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The principal–agent literature often draws criticism for its ahistorical, acontextual and static nature, particularly when theories such as the agency or the stewardship theory are being used. This is because the field of economics tends to develop universalistic models and theories, excluding history, context and change, which renders them unusable for practitioners whose behavior is (partially) guided by the complex and differing environments in which they find themselves. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this criticism by investigating how (and if) history, context and change influence the principal–agent relationship.

Instead of using the typical economic methodologies to study the principal–agent relationship, this paper makes use of the methodologies of the field of history to investigate how history, context and change affect principal–agent relationships in three cases in the early modern Southern Netherlands (the Dukes of Arenberg, the Roosewalle farm and Abbot De Loose of the Abbey of Ename). This methodology is especially suited, as it results in historical narratives that incorporate all of these three elements.

The main finding is that the cases show how history, context and change clearly affect the principal–agent relationship. These aspects are intricately intertwined, as earlier choices and context can cause a change in the principal–agent relationship, this creates a new presence (with an altered history) and sometimes even a new context. This results in a highly dynamic relationship that can evolve in very short periods, mostly in a path-dependent manner.

The paper advocates by example for a shift in principal–agent research, emphasizing the necessity of considering history, context and change. This study demonstrates that these factors greatly affect the nature of the principal–agent relationship. In doing so, it may provide practitioners with better insights, as real-world principal–agent relationships are indeed impacted by these three factors.

By using historical methods, this study shows for the first time how context, change and history indeed influence principal–agent relationships. The findings of this paper encourage the development of theories and theoretical frameworks that more closely resemble reality, rather than being universalistic.

For decades, conflict resolution (CR) educators working cross-culturally have struggled with a fundamental dilemma – whether to offer western, evidence-based approaches through a top-down (prescriptive) training process or to use a bottom-up (elicitive) strategy that builds on local cultural knowledge of effective in situ conflict management. This study aims to explore which conditions that prompted experienced CR instructors to use more prescriptive or elicitive approaches to such training in a foreign culture and the implications for training outcomes.

There are two parts to this study. First, the authors conducted a literature review to identify basic conditions that might be conducive to conducting prescriptive or elicitive cross-cultural CR training. The authors then tested the identified conditions in a survey with experienced CR instructors to identify different conditions that afforded prescriptive or elicitive approaches. Exploratory factor analysis and regression were used to assess which conditions determined whether a prescriptive or elicitive approach produced better outcomes.

In general, although prescriptive methods were found to be more efficient, elicitive methods produced more effective, culturally appropriate, sustainable and culturally sensitive training. Results revealed a variety of instructor, participant and contextual factors that influenced whether a prescriptive or elicitive approach was applied and found to be more suitable.

This study used empirical survey data with practicing experts to provide insight and guidance into when to use different approaches to CC-CR training effectively.

In the context of a developing country, Indian buildings need further research to channelize energy needs optimally to reduce energy wastage, thereby reducing carbon emissions. Also, reduction in smart devices’ costs with sequential advancements in Information and Communication Technology have resulted in an environment where model predictive control (MPC) strategies can be easily implemented. This study aims to propose certain preemptive measures to minimize the energy costs, while ensuring the thermal comfort for occupants, resulting in better greener solutions for building structures.

A simulation-based multi-input multi-output MPC strategy has been proposed. A dual objective function involving optimized energy consumption with acceptable thermal comfort has been achieved through simultaneous control of indoor temperature, humidity and illumination using various control variables. A regression-based lighting model and seasonal auto-regressive moving average with exogenous inputs (SARMAX) based temperature and humidity models have been chosen as predictor models along with four different control levels incorporated.

The mathematical approach in this study maintains an optimum tradeoff between energy cost savings and satisfactory occupants’ comfort levels. The proposed control mechanism establishes the relationships of output variables with respect to control and disturbance variables. The SARMAX and regression-based predictor models are found to be the best fit models in terms of accuracy, stability and superior performance. By adopting the proposed methodology, significant energy savings can be accomplished during certain hours of the day.

This study has been done on a specific corporate entity and future analysis can be done on other corporate or residential buildings and in other geographical settings within India. Inclusion of sensitivity analysis and non-linear predictor models is another area of future scope.

This study presents a dynamic MPC strategy, using five disturbance variables which further improves the overall performance and accuracy. In contrast to previous studies on MPC, SARMAX model has been used in this study, which is a novel contribution to the theoretical literature. Four levels of control zones: pre-cooling, strict, mild and loose zones have been used in the calculations to keep the Predictive Mean Vote index within acceptable threshold limits.

