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This study aims to conduct a geographical analysis of the distribution and type of activities developed by social enterprises in rural and urban areas of Ireland.

The study analyses data of more than 4,000 social enterprises against a six-tier rural/urban typology, using descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests to test six hypotheses.

The study shows a geographical rural–urban pattern in the distribution of social enterprises in Ireland, with a positive association between the remoteness of an area and the ratio of social enterprises, and a lack of capital-city effect related to the density of social enterprises. The analysis also shows a statistically significant geographical rural–urban pattern for the types of activities developed by social enterprises. The authors observe a positive association between the remoteness of the areas and the presence of social enterprises operating in the community and local development sector whereas the association is not significant for social enterprises developing welfare services.

The paper shows the potential of using recently developed rural–urban typologies and tools such as geographical information systems for conducting geographical research on social enterprises. The findings also have implications for informing spatially sensitive policymaking on social enterprises.

The merging of a large national data set of social enterprises with geographical tools and data at subregional level contributes to the methodological advancement of the field of social enterprises, providing tools and frameworks for a nuanced and spatially sensitive analysis of these organisations.

Starting from the hypothesis of an ordinary/extraordinary tension that drives the link between tourist places and non-tourist places, this paper discusses the issue of tourist spatial delimitations. Rather than take such an issue for granted, the paper argues that the author needs to understand how the different actors within the tourism system create specific delimitations and how tourists deal with these delimitations. To pinpoint these tourist spatial delimitations, this paper considers three types of discourses: the discourse of local promoters, the discourse of guidebooks and the discourse of tourists. The purpose of this paper is to explain not only the tourist delimitations established by these actors but also the concordance between the guidebooks’ prescriptions, the public actors’ strategies and the tourists’ practices. In this empirical investigation, the author uses the case of Los Angeles and focuses more specifically on the two main tourist places within the agglomeration: Hollywood and Santa Monica. The argument supports the idea that political actors tend to develop what the author could consider a tourist secession, as the author tends to precisely delimit the designated area for the sake of efficiency. Guidebooks, which the author must consider because they are true and strong prescribers of tourist practices, draw their own tourist neighbourhoods. Finally, most tourists in Los Angeles conform to these delimitations and do not venture off the beaten track.

This paper examines three types of discourses: the discourse of local tourism promoters, the discourse of tourist guidebooks and the discourse of tourists. The purpose of the study is to explain not only the tourist delimitations established by these actors but also the concordance between the guidebooks’ prescriptions, the public actors’ strategies and the tourists’ practices. To conduct this analysis, this paper relied on an empirical survey (Lucas, 2014b) whose methodology used a range of different techniques. First, interviews with Convention and Visitors Bureau managers were performed to understand the delimitations established by the institutional actors directly in charge of the tourist development of those places. Second, the second kind of discourse considered here is that in guidebooks. Los Angeles is often included in guidebooks about California in general, albeit with a much shorter number of pages. Although all guidebooks were considered, the study mostly focused on those specifically dedicated to Los Angeles (Time Out, Rough Guide and Lonely Planet) to conduct a thick analysis of their discourses and to note the spatial delimitations that they established. The author must regard guidebooks as the prescribers of practices because they represent a source of information for tourists. The aim is to determine how tourists follow – or do not follow – the recommendations of guidebooks. Third, to understand these practices, the paper considers numerous interviews (approximately seventy) conducted with tourists.

Thus, in these two examples, the author has distinguished powerful delimitations of the tourist places created by promoters through their discourse, which provides information on how they promote the place through urban planning. This tourist staging, and all the specific processing of the place, contributes to a clear distinction between these places and the rest of the urban environment, allowing a very precise definition. The distinction is made from one street to another. However, these delimitations are mainly defined by the practices of the tourists: they have a very selective way of dealing with the public space of the two places concerned. They validate, update and thus make relevant the limits established by the institutional operators, sometimes performing even stricter operations of delimitation. This way of dealing with space is observed in the urban planning and in the discourses on the tourist places expressed in the guidebooks. There are no tactics to bypass, divert and subvert the spatial configuration settled by local authorities and guidebooks; tourists do not attempt to discover new places or to go off the beaten track (Maitland and Newman, 2009). Yet, this is not the only explanation for the way in which tourists occupy a place. Although the guidebooks perform the operations of delimitation and rank places (insisting on one place over another and highlighting what should be seen, where to go, etc.), they also exhaustively present the practices that one can perform, and how tourists deal with space either hints at their disregard of these tools or at individuals’ selection based on the information given. In Hollywood, as in Santa Monica, while the guidebooks exhaustively enumerate the numerous sites that might be interesting for tourist practices, the author observes a very important and discriminating concentration of these tourist practices within a precisely delimited perimeter, respectively, the Walk of Fame and the Ocean Front Walk: tourists walk from one street to another and from a full to an empty space. Thus, the author can support the idea that how tourists cope with space are temporary, delimited by highly targeted practices and restricted only to a few tourist places.

