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Bootstrapping is a practitioner-based term adopted in entrepreneurship to describe the techniques employed in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to minimise the need for external funding by securing resources at little or no cost and applying strategies to effectively use resources. Working capital management (WCM) is a term used in financial management to define a set of practices used to manage business resources, including cash management. This paper explores the overlap and divergence between these two disciplinary distinct concepts.

A dual methodology is employed. First, the usage of the two terms in prior literature is analysed and synthesised. Second, the study uses factor analysis to explore how bootstrapping practices described by owners of 167 established MSMEs relate to the components of WCM in financial management.

The factor analysis identifies two main bootstrapping practices employed by MSMEs: (1) delaying payments and owner-related bootstrapping and (2) customer-related bootstrapping. Delaying payments is an integral practice in trade payables management and customer-related bootstrapping includes practices that are integral to trade receivables management. Therefore, links between bootstrapping practices and WCM practices are firmly established.

The study is not without limitations. Based on cross-sectional evidence for established firms in Ireland only, future studies could explore cross-country longitudinal panel data to fully examine life cycle and sectoral effects, as well as other external shocks (for example, COVID-19) on bootstrapping and WCM practices. This study does not explain why some factors (for example, joint utilisation and inventory management) are present in some bootstrapping studies and not in others; further case study research might help explain this. Finally, changes in the business environment facing start-ups and established enterprise, including increased digitalisation, online trading, self-employment, remote hub working and sustainability, offer new avenues for bootstrapping research.

This is the first study to comprehensively explore the conceptual and empirical links between bootstrapping and WCM. This study will enable researchers and practitioners in these two distinct disciplines to learn from each other. Accounting researchers and practitioners can broaden their understanding of how WCM “works” in MSME settings. Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners can deepen their understanding of how bootstrapping can be adopted by businesses to manage resources effectively.

This paper aims to explore the role of multi-national enterprises in addressing grand societal challenges, emphasising the need for integrating environmental and social aspects into business models. Drawing on the books of Geoffrey Jones (2023) “Deeply Responsible Business” and Rob van Tulder and Eveline van Mil (2023) “Principles of Sustainable Business”, the paper provides comments and analysis of how principles and values can guide engaged international business (IB) scholarship and responsible leadership to effectuate meaningful change.

The paper adopts a dialogical review, as a curated discussion of the books whereby the authors attempt to co-construct a research and teaching agenda for responsible and engaged IB scholarship.

The paper highlights the critical importance of aligning business strategies with societal needs. Companies that adopt ethical principles, or adopt the sustainable development goals (SDGs) via principles-based frameworks, can achieve significant positive impacts.

The paper follows a viewpoint/perspective format. It relies on underpinning historical case studies and selected theoretical frameworks, which may not capture the full complexity of contemporary business environments. Scholars should conduct future research to study the underpinning principles and frameworks deployed in various industries and regions.

The paper suggests that business leaders should learn from the past to adopt a values and principles-based approach to integrate sustainability into their core strategies. It also highlights the importance of transforming the higher education teaching experience towards a value and principles-based one.

This paper underscores the potential of businesses to drive positive societal change by addressing environmental and social challenges. By adopting ethics-based value systems and aligning organisations with the SDGs, companies can help mitigate pressing issues, such as poverty, inequality and climate change. The authors suggest reading “Deeply responsible business” and “Principles of Sustainable Business” to influence public attitudes towards corporate social responsibility and foster a more sustainable and equitable global economy.

The paper offers a curated discussion and synthesis of historical and contemporary perspectives on sustainable business practices. It bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing actionable frameworks and tools for business leaders and scholars.

Contrasting the Madisonian model of democracy with Westminster style arrangements, this chapter examines how American political scientists and policymakers expressed second thoughts about the constitutional settlement of 1787 and looked towards the British political system for possible reforms to their own. In particular, it details the arguments offered by Thomas Finletter, James MacGregor Burns, and others, from the 1940s through to the early 1960s that the United States might adopt certain features of the Westminster model. The chapter analyzes their proposals and the – essentially negative – reception that they received. It concludes by addressing the failure of these proposals and the endurance of fragmented government within the United States.

