledge hiding behavior in the scientific research team is a two-phase interactive process and is capable of affecting sustainable knowledge sharing by reducing the supply of knowledge, creating a poor knowledge sharing atmosphere, and forming an interpersonal distrust relationship. This research may provide a strong basis for a deeper understanding of the interaction mechanism of knowledge hiding behavior and its impact on knowledge sharing. (shrink)

The study hypothesizes that the environmental, social, and governance of the host country have a significant effect on clean development mechanism implementation. As CDM incorporates sustainable development as one of the objectives for the green transition, many countries endeavor to adopt and implement CDM as their cleaner production method. Based on the institutional theory, the study aims to investigate the mechanism by which the institutional process of each ESG pillar makes an opportunity for a host country and to (...) see how such country-specific factors influence the implementation of CDM projects. A county-year unbalanced sample drawn from World Bank and multinational CDM project data was analyzed using panel logistic and Poisson regression. Panel regression results show that high-energy intensity and low renewable electricity output as an environmental pillar positively affect CDM implementation. Unemployment and undernourishment as a social pillar positively affect CDM whereas low government effectiveness and the high rule of law positively affect CDM. In the results of zero-inflated Poisson regression, the direction of government effectiveness was upturned. The findings have broadened and deepened the ESG pillar based on the institutional theory and emphasized sustainable development rather than economic outputs. (shrink)

Abstract Environmental and public health-focused sciences are increasingly characterised as constituting an emerging discipline—planetary medicine. From a governance perspective, the ethical components of that discipline may usefully be viewed as bestowing upon our ailing natural environment the symbolic moral status of a patient. Such components emphasise, for example, the origins and content of professional and social virtues and related ethical principles needed to promote global governance systems and policies that reduce ecological stresses and pathologies derived from human overpopulation, selfishness and (...) greed—such as pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as provide necessary energy, water and food security. Less well explored in this context, however, is the ethics that should underpin global use of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology as forms of planetary therapeutics. Nanotechnology may be particularly important, for instance, as a mechanism for improving upon photosynthesis and engineering it into human structures for localised production of carbon-neutral hydrogen based-fuel and carbohydrate-based food and fertilizer. Artificial photosynthesis, because of its unique and widespread public and environmental benefits in this period of human history, may even be termed the moral culmination of nanotechnology, assisting this planet to move beyond the Anthropocene epoch to that of the Sustainocene. This paper explores practical steps towards planetary nanomedicine involving governance of artificial photosynthesis, including a UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Bioethics and Human Rights of Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis (Global Solar Fuels and Foods ). Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0144-4 Authors Thomas Faunce, College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and College of Law (joint Appointment), Australian National University, Acton, Australia Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

The need for sustainable corporate governance has gained the interests of researchers for a while now and it has been found as a very significant component of successful organizational operations. The current paper has examined the role of sustainable corporate governance in achieving sustainable economic space along with measuring the indirect impact of technological innovation and IT governance on the whole process. This paper has followed the quantitative-positivism approach to measure the hypotheses developed in the study. The population considered in (...) this study are the managers currently employed in the corporate sector in China. The data is analyzed using the Smart-PLS 3.3.3 software for checking the data for preliminary screening and the measurement of hypotheses. The findings of the study show that the three components of sustainable corporate governance, i.e., concern for employees, sustainable corporate governance awareness, and the environmental aspects have a significant as well as a positive effect on technological innovation and hence on the sustainable economic space. Similarly, the study has recorded a significant moderating effect of IT governance on the relationship of technological innovation and the sustainable economic space. Overall, it can be seen that corporate governance, innovative technology, and a sustainable digital economy share a reciprocal relationship. Where corporate governance helps as a supporting force to keep both innovation and sustainability in action. Whereas IT governance provides enhanced communication and delivery of public services, business, and advanced human capital. The study will be of high advantage for the corporate sector in China for devising and modifying their policies that consider the employee’s concerns for the governance mechanisms prevailing at priority in the organizations. Further, it will be interesting for the organizations to incorporate the IT governance mechanism in their technological innovations for achieving a sustainable economic space. (shrink)

