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Lack of progress advancing labour provisions in multilateral trade instruments has led some countries to develop their own labour chapters in bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements. This study aims to track the evolution of 25 years of labour chapters in Canadian trade agreements.

Modelled on Hoekman (1995), the authors present a novel index using the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) core labour standards to compare and evaluate ambition and enforcement in Canada’s labour chapters.

The quality of Canada’s labour chapters has steadily improved from 1994 to 2020, with scores rising from 46 to 91 out of 100. In addition, Canada has used its negotiating leverage to encourage partners with weak labour regimes to make improvements. Yet, the highest quality chapters were achieved with trade partners similar to Canada, and those chapters have not pushed either party to improve their own domestic labour regimes. The authors discuss the limits of the ILO standards for addressing contemporary debates about labour and trade.

The authors’ assessment provides the first empirical evidence to demonstrate that Canada’s labour chapters have evolved over time, and that the origins of this evolution predate the Liberal government’s progressive trade agenda by several decades. The authors also suggest that Canada’s “middle road” compromise on ambition versus enforceability may increase the relevance of the index for research on other middle powers and potentially countries in the global south.

Concerns have been raised regarding the mental health of firefighters. In response to this, existing literature reviews have highlighted the significant role of trauma in influencing mental health and the experience of post-traumatic stress within firefighters.

This paper builds on the existing reviews and makes an original contribution to knowledge by systematically reviewing research exploring additional factors that contribute to poor mental health in firefighters.

This review finds that factors such as sleep, occupational stress, length of service, coping style and social support all influence negative mental health within firefighters. However, this paper also suggests there are challenges to distinguishing the nature of these relationships, due to the possible bidirectional nature of the relationships and study limitations.

Finally, we conclude by suggesting a clear need for further research to explore the biological, psychological and social factors influencing mental health outcomes in firefighters and the direction of these relationships, in order to inform effective intervention and support.

This paper aims to discuss how transnational universities create negative and positive social impacts on their host communities and what this means for campus sustainability and the expectation that universities contribute to sustainable development and to their local communities.

Using mixed methods, a multiple case study approach and qualitative meta-analysis, this study considers six transnational university campuses in China in terms of their relationship with local communities.

Because of the good reputation of universities generally, local residents tended to accord a social licence to operate (i.e. approval) to new university campuses. However, universities generally do not manage their social impacts, as well as many other industries and generally fail to consider the corporate social responsibility issues and the environmental, social and governance aspects of their activities. To improve their social licence to operate and grow and to meet expectations around “university social responsibility”, campus developments should observe key international principles and human rights standards: full disclosure of information; effective community engagement; appropriate resettlement and livelihood restoration; effective harm reduction procedures; provision of local benefits (benefit sharing); monitoring and adaptive management and implement a grievance redress mechanism.

This paper encourages broader thinking about sustainability in a higher education context and about what university social responsibility entails. Specifically, this study argues that the relationship between universities and their host communities also needs to be considered, especially during campus construction.

The purpose of this paper is to understand Korean women’s lived experience with career chance given the unique cultural traditions.

This study adopted a basic qualitative research design. The data from semi-structured person-to-person, in-depth interviews were analyzed using a constant comparative method.

The findings revealed that the participants dealt with their career chance events to maintain harmony. Their experienced chance events were scattered over a period of time, but as a whole, these events became meaningful for their career development. The lessons learned through their experiences transformed their priorities in career decisions and life values.

This study yielded insightful theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, this study identified the key elements of career chance events and interactions among these experiences, which can be further developed for future theory building.

From a practical perspective, this study sheds light on career education and counseling programs for adult women in an educational setting. In an organizational setting, this study recommends creating an employee career development culture where women employees are encouraged to take advantage of unpredicted career chance experiences.

This study provides culturally unique contributions to the body of literature on career chance events experienced by Korean women, which may not be adequately accounted for in most existing theories driven by western individualistic ideas of careers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore factors affecting secondhand clothing acquisition among a sample of US female consumers based on an economic perspective.

This research is descriptive in nature, utilizing a survey of 500 US female consumers to explore relationships between five modes of secondhand clothing acquisition and selected consumer characteristics. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data.

The significant variables were income, age, number of toddlers and children ages 6-17 present in households, and sewing and repair skills. Income was found to be negatively related to purchasing secondhand clothing, suggesting that consumers view used clothing as an inferior good. Consumers in Gen Y were more likely to be involved in various means of secondhand clothing acquisition, holding income constant, than Baby Boomers.

Overcoming the stigma of inferiority associated with secondhand clothing, encouraging repair skills, and the repair of clothing, reaching out to consumers to build on their interest in DIY projects, and utilizing new technology (e.g. apps for sharing clothes) are practical implications.

The paper examined multiple modes of clothing acquisition rather than a single mode, and contributes insight regarding the economic concept of secondhand clothing as an inferior good.

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of technology visibility and subsequent perceptions of VFRs on consumers' intention to adopt VFRs in the online shopping context. A cross-cultural comparison was conducted to examine the different relationships among technology visibility, consumer perceptions and adoption intentions between the Chinese and Korean consumers.