This study aims to demonstrate the importance of recognizing stress in the workplace. Accurate novel objective methods that use electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure brainwaves can promote employee well-being. However, using these devices can be positive and potentially harmful as manipulative practices undermine autonomy.

Emphasis is placed on business ethics as it relates to the ethics of action in terms of positive and negative responsibility, autonomous decision-making and self-determined work through a literature review. The concept of relational autonomy provides an orientation toward heteronomous employment relationships.

First, using digital devices to recognize stress and promote health can be a positive outcome, expanding the definition of digital well-being as opposed to dependency, non-use or reduction. Second, the transfer of socio-relational autonomy, according to Oshana, enables criteria for self-determined work in heteronomous employment relationships. Finally, the deployment and use of such EEG-based devices for stress detection can lead to coercion and manipulation, not only in interpersonal relationships, but also directly and more subtly through the technology itself, interfering with self-determined work.

Stress at work and EEG-based devices measuring stress have been discussed in numerous articles. This paper is one of the first to explore ethical considerations using these brain–computer interfaces from an employee perspective.

In this chapter, we consider the origins of research on abuse in sport and its current positioning within the wider field of sport science and sport sociology. First, we look at specific challenges faced by pioneering researchers in this field through a discussion of Celia Brackenridge's early work and the resistance she faced from both the UK sport sector and academia. Second, we consider the manner in which the sport sector responded to the issue of child abuse, and the extent to which ‘safeguarding’ has been integrated into the structural fabric of sport. We then review the current positioning of research on child abuse and safeguarding in the context of wider sports science and sports sociology. We conclude that the topic has frequently been omitted from the thematic canon of social sciences in sport and has only recently been addressed, in a substantive fashion, within basic textbooks of sport sociology. Finally, this chapter highlights the critical potential of sociologically informed research on child maltreatment and abuse in sport.

The US central government enactment of the 1866 Post Roads Act preempted state and municipal telegraph franchise entry barriers. Like present-day telecommunication companies, local franchise regulations were an entry barrier to US telegraph companies. These pre-1866 state and municipal telegraph laws were barriers of both entry and trade between states. Barriers that would of reduced the benefits of a common market if the barriers had not been preempted by the 1866 Post Roads Act. I document what laws were preempted by the 1866 Post Roads Act, explain how these laws increased entry barriers, provide evidence that preemption was enforced, and use two counterfactuals to calculate rough estimates of the decrease in entry costs from enforcement of the act.

This study aims to examine the combinations of internal and external knowledge flows between research and development (R&D) incumbents and start-ups in the context of open innovation. While there is a growing body of knowledge that has examined how, in a knowledge economy, a firm’s knowledge and innovation activities are closely linked, there is no systematic review available of the key antecedents, perspectives, phenomenon and outcomes of knowledge spillovers.

The authors have conducted dual-stage research. First, the authors conducted a systematic review of literature (97 research articles) by following the theories–contexts–methods framework and the antecedent-phenomenon-outcomes logic. The authors identified the key theories, contexts, methods, antecedents, phenomenon and outcomes of knowledge spillovers between R&D-driven incumbents and start-ups in the open innovation context. In the second stage, the findings of stage one were leveraged to advance a nomological network that depicts the strength of the relationship between the observable constructs that emerged from the review.

The findings demonstrate how knowledge spillovers can help incumbent organisations and start-ups to achieve improved innovation capabilities, R&D capacity, competitive advantage and the creation of knowledge ecosystems leading to improved firm performance. This study has important implications for practitioners and managers – it provides managers with important antecedents of knowledge spillover (knowledge capacities and knowledge types), which directly impact the R&D intensity and digitalisation driving open innovation. The emerging network showed that the antecedents of knowledge spillovers have a direct relationship with the creation of a knowledge ecosystem orchestrated by incumbents and that there is a very strong influence of knowledge capacities and knowledge types on the selection of external knowledge partners/sources.