This paper analyses the establishment and evolution of a public oversight body (POB) – the Egyptian Audit Oversight Unit (AOU) – and its implications for local auditing firms and practices.

Primary data were gathered from 34 semi-structured interviews (including follow-up ones) between 2014 and 2020. Secondary data was obtained through publicly available documents and internal memos. Drawing on Debord's (1967) Society of the Spectacle, the insights focus on the POB's conception, materialisation and evolution in a context characterised by weak regulatory structures.

Through a series of acts, the findings reveal how the AOU first accepted the image of “international best practice” oversight (the “metaphorical”), followed by the construction of the local structure and décor replicating a United States (US) style POB archetype (the “transformational”) by primarily relying on visible processes/procedures. Yet, these mechanisms emphasised the spectacular nature of oversight, with little improvement for practice and limiting itself to “cracking down” on smaller local firms. A final stage (the “performative”) reveals how the AOU seeks to expand its activities beyond its original mandate without challenging the image-driven nature of its oversight.

The paper offers two key contributions. First, it reveals how actors, through a combination of symbolic and tangible measures, create a new performative reality of public oversight. Second, it advocates Debord's “spectacle” to complement other theoretical lenses, with a view to illuminating the materialisation stages that bridge the gap between proclaimed oversight policies and actual practices (including conscious and unconscious omissions) within a given political economy context.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) use indicators in an attempt to foster policy integration and coherence in order to achieve transformative societal change. But the SDGs, like their predecessor Millennium Goals, have not been entirely successful in this effort. Many studies have identified continuing challenges to integrating multiple goals in this way, linked to the complex patterns of interaction between the goals and the nature of the policy systems and subsystems in which they operate. This chapter builds on the policy design literature to argue that the main aim of the SDGs is to reconcile what are otherwise incoherent policy goals and inconsistent policy instruments in a process of policy integration. This process is made more complex in the case of this kind of “super-wicked” problem in which multiple actors face time constraints across multiple policy levels, sectors and venues. It identifies four different techniques for policy integration in such policy nexuses – policy harmonization, mainstreaming, coordination, and institutionalization – and assesses their possibilities for success in the SDG case against what is possible given the nature of the nexus and the capacity of governments to deal with it. The paper contributes to the current literature on policy integration, wicked problems, and the SDGs by further conceptualizing how integrative strategies can be better designed and implemented through capacity-building efforts aimed at developing coordinative relationships within conflict-ridden, multi-actor and multilevel cross-sectoral policy domains.

Published in June 2020, the European Union (EU) Taxonomy Regulation is an important tool for the reorientation of capital flows toward sustainability, establishing a classification system that enables investors to identify green economic activities. Confronted by the reporting demands of this regulation, companies are caught in a sustainability economic revolution. This study seeks primarily to understand firms’ responses to the EU taxonomy, and whether they recognize value creation opportunities by aligning market and nonmarket strategies with the taxonomy goals. For that, we conducted expert interviews and adopted a conceptual framework based on institutional theory, dynamic capabilities view and nonmarket strategy research. Our findings indicate that most firms respond reactively, while firms with sustainability-driven business models tend to respond in an anticipatory way, and firms with high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and low taxonomy eligibility in a defensive way. We also find evidence for mimetic isomorphism related to the influence of consulting and auditing services. Further, high levels of uncertainty, ambiguity and lack of clarity has a great impact on firms’ responses and motives. Finally, this study highlights the EU taxonomy considering a paradigmatic shift toward sustainability, which is not recognized by most firms. To this end, we find that most companies have not identified opportunities arising from nonmarket integration and, rather, see the taxonomy only as an extra regulation to be compliant with. Hence, we argue that it is crucial that firms contextualize the taxonomy within its larger institutional paradigmatic shift to capture the importance of going beyond mere compliance.

This paper aims to explore the pathways of carbon transfer in 200 US corporations along with the motivations that drive such transfers. The particular focus is on each firm’s embeddedness in the global value chain (GVC) and the influence of environmental law, operational costs and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The insights gleaned bridge a gap in the literature surrounding GVCs and corporate carbon transfer.

The methodology comprised a two-step research approach. First, the authors used a two-sided fixed regression to analyse the relationship between each firm’s embeddedness in the GVC and its carbon transfers. The sample consisted of 217 US firms. Next, the authors examined the influence of environmental law, operational costs and CSR on carbon transfers using a quantitative comparison analysis. These results were interpreted through the theoretical frameworks of the GVC and legitimacy theory.

