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Building permitting is mostly a manual, labor intensive and time-consuming process. Initiatives for streamlining the process are not always helpful since they often fail to address the core problems within the process. A framework for modeling the permitting process can be useful to identify bottlenecks, core challenges and best practices. Hence, the authors aim to demonstrate and validate a previously suggested workflow for permit process modeling using the permitting process in Israel as a test case.

The authors implement qualitative expert interviews for data acquisition. The collected data are then processed for a qualitative data analysis. The results of the analysis are then validated using a focus group workshop in the field of building permits. In the test case the focus group consisted of Israeli experts.

The authors present a detailed overview of the as-is building permit process in Israel and the existing challenges. Through this test case, the authors found that the framework is applicable in different countries and that it can provide valuable insights into the core problems within the process. In addition, application of the same framework in different countries can provide comparable results that would allow the authors to identify best practices.

The major contribution of this work is the development and validation of a framework for building permitting process modeling which can be used to identify existing challenges and bottlenecks in the process. Implementing a structured and unified approach provides an opportunity to easily compare processes in different countries to identify best practices.

Given the adversity of the COVID-19 pandemic, there remains an incomplete understanding of the gender disparities in the affectedness and recovery of micro-entrepreneurs from the crisis. Consequently, this paper aims to scrutinise gender disparities in the initial repercussions of the crisis and throughout the recovery phase.

Acknowledging the interconnectedness of micro-entrepreneurs’ professional and private spheres, the study adopts a mixed-methods approach combining a representative quantitative study with qualitative data from 36 semi-structured interviews with self-employed individuals in Germany amidst the COVID-19 crisis.

The findings indicate a gender gap in the impact and recovery trajectory, particularly affecting female entrepreneurs in caregiving roles beyond immediate financial repercussions. These disparities did not result in more pronounced business measures for recovery but rather involved more experimentation and prosocial behaviours, with a preference for alternatives to state aid, such as personal reserves and social networks.

Unveiling the dual influence of economic and social factors as essential for female entrepreneurs’ recovery from the crisis adds to the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of gender-specifics.

Research excellency has long been the dominant paradigm in assessing academic quality and hence a prime determinant of academic careers. Lately, this approach to academic performance has come under higher scrutiny for its narrow focus on the individual, promoted an exclusive, performance-oriented talent management and inhibiting collaboration, transparency and societal involvement.

As a response to the limitations of the excellency policy, this chapter examines the emergence of open science as a transformative force in the academic world. Open science represents a paradigm shift, emphasizing the importance of transparency, and increased societal engagement in the academic process. It opens up the possibility to include the context dimension, multiple stakeholders and a more diverse set of development and performance indicators.

This chapter stresses the urgent need to realign our system of recognition and rewards with the premise of open science and with talent management. By highlighting the disconnect between current recognition mechanisms and the values of universities, this chapter emphasizes the necessity of transformative changes at institutional and systemic levels.

To provide concrete insights into the implementation of these changes, this chapter explores a case study of Utrecht University. This specific example showcases how strategic decisions at an institute level allow navigation of the complexities of recognizing and rewarding open science practices. The Utrecht University case study serves as an inspiration for other institutions seeking to embrace open science and adapt their policies and practices accordingly.

The role of caregivers and issues of parenting are controversial in research on disability. While appreciating the historical and political reasons to critique power relations in care systems and care relations, we argue that it is important to consider parents' and other caregivers' positions. A reconsideration provides insights into pervasive effects of ableism defining not only the individual child but parents and other relatives as well. We draw from extensive research on couples parenting a child with disability in Germany (Tröndle, 2022a). This study seeks to understand how parents of a child with disability cannot avoid understanding themselves as “special parents.” Through analyzing shared life stories of couples and individual biographies, the study reconstructs how identities evolve differently depending on their work-sharing arrangements. Based on our findings, the couples experience difficulties in maintaining dual employment arrangements. They become “unable” to step outside of the logic of welfare and health provision and structures of the labor market. Couples begin to explain their situation and the discrimination they experience by reflecting themselves as “special parents.” Heteronormative and ableist expectations hinder them in articulating resistance and gaining agency as allies of their children, facilitating positions of complicity. We argue that the approach suggested by this study – namely including the ambiguous situation of caregivers in Disability Studies – can encourage other researchers to consider othering and ableism of and by caregivers.

This research explores the drivers that determine the ability of spontaneous volunteer groups (SVGs) to sustain their operations. That sustainability aims to support those affected in the community beyond the response phases of a disaster and into the recovery and mitigation phases to build resilience to the next disaster.

To investigate the sustainability of spontaneous volunteering that takes place in the aftermath of a disaster, we conducted qualitative interviews in three English locations where groups of spontaneous volunteers emerged following major floods. We analysed our qualitative data using thematic analysis.

Our findings theorise the drivers of SVG sustainability and present these in four themes: (1) assessment of ongoing needs; (2) organisation of resources to address that need; (3) leadership and followership creating a weight of operational capability and (4) influence of political will. Through exploring these drivers, we uncover key factors to developing a sustainable SVG system including trusted leadership and social capital.

We show how the four drivers interact to support the continuity of SVGs and sustain their operations. This has implications for how leaders of SVGs create a volunteering environment that encourages ongoing involvement and has implications for officials to view SVGs as a support rather than a risk.

The novelty of our paper is in rejecting the argument of the temporal limit of SVGs to the response phase by theorising the drivers that make their operations sustainable for recovery and resilience building to mitigate the next disaster. This includes our examination of the interplay between those drivers.

This study aims to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial mindsets on the performance of family businesses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This study focused on the following entrepreneurial mindset factors: alertness to opportunity, ambiguity tolerance, dispositional optimism and risk-taking propensity.

A partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the proposed research model. The gathered data consisted of 321 family businesses that operate in the UAE.

Findings showed that only two of the entrepreneurial mindset factors had a significant and positive impact on the firm’s performance, namely, alertness to opportunity and dispositional optimism.

This paper covers a research gap by reflecting the effect of the entrepreneurial mindset in an unstudied context, such as the UAE. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study that measures the effect of the dimensions of the entrepreneurial mindset on the performance of family businesses in the UAE, and as such, it represents an additional value to the literature in this field.