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Empirical studies on the importance of social capital for poor households show divergent outcomes. This divergence may stem from the lack of a conceptual framework for capturing the social capital dimensions that deliver economic value to individuals. The purpose of this paper is to define individual social capital from an economic perspective and propose a measurement based on two dimensions of individual social capital that bring economic value to individuals, i.e. informal risk insurance arrangements and information advantages arising from personal social networks.

The authors first provide a concrete definition of individual social capital and identifying social capital dimensions that are important from an economic perspective (i.e. dimensions that bring economic value to the individual). Next, the authors develop a new conceptual framework around this definition and propose a social capital measurement. Finally, the authors apply this measurement numerically to demonstrate that differences in the network configurations between individuals lead to asymmetry of social interactions between these individuals.

The authors show that the exchange of resources between two individuals is affected by their individual network configurations. In particular, the authors show that differing network configurations drive asymmetrical social interaction between individuals.

The approach may be especially relevant for understanding of the persistence of poverty and inequality in developing economies. These economies are characterized by environments in which imperfect information, underdeveloped or non-existent formal institutions and limited contract enforcement abound and where social capital may therefore be important to facilitate economic transactions. In particular, the authors see clear applications of the approach in better understanding and improving the use of microfinance programs.

The paper seeks to analyze to what extent the contents of corporate governance codes of countries in the European Union are driven by external (internationally accepted corporate governance best practices) or domestic (institutions, culture, etc.) forces.

The paper compares the contents of codes with the priorities set by the European Commission with respect to modernising company law and enhancing corporate governance in the European Union.

The analysis shows that the majority of the codes of the European Union countries are not in full accordance with the priorities of the European Commission. This may reflect that codes are driven by both external and domestic forces. Whether there is a difference between Western European and Central and Eastern European countries in this respect is also investigated, but no difference, at least at the aggregate level of the codes of both groups of countries has been found.

The analysis excludes five (prospective) European Union members. The analysis does not provide a comprehensive overview of domestic determinants of why codes of individual countries diverge from the European Union communication. Future research should systematically explore whether and to what extent domestic forces are indeed determining the contents of codes and, if so, which country‐specific forces have an impact on establishing code contents.

This paper is the first comprehensive attempt to analyse the contents of corporate governance codes. Such an analysis is important to understand the underlying forces that shape the diffusion of codes and their contents.

Trade credit (TC) is a financing provision by non-financing firms. The multi-disciplinary research field has sustained scholarly attention for long. Pursuant to the gap for a comprehensive summary of the literature confined to the areas of Finance and Economics, this study aims to provide quantitative and qualitative insights not fully captured or analysed in previous reviews.

Contextualized systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric techniques are used to map the thematic, intellectual and conceptual structures latent in 138 articles published in top journals.

The top authors, top journals and major themes are recognized using bibliometric techniques followed by an in-depth bibliographic-network-based-content-analysis. Five major clusters indicating the five research dimensions within the specialized field are identified and extensively reviewed. Empirical validation of key theories is discussed in the contents and a conceptual model is developed. Finally, the study has identified key research gaps to set the direction for future research.

The scope of the literature selection is confined to the areas of finance and economics. Future studies could elaborate on a broader perspective.

The study contributes by offering a conceptual model latent in the literature on TC. It derives major research gaps to set the direction of future research. Also, the combination of SLR and bibliometrics is a methodological contribution in this research domain.

Today, the sustainability and outreach of microfinance institutions (MFIs) are crucial to the success of microfinance and the sector’s potential to make a lasting impact. The ability of MFIs to operate financially well without sacrificing their social goals has come under scrutiny. This study aims to identify the kind of relationships between the two objectives of MFIs in Ethiopia.

This study investigated the association between the outreach and financial sustainability of Ethiopian MFIs from the years 2012 to 2021 using a balanced set of panel data. The study used secondary data and employed a descriptive research design and a quantitative research approach. To this end, random and fixed effects estimation models, as well as three-stage least squares, with the model of seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) are used.

According to the study, outreach performance enables MFIs to achieve sustainability/financial performance. On the other side, MFI that are financially sound improve social performance. There was therefore no trade-off between the two objectives.