The empirical results indicate positive relationships between carbon transfers and GVC embeddedness in terms of both a firm’s position and its degree. From the quantitative comparison, the authors find that the pressure of environmental law and operational costs motivate these transfers through the value chain. Furthermore, CSR does not help to mitigate transfers.

The findings offer insights for policymakers, industry and academia to understand that, with globalised production and greater value creation, transferring carbon to different parts of the GVC – largely to developing countries – will only become more common. The underdeveloped nature of environmental technology in these countries means that global emissions will likely rise instead of fall, further exacerbating global warming. Transferring carbon is not conducive to a sustainable global economy. Hence, firms should be closely regulated and given economic incentives to reduce emissions, not simply shunt them off to the developing world.

Carbon transfer is a major obstacle to effectively reducing carbon emissions. The responsibilities of carbon transfer via GVCs are difficult to define despite firms being a major consideration in such transfers. Understanding how and why corporations engage in carbon transfers can facilitate global cooperation among communities. This knowledge could pave the way to establishing a global carbon transfer monitoring network aimed at preventing corporate carbon transfer and, instead, encouraging emissions reduction.

This study extends the literature by investigating carbon transfers and the GVC at the firm level. The authors used two-step research approach including panel data and quantitative comparison analysis to address this important question. The authors are the primary study to explore the motivation and pathways by which firms transfer carbon through the GVC.

In this manuscript, we aimed to (1) illustrate the differences in school–university partnership under the school reform and renewal models and (2) describe the practice of and learning about school–university partnership by reflecting on the three large, federally funded projects, all conducted under the school renewal model.

We used archival data from the three large, federally funded projects, synthesized our research related to school–university partnerships and developed themes for actions and learnings related to the topic of school–university partnerships.

The school–university partnerships under the school renewal model are different from that under the school reform model. School–university partnership under the school renewal model is associated with positive results for schools and the university. There are clear themes for the actions and learning in the school–university partnership under the school renewal model.

It is original to study school–university partnerships in the context of the school renewal model.

In this article, we discuss an innovative audience research methodology developed for the AHRC-funded “Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions” project (BtM). The project combines a computational ontology with a mixed-methods approach drawn from both the social sciences and the humanities, enabling research to be conducted both at scale and in depth, producing complex relational analyses of audiences. BtM aims to understand how we might enable a wide range of audiences to participate in a more diverse film culture, and embrace the wealth of films beyond the mainstream in order to optimise the cultural value of engaging with less familiar films. BtM collects data through a three-wave survey of film audience members’ practices, semi-structured interviews and film-elicitation groups with audience members alongside interviews with policy and industry experts, and analyses of key policy and industry documents. Bringing each of these datasets together within our ontology enables us to map relationships between them across a variety of different concerns. For instance, how cultural engagement in general relates to engagement with specialised films; how different audiences access and/or share films across different platforms and venues; how their engagement with those films enables them to make meaning and generate value; and how all of this is shaped by national and regional policy, film industry practices, and the decisions of cultural intermediaries across the fields of film production, distribution and exhibition. Alongside our analyses, the ontology enables us to produce data visualisations and a suite of analytical tools for audience development studies that stakeholders can use, ensuring the research has impact beyond the academy. This paper sets out our methodology for developing the BtM ontology, so that others may adapt it and develop their own ontologies from mixed-methods empirical data in their studies of other knowledge domains.

Universities in the United Kingdom, like their counterparts globally, are confronting difficulties associated with the well-being of students. The origins of these challenges are complex, exacerbated by various global events. In response, universities are trying to address these growing concerns and the escalating need for student support. Faculty members are often recruited to assist students in navigating academic and personal challenges. The aim of this study was to investigate how the process of student mentoring, by faculty members, could be made more operationally robust to better support student demand, thus yielding greater value for both students and staff.

A qualitative approach was adopted with 19 academic faculty working as mentors within a UK business school who participated in 90-minute semi-structured interviews. Interviews were analysed using an operational (transformation) management framework, with findings categorised under three key headings – inputs, transformations and outputs – to discover how the operational process of mentoring students could be enhanced.

Participants discussed the inputs required to deliver mentoring, the process of transformation and their desired outputs. Findings suggest coordinated and relevant inputs that is, information, environments and technology, coupled with good mentor selection and recruitment improves operational robustness, adding greater value to the student experience by creating more purposeful outputs, thereby benefiting themselves and their students.

The application of an operational (transformation) process framework to analyse faculty mentoring of students is unique, thereby offering new insights into the construction and management of these types of academic support initiatives.