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The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural, surface roughness and corrosion properties of the zirconium oxide thin films deposited onto SS304 substrates using the direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering technique.

DC sputtering at different powers – 80, 100 and 120 W – was used to deposit ZrO₂ thin films onto different substrates (Si/SS304) without annealing of the substrate. Atomic force microscope (AFM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Tafel extrapolation and contact angle techniques were applied to investigate the surface roughness, chemical compositions, corrosion behavior and hydrophobicity of these films.

Results showed that the thickness of the deposited film increased with power increase, while the corrosion current decreased with power increase. AFM images indicated that the surface roughness decreased with an increase in DC power. EDS analysis showed that the thin film has a stoichiometric ZrO₂ (Zr:O 1:2) composition with basic uniformity. Water contact angle measurements indicated that the hydrophobicity of the synthesized films decreased with an increase in surface roughness.

DC magnetron sputtering technique is infrequently used to deposition thin films. The obtained thin films showed good hydrophobic and anticorrosion properties. Finally, results are compared with other deposition techniques.

This chapter delves into sustainability-related competences in innovation management for further education as part of the European lifelong learning initiative. Despite extensive research in primary and secondary education, adult education often remains overlooked. Competence-based learning is a favored approach to integrating knowledge, skills, and attitudes across various domains. Through thematic analysis and deductive coding, the study examines 72 innovation management-related further education programs conducted in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, between June and December 2022. The findings unequivocally demonstrate the inclusion of sustainability competences in innovation-related further education. Notably, Strategic Competence emerges as the most prevalent, while Normative Competence appears least frequently. This research significantly advances the convergence of further education in innovation management, responsible management education, and competence-based learning, emphasizing the importance of sustainability competences in adult learning contexts. By shedding light on this underexplored domain, the study prompts further exploration and development of sustainable educational practices for lifelong learning.

The use of the concept of “agency,” in the sense of action that is to some extent free of “structural” constraints, has enjoyed enormous and growing popularity in the sociological literature over the past several decades. In a previous paper, we examined the range of theoretical rationales offered by sociologists for the inclusion of the notion of “agency” in sociological explanations. Having found these rationales seriously wanting, in this paper we attempt to determine empirically what role “agency” actually plays in the recent sociological literature. We examine a random sample of 147 articles in sociology journals that use the concept of “agency” with the aim of identifying the ways in which the term is used and what function the concept serves in the sociological explanations offered. We identify four principal (often overlapping) uses of “agency”: (1) purely descriptive; (2) as a synonym for “power”; (3) as a way to identify resistance to “structural” pressures; and (4) as a way to describe intelligible human actions. We find that in none of these cases the notion of “agency” adds anything of analytical or explanatory value. These different uses have one thing in common, however: they all tend to use the term “agency” in a strongly normative sense to mark the actions the authors approve of. We conclude that “agency” seems to serve the purpose of registering the authors' moral or political preferences under the guise of a seemingly analytical concept.

In this paper, the author advocates recognizing, developing, and promoting “critical interactionism” as a legitimate and pragmatically useful scholarly project. The author argues that critical interactionism includes different interactionist traditions, critical approaches, methodological styles, and sensitizing concepts – as long as they tell us something about how power and inequality operate. I review two fundamental elements of this project that constitute its past and likely future: (1) theoretical interventions that excavate critical insights, diversify founders, integrate critical theories, and promote interactionism's usefulness for critical inquiry and (2) empirically grounded conceptual interventions that shed light on generic processes of inequality reproduction. Although the larger discipline of sociology continues to marginalize interactionism yet selectively adopt its principles, critical interactionism has the potential to break through what David Maines called the fault line of consciousness. The promise of critical interactionism is that it can simultaneously make interactionism more relevant to our discipline and make our discipline more relevant to the social world.

Following Howard Bowen's legacy for responsible business practices, together with the actual growing pressure of societal problems, such as climate change, social inequality, geopolitics instability, etc., business leaders all around the world are being asked, if not demanded, to show and act as action persons who effectively contribute to a better common value creation. This confluence of situations has led to many CEOs feeling pressured to take a stand in sociopolitical themes, many times outside their businesses' areas, which have become known as CEO activism.

This study aimed to explore if and how this international growing trend is manifesting in the Portuguese context, by exploring the perspective of Portuguese CEOs on the topic, the course of action that they are taking, and how they evaluate risks and opportunities.

For these purposes, we implemented a qualitative methodology based on interviews to 24 Portuguese CEOs and used thematic analysis to explore them. Our findings reveal that, although Portuguese CEOs are aware of this trend, they acknowledge both risks and opportunities, and their activism is still incipient. Plus, they strongly believe that CEO activism must be aligned with the values and mission of the organization they represent. Finally, Portuguese CEOs are convinced of activism being genuine, and therefore should be first implemented within the organization, which is where most of them focus their action. Our work provides an original mapping of the CEO activism landscape in Portugal and an insightful discussion of the CEO's perspective on this growing phenomenon.

The aim of this chapter is to explore the safety value of implementing Asimov's Laws of Robotics as a future general framework that humans should obey. Asimov formulated laws to make explicit the safeguards of the robots in his stories: (1) A robot may not injure or harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. In Asimov's stories, it is always assumed that the laws are built into the robots to govern the behaviour of the robots. As his stories clearly demonstrate, the Laws can be ambiguous. Moreover, the laws are not very specific. General rules as a guide for robot behaviour may not be a very good method to achieve robot safety – if we expect the robots to follow them. But would it work for humans? In this chapter, we ask whether it would make as much, or more, sense to implement the laws in human legislation with the purpose of governing the behaviour of people or companies that develop, build, market or use AI, embodied in robots or in the form of software, now and in the future.

The appearance of social media in small and medium enterprise (SME) business operations seems to be increasing in recent years. SME owners have started to understand that digital marketing tools can benefit their businesses significantly. Hence, in this study, we explore further the relationship between organisations and customers, and how SMEs use social media as an opportunity to develop their enterprises. We report the results by relying on qualitative methods to explore the insights from a wider stakeholder perspective. The findings contribute to the existing literature in agreement with the latest theories that SMEs in Greece are aware of the hidden opportunities and try to apply branding with the combination of social media. This study explores further the role of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in a business transition, customers' experience and competitive business advantage.

As a fairy tale is adapted to fit with current cultural discourses, drastic changes occur. One of these changes is the erasure of the old man. The wise old man, the doddering old fool, and many more tropes that older men fill have been altered. The eccentric Merlin and the mad Hatter have been replaced with younger versions in Merlin (2008–2012) and the Syfy miniseries Alice (2009). While the grandfather is technically found in Disney's Once Upon a Time in the form of Rumpelstiltskin, it is rarely discussed. In the Beauty and the Beast (2017), Maurice is no longer the town oddity as he goes from tinkering with odd inventions, to being a music box maker. His creativity and quirky idiosyncrasies have been erased.

This chapter delves into this disappearance of the older man in modern fairy tale adaptations, and the repercussions this has in the representation for the older man. Furthermore, this chapter seeks to show how toxic ageist notions in Hollywood have impacted the role of the old man as he is replaced with the stereotypical younger man, due to the increased objectification of men in film and the subsequent conformity to the ‘ideal masculine form’. This objectification can be seen through the slow ‘reinvigoration’ of the Mad Hatter from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) to the Hatter in Syfy's Alice (2009), Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Tarrant Hightopp, in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), and finally Sebastian Stan's Mad Hatter in Once Upon a Time (2011–2018).