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The automobile industry in India is one of the sunrise industries and is poised to enhance its contribution from 5 percent of GDP in 2006 to 10 percent by 2016. The auto component industry in India has grown hand in hand with the industry and is in the process of transforming itself from being a “Job order fulfiller” to being an “Integrated organization”. With the liberalization process having started in 1991, most auto component manufacturers in India have chosen the easy path of attempting to progress on operational or manufacturing capabilities. For advancing on technology capability dimension, they mostly relied on international collaborations. The purpose of this paper is to study the strategic technology management (STM) practices in select case organizations in the auto component industry in India.

The methodology employed for this study is a combination of literature survey, expert opinion, comparative case study and a flexible systems methodology, situation‐actor‐process‐learning‐action‐performance analysis. Longitudinal studies of technology development at the two case organizations have been done and the case analysis and synthesis has been developed based on valuable inputs and insights shared by key personnel in the case organizations.

The study finds that two different organizations have adopted different technology strategies. While both case organizations have strong linkage between business and technology strategy, the approach has been reasonably different for technology acquisition and development. The findings suggest that an effective STM can contribute to faster technology absorption and overall business performance. Organizations in India need to develop the in‐house capabilities along with suitable technology acquisitions, wherever required.

The two cases provide valuable insights into STM practices in two organizations and highlight the methodology adopted by the companies in their evolutions toward becoming world‐class integrated organizations. The learning can provide the way forward for capable firms in the auto component industry in India.

Purpose — This chapter reviews the key findings of the reported research in this volume using the wider international literatures on transport and social exclusion as its conceptual framework. It begins by briefly summarising the research and policy context in which the study is set. It then provides an overview of major conceptual, theoretical and methodological advancements relevant to this area over the last 10 years in order to evaluate the study’s contribution to research, policy and practice internationally.

Methodology — The conceptual framework for this chapter is based on a comprehensive review of the international literatures on transport and social exclusion. After a brief introduction to these, it outlines key conceptual, theoretical and methodological advancements as they pertain to transport-related social exclusion. In addition, it evaluates the scope and implications of the methodological approach with particular reference to contemporary scholarly debates in this area. The chapter subsequently explores the applicability of the research in policy and practice, both inside and outside the Australian context.

Findings — The chapter concludes that the research has made a significant contribution to conceptual, theoretical and methodological developments within the area of transport-related exclusion, and has helped move forward related debates within policy circles. Opportunities for further research are also identified.

Sport co-produces our notions of sex, gender and sexuality. Sport policies based on inclusion demand trans athletes become visible. This creates a problem within sport's hierarchical gender order, and trans athletes' bodies become comprehensible only through mobility from one sex/gender to the other – literally the embodiment of movement through a static gendered space.

In this chapter, we examine the contradictory expectations placed on trans athletes to be visible within heterosexist, white supremacist ‘regimes of looking’ (Fleetwood, 2011). Our purpose is twofold: (1) to critically examine the construction of transness through white racial frames and (2) to grapple with the inherent harmfulness of sport. We ask why trans people would want to participate in an institution that actively limits opportunities for expansive subjectivity, ultimately concluding that the potential for queer futures lies in the very construction of limits themselves. We forward a belief in what sport could be when intentionally created through queer world building. We highlight teams, leagues and spaces that have developed processes that work against dominant forms of medicolegal recognition and visibility politics.

This chapter is a radical critique of the neoclassical growth theory, justifying ways out of mainstream economics. It has three parts. The first one analyzes growth theories from the Classical representation to the endogenous growth models. The second part demonstrates that the “new growth theory” is not a break with Solow's formalization. To prove it, we build an original Solowian endogenous growth model. Then, this neoclassical macrodynamic framework is technically, deeply critized in a third part. We show that both exogenous and endogenous neoclassical models prove to be incapable to explain growth in the long period. We concentrate on the ambiguities surrounding the hypothesis of single agent, as well as on the role of the state, in particular when it is considered as a “planner” by the neoclassicals. Endogenous growth models do not correspond to macrodynamization of the Walrasian general equilibrium, nor have solid microeconomic bases. We advocate in favor of rehabilitating state's intervention in social areas and of reactivating Marxist theoretical reflections regarding social planning and class analysis in the current time of structural crisis of the capitalist world system.

The purpose of this study is to examine the situation of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queer and asexual (LGBTQA+) youth in Spain, pre-examining the links between the people they live with, their support networks and their perception of being a burden.

This study traces some brushstrokes through the preliminary results of the LGBTQA+ population between 13 and 21 years old (n = 445). These data are part of a larger project with 2,800+ respondents.

This study’s data highlight the connections between places of cohabitation, support and vulnerability in a crisis situation. In general, gender identity, age, support and feelings of acceptance have been key variables in identifying psychosocial factors related to the health of this population. Lastly, the authors offer some future guidelines to improve the situation of young people in the face of new situations of confinement, incorporating good practices for children and youth services.

