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This paper outlines the active learning methods used to develop and deliver a sustainable business course to undergraduate students. Moreover, the paper aims to investigate the effect of the sustainable business course on the students’ engagement in sustainable consumption.

From a pedagogical perspective, the paper describes the active learning methods applied in a newly introduced sustainable business course via numerous distinctive assessment techniques. On the empirical front, the research investigates the impact of the sustainable business course on the students’ engagement in sustainable consumption. To test such impact, an online survey was distributed among students who completed the sustainable business course, and as a control group for comparison, students who did not take the course.

The research results indicate a positive relationship between completion of the sustainable business course and engagement in sustainable consumption. Furthermore, the data revealed that female students exhibited more engagement in sustainable consumption than male students.

The study contributes to the literature on student-centered pedagogy, active learning techniques and the relationship between sustainable business education and engagement with sustainable consumption.

The study contributes to the literature on student-centered pedagogy, active learning techniques and the relationship between sustainable business education and engagement with sustainable consumption. Pedagogically, the nonconventional course curricula and assessment methods described in this study can be used as a reference by instructors aiming to integrate active and experiential teaching methods into their sustainable business curricula. For decision makers in higher education who are working in line with the global direction to achieve sustainability, this research provides preliminary evidence that students’ engagement with sustainability is influenced by their course curricula.

By depicting innovative approaches to teaching sustainability in business, the research enriches the field of sustainable business pedagogy which remains under-researched in many countries. Furthermore, the research goes further by investigating the effect of the course on students’ sustainable consumption. This acts as evidence of the effectiveness of teaching sustainable business in changing future leaders’ perspectives and priorities to include environmental and social aspects, which has become a global goal. Accordingly, the research has the potential to encourage more business schools to make sustainable business education mandatory.

This paper reviews technologies used for the prevention of electromagnetic interference in current portable electronic products. It studies the need for future advanced products and some of the technologies likely to be available. The focus is on housing technologies and the products available for giving greatest electromagnetic compatibility with the latest European and other emission and susceptibility standards. It is concluded that new or improved approaches which are better able to ensure long‐term reliability will be essential for the 100 MHz clock speed equipment likely to be in production within the coming five years.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on a designed research methodology to distil existing research findings from an esrc/ahrc funded japan/uk network on location-based virtual reality experiences for children in order to generate new knowledge.

The structured co-production methodology was undertaken in three stages. These were: (1) a collaborative workshop which produced a series of collage narratives, (2) collaborating with a non-human entity in the form of a digital coded tool to reconfigure the workshop responses and mediate the hierarchy of roles, (3) the co-production of a zine as a collaborative reflection method, which shared via postal service enabled a dialogue and exchange of round Robin interventions by the network members.

The analysis of the data collected in this study highlighted five themes that could be used by other researchers on a wide range of projects. These were: (1) knowing through making, (2) the importance of process, (3) beyond linear representations, (4) agency of physical materials and (5) agency of digital code.

The context of the study being undertaken during the first phase of the global pandemic, revealed insight into a method of co-production that was undertaken under emergency remote working conditions. The knowledge generated from this can be applied to other research contexts such as working with researchers or participants across global borders without the need to travel.

The research provides an innovative rethinking of co-production methods in order to generate new knowledge from multidisciplinary and multimodal research.

The global financial crisis of 2008 still has an impact on the financial systems around the world, for which funding liquidity has been mentioned as one of the main concerns during that period. This study aims to consider the impact of and extent to which the funding structure of Islamic banks along with deposit structure, macroeconomic variables, other bank-specific variables, including alternative funding mix variables (in terms of funding structure measured as financing/deposit ratio), could play a part in explaining the financial conditions and predicting the failures and performances of Islamic banks in the case of Malaysia under the distress created by the global financial crisis.

Multivariate logit model was used with a sample including 17 full-fledged Islamic banks in Malaysia for the period from December 2005 to September 2010 by using quarterly data.

This study found that the funding mix variable (financing/deposit ratio), the composition of deposits, alternative bank-specific variables and alternative funding mix variables are statistically significant. In contrast, none of the macroeconomic variables is found to have a significant impact on bank liquidity. In the final models, the variables that showed significant performance were selected as explanatory variables. The results of McFadden R-squared for both selected models showed an excellent fit to predict the Islamic banks’ performance.

This empirical study contributes to the literature in two ways: to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the role of the funding structures of Islamic banks in determining their performance; and it also examines the effect of deposit composition (the mudharabah and non-mudharabah deposits) on Islamic banks’ performance.

Large or increasing stocks of non-performing loans in the banking sector constitute threats to financial stability. This paper considers to which extent various macroeconomic and macro-financial factors may serve as leading indicators for the dynamics of the ratio of non-performing loans to total loans.

The paper estimates panel data models for all EU countries and two groups of EU countries using quarterly data over approximately 20 years.

The estimations show that many macroeconomic and macro-financial variables are leading indicators for non-performing loans in the EU countries, even years ahead. Higher GDP growth, lower inflation and lower debt are robust leading indicators of a lower ratio of non-performing loans in the future. The current account balance and real house prices are important indicators for the Western European group but not for the Central and Eastern European group.

The estimations are carried out for panels of EU countries and the effects may hence be seen as averages for the countries in the particular panel and may not apply for individual countries.

National and international authorities have brought in systems to detect and address imbalances and emerging problems in the financial sectors. Many of the measures operate with long lags, and so it is important to assess whether various macroeconomic and macro-financial variables may serve as leading indicators for future developments of non-performing loans.

