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This article seeks to answer the question: how should we conceptualise the “gig economy”? In doing so the authors shall explore if gig economy work should be understood as a novel concept that stands alone, a concept that is a subtype, or whether it may in fact be conceptually redundant.

The authors conduct a thematic analysis of interview data drawn from 27 interviews with policymakers, trade union officials, key figures within labour organisations and gig economy workers.

The authors reveal how, from the perspective of key stakeholders, the concept of the gig economy exhibits a lack of “differentiation” from the long-established concept of precarious work of which it is best understood as a subtype.

The empirical findings from the authors’ study should be regarded as limited in terms of being situated in the specific employment context of the UK. Nevertheless, the implications of the study have a broader reach. The authors seek to provoke debate and discussion among scholars across disciplines and contexts working in the areas of precarious work and the gig economy. The authors’ analysis will be of interest to scholars who are concerned with how they conceptualise “new” forms of work.

The analysis offers a novel intervention by revealing how key stakeholders perceive the gig economy through a prism of continuity rather than change and connect it with broader processes of precarity.

In this article focused upon the UK context, the authors sought to better understand how political elites shaped public debate to reinforce rather than challenge the hostile policy environment for those seeking asylum.

The authors undertook a political claims analysis (Koopmans and Statham, 1999) focussing on a venue that has been pivotal in shaping the discourse around asylum issues in the UK, namely the print media. This work adopts a theoretical frame informed by the work of Stuart Hall to uncover the extent to which debates on asylum during the key period of the refugee emergency in Europe were shaped by political elites.

The study’s findings reveal the extent to which political elites acted as “primary definers” of the “crisis” and utilised that position to cast those arriving in Europe as a threat to be managed.

This research offers a contemporary worked example of political claims analysis in a topical subject area that colleagues across disciplines and contexts may find informative for their own research agendas.

This paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of philosophies underpinning social innovation based on the action research strategies applied in the field.

Literature review was conducted to identify action research strategies referred to in the social innovation literature. Through stratified purposive sampling, the authors then selected nonprofit organizations, each closely associated with one of the strategies. Qualitative content analysis was applied to documents published by these organizations for an in-depth exploration of how the action research strategies frame the three dimensions of social innovation, namely, the product, process and empowerment dimensions.

The authors identified four broad action research strategies referred to in the social innovation literature. Each strategy inspires four distinct narratives of social innovation centered around key concepts: prototyping, evidence, asset-building and co-creation.

The methodology used is characterized by depth rather than scope. Although diverse types of documents were used, the documents are limited to publications by four institutions. A deductive approach using the categories should be used in future empirical research.

The paper contributes to the discussion about different schools and research agendas in the field of social innovation. In particular, the authors examine the action research strategies adopted in the field, shedding light on incompatible views and strategies within certain research clusters while identifying common ground between authors belonging to different schools.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not the offer price affects the transaction price and the number of days the property is on the market. Specifically, is it possible for the broker to use the offer price as an instrument for obtaining a higher transaction price?

To test the hypothesis the general hedonic model is used, where the deviation of the transaction price and expected price from the offer price is a function of time on the market.

The results indicate that a high offer price is more likely to result in a high ratio of transaction price to expected price compared to a low offer price.

However, the overall conclusion is affected by the state of the market, that is, whether the market is static, rising or falling.

The best selling strategy in a rising market seems to be set a high offer price compared to the expected sale price.

The main contribution is that the paper not only analyzes the relationship between offer and transaction price, but also its relationship to expected price. It also tests for the existence of spatial autocorrelation, which is unique in this type of study.

This paper aims to contribute to a developing literature on continuous improvement (CI), enabled by Lean Six Sigma (LSS), in higher education institutions (HEIs). It reports on the key learning points arising from the initial steps taken by an Irish university on its CI journey.

A case study strategy was adopted following a participatory research approach. This approach supports reflexivity and also provides access to all relevant documentation and staff within the case university. Thematic analysis was supported by data reduction and display techniques.

The introduction of a LSS approach rather than a reliance on lean alone introduced a structured methodology (DMAIC) that supported simplification of a number of administrative processes. A number of specific improvements were achieved including: Cycle time and cost reduction; customer or employee satisfaction; and rework and error reduction. The findings support the importance of the Readiness Factors as identified by Antony (2014), with particular insight into the role of senior and middle management, the impact of training and deployment of expertise.