Rumination is a process of uncontrolled, narrowly focused negative thinking that is often self-referential, and that is a hallmark of depression. Despite its importance, little is known about its cognitive mechanisms. Rumination can be thought of as a specific, constrained form of mind-wandering. Here, we introduce a cognitive model of rumination that we developed on the basis of our existing model of mind-wandering. The rumination model implements the hypothesis that rumination is caused by maladaptive habits of thought. These habits of (...) thought are modeled by adjusting the number of memory chunks and their associative structure, which changes the sequence of memories that are retrieved during mind-wandering, such that during rumination the same set of negative memories is retrieved repeatedly. The implementation of habits of thought was guided by empirical data from an experience sampling study in healthy and depressed participants. On the basis of this empirically derived memory structure, our model naturally predicts the declines in cognitive task performance that are typically observed in depressed patients. This study demonstrates how we can use cognitive models to better understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying rumination and depression. (shrink)

To demonstrate that a proposed mechanism could explain a phenomenon, biologists must recompose the mechanism. Traditionally they have relied on mentally rehearsing the operations, often aided by a mechanism diagram. Such a strategy has reached its limits in contemporary biology. For example, through mental rehearsal alone researchers cannot determine whether a feedback mechanism will generate sustained oscillation. Accordingly, mechanistic inclined biologists are enriching their strategies, relying on computational simulation and graph-theoretical analyses of networks. The limitations of (...) traditional approaches and the additional strategies biologists are employing are illustrated in research on glycolytic and circadian oscillations. (shrink)

The information-hierarchical approach is used to analyze the evolutionary developed organization of mankind. This organization is shown to be hierarchical, from molecular hierarchical levels to the religious ones. Time cycles of each level operation are included in the greater cycle of the next level according to the specific schemes defined by the common information principle of natural system development. Time cycles of levels have duration of 1 second, 6 seconds, 42 seconds, 24 hours, 11 days, 1 years, 33 year, 1,000 (...) years, 3,000 years or 6,000 years and all together make up the mankind clock that is similar to the formerly ascertained biosphere clock. The cycles of duration from 1 second to 33 years form the human biological clock, so the information-hierarchical organization of cell metabolism manifests itself as the key mechanism of the clock. The new scientific field has been characterized. It is the management of sustainable development of the states as evolutionary developed systems with the use of information relationships of their functioning. In the case of Christianity adoption by any large ethnos the next 1,000-year cycle of the Christianity-Judaism system will start. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to create an understanding of how the UN sustainable development goals can be used to steer stakeholder engagement for transformative change, meeting global challenges, and navigate a new business-societal practice driven by a values-based business model. The article is a conceptual study with case studies of the role that the SDGs play in multi-stakeholder dialog via the kind of sustainable business-societal practice that takes corporate social responsibility to the next level, where it is embedded (...) in a values-based business model, creating a new meaning to effect real business-societal transformation. Multi-stakeholder dialog implies interactive and communicative engagement with the full range of stakeholders in order to create value for all, employing a societal perspective and using the value network as a basis for effective decision-making. We explain our methodological approach by presenting multi-stakeholder dialog in practice, in the form of multiple case studies. These empirical settings consisted of two values-driven privately owned companies with a strong reporting mechanism and a clear transformation agenda based on the SDG challenges: IKEA and Löfbergs. The empirical study provides the basis for our proposed model. This article makes an original contribution to the study of the use of SDGs in management and service research. It investigates steering and navigating processes in specific contexts in order to determine what should be subject to legal enforcement and what comprises moral and/or ethical value, particularly at the societal level. (shrink)

