Turbulent Times Research Articles

Digitalization as a resilience strategy for women owned SMEs during crises

AbstractAlthough the entrepreneurial gender gap is decreasing in European economies, the obstacles faced by women entrepreneurs remain numerous and often differ from those encountered by men. The COVID-19 pandemic, and then the energy crisis, have made it even harder for women entrepreneurs to sustain their businesses and have added to the challenges of work and private life. Women entrepreneurs, among many others, had to face how to survive crises and adjust their businesses to new circumstances to become more resilient, remain competitive and sustainable in times of crises, and in particular to improve their digital skills. A new insight is crucial for more efficient entrepreneurial development for women. A cross-country research helps to identify the needs of women entrepreneurs and provide a solid basis for the development of tailor-made activities focusing on innovative and practical solutions to support the up-skilling and resilience of women entrepreneurs. Through a survey conducted with 608 women entrepreneurs from seven European countries, our basic question was how women entrepreneurs managed to get through and become resilient in times of crises. The focus of our analysis is digitalization: did the rapid digital transition help women entrepreneurs become resilient during turbulent times? Did the practicing of digitalization-based resilience strategies (including remote work, online sales and similar approaches) improve women entrepreneurs' operational efficiency and strength?

윤흥길 소설과 트라우마 치유 : 분단 소설을 중심으로

This paper begins with the premise that novelist Yun Heunggil is using novels to heal the trauma of the Korean War. The writer, who has shared the multi-period flow of modern Korean history and the trajectory of his life, writes novels based on historical experiences that he has accepted directly or indirectly. Through his written works, we will focus on healing with the wounds turbulent times have left in our community. The war left Yun Heunggil with wounds of poverty and hardship, as well as death and loss. However, the writer does not turn his back on or hide the sadness, anger, guilt and loss of time. Rather, he writes novels such as “Sheep” and “The Rainy Season” and opens them up in the face of trauma, moving toward healing. In other words, writing a novel itself can be seen as a healing process for him. In addition, we try to heal the wounds shared by our community through novel works, and we can cite Sickle as a representative work. The writer does not simply list historical wounds or misjudge the victim and the perpetratorpl; he rather provides an opportunity to think about how to heal the wounds our community is still facing. At the heart of this is: reconciliation. Yun Heunggil's novel is a record of the wound healing process and a prescription record for trauma healing in our community. This sentence focused on capturing and introducing themthe.

ESG Meets DeFi: Exploring Time‐Varying Linkages and Portfolio Implications

ABSTRACTThis study delves into the connection between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) indices and emerging Decentralised Finance (DeFi) assets. Specifically, it explores the ever‐changing, frequency‐based linkage between these ESG indices and innovative DeFi assets. Employing the wavelet coherence technique, we analyse a broad range of ESG indices, spanning emerging, developed and US indices, alongside various DeFi assets. This examination covers a period encompassing the COVID‐19 pandemic and the Russian‐Ukrainian conflict to assess market linkages during extreme events. We then calculate optimal weights and hedge ratios for ESG‐DeFi asset pairs to evaluate portfolio implications. Wavelet analysis results frequently show no connection between ESG indices and DeFi assets, underscoring the diversification benefits of adding DeFi to an ESG portfolio. However, this relationship notably strengthens at the pandemic crisis's onset, indicating DeFi assets lose diversification potential during turbulent times. Portfolio allocation should mainly favour ESG indices during normal periods, with minimal variations in optimal weights pre‐ and post‐COVID. Meanwhile, hedge ratio analysis suggests DeFi assets make sound investments during crises, although hedging costs increase during turbulent periods. These findings hold relevance for investors, portfolio managers and policymakers.

“What’s the Use?”: Undoing, Decolonizing, Liberating, and Righting Literacies Assessment in Turbulent Times

In this conceptual paper, we draw upon Ahmed (2019) and ask “what’s the use of assessment?” The Reimagining Literacies Assessment knowledge mobilization project contributes examples from research and pedagogy in classrooms with young children, in a Cree language immersion program, in anti-racist creative writing classrooms, and in research in reading instruction and assessment. Undoing, decolonizing, liberating, righting become concepts to think through the use of assessment and to propose critically urgent and emergent questions, practices, and possibilities for students and teachers.

