Action learning: how learning transfers from entrepreneurs to small firms

The paper presents research with small and medium enterprise (SME) owners who have participated in a leadership development programme. The primary focus of the paper is on learning transfer and factors affecting it, arguing that entrepreneurs must engage in ‘action’ in order to ‘learn’ and that under certain conditions they may transfer learning to their firm. The paper draws on data from 19 focus groups undertaken from 2010 to 2012, involving 51 participants in the LEAD Wales programme. It considers the literatures exploring learning transfer and develops a conceptual framework, outlining four areas of focus for entrepreneurial learning. Utilising thematic analysis, it describes and evaluates what (actual facts and information) and how (techniques, styles of learning) participants transfer and what actions they take to improve the business and develop their people. The paper illustrates the complex mechanisms involved in this process and concludes that action learning is a method of facilitating entrepreneurial learning which is able to help address some of the problems of engagement, relevance and value that have been highlighted previously. The paper concludes that the efficacy of an entrepreneurial learning intervention in SMEs may depend on the effectiveness of learning transfer.

Elucidating the structure of chiral molecules by using amplified vibrational circular dichroism: from theory to experimental realization

Recent experimental observations of enhanced vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) in molecular systems with low-lying electronically excited states suggest interesting new applications of VCD spectroscopy. The theory describing VCD enhancement through vibronic coupling schemes was derived by Nafie in 1983, but only recently experimental evidence of VCD amplification has demonstrated the extent to which this effect can be exploited as a structure elucidation tool to probe local structure. In this Concept paper, we give an overview of the physics behind vibrational circular dichroism, in particular the equations governing the VCD amplification effect, and review the latest experimental developments with a prospective view on the application of amplified VCD to locally probe biomolecular structure.

Spirit of corporate social responsibility transforming from corporatism to socialized capitalism

This paper offers a critique of current corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in context of global trends. The legitimate modelling of CSR has yet to engage firm and political decision making with wider Society stakeholders. There is urgent need to transform towards socialized capitalism in which separate CSR board may focus on social and environmental concerns and offer more collaborative solutions to global/local CSR issues. This is underpinned with a need for returning to original moral purpose of CSR that has become eroded by narrower short term rational justifications.

From warfare to welfare: veterans, military charities and the blurred spatiality of post-service welfare in the United Kingdom

The military offers a form of welfare-for-work but when personnel leave they lose this safety net, a loss exacerbated by the rollback neoliberalism of the contemporary welfare state. Increasingly the third sector has stepped in to address veterans’ welfare needs through operating within and across military/civilian and state/market/community spaces and cultures. In this paper we use both veterans’ and military charities’ experiences to analyse the complex politics that govern the liminal boundary zone of post-military welfare. Through exploring ‘crossing’ and ‘bridging’ we conceptualise military charities as ‘boundary subjects’, active yet dependent on the continuation of the civilian-military binary, and argue that the latter is better understood as a multidirectional, multiscalar and contextual continuum. Post-military welfare emerges as a competitive, confused and confusing assemblage that needs to be made more navigable in order to better support the ‘heroic poor’.

The history of the practice of strategy from Antiquity to Napoleon

This chapter outlines the history of the practice of strategy, predating the introduction of the term. It homes in on episodes of European history since Antiquity for which historians claim to have found evidence of the practice of strategy, defined by Kimberly Kagan as ‘the setting of a state’s objectives and of priorities among those objectives’ in order to allocate resources and choose the best means. While focusing only on Europe, this chapter covers case studies over nearly 2500 ranging from the wars of Ancient Greece, of the Romans to Medieval warfare (here with a focus on English history), the warfare of Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Frederick II of Prussia, the French Revolutionaries and Napoleon.

ENSO representation in climate models: from CMIP3 to CMIP5

We analyse the ability of CMIP3 and CMIP5 coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation models (CGCMs) to simulate the tropical Pacific mean state and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The CMIP5 multi-model ensemble displays an encouraging 30 % reduction of the pervasive cold bias in the western Pacific, but no quantum leap in ENSO performance compared to CMIP3. CMIP3 and CMIP5 can thus be considered as one large ensemble (CMIP3 + CMIP5) for multi-model ENSO analysis. The too large diversity in CMIP3 ENSO amplitude is however reduced by a factor of two in CMIP5 and the ENSO life cycle (location of surface temperature anomalies, seasonal phase locking) is modestly improved. Other fundamental ENSO characteristics such as central Pacific precipitation anomalies however remain poorly represented. The sea surface temperature (SST)-latent heat flux feedback is slightly improved in the CMIP5 ensemble but the wind-SST feedback is still underestimated by 20–50 % and the shortwave-SST feedbacks remain underestimated by a factor of two. The improvement in ENSO amplitudes might therefore result from error compensations. The ability of CMIP models to simulate the SST-shortwave feedback, a major source of erroneous ENSO in CGCMs, is further detailed. In observations, this feedback is strongly nonlinear because the real atmosphere switches from subsident (positive feedback) to convective (negative feedback) regimes under the effect of seasonal and interannual variations. Only one-third of CMIP3 + CMIP5 models reproduce this regime shift, with the other models remaining locked in one of the two regimes. The modelled shortwave feedback nonlinearity increases with ENSO amplitude and the amplitude of this feedback in the spring strongly relates with the models ability to simulate ENSO phase locking. In a final stage, a subset of metrics is proposed in order to synthesize the ability of each CMIP3 and CMIP5 models to simulate ENSO main characteristics and key atmospheric feedbacks.

Climate change projections using the IPSL-CM5 Earth System Model: from CMIP3 to CMIP5

We present the global general circulation model IPSL-CM5 developed to study the long-term response of the climate system to natural and anthropogenic forcings as part of the 5th Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). This model includes an interactive carbon cycle, a representation of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry, and a comprehensive representation of aerosols. As it represents the principal dynamical, physical, and bio-geochemical processes relevant to the climate system, it may be referred to as an Earth System Model. However, the IPSL-CM5 model may be used in a multitude of configurations associated with different boundary conditions and with a range of complexities in terms of processes and interactions. This paper presents an overview of the different model components and explains how they were coupled and used to simulate historical climate changes over the past 150 years and different scenarios of future climate change. A single version of the IPSL-CM5 model (IPSL-CM5A-LR) was used to provide climate projections associated with different socio-economic scenarios, including the different Representative Concentration Pathways considered by CMIP5 and several scenarios from the Special Report on Emission Scenarios considered by CMIP3. Results suggest that the magnitude of global warming projections primarily depends on the socio-economic scenario considered, that there is potential for an aggressive mitigation policy to limit global warming to about two degrees, and that the behavior of some components of the climate system such as the Arctic sea ice and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation may change drastically by the end of the twenty-first century in the case of a no climate policy scenario. Although the magnitude of regional temperature and precipitation changes depends fairly linearly on the magnitude of the projected global warming (and thus on the scenario considered), the geographical pattern of these changes is strikingly similar for the different scenarios. The representation of atmospheric physical processes in the model is shown to strongly influence the simulated climate variability and both the magnitude and pattern of the projected climate changes.