It is of practical significance to introduce the Internet of Things technology into the financial service industry and find the driving factors and mechanisms of financial innovation to accelerate the promotion of financial innovation. This article starts from the perspective of banks and other supply chain financial institutions, takes mainstream trading products in the commodity trading market as the research object, uses the LA-VAR model, and fully considers the market price fluctuations and liquidity factors of supply chain financial inventory products. (...) It analyzes the theoretical basis of the continuous innovation of rural financial products. On the basis of analyzing the basic characteristics and types of rural financial product innovation, we explore the connotation of sustainable innovation of rural financial products, clarify the evaluation criteria, and lay a theoretical foundation for continuous dynamic evaluation. Based on technical innovation evaluation theoretical models such as Schumpeter’s innovation model, technical specifications-technological track model, and NR relationship model market, we analyze the innovation elements of rural financial products from the external and internal aspects of innovation and discuss the relationship between the factors. The interaction mechanism of rural financial products has established a dynamic mechanism model for the continuous innovation of rural financial products. A fuzzy comprehensive evaluation was made on the continuous innovation power of financial service industry products in a certain area. Using a combination of remote surveys and on-site visits, a questionnaire survey was conducted on financial service industry institutions in a certain region’s financial system. Each survey object was required to conduct 120 × 1067 index comparisons and use the data after processing the arithmetic average Matlab carries out the objective processing of programming. The results show that the LA-VAR model with liquidity indicators can measure the liquidity risk well and more comprehensively evaluate the risk of the inventory pledge financing model. According to the index weights determined by AHP, the development of the financial service industry will be promoted in a targeted manner from the internal construction of financial institutions and the optimization of the external innovation environment. (shrink)

Tailoring workshop, a school-based teacher training program, has been developed in China on the basis of the Teaching Research Groups to better focus on teacher’s genuine needs, improve their problem-solving ability, and inter-subject collaboration. Literature on teacher workshops predominately roots in western settings whereas scant attention has been paid to those in Asian contexts, especially China. Therefore, a qualitative method was performed with teachers from a middle school in Shanghai to unveil how the TWs were formed, conducted, and how they (...) functioned effectively. Drawing on Dewey’s pragmatic theory as the analysis framework, the findings yielded a formation process with four stages and examined the mechanisms in four dimensions, namely, dynamics mechanism, organizational structure, role of teachers, and learning mechanism. The study argues that, the TWs prioritize teacher’s genuine needs and problems encountered in practice, encourage teachers to identify problems, seek resources and conduct research with collective wisdom for resolutions. These features make it significantly different from the traditional TRGs with ‘top-down’ approach and other training programs in reliance upon short-lived, external lectures. The TW mode, in this sense, can be deemed a promising endeavor to facilitate teacher’s sustainable development in echoing the ever-changing education domain. (shrink)

Early research suggested that migration changed gender roles by offering women new wages and exposing them to norms of gender equity. Increasingly, however, scholars have drawn attention to the role of structural factors, such as poverty and undocumented status, in mediating the relationship between migration and gender. This article takes such insights a step further by showing that migrant communities’ reactions to structural marginality—and their efforts to build alternatives in their home villages—may also draw women into new gender roles. I (...) demonstrate this mechanism through the case of San Miguel, a Mixtec sending community in Southern Mexico where, in the context of U.S. migration, once-excluded women came to predominate in civic affairs. In response to harsh conditions in the United States, migrants from San Miguel returned to their village. To make this economically feasible, they sought state development resources. Men, who often stayed in the United States as breadwinners, relied on sympathetic women back in the sending community to advocate on their behalf. Meanwhile, women’s own rejection of migrant life gave them new interest in sustaining their village. For both, incorporating women into politics offered a strategy to secure needed resources and avoid assimilating into an undocumented underclass. (shrink)

This study investigated acute effects of real and imagined endurance exercise on sustained attention performance in healthy young adults in order to shed light on the action mechanisms underlying changes in cognitive functioning. The neural similarities between both imagined and physically performed movements reveal that imagery induces transient hypofrontality, whereas real exercise reflects both transient hypofrontality effects and the global release of signaling factors due to muscle contraction and the accompanying sensory feedback. We hypothesized improved cognitive functioning after both interventions (...) with greater improvements for real exercise because it targets both mechanisms. Fifty-three sport science students completed two 25-min sessions of moderate endurance exercise in either a motor imagery modality or an executed bodily activity within the framework of an order-balanced crossover study. Assessments for sustained attention performance were performed before and after each endurance exercise condition. Statistical results showed improvements for both groups over time, which can mostly be explained by retest effects. However, we observed a significant interaction effect between group and time, F = 3.64, p = 0.04, η2 = 0.07, with higher increases in the first session in case physical endurance exercise was performed compared to motor imagery exercise, t = −2.71, p = 0.09, d = 0.75. This might suggest that the release of signaling factors due to muscle contractions with sensory feedback processing is an additional mediating mechanism alongside motor-related transient hypofrontality that improves cognitive performance. (shrink)

