An important challenge for the future is focusing on sustainability in life and business. The three elements of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social), defined in 17 factors by the United Nations (UN) as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), may, therefore, be the main drivers of business competitiveness and opportunity recognition. The main aim of the article is to identify the awareness level of sustainability and sustainable development goals in the context of business opportunity areas by analysing the results of a survey of organisations in six countries (Finland, Slovakia, Italy, Austria, Spain, and Turkey). A multilingual questionnaire, administered in six participating countries, was used as a collection tool to determine the organisation’s level of awareness regarding the SDGs. A research questionnaire was filled in by 238 respondents, providing a cross-cultural view of their attitudes, knowledge, and future interest in sustainability and the SDGs. The obtained results indicate differences in the approach to sustainability issues, the scope of knowledge, interest, competencies in sustainable development and SDGs, and the content of implementation of sustainability and SDGs in organisations in different sectors, regions and countries. Further statistical evaluation of the research hypotheses states the significant relationship between the two variables: sustainable strategy and the designation of a responsible employee in each organisation rs = 0.677 (α = 0.05). It is essential to eliminate the gap in the cross-cultural approach and knowledge in engaging with sustainable strategy and its implementation in current and future organisation activities in the context of sustainability and SDGs, in order to enhance opportunities for the growth of sustainability-focused entrepreneurship across different sectors and countries.

The British National Health Service (NHS) has experienced various phases of reform and reorganisation during the last 15 years. During this time it has been suggested that the role of the patient is analogous to that of the consumer. Meanwhile there has been increasing application of the techniques of health economics. This paper examines the rationale for these developments, placing them in wide historial context, and arguing that far from being a passive consumer of pre‐packed healthcare, patients ought to be considered as partners in a continuing process of inquiry, in accordance with John Dewey’s philosophy of instrumentalism. As a result it is argued that the present commodification of healthcare in the UK should be halted, in order to preserve and build on the achievements of the NHS.

Global value chains (GVCs) are both a product and a facilitator of the model of globalization that dominated for almost two decades following Soviet collapse in 1991. The North Atlantic Financial Crisis of 2007 onwards undermined that dominance, as did the subsequent economic stagnation and associated rising political and social discord. The reversion to more nationalist modes of discourse and policy marks the return of a more visibly geopolitical dimension to the global political economy. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated and accentuated these trends. This paper charts the emergence and consolidation of the era of "one world, ready or not", and employs the work of various critical authors, most prominently William Greider. Greider's extensive critique of US-led globalization, offshoring, and what has since become known as "supply chain capitalism" not only appears prescient by comparison with the work of contemporaneous, high profile representatives of the economics discipline who were its champions, but helps us to locate the sources of its unravelling. The implications of this for GVCs are outlined in the final section, which foresees a fragmentation of the world into spheres of influence dominated by regional powers, each of varying strength and cohesion. This will most likely result in the reconfiguration of many GVCs along more regional lines, as the dictates of efficiency clash with the requirements of supply chain resilience and the associated prerogatives of national security, as defined by those states at the centre of the new regional power blocs. Common to all phases of development discussed in this paper is the subordination of the peoples of the Global South, as the mechanisms of imperialism are adjusted and adapted to the changing conditions arising from the irreconcilable contradictions of global capitalism.

The attacks on historicism by radical individualists such as Popper and Mises have had lasting repercussions in the social sciences. Specifically, the term is used to connote deterministic, teleological theories of history, associated with Hegelian notions of destiny and positivist ideas of historical laws. This article argues that historicism is very different in character, in that it essentially amounts to the belief that social science and history are one and the same, whilst emphasizing the separate epis temology of natural science. It rejects the fictitious historicism invented by Popper in his famous polemic, and challenges the idea of a value- free social science posited by Mises, who saw history and human action as logically distinct entities. In conclusion, it is argued that the mecha nistic rationalism that characterizes much of social science, particularly modern economics, should be supplementary, if anything, to the primacy of history. The notion of transcendent, value-free criteria upon which to construct social science is refuted.

The aftermath of the global financial crisis that began in 2007 in the United States and has yet to end has demonstrated the durability of policies and analytical frameworks that have characterised the neoliberal era. Among these has been a strong rhetorical commitment to market-based institutions as synonymous with individual freedom, in contradistinction to the inefficient, bureaucratic state. This has disguised what amounts to a reconfiguration of state power during the last 40 years, such that it is arguably more pervasive than during the preceding Keynesian era. The books under review here each reveal the ideological character of laissez-faire while in various ways hinting at its mythological properties. This mythical aspect is most prominently displayed by Edmund Phelps’ treatment of ‘corporatism’ as responsible for our current ills, when it is in fact integral to contemporary political economy, and cannot be otherwise, absent truly revolutionary change. Cahill D (2014) The End of Laissez-Faire? On the Durability of Embedded Neoliberalism. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Phelps E (2013) Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Van Apeldoorn B, de Graaff N and Overbeek H (eds) (2014) The State-Capital Nexus in the Global Crisis. London: Routledge. Weiss L (2014) America Inc.? Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.