The Green Entrepreneur: Visionary, Maverick or Opportunist?

Given the importance of green entrepreneurs in the transition towards a truly sustainable society, this paper proposes frameworks for investigating the motives of entrepreneurs who set up green businesses. Different perceptions of 'green' are explored and although the paper focuses particularly on 'green-green' businesses, the scope for investigation encompasses all possible forms of green start-ups. The main approach taken in the paper is to review the literature on entrepreneurs generally, and approaches to classifying entrepreneurs with a view to gaining useful insights for the green context. An exploratory typology of green entrepreneurs is proposed, which has been adapted and developed from Thompson's four dimensions of entrepreneurship (1998). The terms 'ethical maverick', 'ad hoc environpreneur', 'visionary champion' and 'innovative opportunist' are coined to describe different motives or orientations of the green entrepreneur. Frameworks are proposed to investigate the motives of, and influences on, green entrepreneurs. The ultimate aim is to gain insights for policy makers and educators into ways to foster green entrepreneurship.entrepreneurship, sustainability, green, start-ups, motivation, typology

Mackey-Glass type delay differential equations near the boundary of absolute stability

For equations $x'(t) = -x(t) + \zeta f(x(t-h)), x \in \R, f'(0)= -1, \zeta > 0,$ with $C^3$-nonlinearity $f$ which has negative Schwarzian derivative and satisfies $xf(x) < 0$ for $x\not=0$, we prove convergence of all solutions to zero when both $\zeta -1 >0$ and $h(\zeta-1)^{1/8}$ are less than some constant (independent on $h,\zeta$). This result gives additional insight to the conjecture about the equivalence between local and global asymptotical stabilities in the Mackey-Glass type delay differential equations.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Application

Yorke and Wright 3/2-stability theorems from a unified point of view

We consider a family of scalar delay differential equations $x'(t)=f(t,x_t)$, with a nonlinearity $f$ satisfying a negative feedback condition combined with a boundedness condition. We present a global stability criterion for this family, which in particular unifies the celebrated 3/2-conditions given for the Yorke and the Wright type equations. We illustrate our results with some applications.Comment: 10 pages, accepted for publication in the Expanded Volume of DCDS, devoted to the fourth international conference on Dynamical Systems and Differential Equations, held at UNC at Wilmington, May 2002. Minor changes from the previous versio

Active waiting list management: potential usefulness in a community eating disorders service

We explored the usefulness of an initiative for managing a treatment waiting list in a community eating disorders service. We sent 108 patients awaiting treatment an opt-in letter and, if necessary, a reminder 3 weeks later. Those who opted in were compared with those who did not. Of those receiving the letter, 67.6% opted in and did not differ significantly from those who opted out on measures of eating disorder pathology and general functioning. However, they had waited less time. Opt-in letters may help to identify those who no longer want to access services, thereby allowing resources to be directed towards those who still want treatment