What about the ordinary/extraordinary dialectic? Most tourists do not look for something ordinary; yet, the entirety of what could be considered as “extraordinary” in one metropolis is not included in its tourism space. On the contrary, tourist places can also be seen as “ordinary.” Nevertheless, there is clearly a distinction observed through the discourses, but also in the practices, between an “inside” and an “outside” and between something extraordinary and one’s ordinary environment. One can interpret this result as an actual confirmation of the classic combination (tourist/sight/marker) that constitutes a “tourist attraction” (MacCannell, 1976, p. 44), which concerns a very specific way of dealing with space in Los Angeles. Tourists do not practice Los Angeles as the author might assume that they would typically practice other metropolises, e.g. strolling down the streets randomly. The two places examined in this paper are open to that kind of practice. One can consider that these places have a higher degree of urbanity than the average area of Los Angeles precisely because there are tourists. The density in terms of buildings is (relatively) more important and accompanied by a narrative construction of the urban space (the historic dimension of the buildings), and the public space has undergone specific urban planning and given special consideration, at least greater consideration than elsewhere. In these places, the author finds a concentration of population – the metropolitan crowd – that is otherwise very rare in Los Angeles. However, the tourists seem to have a limited interest in these attractions. These classic characteristics of urbanity do not seem to be regarded positively by a certain number of tourists and are not taken into consideration by tourists. This observation contrasts somewhat with the idea that dwelling touristically in a metropolis primarily entails the discovery of its urbanity (Equipe MIT, 2005). Discovering Los Angeles does not consist of experiencing the local society and of exploring the urban space but, rather, of performing specific practices in Los Angeles (seeing the Hollywood sign and the Stars and walking along the famous beaches). Two approaches can help us understand this gap: considering Los Angeles as a specific case or considering that the spatial configuration of Los Angeles enables us to bring out the logic at work in other metropolises but that would be too complex to distinguish here. Perhaps, the author finds both elements, and this reflection must invite the author to continue the discussion on the logic of tourists’ practice of metropolises: are they really looking for a maximal urbanity during their metropolitan experiences?

Vehicles estimation can be used in evaluating traffic conditions and facilitating traffic control, which is an important task in intelligent transportation system. The paper aims to propose a vehicle-counting method based on the analysis of surveillance videos.

The paper proposes a novel two-step method using low-rank representation (LRR) detection and locality-constrained linear coding (LLC) classification to count the number of vehicles in traffic video sequences automatically. The proposed method is based on an offline training to understand an LLC-based classifier with extracted features for vehicle and pedestrian classification, followed by an online counting algorithm to count the number of vehicles detected from the image sequence.

The proposed method allows delivery estimation (counting the number of vehicles at each frame only) and total number estimation of vehicles shown in the scene. The paper compares the proposed method with other similar methods on three public data sets. The experimental results show that the proposed method is competitive and effective in terms of computational speed and evaluation accuracy.

The proposed method does not consider illumination. Hence, the results might be unsatisfactory under low-lighting condition. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to add a term that controls the illumination changes into the energy function of vehicle detection in future work.

The paper bridges the gap between LRR detection and vehicle counting by taking advantage of existing LLC classification algorithm to distinguish different moving objects.

This study aims to examine the impact of environmental sustainability, social sustainability and corporate reputation on the business performance of energy companies operating in an emerging market.

A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 400 managers in top and middle-level positions in energy companies located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were collected through an online survey. These managers had a strong understanding of the operational aspects of the companies and possessed good knowledge of the company’s performance. The collected data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis to assess the hypothesized relationships.

The findings reveal significant influences of corporate reputation, environmental sustainability and social sustainability on the business performance of energy companies operating in an emerging market. Notably, corporate reputation emerges as the primary predictor, underscoring the significance of emphasizing the fundamental aspects of companies such as superior products or services, effective management practices and investment quality. A strong reputation is essential for attracting investors, customers and other stakeholders by meeting their expectations for high-quality products or services. It serves as a crucial factor in establishing trust and credibility, which are vital for sustained success in the market.