Data were collected from 306 Chinese and 324 Korean consumers. The data were empirically analysed using structural equation modelling as well as multi-group comparisons.

Empirical results suggest significant influence of technology visibility on consumers' experiential and functional perceptions towards VFRs and accordingly on their adoption intention towards VFRs. Significant differences were also revealed between the Chinese and Korean consumers in their adoption behaviours towards VFRs.

The comparison was only conducted between the Chinese and Korean consumers. If two countries from two dramatically different cultures were compared, the results might be more significant.

An important implication is that enhancement of visibility is crucial for technology adoption considering its importance in shaping consumers' perceptions towards the technology.

The paper empirically tested the importance of technology visibility in consumers' new technology adoption in the VFR context from a cross-cultural perspective.

This is the eleventh article on business and law (BSL) databases in a continuing series of articles summarizing and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles, one covering science, technology, and, medicine (STM) appeared in Online & CD‐ROM Review vol. 22, no. 2 and the other covering social science, humanities, news, and general (SSH) appears here in Online & CD‐ROM Review vol. 22, no. 3. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD)together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

In response to calls for more research on gender(s) in digital contexts, this paper aims to ask, how do individuals engage in self-presentation of their gender identities on social media?

Using a multi-method qualitative approach, this research explores the narratives of 17 Millennials as they negotiate their online gender expressions with a particular focus on the image-based social platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Specifically, in-depth interviews, a collage technique and visual data from informants’ social media pages were analyzed to identify emergent themes.

Drawing on the theoretical work of Goffman’s (1971) self-presentation and Butler’s (1999) gender performance, this research highlights a pervading discourse of authenticity or the desire for Millennial social media users to craft and perform a perceived “authentic self” online. This often entails both expressions of gender fluidly and gender policing. Further, four strategies emerge in the data which reveal how individuals negotiate and navigate their gendered self-presentation online, either in an agentic manner or as a protective measure.

While much research exists on online self-presentation, gender(s) has been under-researched in a digital context. Existing studies examine the content of social media pages (e.g. Facebook profiles or women’s Instagram pages) as it relates to gender, but largely do not explore the lived experiences and narratives of individuals as they negotiate their gendered expressions. In addition, the use of visual data through the collage technique adds valuable insight into how gender is experienced and performed. Findings reveal that while Millennials are often touted as a gender-fluid generation, tensions still exist in online gendered expressions.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the confusion between flexibility and agility. The paper traces the evolution of agility and the evolution of flexibility over time, analyses their drivers and different elements, draws the boundaries between them and defines their relationship.

A systematic literature review of flexibility and agility was developed. Papers written between 1920 and 2017 were reviewed and analyzed using a structured review technique. The identified papers focus on flexibility and agility, relating both to manufacturing and the supply chain.

Agility is the natural evolution of flexibility. Until the 1990s, the term “flexibility” was used to refer to agility, but, because of market changes, competitiveness and the need for speed, the term “agility” was coined. While flexibility is considered as an operational ability, agility is a strategic ability that enables a firm to establish a strategic long-term vision. In fact, flexibility is an agility capability, among other capabilities such as responsiveness or speed. There are also several types of flexibility that are used as agility sub-capabilities, or as agility enablers, which further confirms the idea that flexibility is a part of agility.

This research is a systematic review of the existing literature on the concepts of flexibility and agility. Although it is theoretical, it could provide a set of hypotheses that would enable an empirical study to be conducted into how firms from different industries perceive flexibility and agility and how they implement each of them.

Flexibility and agility are two distinct characteristics that enable a firm to gain a competitive advantage by responding quickly and effectively to changing customer demand. However, there is confusion between these two concepts in the academic and professional literature, with both terms being used to refer to the same idea. Our literature review aims to draw the boundaries between flexibility and agility by analyzing the evolution of the two concepts and detailing their respective drivers and elements, in order to bring more clarity to the nature of the relationship between flexibility and agility.

The paper follows Jason Cope's (2011) vision of a holistic perspective on the failure-based learning process. By analyzing the research since Cope's first attempt, which is often fragmentary in nature, and providing novel empirical insights, the paper aims to draw a new comprehensive picture of all five phases of entrepreneurial learning and their interplay.

The study features an interpretative phenomenological analysis of in-depth interviews with 18 failed entrepreneurs. Findings are presented and discussed in line with experiential learning theory and Cope's conceptual framework of five interrelated learning timeframes spanning from the descent into failure until re-emergence.

The study reveals different patterns of how entrepreneurs experience failure, ranging from abrupt to gradual descent paths, different management and coping behaviors, and varying learning effects depending on the new professional setting (entrepreneurial vs non-entrepreneurial). Analyzing the entrepreneurs' experiences throughout the process shows different paths and connections between individual phases. Findings indicate that the learning timeframes may overlap, appear in different orders, loop, or (partly) stay absent, indicating that the individual learning process is even more dynamic and heterogeneous than hitherto known.

The paper contributes to the field of entrepreneurial learning from failure, advancing Cope's seminal work on the learning process and -contents by providing novel empirical insights and discussing them in the light of recent scientific findings. Since entrepreneurial learning from failure is a complex and dynamic process, using a holistic lens in the analysis contributes to a better understanding of this phenomenon as an integrated whole.