Primary and methyl aliphatic halides and tosylates undergo substitution reactions with nucleophiles in one step by the classic S N 2 mechanism, which is characterized by second-order kinetics and inversion of configuration at the reaction center. Tertiary aliphatic halides and tosylates undergo substitution reactions with nucleophiles in two (or more) steps by the classic S N 1 mechanism, which is characterized by first-order kinetics and incomplete inversion of configuration at the reaction center due to the presence of ion (...) pairs. When the nucleophile is also the solvent, the substitution reaction is called a solvolysis, and both the S N 2 and S N 1 reactions now obey first-order kinetics. Schleyer and Bentley have provided solid, but not conclusive, evidence that secondary substrates undergo solvolysis by a merged mechanism, one that blends characteristics of both the S N 2 and S N 1 mechanisms. The following paper presents the history of their sustained pursuit of a merged mechanism and subsequent rebuttals to this claim. Several issues related to the philosophy and sociology of science are also discussed. (shrink)

Green finance plays a crucial bridge as an intermediary between finance and the environment, facilitating resource allocation. The disclosure of environmental information (EID) is vital for promoting sustainable economic development. This study utilizes panel data covering the period from 2012 to 2019, focusing on Chinese companies listed in high-polluting industries. The findings demonstrate that green finance policies have a significant positive impact on EID, while increased managerial power has a detrimental effect. However, green finance policies can mitigate the negative consequences (...) arising from moral hazard and adverse selection resulting from managerial power. They enhance the quality of EID by restricting long-term loan resources for polluting entities. The heterogeneity test reveals that the effectiveness of green finance policies in promoting EID varies across different regions of China. In non-state-owned companies, green finance policies are more effective in constraining managerial power. The moderating effect of green finance on managerial power is weakened by improvements in internal control. Green financing can offset the adverse impact of managerial power on EID when debt levels are high. Our research plays a crucial role in advancing micro-academic studies in the field of green finance. By strengthening internal controls for corporate managers and promoting EID policies, we provide essential support and guidance to decision-makers. (shrink)

Abstract Private security contractors are just the tip of an outsourcing iceberg. Across the three Ds of defense, diplomacy, and development, American foreign policy has been privatized. The Obama administration inherited a government that had been hollowed out to an unprecedented extent, and in many realms it had and has no choice but to depend on contractors to conduct what used to be state business. This essay examines the reasons for and unintended negative consequences of this outsourcing of American power. (...) It argues that turning the clock back and returning everything to in-house assignments is both undesirable and impossible. Instead, government must pursue contracting in ways that do not undermine the public interest. It can do this by identifying the things that should never be outsourced and ensuring that the letter and spirit of the Federal Funding Transparency and Accountability Act is upheld. Greater transparency in contractor?government relations will foster private security contractor compliance with ethical norms while bolstering our capacity for self-government. Transparency is thus both an end in itself and a means to sustainable democratic deliberation. While tension can exist between national security and open government, that tension is often overestimated. (shrink)

Philosophical and scientific understandings of compassion converge, both stressing its necessity for the moral life and human flourishing. I conceptualise a dynamic and frangible account of professional virtues, including compassion, and propose that mechanistic organisational systems of care and the biomedical paradigm create a strong risk of dehumanisation and the obliteration of compassion in healthcare. Additionally, the neoliberal market ideology, with its instrumental approach to individuals and commodification of healthcare creates a corrosive influence that alienates clinicians from their patients and (...) severely curtails the scope for compassionate practice. The tension between efficiency and patient orientated care – although they need not be mutually exclusive – has become more acute in the current economic climate, at a time when the boundaries of medicine have broadened and expectations for healthcare have risen. This has created an unsustainable dynamic within which alienated healthcare professionals struggle to fulfil their healing roles and patients experience abandonment and more anxiety. (shrink)

In Australia, Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) have a vital role to play—as the primary institutional mechanism for ethical review of research—in protecting research participants, and promoting ethical research. Their ability to act effectively in this role is currently threatened by the limited support they receive and their burgeoning workloads. In this discussion paper, I trace some of the factors contributing to what I describe as a resource crisis in human research ethics. I suggest a review of the working (...) of HRECs to canvas a range of alternatives which might serve to redress this crisis, so as to ensure the continued effectiveness of HRECs in protecting participants and promoting ethical research. (shrink)