Energy companies should proactively integrate corporate reputation into their operational strategies to enhance business performance. Furthermore, they should develop and execute comprehensive environmental and social sustainability initiatives within their organizations. By doing so, they can effectively enhance both financial and non-financial performance while fostering a culture of employee engagement aimed at further enhancing productivity.

This study stands out as a unique and significant contribution to theory by using the triple bottom line framework as the underlying theory and integrating corporate reputation into the proposed framework. It represents a novel approach, particularly within the context of energy companies operating in an emerging market. This research serves as a valuable complement to prior studies primarily conducted in developed (Western) economies, expanding the knowledge base in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse through a systematic literature review the evolution of the theme of environmental social and governance (ESG) in universities, correlating variables and presenting a panorama for Latin American universities.

This paper uses a systematic literature review approach. The Web of Science database was used for data collection, and a set of keywords (Environmental, Social and Governance × Universities) and a classification method were used, resulting in 111 articles classified in the Zotero software. After classification, these publications were analysed in the VOSviewer software.

The main evidence about ESG and universities shows that its relevance has been growing worldwide with an emphasis on England, the USA, Spain, followed by Brazil in fourth place regarding the number of papers published worldwide. The most representative areas identified were governance, sustainability, higher education, sustainable campus, environmental science, ecology, science and technology. The journals presenting more published papers under the topic are International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability. As for the most relevant authors, the Europeans Lozano and Leal Filho, Velasquez from Mexico and Brandli from Brazil were identified. As for institutions, the University Durham, State University System of Florida and State University of Campinas do Brazil stand out.

As the main limitation of the study is related to the sample of articles. This study is focused on the analysis of publications from the last decade, presenting only 111 results. However, this restriction in the timeline is justified as it is a new topic; this study was also limited to the use of a single database; in this sense, future research can carry out a more comprehensive review of the sustainability literature covering periods prior to a decade and an analysis in other databases.

These results provide a basis for improving sustainability in universities and ESG in Latin America. It also allows to explore and reflect on several indicators, enabling the evaluation and planning of actions to improve competitiveness.

The purpose of this study is to describe the use of an intersectionality framework to analyze and incorporate teachers’ lived experiences into critical professional development.

Researchers used qualitative coding based on the matrix of oppression and privilege (Ferber and O’Reilly Herrera, 2013) to analyze teachers’ multicultural autobiographies. Connections between multicultural autobiographies were then made between other course reflections and lesson plans that were developed throughout the 150 h of professional development.

Findings evidence the multiple sites of oppression and privilege, the importance of spaces and relationships in locating ourselves and others on the matrix and the possibilities for transferring knowledge to professional practice.

The authors do recognize the limitations of their study. Although the participants were from differing educational contexts and backgrounds, the sample size was small. Additional studies of this nature can expand our understanding of privilege, oppression and the impact of critical professional development for educators. Our society, and therefore the education system, continues to become more culturally and linguistically diverse, and it is incumbent upon us as educators and researchers to identify effective approaches for preparing both teachers and students for a changing world.

The power of the matrix framework in pedagogical settings is that it facilitates the recognition and analysis of individual social locations and their relationships to various systems of inequality. Most importantly, analyzing both privilege and oppression allows individuals and instructors to reflect on their own experiences and initiate conversations that reduce the animosity toward those who have different experiences.

This study is significant, in that it offers a framework that addresses the perceived disconnect between teachers and their increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse student population (Banks and Banks, 2013; Darling-Hammond and Bransford, 2005).

This study brings knowledge economy and sharing to advance environmental, social and governance (ESG). Nevertheless, knowledge economy is a broad research field and dynamic phenomenon. To fill this lacuna, the purpose of this study is to build a link between the literature field of knowledge economy and sharing to advance each ESG limitation. To achieve this aim, the authors have (1) presented the prevailing state of research on the literature field of knowledge economy and sharing and (2) provided future research avenues for understanding the ESG.

Therefore, this study has conducted a bibliometrics-based visualization analysis of literature data of 169 publications in knowledge economy field from 2010 to 2020. The authors classify findings into five clusters mapping the evolution of knowledge economy.

The analytical findings indicate the linkages between these clusters with ESG, as well as the application of knowledge economy to advance ESG limitations. This study offers future research implications for knowledge management scholars and managerial suggestions to ESG practitioners.

ESG is a newly emerging investment concept and corporate evaluation standard aiming at exploring a sustainable development path and striking a balance between commercial value and corporate social responsibility. But the status quo indicates identical ESG limitations due to the board of directors’ limited knowledge capacity, inconsistent and ununified ESG measurement and a lack of ESG information. In parallel, knowledge economy has increasingly created a huge higher rate of return and benefits towards this disruptive society. This study brings knowledge economy and sharing to advance ESG. Nevertheless, knowledge economy is a broad research field and dynamic phenomenon.