The main contribution of the paper is that it estimates models meant expressly for predicting non-performing loans several years ahead. The results are thus of practical use for national and international authorities which typically have access to measures that operate with a long delay. The analysis also includes more macroeconomic and macro-financial variables as leading indicators than have typically been used in earlier studies.

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the evidence base by analysing the characteristics and motives of homicides involving acts of dismemberment.

The current study explored offence, victim and offender characteristics and the motives for 71 homicides involving dismemberment using open source data. All cases included in this study were investigated in the UK between 1970 and 2016. A non-metric multi-dimensional scaling procedure smallest space analysis (SSA) was used to explore the characteristics and motives derived from a content analysis of homicide data sourced online.

A distinction between expressive and instrumental characteristics was observable with three thematic regions identified: instrumental – defensive, instrumental – predatory and expressive – affective. Support was found for previously identified motives for criminal dismemberment, with defensive being the most common motive identified in 63% (N = 45) of the cases.

The implications of the findings are discussed with suggestions made for future research. The findings have practical implications for assisting law enforcement and forensic and clinical practitioners in further understanding offenders who engage in homicidal dismemberment. This includes aiding homicide investigations, in terms of supporting investigators to draw upon offence, victim and offender characteristics and motives for homicides involving acts of dismemberment. Differentiation between cases of dismemberment and understanding of motives also has practical implications for the development of interventions and treatment pathways for homicide offenders who dismember victims.

The middle manager's role in an organization is important. The purpose of this paper is to determine how middle managers understand their roles in managing changes from the perspective of polyphonous leadership. Polyphonous leadership can be described as something that inspires decisions by listening to multiple voices within the organization.

The empirical data were collected from focus groups in the City of Tampere. Participants were middle managers (n=5) at an organization providing services for young narcotic/alcoholic families and pregnant mothers. The interviewees were selected due to their assumed ability to discuss management issues and their awareness concerning the factors affecting their workers’ capacities. The second focus group was organized for May 2010 (n=5) and the third later on in May 2010 (n=7).

In the Finnish context, middle managers understand polyphonous leadership as a process with a beginning and an end. The authors call this process the dominant narrative of polyphonous leadership, because there is a strong consensus amongst middle managers regarding it. In the first step, middle managers have to work as leaders of interaction. Second, they work as utilizers of diversity. In the third step, they act as decision makers and interpreters of polyphony. The final step gives them a role as conciliators of operating plans and personnel operations.

There is not much discussion in the extant literature of how middle managers try to act as linking persons in public services infrastructures. The model of the dominant narrative on polyphonous leadership is new in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of a variety of developmental factors on sexual homicide offenders (SHOs), while taking into account other components of sexual homicide theoretical models.

A series of logistic regression models are performed using a total of 616 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders from Canada to distinguish between three groups of sexual offenders, SHOs, violent non-homicidal sex offenders (NHSOs) and NHSOs.

Results indicate that contrary to theoretical models, experiences of victimization are not central to the development of SHOs. Instead, it is the adoption of various problematic behaviors in childhood that appear as most important in the etiology of this particular type of sexual crime. This suggests that the various existing theoretical models of sexual homicide need to be revised and/or tested with additional empirical data.

This is the first study to look at developmental factors using two control groups of NHSOs and violent NHSOs.

This study aims to explore the range of sustainability-related discourses by the stakeholders within a particular Finnish Higher Education Institution (HEI); interaction between the discourses and the context of the HEI; and the extent to which different understandings of sustainability cause challenges for the implementation of the university strategy for sustainability. Specifically, the paper explores how the employees within the HEI make sense of sustainability in their teaching, research and daily life and the extent to which sustainability-related discourses are aligned with the university strategy.

This research draws upon collected qualitative and quantitative data. It focuses on individual discourses by executives, teaching and research staff within an HEI regarding their understandings of sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper illustrates the key challenges of sustainability and SDG implementation that may emerge in HEIs due to varied understandings. The results indicate a need for efficient HEI strategic vision communication and consideration of the stakeholders’ multiplicity of sustainability values.

This paper sheds light on the challenges involved in seeking to enhance sustainable development in an academic setting with multiple disciplines and categories of staff guided by academic freedom. The analysis thus advances the understanding of academic sustainability-related discourses and framings as well as mechanisms through which the implementation of sustainability-related efforts can be enhanced in such a context.

In this article, we reflect on how smart technology is transforming service research discourses about service innovation and value co-creation. We adopt the concept of technology smartness’ to refer to the ability of technology to sense, adapt and learn from interactions. Accordingly, we seek to address how smart technologies (i.e. cognitive and distributed technology) can be powerful resources, capable of innovating in relation to actors’ agency, the structure of the service ecosystem and value co-creation practices.

This conceptual article integrates evidence from the existing theories with illustrative examples to advance research on service innovation and value co-creation.

Through the performative utterances of new tech words, such as onlife and materiality, this article identifies the emergence of innovative forms of agency and structure. Onlife agency entails automated, relational and performative forms, which provide for new decision-making capabilities and expanded opportunities to co-create value. Phygital materiality pertains to new structural features, comprised of new resources and contexts that have distinctive intelligence, autonomy and performativity. The dialectic between onlife agency and phygital materiality (structure) lies in the agencement of smart tech–enabled value co-creation practices based on the notion of becoming that involves not only resources but also actors and contexts.

This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework that advances a tech-based ecology for service ecosystems, in which value co-creation is enacted by the smartness of technology, which emerges through systemic and performative intra-actions between actors (onlife agency), resources and contexts (phygital materiality and structure).