Supervising criminalised women in the community in England and Wales: A brief history of (un)changing attitudes

AbstractThere has not been a specific history of supervising women in the community. This article, therefore, describes the early neglect of work with women and the period of change from the 1970s when women became more visible and the criminal justice system's response to them began to face scrutiny. It posits the story against the background of increased awareness of gender discrimination and efforts to reduce the use of imprisonment by addressing women's criminogenic and social needs through community‐based supervision. It juxtaposes innovative work initiated by practitioners and managers to years of unfulfilled policy promises. An essential part of the story is the attempt to integrate feminist perspectives into policy and practice at a time of organisational and political turbulence. It concludes that our increased understanding of criminalised women presents the opportunity of breaking the frustrating cycle of governmental ‘enthusiasm‐disillusion‐indifference’ and making a genuine contribution to equality and social justice.

Navigating in Turbulent Times: Using Social Media to Examine Small and family-Owned Business Topics and Sentiments during the COVID-19 Crisis

Navigating in Turbulent Times: Using Social Media to Examine Small and family-Owned Business Topics and Sentiments during the COVID-19 Crisis

The role of temporariness, emptiness and improvisation in uncertain times: evidence from urban responses to COVID-19

This paper focusses on the complex relationship between vacancy, temporary responses and uncertainty during turbulent times by analysing how a selection of cities—New York City, São Paulo, Milan, Moscow, Abu Dhabi, Esfahan, Karachi, Mumbai and Jakarta—addressed testing, treating, isolating and vaccinating the public in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These highly visible spatial responses offer immediate, pragmatic answers to unexpected conditions and, we argue, allow a more nuanced understanding of how planning might leverage flexibility and adaptability in a (post-)pandemic world.

Allies at Heart? A Study of Ideational Continentalism in Canadians’ Foreign Policy Attitudes

Abstract The United States has long represented one of Canada's primary international allies. This partnership has remained strong despite turbulent times in the relationship, such as the one brought forth by the Trump presidency. Our article seeks to understand the sources of such continuity through the lens of continentalism. While historical accounts of continentalism have portrayed it as a passive force stemming from Canada's material self-interest, scholars have recently identified the emergence of an evolved form of continentalism that represents a dominant idea and a coherent analytical framework in Canadian foreign policy. Has this new form of continentalism indeed gained widespread acceptance among Canadians? We answer this question by considering continentalism in the ideational realm. Using novel public opinion data, our analysis investigates whether continentalist attitudes have become embedded in Canadians’ national identity and foster closer alignment preferences vis-à-vis the United States. We find significant and robust evidence of such effects.

Editorial: Embracing human-centered innovation ecosystems in turbulent times

Editorial: Embracing human-centered innovation ecosystems in turbulent times

Vulnerability and Critical Human Security in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond in the UK and South Korea

The COVID-19 pandemic destabilised the political, social, and economic life of countries as it spread around the world. It posed multiple threats to individuals, societies, and across different domains of life, highlighting their intersectionality and uneven impacts. The paper focuses on the UK and South Korea, countries which took very different paths in framing and addressing the crisis. It draws on secondary data and an integrated critical human security and state capacity approach to compare how state responses, institutional capacity, and the mobilisation of policy instruments themselves construct constellations of insecurity which intersect with human security and vulnerability. It will demonstrate the structural constraints that have continued to shape vulnerability and the dynamics of human security and insecurity in turbulent times.

Integrating Flow Field Dynamics and Chemical Atmosphere Predictions for Enhanced Sulfur Corrosion Risk Assessment in Power Boilers.

In this work, we attempt to explain the phenomenon of sulfur corrosion of power boiler water walls under the conditions of large fluctuations in carbon monoxide concentrations. To assess the conditions required for corrosion formation, a criterion based on the chemical and flow field parameters of the flue gas is proposed. The formulated sulfur corrosion criterion is based on the mixture fraction variance and the turbulence time scale. Numerical modeling of coal combustion in a 250 MW power boiler is performed using ANSYS. Two cases of combustion in a boiler are analyzed, with the first simulating the boiler operated using classic high-swirl burners and the second one accounting for boiler operation with modified low-swirl burners. Calculations of pulverized coal combustion are performed using the standard k-ε turbulence model and the combustion described by the mixture fraction. The simulation results reveal that the low-swirl burner is characterized by higher values of the mixture fraction variance and a higher frequency of fluctuation of the velocity field, which is strongly related to an increased corrosion rate. The study outcomes show the validity of using the criterion of the mixture fraction variance and velocity field fluctuations to determine the areas at risk of sulfur corrosion.

