Advances in Social Sciences and Management

An Exploration of Gender, Interlocking Directorates, and Family Firms

Sean O'Hagan — 2025-03-15

This study examines the spatiality of interlocking directorates of Canadian companies, with specific focus on those connections that include female directors and family firms. The goal of this study was to explore the spatial relationship between headquarters location of the corporate boards on which they sit. First, it was found that a geographical relationship in the interlocking network of female directors exist. Female directors follow a similar urban hierarchy as previous research. Second, female directors interlock intra-regionally. The study also explored intra- and inter-city as well as intra- and inter-regional interlocking. It was found intra-regional interlocks dominated for each region across Canada except the West. Again, this is attributed to females sitting on FCFs and interlocking interregionally. Additionally, females of FCFs were more likely to interlock nonlocally than their male counterparts, but also more than females of nonFCFs.

Understanding Household Mobility: A Study of Exit Patterns in the 2021 American Household Survey

Elkanah Faux — 2025-03-05

Although considerable research has explored the impact of neighborhood change and demographic changes on housing exit decisions, factors such as age, education, household expenses, downsizing, upsizing, and lifestyle events have received limited attention despite their significant influence on household exit decisions. This study utilizes data from the 2021 American Household Survey, a period affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, to estimate a logit model that examines the relationship between lifecycle events like childbirth, marital status, and economic factors like income, costs, and government income and housing exits. The findings show that older individuals, families with children, and those with post-secondary education are less likely to exit their homes. Conversely, individuals facing higher housing costs are more likely to leave their homes. Furthermore, long-term changes in housing preferences and mobility, along with economic decline and health risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, including increased odds of housing exits, highlight the need for interventions to buffer incomes and support vulnerable groups.

The Role of Endowments in Academia

Joseph A Soares — 2025-03-15

Fiscal endowments are taken as foundational to academia. Economists have given us three models to explain endowment performance: institutions rely on endowments as an inter-generational compact that perpetually subsidizes current students with alumni bequests; institutions treat endowments as rainy-day reserves; institutions hoard their wealth. However, economists have been working with inadequate data and measuring the wrong outcomes. To evaluate the role of endowments, we need to use tax records. And the outcome questions previously explored by economists on the size of endowments and payout rates are uninformative in comparison to looking at the percentage of an institution’s total expenditures that are covered by its endowment. Furthermore, we need to see the percentage of endowment payouts that go to scholarships and academic programs. Doing so enables us to build a performance index that will transform our understanding of the role of endowments in US higher education.

China versus USA: A Game-theoretic Simulation Approach

Hardy Hanappi — 2025-03-18

This paper combines one of the central questions of contemporary political economy, id est the conflict between China and the USA, with one of the major methodological advances in modelling technique, id est game theory. Of course, such a task goes far beyond the possibilities of a single research paper, it thus remains a modest sketch of a possible approach. No formalisation attempt is independent of the content it tries to model. Therefore, the first part of the paper provides a very short synopsis of the envisaged global conflict between the two superpowers. Surprisingly, one of the historical contributors to this topic, John von Neumann, also is the scientist, which brought the methodological revolution of game theory to its full blossoming. The second part of the paper discusses von Neumann’s vision of game theory as a new formal language to describe human interaction - a somewhat different vision to the one that drove the mathematicians using his approach in the decades that followed. The third part of the paper presents a simple simulation exercise built on the ideas of the first two parts. The conclusion provides two lessons that can be learned from the paper, a methodological one and one concerning the mid-run development of the conflict between China and the USA.

Religion and Animals: Lessons for Christians Drawn from African Traditional Practices in Zimbabwe

Collins Nhengu — 2025-03-29

This article will argue that since time immemorial biological diversity has been central to human survival. Indigenous peoples have developed stages of technology and culture appropriate for different environments of climate, vegetation and animals. African traditional religion practices and promotes peace for both human and non-human animals. Crises for survival in the environment such as drought removed the animals that people were hunting and this threatened sustainable development. The symbiotic relationship between human beings and animals was clearly recorded in paintings. Indigenous peoples in the past recorded their interrelationships with the natural world -particularly wildlife – in the form of paintings and carvings at many sites across Zimbabwe. The paintings tell us something about the lives of indigenous people and also about the types of animals, birds and fish that may have occurred in these areas many thousands of years ago. Traditional methods of resource utilisation were suitably adapted to conservation. Indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs), and in particular the Shona people (of Zimbabwe) IKSs created in specific geographical and historical situations in the country, have had a significant contribution to the maintenance of flora and fauna. Myths, folklores, legends, proverbs, riddles, rituals, symbols, traditions and beliefs are part of religious ideas which promoted animal rights. When the missionaries came in the 19^th century, various institutions were challenged hence the Shona reluctance to convert enmasse to Christianity. These community-governed controls shape social life, indirectly affect or even direct management of many concepts of the local ecosystem. IKSs are a reminder of the need to preserve the biodiversity heritage as a sacred duty. Matikiti (2007:221) states that “Resident animals such as lions, leopards, baboons, pangolins, and monkeys are generally seen as personifications of spiritual beings. Birds such as the hungwe (eagle) are perceived as conventional messengers from ancestors. People are required to refrain from taking life.” All this has changed. This article will argue that the earth is in peril, Zimbabwe is in pain and jeopardy, the country is at the precipice of self-destruction and must revert to IKSs to preserve biodiversity. Zimbabwe and the world need fervent environmentalists to resolve the intractable environmental crisis.

Promoting and Advertising the Hospital Library to the Nursing Staff

Eleni Semertzidou — 2025-03-22

Medical and nursing staff are, and should be, in constant interaction with a hospital library for immediate access to new, up-to-date and specialised knowledge for the performance of their tasks. Combining the knowledge and skills of nurses and clinical librarians in a hospital library can optimise the results of treatments and therapeutic techniques in general.

Thinking, a Diverse and Inclusive Process: An Epistemological Look

Jose Manuel Salum Tome — 2025-03-22

Contemporary education has taken on the challenge of promoting different programs aimed at promoting inclusive teaching-learning processes that facilitate attention to diversity. It is evident that the integration of students with special needs in regular educational centers has caused significant changes in the curriculum, infrastructure and training among teachers. In the last ten years, educational inclusion has made significant progress, but much remains to be done to expand inclusive spaces.