This paper is based on an ongoing, longitudinal, empirical study of a single case study in Ireland.

This paper tracks the development of CI in a HEI in a longitudinal manner and adds to the emerging the literature in this area. The paper evaluates the role of management at various levels, analyses the use of LSS tools and techniques and evaluated the role of training and capacity building. Implications for Management are shared including: design and role of training programmes, role of champions at various organisational levels, including key functional areas and sustaining momentum.

This research underlines the usefulness of Civil Rights Geographic Information Systems (CR-GIS) for understanding the social struggles and assessing the critical needs of the disempowered population of Alabama’s “Black Belt.” The social struggles have been persistent for decades in the Southern states, particularly in Alabama. Researchers have recognized the political and historical root causes and implications for these social struggles. The geographic region of Alabama’s Black Belt is significant because it became the epicenter of the Civil Rights struggle and still represents the vestiges of the social policy known as “Jim Crow.”

Although GIS has a great potential to explore social and political struggles, currently, it is not profoundly associated with Civil Rights studies. This research employs CR-GIS to illustrate the impact of the disfranchisement caused by biased geopolitics in three selected cases/issues: (1) gerrymandering and voting rights, (2) transportation, and (3) poverty in the State of Alabama. While there has been some progress in overcoming the social struggles in the Black Belt, there is a need for qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand persistent social, economic, and Civil Rights struggles in the region. GIS could be a valuable tool to understand and explore the social struggles in the disempowered communities of the “Black Belt” in Alabama. By incorporating the existing information and conducting ground truth studies, this research will lay the basic foundation for extended research by creating a policy template for empowering the disempowered for better social, economic, and political integration in the “Black Belt region.”

This paper aims to explore a complex combination of four realms of the experience economy in formulating memories and satisfaction among festival visitors by using augmented reality (AR), thus engaging visitors in the physical science experience. This study also identifies necessary conditions to achieve desired responses from visitors.

Asymmetrical modelling with fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to investigate causal recipes of two configurations of the experience economy and evaluation of experience leading to both high and low scores from visitor engagement. Necessary condition analysis was applied to examine necessary predictors in visitor engagement. The proposed configuration model was tested by using data obtained from visitors to science festivals in the UK.

Five causal recipes explained the complex conditions in which visitors were more likely engaged in AR. Aesthetics, education, entertainment and satisfaction were necessary for high engagement among festival visitors.

The results from fsQCA and analyses of necessary conditions help festival organizers improve visitor satisfaction and engagement in a memorable AR experience.

This empirical study deepens current festival understanding of how visitors experience AR by exploring combinations of complex configurations of the experience economy and evaluations of visitor experience based on memories and satisfaction. Unlike symmetrical approaches, asymmetrical modelling by using fsQCA can explore recipes for both high and low scores of visitor satisfaction and engagement. This is the first empirical study investigating necessary predictors of festival visitor behaviour.

Purpose: Forces of fragmentation make achieving climate change goals difficult. Social media is enabling more stakeholders to get involved in sustainability debates. This study aimed to investigate the debates taking place about sustainability on Twitter using the hashtag #ClimateAction as a search term, to identify influential actors and their connections with other users on the platform.

Methodology: NodeXL was used to investigate the social network structure of actors discussing #ClimateAction on Twitter. Tweets were thematically used to identify the topics being discussed. The most influential actors involved in the network were identified. The tweets included in the analysis were posted between Saturday 17 August and Thursday 22 August 2019. The data set was obtained from Twitter on 22 August 2019 and was downloaded from NodeXL Graph Gallery.

Findings: The network included 14,512 Twitter users whose recent tweets contained #ClimateAction, or who were replied to or mentioned in those tweets. The network included 38,855 unique edges with an average geodesic distance of 4.19, indicating a close network. Five key themes were identified: Encouraging action, Citizen movements and activists, Climate change and its effects on the planet, Politics, policies and approaches for climate change and Climate research.

Originality: The study provides new qualitative insights into how Twitter is used as a platform for debate and agenda setting for sustainability. The debate was not as polarized as previous research suggests which may reflect the global nature of Twitter and the increased capacity for advocates to shape policy debates about sustainability on social media.