Thoreau’s civil disobedience from Concord, Massachusetts: global impact

Major wars or battles, political revolutions, scientific breakthroughs, or profound social changes often constitute substantial historical turning points. The nineteenth century was a period of intense struggle for America, wrestling with its identity and unity, the quest for emancipation, and conflicts with Mexico. Amid these turbulent times, an initially inconspicuous essay, “Civil Disobedience,” penned in 1849 by a then-unknown Henry David Thoreau, proved to be a turning point that eventually changed the world. The essay provided the framework for a conscience-driven protest, which, when applied on a mass scale, gave the world an effective and non-violent method of war. The power of the voice rooted in conscience and courage, an approach sans violence, inspired “successful” movements across cultures, countries, and time. The essay Civil Disobedience laid the foundation for a conscience-driven, non-violent struggle against injustices that changed the course of human history and remains the best hope for fighting injustices in the future. While less recognized in the annals of popular culture than the political machinations of Machiavelli or the strategic doctrines of Sun Tzu, Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience has wielded a far more profound influence. In a world still riven by conflict and injustice, Thoreau’s 1849 essay offered the most impactful turning point in humanity’s struggle against injustice. It remains as compelling as ever, offering a blueprint for confronting tyranny not with arms but with the power of human conscience. It serves as a reminder that revolutionary changes sometimes begin with the quietest voice.

Environmental resilience of the largest European public transport providers during the COVID-19 pandemic

The environmental commitment of public transport authorities plays a role in addressing the challenges ahead. After the COVID-19 pandemic, we can analyze the strength of green commitments during that turbulent time. Green public procurement (GPP) is a government tool dedicated to mitigating the environmental impact of public acquisitions. These actions can be monitored as an indicator that captures efforts for green actions by organizations. GPP adoption rates among public transport suppliers are comparable across countries because they operate in the same sector and share characteristics that facilitate comparison. In this study, the largest public transport suppliers in 38 European cities are compared from 2010 to 2023. A subsample of 13,280 contract notices was employed for the public transport sector from the Tender Electronic Database and GPP adoption was found to be higher on bus vehicle acquisitions than on tramway/metro vehicle acquisitions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a marked GPP fall. These findings also indicate that while GPP adoption rates are higher among the 38 large public transport suppliers compared with medium and lower ones, the largest ones are not the front-runners in terms of GPP adoption. Our results suggest that environmental priorities are not as significant as one might expect.

Inflation forecasting in turbulent times

AbstractIn the recent years many countries were hit by a series of macroeconomic shocks, most notably as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, raising inflation rates to multi-decade highs and suspending well-documented macroeconomic relationships. To capture these tail events, we propose a mixed-frequency Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) model with Student t-distributed innovations or with stochastic volatility. Whereas inflation, industrial production, as well as oil and gas prices are available at monthly frequencies, real gross domestic product (GDP) is observed at a quarterly frequency. Thus, we apply a mixed-frequency setup using the forward-filtering–backward-sampling algorithm to generate monthly real GDP growth rates. We forecast inflation in those euro area countries that extensively import energy from Russia and therefore have been heavily exposed to the recent oil and gas price shocks. To measure the forecast performance of the mixed-frequency BVAR model, we compare our inflation forecasts with those generated by a battery of competing inflation forecasting models. The proposed BVAR models dominate the competition for all countries in terms of the log predictive density score.

Dynamic DeFi-G7 stock markets interactions and their potential role in diversifying and hedging strategies

AbstractThis study examines the link between stocks and decentralized finance (DeFi) in terms of returns and volatility. Major G7 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and various highly traded DeFi assets are considered to ensure the robustness of the empirical experiment. Specifically, this study applies the vector autoregression generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (VAR-GARCH) model to examine the information transmission of these two markets on a two-way basis and the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC)-GARCH model to assess the bivariate correlation structure between each DeFi and ETF pair. The volatility spillover analysis proves a contagion effect occurred between different geographic markets, and even between markets of different natures and typologies, during the most turbulent moments of the COVID-19 crisis and the war in the Ukraine. Our results also reveal a weak positive correlation between most DeFi and ETF pairs and positive hedge ratios that approach unity during turbulent times. In addition, DeFi assets, except for the Bazaar (BZR) Protocol, can offer diversification gains when included in financial investment portfolios. These results are particularly relevant for portfolio managers and policy-makers when designing investment strategies, especially during periods of financial crisis.

