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Reshoring implies the reconfiguration of supply networks. Focusing on the specific case of a born-offshored firm that engaged in reshoring of outsourced activities, this study aims to analyse how initial key suppliers in the home country can help the reshoring firm to organize a new supply network.

The research is qualitative and based on a single exploratory case study. The data was collected from multiple primary and secondary sources, and using different techniques, such as in-depth interviews, direct observation and network pictures.

The study provides insights on how an initial key supplier can enable its customers’ reshoring in the home country. Specifically, the authors identify 10 roles played by a key supplier. The results also identify supply network formation as an essential component of the reshoring process.

This paper provides unique contributions. Firstly, it presents the specific and under-explored case of a born-offshored firm engaged in outsourced reshoring; secondly, it sheds light on the roles that key suppliers may play for the reshoring process; thirdly, it explores the formation of business relationships in the context of reshoring. In essence, the paper contributes to the reshoring literature, by stressing the importance of supply network formation in the reshoring process and by identifying the multiplicity of roles that key suppliers can play when implementing reshoring, and to the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) literature, by showing how relationships and networks develop during reshoring, a phenomenon so far understudied by IMP scholars.

The surface characteristics of thermally and chemically modified wood, such as surface roughness, surface free energy (SFE) and wettability, are important properties that influence further manufacturing processes such as gluing and coating. The aim of this paper was to determine the influence of the surface roughness of thermally and chemically modified teak wood on their SFE, wettability and bonding quality for water-based acrylic and solvent-based alkyd varnishes. In addition, durability against subterranean termites in the field of these modified teak woods was also investigated to give a valuable information for their further application.

The woods tested in this study were fast-growing teak woods that were prepared in untreated and treated with furfuryl alcohol (FA), glycerol maleic anhydride (GMA) and thermal. SFE values were calculated using the Rabel method. The wettability values were measured based on the contact angle between varnish liquids and wood surfaces using the sessile drop method, and the Shi and Gardner model model was used to evaluate the wettability of the varnishes on the wood surface. The bonding quality of the varnishes was measured using a cross-cut test based on ASTM 3359-17 standard. In addition, durability against subterranean termites in the field of these modified teak woods was also investigated according to ASTM D 1758-06.

The results showed that furfurylated and GMA-thermal 220°C improved the durability of teak wood against termites. The furfurylated teak wood had the roughest surface with an arithmetic average roughness (Ra) value of 15.65 µm before aging and 27.11 µm after aging. The GMA-thermal 220°C treated teak wood was the smoothest surface with Ra value of 6.44 µm before aging and 13.75 µm after aging. Untreated teak wood had the highest SFE value of 46.90 and 57.37 mJ/m² before and after aging, respectively. The K values of untreated and treated teak wood increased owing to the aging treatment. The K values for the water-based acrylic varnish were lower than that of the solvent-based alkyd varnish. The untreated teak wood with the highest SFE produced the highest bonding quality (grades 4–5) for both acrylic and alkyd varnishes. The solvent-based alkyd varnish was more wettable and generated better bonding quality than the water-based acrylic varnish.

The originality of this research work is that it provides evaluation values of the durability and SFE. The SFE value can be used to quantitatively determine the wettability of paint liquids on the surface of wood and its varnish bonding quality.

According to Sen's theoretical framework of capability (1985), individuals reach their full potential once they have the freedom, intended as the set of functionings at their disposal, to do so. However, many critiques have been developed against the lack of embeddedness of the capability approach in social and political relations and structures. In this article, the authors investigate the influence of three institutional contexts (Belgium, the Netherlands and France) on the respective work-related functionings of self-employed and regular workers, with a focus on human capital investment and institutional support offered to them.

Data from the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) are used to highlight similarities and differences in building work-related functionings for regular and self-employed workers. A regression analysis is provided at the country level.

In the three labour markets, the authors find that the building of work-related functionings is more successful for regular employees, especially as regards institutional support. Self-employed workers, on the other hand, need to rely on their individual capability as regards employment protection and human capital investment. However, the authors find interesting differences between the three institutional contexts. In both Belgium and France, self-employed workers are subject to higher instability in terms of changes in salary and hours worked, whereas atypical work is better positioned in the Dutch labour market. The Netherlands is also characterised by a less significant gap between regular and self-employed workers with respect to participation in training.