This study has important implications for practitioners and managers. In particular, it provides managers with important antecedents of knowledge spillover (knowledge capacities and knowledge types), which directly impact the R&D intensity and digitalisation driving open innovation. This will enable managers to take important decisions about what knowledge capacities are required to achieve innovation outcomes. The findings suggest that managers of incumbent firms should be cautious when deciding to invest in knowledge sourcing from external partners. This choice may be driven by the absorptive capacity of the incumbent firm, market competition, protection of intellectual property and public policy supporting innovation and entrepreneurship.

Identification of the key antecedents, phenomenon and outcomes of knowledge spillovers between R&D-driven incumbents and start-ups in the open innovation context. The findings from Stage 1 helped us to advance a nomological network in Stage 2, which identifies the strength and influence of the various observable constructs (identified from the review) on each other. No prior study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has advanced a nomological network in the context of knowledge spillovers between R&D-driven incumbents and start-ups in the open innovation context.

This research explores the concept of omnichannel fulfillment steering (OFS) and demonstrates how retailers can influence a consumer’s fulfillment decisions through commonly used financial incentives such as discounts, credits and the opportunity to avoid home delivery fees.

We present insights from two theoretically grounded experiments to examine how different types of financial incentives can be used by omnichannel retailers to steer consumers from home delivery toward three alternative order fulfillment methods (AOFM) – buy-online-pickup-in-store, curbside-pickup and ship-to-locker.

Our analysis suggests that an opportunity to avoid shipping fees (penalty-avoidance) is a more effective OFS nudge than offering discounts or store credits (rewards). No difference was observed between offering discounts or credits as steering mechanisms; further, no omnichannel steering benefits were observed among the tested AOFMs. Collectively, these findings provide possible justification for retailers’ prioritization of credits to foster customer in-store visits, thus encouraging greater customer engagement and facilitating cross-selling opportunities. Finally, we uncover a penalty-avoidance endowment effect for “free shipping” of purchases over the current industry-standard free shipping threshold.

Retailers might prioritize store credits over discounts as nudges to steer customers toward an AOFM, with buy-online-pickup-in-store offering the greatest benefits for most retailers. Furthermore, using penalty-avoidance OFS incentives over a typical free shipping threshold may increase AOFM selection rates but engender adverse customer reactions.

Advancing the concept of OFS, this study directly informs retailers’ omnichannel incentive programs to nudge customers back into the store. Countering intertemporal choice theory, we could not demonstrate that delayed incentives are less effective than immediate ones. Based on prospect theory, we identify a free shipping endowment effect at a specific reference point along a purchase amount continuum.

This paper uses the cultural figure of Willy Wonka to explore the archetype of the “boy-entrepreneur”, and what the various film manifestations of Wonka (1971–2023) say about changes in entrepreneurial masculinity. We (1) develop an original conceptualisation of boyhood as creatively, socially and gender liminal, (2) analyse the entrepreneurial archetype using literary theories and (3) provide a novel interpretation of Apollonian and Dionysian masculinity to aid future cultural analysis of founder/innovator depictions in children’s media.

Our study conducts a three-stage dramaturgical analysis of the major film adaptations of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka (1971, 2005 and 2023). After supplementing the limited literature on boyhood in entrepreneurship with literary and feminist art theory, we identify the significant narrative features which frame the Wonka dramas and produce a framework which tracks thematic changes across the films in terms of the creative, social and gender liminal elements of Wonka’s boy-entrepreneur identity.

Our interpretive analysis reveals a gradual shift in values expressed through Wonka’s boy-entrepreneurialism away from a more hegemonic, Apollonian style of masculinity towards a more Dionysian style embracing emotional expression, intimacy with female characters and kin, and collaborations with nature. Such shifts reflect the growing influence of non-hegemonic entrepreneurial gender expressions, value-driven and relational approaches to new venture creation.

The study contributes to the hugely unexplored area of the “boy-entrepreneur”/“boy-genius”, demonstrating its durability in reality, imagination and popular culture. We provide an in-depth character portrait to provoke further attention to children’s multi-media ways of experiencing early entrepreneurial impressions. We also expand the methodological scope of research on entrepreneurial masculinity beyond real-life founders.