The use of the snowball technique for data collection may limit the representativeness of the sample. In the same way that data collection is used through access to an online questionnaire, it can limit access to certain people.

Address the psychosocial needs of LGBTQA+ youth, especially in crisis situations. With our data, we can improve services for future situations of confinement due to coronavirus, planning actions that include the youngest members of this population group, as well as those with non-normative sexualities and identities.

Encourage and diversify support for LGBTQA+ youth from their families, peers, teachers and other professionals working in the youth field. This support would be congruent with the anti-discriminatory and trans-specific legislation existing in most Spanish regions. Furthermore, it would propose a social change that not only benefits LGTBQA+ people, as it allows for a more inclusive cultural change for all in terms of gender and sexuality.

New data obtained within the time frame of the state of alarm are provided, concerning a social group that has been little researched and that finds itself in an unprecedented health crisis.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the communicative side of modern companies operating in the food industry, paying attention to the CSR discourse conducted in online communication. In this contribution, an attempt is made to show how the dialogue on corporate social conscience taking place at corporate websites shapes the way companies can be perceived in terms of organizational metaphors and how this perception mirrors the performance of CSR-oriented companies.

The approach applied in this chapter relies on both discursive and social theories, characteristic of investigating metaphors. To narrow the scope of the research exclusively to one sector and its online identity, the author focuses on the role of websites and their discursive content to study the CSR communication in the food industry.

The analysis of online corporate representation related to CSR practices in the selected companies operating in the food industry has led to the creation of six metaphors that can be used to discuss the performance of modern food producers from the metaphorical perspective.

The chapter concentrates on analysing the selected websites of Polish and Italian food companies, without dividing the alimentation sector into subtypes.

The topic discussed in this study may be interesting not only for the specialists and academics interested in CSR but also for the broadly understood stakeholders of the alimentation sector.

The chapter draws the readers’ attention to the role of communication in the relation between organizations and stakeholders and how it may shape organizational identities.

The issue of CSR-oriented communication in the food industry has not been studied in detail as far as organizational metaphors are concerned. As has been shown in this chapter, organizational metaphors facilitate the understanding of corporate identity in the alimentation sector, stressing its focus on corporate social conscience.

This paper aims to estimate the welfare effects for Ethiopian coffee producers from eliminating coffee price volatility.

To estimate volatility, the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity technique is applied to monthly coffee prices in Ethiopia for the period 1976-2012. To distinguish between the unpredictable and predictable components of volatility, we obtain separate estimates of the conditional and unconditional variance of the residual. This is combined with estimates of the coefficient of relative risk aversion to measure the welfare effects from eliminating the unpredictable component of price volatility.

A key finding is that the welfare gain from eliminating coffee price volatility is small; the gain per producer comes to a meagre US$0.76 in a year.

This has important policy implications for the efficacy of price stabilisation mechanisms for coffee producers, i.e. any attempt to eliminate coffee price volatility at a cost may not be a preferred outcome for Ethiopian producers. The contribution of the paper lies in using the unconditional variance, as it more truly reflects price risk faced by coffee producers without overestimating it.

Purpose: In reality, financial decisions are made under conditions of asymmetric information that results in either favorable or adverse selection. As far as financial decisions affect growth of the firm, the latter must also be affected by either favorable or adverse selection. Therefore, the core objective of this chapter is to examine the determinants of each financial decision and the effects on growth of the firm under conditions of information asymmetry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This chapter uses data for the non-financial firms listed in S&P 500. The data cover quarterly periods from 1989 to 2014. The statistical tests include linearity, fixed, and random effects and normality. The generalized method of moments estimation method is employed in order to examine the relative significance and contribution of each financial decision on growth of the firm, respectively. Standard and proposed proxies of information asymmetry are discussed.

Findings: The results conclude that there is a variation in the impact of financial variables on growth of the firm at high and low levels of information asymmetry especially regarding investment and financing decisions. A similar picture emerges in the cases of firm size and industry effects. In addition, corporate dividen d policy has a similar effect on firm growth across all asymmetric levels. These findings prove that information asymmetry plays a vital role in the relationship between corporate financial decisions and growth of the firm. Finally, the results contribute to the vast literature on the estimation of information asymmetry by demonstrating that the classical and standard proxies for information asymmetry are not consistent in terms of the ability to differentiate between favorable or adverse selection (which corresponds to low and high level of information asymmetry).

Originality/Value: This chapter contributes to the related literature in two ways. First, this chapter offers updated empirical evidence on the way that financing, investment, and dividends decisions are made under conditions of favorable and adverse selection. Other related studies deal with each decision separately. Second, the study offers new proxies for measuring information asymmetry in order to reach robust estimates of the effects of financial decisions on growth of the firm under conditions of agency problems.