This study uses multiple waves of the HILDA survey to examine how partnered women's relative working hours affect life satisfaction, accounting for unpaid domestic labour. Women who work more hours than their male partners report significantly lower life satisfaction, primarily due to non-conformity to prevailing gender role expectations in paid work. The decline is greatest among women who also shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid labour, with well-being losses stemming almost equally from norm non-conformity and time pressures. These findings highlight the enduring impact of gender norms and underscore the need for policies that address both labour market inequality and unequal domestic responsibilities.
Research Summary This paper examines the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities under coupled technical and demand uncertainty within science-based ventures (SBVs). Whereas opportunity creation theory emphasizes discursive processes, we build on practice theory and pragmatism to explore how SBV opportunities also emerge through entrepreneurs' evolving engagements with indeterminate material artifacts. Through a longitudinal multiple-case study, we identify two patterns of material engagement: epistemic engagement, oriented toward knowledge creation, and pragmatic engagement, oriented toward practical use. We show how opportunity creation unfolds through interweaving cycles of epistemic and pragmatic engagement. By introducing material engagements as constitutive, we specify creation theory for SBVs and highlight the central role of materiality in shaping belief formation, opportunity objectification, stakeholder engagement, and the variation-selection-retention process.Managerial Summary This paper explores how entrepreneurs create science-based ventures (SBVs) by engaging with evolving material artifacts, like sensors and prototypes. Based on a study of SBV initiatives supported by the European Commission's ATTRACT program, we identify a process in which entrepreneurs repeatedly alternate between epistemic engagement-focused on scientific understanding-and pragmatic engagement-focused on usability and implementation. This material engagement cycle plays a central role in venture development under coupled technical and demand uncertainty. We highlight tensions inherent in this process and the strategies through which they are accommodated, offering practical insights for entrepreneurs building ventures from frontier science and policymakers supporting science commercialization.
Electrochemical methods for the oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones have been extensively studied over the past few years as a safer and more sustainable alternative to stoichiometric oxidants. However, electrolysis often requires significant amounts of supporting electrolyte to provide sufficient conductivity to the organic solvent, which is detrimental to process green chemistry metrics. Herein, we report an electrochemical method for the selective oxidation of alcohols based on a biphasic mixture consisting of ethyl acetate and 0.1 M aqueous sulfuric acid. The electrochemical method was successfully transferred to a single-pass continuous-flow protocol by using an oscillatory flow electrochemical reactor. Combination of the oscillatory flow with static mixing elements provided excellent mixing of the biphasic mixture, even at the relatively low flow rates required for single-pass processing. A liquid-liquid separator after the reactor output enabled continuous recycling of the aqueous electrolyte, allowing for the processing of gram amounts of material with a small amount of electrolyte. The electrochemical process with continuous electrolyte recycling could be operated for 8 h without any decrease in the reaction performance, resulting in an improvement of the process mass intensity (PMI) from 51 in batch mode to 11 in flow mode.
PurposeThis study aims to examine how national higher education systems and institutional strategies foster high-quality education and promote societal impact. By analyzing country and university outcomes in the QS World University Ranking (QSWUR) and QS Sustainability Ranking (QSS), it explores how governance, research capacity, institutional collaboration and diversity are associated with university performance in both academic excellence and sustainability.Design/methodology/approachCross-sectional analysis of 436 universities in 48 countries using mixed-effects models and bootstrapped ordinary least squares regressions.FindingsCountries with regulatory governance perform better in both academic and sustainability rankings, though most variation occurs at the university level (93% in QSWUR; 73% in QSS). Research output is the strongest predictor. Industry collaboration contributes to academic scores, while open-access publishing negatively affects both rankings. Gender equity improves academic performance only when women's authorship exceeds 29%, indicating that greater representation is needed for positive effects.Research limitations/implicationsFindings are limited to the QSWUR and QSS. Further research is needed to assess whether results apply to other ranking systems.Practical implicationsThis study offers insights into improving university performance in global rankings, by prioritizing high-quality research, fostering industry collaboration, advancing gender equity and strengthening internal governance within supportive national regulatory environments.Social implicationsThe negative effect of open-access publishing suggests that current rankings may undervalue practices that promote public access to knowledge. This study also highlights structural barriers to gender equity, as most universities fall below the threshold where women's research contributions begin to positively affect performance.Originality/valueThis study advances existing research by analyzing how both country- and institutional-level factors are associated with university rankings in traditional academic and sustainability domains. This study offers practical guidance for improving performance while advancing sustainable development goals.
This paper introduces the notion of geostructures of inequality, examining how inequality indicators are conceptualized and utilized in regional and development studies. This conceptual contribution is based on the use of partially ordered set theory (posets). The paper also offers an empirical contribution based on the use of Hasse diagrams to build regional benchmark profiles of the human development index (HDI). This paper identifies, among its key findings, regions characterized by more vertically oriented geostructures of inequality and, through sensitivity analysis, establishes how such structures are associated with more fundamental development indicators, including life expectancy.