In the past decade, urban tourism has increased worldwide as a result of the development of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation platforms such as Airbnb, causing a major disruption to the tourism industry and urban space. The expansion of tourist accommodation in cities has motivated many governments to act, to control its effects and reduce conflicts between tourists and residents. The purpose of this paper is to identify the attractions that have motivated the concentration of P2P accommodation and its effects in specific areas of Valencia different from the historical centre: the Russafa and El Cabanyal-Canyamelar neighbourhoods.

The methodology used includes fieldwork and spatial analysis of factors such as the housing market, tourist attractions, local businesses and urban renewal policies.

The current spatial distribution pattern of tourist housing in Valencia is the result of the convergence of various factors: the initial presence of tourists in some areas; the evolution of certain aspects of the neighbourhood due to urban renewal; the concentration of tourist and leisure activities; the effects of the legal framework

Many researchers have addressed the effects of rising short-term rentals (STRs) in cities, but the causes of their concentration in specific neighbourhoods different from historical centres have not yet been sufficiently investigated. This research looks in depth at the urban causes and effects of the spatial distribution of tourist housing in Valencia, to anticipate possible future concentrations of STRs in other areas and to avoid gentrification. The methodology and results could be applied to other cities. The research implies a detailed and analysis of different aspects that act simultaneously such as the housing market, the evolution of the population and changes in the business.

This study aims to present a novel examination of actor value formation (AVF) in the sharing economy by uncovering its key dimensions (i.e. information seeking, personal interaction and feedback) at each stage of Airbnb consumption. Using multi-source data, how the key dimensions of AVF affect consumers’ evaluative judgment capturing the key aspects of consumption experiences (i.e. communication quality, value for money and overall evaluations) was empirically tested.

This study adopted a triangulated, multi-study approach to test and validate the hypotheses. In Study 1, the authors analyzed 586,778 online reviews through deductive and inductive approaches to determine how three AVF dimensions could be captured and examine these dimensions’ effects on consumers’ evaluative judgments. In Study 2, an online survey was adopted to improve the reliability and validity of findings.

This study identified positive and negative outcomes of AVF. The results also revealed which AVF dimensions significantly led to communication quality and value for money, which in turn influenced consumers’ overall evaluations. The findings further provided robust support for the mediating role of value for money as a mechanism in the relationships between AVF and overall evaluations across the two studies.

This study contributes to the literature by empirically identifying the three key dimensions of AVF in each consumption stage and subsequently testing a conceptual model using different data, research methods and analytical techniques to cross-validate the results. The authors also extended the scope of AVF by integrating both positive and negative aspects in the context of Airbnb.

This study provides new results on the efficiency on health centers in Madrid (Spain).

The objective of this study was to analyze the efficiency of primary care centers in the Community of Madrid in the period 2016–2018. Special attention has been paid to the detailed study of the best practices carried out. Likewise, the factors affecting efficiency have been analyzed. The methodologies used were nonparametric DEA radial, nonradial and bootstrap, for the estimation of efficiency. The main results reveal that, despite the differences in the techniques used, fundamentally the radial versus non-radial criterion, the results dynamically show the deterioration of the efficiency of the health Centers of the Community of Madrid, when compared by subperiods 2017/18–2016/17. The benchmark analysis identified the best practices of the health centers in the period analyzed. The application of cluster analysis, through kernel distributions (Azzalini and Menardi, 2014), segments the sample in two, and shows the top 20% of health Centers in resource management, in the case of radial DEA. Subsequently, a detailed analysis using pairwise comparison and their presence in the formation of the production frontier captures the benchmark health Centers, as they are present in the three years analyzed in the formation of the production frontier. The analysis of the second stage reports that the explanatory factors of efficiency are centered on the inverse relationship between the population assigned to the health Centers and positively with teaching versus those that do not. It also confirms the extent to which the pressure of care compromises the efficiency of the health Centers.

A methodological approach based on three efficiency analysis methodologies (radial, non-radial and bootstrap) is applied. Likewise, a cluster analysis criterion is used (Azzalini and Menardi, 2014), little explored in the field of Healthcare.

The Benchmark analysis applied in this study could contribute to decision making for managers, professionals, and policy makers in the health sector. The provision of a greater quantity and quality of public health resources is an important challenge that must be met in order to maintain levels of excellence.