De patriotas y traidores: la odisea ideológica de José Fernando Ramírez (1804–1871) y su relevancia para reflexionar sobre el México contemporáneo

When in contemporary Mexico terms like “patriots” or “traitors,” more fitting for other eras, are used in a banal, dangerous, and irresponsible manner, it is history that must provide perspective on the dynamic events of the present. With this objective, aiming to distance itself from the dichotomies in which current Mexican society seems to be sinking, this article delves into the complex figure of José Fernando Ramírez, who lived and participated in the turbulent times of Mexico’s nation-building during the 19th century. As a historian, jurist, and politician, Ramírez had a distinguished public career, serving multiple times as a minister and even as a justice of the Supreme Court. However, his political trajectory paralleled a complex ideological journey that took José Fernando Ramírez from radical liberalism to more moderate positions, eventually leading him to collaborate with the Second Mexican Empire. Thus, this article seeks to analyze the particular circumstances of Ramírez, with the primary aim of providing an explanatory answer to the ideological odyssey undertaken by numerous Mexican liberals of his generation, which led them from being considered patriots to being labeled as traitors. Additionally, from a historical perspective and through the analysis of Ramírez’s case, it aims to contribute to a reflection that reduces the exclusionary dichotomous political practices present today, where self-proclaimed immaculate patriots deny this status to former political rivals, classifying them as enemies to be defeated or simply as traitors to the homeland.

Raymond Limited: Deleveraging and Demerger

The case explores the possible implications of the decision to demerge Raymond Limited by Gautam Singhania, the chairman and managing director (CMD) of Raymond Limited (Raymond). In April 2023, Raymond Limited announced its plan to demerge its lifestyle businesses into Raymond Consumer Care Limited, paving the way for Raymond Limited to become a real estate company. The restructuring was carried out to have two debt-free listed entities in the lifestyle and real estate businesses. This demerger was planned after the company witnessed a turbulent time with a drastic revenue fall and resultant losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The case provides students with an opportunity to analyse the financial statements of a listed company affected by a negative macroeconomic event and the financial strategies employed by the company under such circumstances. It also allows the students to analyse the implications of the demerger strategy.

АНАЛИЗ ЦЕННОСТЕЙ И КУЛЬТУРЫ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ КАЗАХСТАНСКОЙ МОЛОДЕЖИ

This article comprehensively examines that the value system is an important category in human life in difficult and turbulent times. It is human nature to adapt to values. Without the values of the phenomena of existence, neither the activity nor the life of man as a social being has any meaning. Education through universal values is the main way out of spiritual immorality. Today, the system of higher education is based on the search for new benchmarks. In this regard, it is necessary to define the main goal of current education in higher education institutions and to set its direction.

The Dual Nature of Entrainment-Mixing Signatures Revealed Through Large-Eddy Simulations of a Convection-Cloud Chamber

Abstract Entrainment of subsaturated air into a cloud can influence its optical and microphysical properties in various ways, depending on the droplet evaporation and turbulent mixing time scales. Previous experiments in the Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber have revealed that, given a fixed entrained air property, the mixing of entrained subsaturated air results in complete evaporation of some cloud droplets, with the rest remaining unchanged. This is a signature of inhomogeneous mixing. While comparing the results of entrainment with varying air properties, the mixing signature appears as if the subsaturated air is well mixed with the cloud to evenly reduce the droplets’ size. In other words, taken together, the experiments appear to have the signature of homogeneous mixing. To explore these results in a greater depth, we conduct large-eddy simulations combined with a bin microphysics scheme. Our results reproduce the similar signatures of inhomogeneous and homogeneous mixing, implying that LES can resolve the inhomogeneous mixing when the grid spacing is smaller than the entrained air parcel. Additionally, we observe that increasing aerosol injection rate enhances the signature of inhomogeneous mixing, while coarser grid spacing diminishes it. Finally, the change in wall fluxes in response to various entrained air properties confirms that the homogeneous signature seen in the analysis of an ensemble of simulations is the result of various equilibrium states. This further strengthens the suggestion that the homogeneous mixing signature found in aircraft observations near the cloud top may result from combining entrainment events of different intensities, possibly caused by various-sized eddies.

Navigating Regime Complexes in Turbulent Times—The EU’s Interaction with Other International Organizations in Crises

Navigating Regime Complexes in Turbulent Times—The EU’s Interaction with Other International Organizations in Crises