As Ethiopia’s microfinance sector shifts away from government and non-government backing and toward commercialization, such research is crucial. This aspect of the Ethiopian microfinance industry has gotten little consideration in research. The SUR model was used in the study together with random and fixed effect estimators, and the most reliable estimation result was chosen based on the necessary tests.

Despite an increasingly explicit professional nature, the futures studies field has suffered an increasing constraining to a collection of specific techniques. The purpose of this paper is to harness the foundational shortcomings of current futures studies methods, namely the lack of a well‐defined underpinning theory and of rigorous, rational, systematic, repeatable, traceable, documentable, and transferable method. It proposes a rigorous theory for futures studies whereby futures can be logically designed.

This paper envisages the futures design activity as an extension and a generalization of decision theories and problem solving. The process is made comprehensible and interpretable thanks to a co‐generation referencing between two spaces named Concepts and Knowledge. It works by undertaking a formal mathematical approach on undecidable root concepts, bearing no logical status, by logically expanding them until a validable proposition in the knowledge space is reached. The paper is based on the concept‐knowledge theory (C‐K theory) from Ecole des Mines ParisTech, explains why it is needed, illustrates it and uses it on two illustrative futures studies examples.

The proposed research opens a new method for designing futures based on the C‐K theory that has the intrinsic capacity of constructing radical innovations for futures scenarios. While setting clear departure from, for example, brainstorming techniques or Delphi‐based methods, it offers a systematic method for designing futures that rests upon solid theoretical foundation that explains the nonsense or contradictions in producing futures.

While the C‐K theory is fully supported by a scientific basis founded on mathematics and is in widening use in domain‐specific industrial sectors at large, it is still being expanded both theoretically and epistemologically. The theory is not aimed at choosing or formulating suitable or appropriate root concepts, this being the role of domain professionals. Its implementation, however coherent, is only as extensive and covering the problematic at hand as the implementers are congruous to the application domain.

The proposed research can help futurists to develop new breakthrough plans, solutions and alternatives with essential and novel benefits: to help control the rationale of a futures scenario development, to control the degree of innovation (e.g. change, reform, progress, create …) to reach, and to bring to decision makers and policy‐makers the traced explanation of different design paths.

The benefits of the C‐K approach are detailed and elements founding further theoretical research are provided, including possible developments of C‐K theory specifically helpful for futurists. The research offers a collective design method for revisiting futures sciences by defining, understanding and developing creative futures alternatives that can collectively mobilize stakeholders. Workshops with stakeholders remain necessary, with experienced coaches catalyzing its field implementation.

The paper pushes the edge of the discussion on philosophical, ontological and epistemological grounds and supplies a theoretical underpinning for futures studies at large. The research is inherited from the creative power of modern mathematics as developed and proven by the C‐K theory, a powerful approach for discussing design phenomena. The author argues that it constitutes a suitable and useful asset for futures scientists insofar as to imagine, understand, develop, manipulate, and assess creative futures alternatives. The paper introduces and discusses the notion of futuron, which can be seen as a “logical quantum particle of future”.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how multinational enterprises have historically managed global patenting and to what extent the localization of patent management has supported the expansion of these enterprises. This study focuses on the electric appliance industry (one of the first industries to see the emergence of global companies) and consider the case of Siemens, a German multinational company, comparing it to General Electric (GE), an American company.

The work adopts a global business history approach. Taking GE’s global patent-management model, described by Nishimura (2004, 2009, 2016), as the benchmark, this study analyzed Siemens’ worldwide control of its intellectual property rights between 1890 and Second World War, using German, Japanese and American primary sources.

Patent management is a common means for firms to globalize and transfer technology internationally, but it can take various forms. While GE transferred patent management to its foreign subsidiaries (a process known as localization), Siemens kept worldwide patent management at its headquarters – except in Japan, where in time it transferred this activity to a joint venture. The transfer of production called for localization of patent management while focusing on exporting to other markets made it possible to keep patent management at headquarters.

Patents are usually a source for quantitative surveys. This paper uses them to discuss how multinational companies manage property rights globally. It is the first paper to address this issue by comparing two major actors in a similar industry.