In this article, the authors contextualise Sen's (1985) theoretical framework by taking into account the institutional differences of labour markets. In particular, the authors provide a novel application of his capability approach to regular and self-employed workers in an economically relevant European area.

This chapter provides a historical overview of European colonialism, detailing how nations like Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands began their colonial endeavors in the 15th and 16th centuries, driven by exploration and trade motivations. These nations established vast empires through maritime exploration, setting up trading posts and colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The chapter outlines these early powers’ distinct colonial practices and legacies, highlighting Portugal’s focus on Brazil, Spain’s exploitation in the Americas, and the Netherlands’ trading empire. The chapter also examines the later colonial efforts of France and Britain, which became prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries. These countries utilized different methods, including the encomienda system and casta hierarchy in Spanish colonies, and the civilizing mission and divide-and-rule tactics in British colonies. The chapter discusses how these practices were justified through ideologies of racial superiority and the civilizing mission, deeply embedding racism and social hierarchies into colonial rule. Additionally, the chapter addresses the colonial ventures of Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, and Germany. It covers Denmark’s settlements in the Caribbean and Greenland, Sweden’s short-lived colonies and involvement in the slave trade, Italy’s brutal regime in Africa, Belgium’s horrific exploitation of the Congo under King Leopold II, and Germany’s late but impactful colonial period marked by the Herero and Nama genocide.

This paper aims to examine how an alternative accounting system developed by a marginalised group of women enables them to counter oppressive systems built at the intersections of gender, class and race.

The authors draw on diary notes taken over a period of 13 years in France and Senegal in the context of the first author's family interactions with a community of ten Black immigrant women. The paper relies on Black feminist perspectives, namely, Lorde's work on difference and survival to illuminate how this community of women uses the creative power of its “self-defined differences” to build its own accounting system – a tontine – and work towards its emancipation.

The authors find that to fight oppressive marginalising structures, the women develop a tontine, an autonomous, self-managed, women-made banking system providing them with cash and working on the basis of trust. This alternative accounting scheme endeavours to fulfil their “situated needs”: to build a home of their own in Senegal. The authors conceptualise the tontine as a “situated accounting” scheme built on the women's own terms, on the basis of sisterhood and opacity. This accounting system enables the women to work towards their “situated emancipation”, alleviating the burden of their marginalisation.

This paper gives visibility to vulnerable women's agentic capacities through accounting. As no single story captures the nuances and complexities of accounting, further exploration is encouraged.

This paper contributes to the counter-accounting literature that engages with vulnerable, “othered” populations, shedding light on the counter-practices of accounting within a community of ten Black precarious women. In so doing, this study problematises these counter-practices as intersectional and built on “survival skills”. The paper further outlines the emancipatory potential of alternative systems of accounting. It ends with some reflections on doing research through activist curiosity and the need to rethink academic research and knowledge in opposition to dominant epistemic standards of knowledge creation.

Often linked to the New Public Management (NPM) doctrines, agencification has been on the priority list of policy makers for over two decades. This article proposes an analysis of the role of agencies in the French health system and the impact of government agency reform on physicians and the public.

The research analyzes the perceived implementation of a re-concentration of decision-making powers within public agencies as the declared goal of agencification at the French health care system, specifically primary care providers and hospitals. The assessment relies on secondary sources from ministerial bodies such as the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Labor, the Social Security and the General Accounting Office, and specialized French technical agencies.

Decentralization in France and the subsequent rise of public health care agencies had outcomes below expectations. Hence, a re-concentration of decision-making powers within the larger Regional Health Agencies; a streamlining of the public administration; and a re-appropriation of decision-making powers by the Ministry of Health are needed. The monitoring of health providers allows central health authorities to govern at a distance.

The analysis of health care agencies in France and of their use of efficiency-enhancing techniques may trigger a change of values within the medical profession.

This paper aims to better understand auditing practices as a social phenomenon and management practice through a comparative historical analysis of the emergence of statutory auditing in three European countries, namely, France, Great Britain and Germany between 1844 and 1935.

The authors’ approach is a comparative history relying on a literature review, books pertaining to the period of interest and relevant archives.

The three countries’ trajectories were similar. All featured the promulgation of acts at the second half of the 19th century, the development of the accounting profession and the introduction of new acts to further strengthen statutory auditing around the Great Depression. However, each country took a different path because of the degree of regulation. For instance, the regulation strength and the degree of professionalism differed considerably by country. Business secrecy was also a departure point; it ranged from the rejection of auditors as intruders in France to Germany’s exclusively internal auditing and the UK’s peer auditing. The countries also differed on perceptions of the auditor’s role. Auditors were seen through the lens of a general interest mission in France, as advisors to internal governance bodies in Germany and as shareholders’ agents in Great Britain.

This paper compares three main European countries in the specific context of the introduction of statutory auditing. The findings of this paper are helpful for the international harmonization of auditing standards, as the derived insights provide a better understanding of the differences in the standards’ implementation.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This paper aims to examine the mediation effect of organizational learning on the link between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance in some Big4 financial services companies.

The quantitative methodology was chosen for this research, using resource theory and knowledge-based approach to explain the relationship between latent variables. A sample of 403 HR employees and managers of the companies under study in France was selected in 2022. Structural equations modeling was used based on the Spss-Amos program to test the research hypotheses.

The results revealed that organizational learning played a mediating role between HRM practices (hiring, training, motivation and decision-making) and organizational performance and that learning enabled the performance of workers to improve and achieve competitive advantages in this field.

The sample was based on four international companies working in the field of financial services and consulting and providing their services within France, which may affect the generalisability of the results and limit them to the studied sector.

The contribution of the study is to improve the awareness of administrators, decision makers and company employees of the importance of organizational learning for companies, and to stimulate motivation to learn and exchange knowledge in a constructive way that enhances organizational performance. Working on organizational culture change through HRM-practices-based learning as an effective mechanism for organizational performance improvement is one implication. These practises influence cadres' attitudes toward their work, which improves their performance.

Working on organizational culture change through HRM-practices-based learning as an effective mechanism for organizational performance improvement is one implication. These practises influence cadres' attitudes toward their work, which improves their performance.

This study seeks to provide cadres and executives with an in-depth analysis of HRM and organizational learning, which, through its integration of these attributes, can contribute to the earning of knowledge-based competitive advantage and achieve superior and sustainable performance.

This study aims to assess the effect of water variation on bioethanol production from cassava peels (CP) using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast as the ethanologenic agent.

The milled CP was divided into three treatment groups in a small-scale flask experiment where each 20 g CP was subjected to two-stage hydrolysis. Different amount of water was added to the fermentation process of CP. The fermented samples were collected every 24 h for various analyses.

The results of the fermentation revealed that the highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency was obtained at 17.38 ± 0.30% and 0.139 ± 0.003 gL⁻¹ h⁻¹. The study affirmed that ethanol production was increased for the addition of water up to 35% for the CP hydrolysate process.

The finding of this study demonstrates that S. cerevisiae is the key player in industrial ethanol production among a variety of yeasts that produce ethanol through sugar fermentation. In order to design truly sustainable processes, it should be expanded to include a thorough analysis and the gradual scaling-up of this process to an industrial level.

This paper is an original research work dealing with bioethanol production from CP using S. cerevisiae microbe.

1. Hydrolysis of cassava peels using 13.1 M H₂SO₄ at 100 ^oC for 110 min gave high Glucose productivity

2. Highest ethanol production was obtained at 72 h of fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

3. Optimal bioethanol concentration and yield were obtained at a hydration level of 35% agitation

4. Highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency were 17.3%, 0.139 g.L⁻¹.h⁻¹

Hydrolysis of cassava peels using 13.1 M H₂SO₄ at 100 ^oC for 110 min gave high Glucose productivity

Highest ethanol production was obtained at 72 h of fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Optimal bioethanol concentration and yield were obtained at a hydration level of 35% agitation

Highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency were 17.3%, 0.139 g.L⁻¹.h⁻¹