This chapter starts by explaining that, when a company becomes factually insolvent but it is not yet subject to a formal insolvency proceeding, the shareholders – or the directors acting on their behalf – may engage, even in good faith, in various forms of behavior that can divert or destroy value at the expense of the creditors. For this reason, most jurisdictions around the world respond with a variety of strategies, including the imposition of special directors’ duties in the zone of insolvency. This chapter identifies six regulatory models for the design of directors’ duties in the zone of insolvency. After examining the advantages and weaknesses of each regulatory model, this chapter emphasizes that the desirability of a particular approach depends on a variety of country-specific and firm-specific factors. It concludes by suggesting various policy recommendations for the design of directors’ duties in the zone of insolvency in emerging economies.

This chapter argues that insolvency law has also failed in many advanced economies. Therefore, insolvency law needs to be reinvented beyond emerging economies. It is argued that certain trends and policy discussions taking place around the world seem to be improving the attractiveness of insolvency systems in many countries. In fact, it is pointed out that these reforms are leading to a certain level of convergence in the design of insolvency laws around the world. This chapter concludes by arguing that many of the ideas and policy recommendations suggested for the design of insolvency law in emerging economies can also be useful for the improvement of insolvency laws in many advanced economies. Yet, due to the international divergences existing in market and institutional environments, it is important to make sure that countries do not adopt undesirable legal transplants. Otherwise, well-intentioned insolvency reforms may not achieve their expected outcomes and may even end up doing more harm than good.

This chapter argues that, even if emerging economies actively promote hybrid procedures and workouts and create a simplified insolvency framework for micro- and small enterprises (MSEs), ordinary insolvency proceedings will still play a significant role in the economy. On the one hand, they will serve as the primary mechanism for the reallocation of assets of nonviable medium and large enterprises (MLEs). On the other hand, formal reorganization procedures can still be relevant for viable MLEs unable to complete a workout or hybrid procedure due to several factors, including the lack of trust in the debtor’s management team or the need to use some provisions exclusively available in formal insolvency proceedings. Therefore, emerging economies should make sure to improve the efficiency of their ordinary insolvency proceedings. Nonetheless, they cannot adopt the type of complex procedure heavily supervised by courts existing in countries with strong institutional environments. Instead, they need to implement a procedure that should not require significant court involvement. This chapter explains how this goal can be achieved while making the procedure more attractive to debtors and creditors.

This chapter analyzes the importance of insolvency law for the promotion of economic growth as well as the goals and strategies of insolvency law. It is argued that, even though insolvency law seeks to solve similar economic problems across jurisdictions, the intensity of these problems and the desirability of a particular insolvency response depend on a variety of country-specific and firm-specific factors. Unfortunately, many emerging economies have adopted insolvency laws that usually replicate practices or procedures existing in countries with totally different market and institutional environments. As a result, insolvency law has failed to deliver the expected outcomes and ultimately serve as a catalyst for growth. This chapter concludes by providing an overview of the book and the underlying reasons justifying the need to reinvent insolvency law in emerging economies and beyond.

Freud famously and very apocryphally cautioned against overdetermination – an exclusive focus that blinds people to difference and subtlety – by quipping that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, rather than an embodiment of female objectification or Europe's nineteen thirties waltz into the abyss. In discussing New Horizons as a matter of exploration, this book has suggested that the virtual world can be appreciated from a range of perspectives, in part a matter of the reader's (or player’s) interests and values. In that spirit, this chapter offers some concluding remarks, centred on pleasures, creativity and futures. It represents a sense of why people might write and read about New Horizons, and of course venture into that virtual world.

Playscapes

Animal Crossing is a matter of virtual space, a commercial ‘scape’ for play by adults and minors with varying degrees of expertise and creativity alongside a range of motivations and outcomes that extend from the consolation of routine to co-creation of a stage worthy of commendation for both its aesthetic excellence and facilitation of sociable performance by multiple gamers. It is not a social media platform such as Facebook that in the guise of supporting a global community commodifies the attention of its users by displaying advertisements and mining data about user locations, affiliations, preferences and other attributes for sale to unidentified third parties such as Cambridge Analytica. It is also not a platform that exists solely to facilitate real-world commercial transactions, for example, the digital stock exchanges. There are transactions in New Horizons but they are about pleasure, not about entities such as hedge funds and dark pools.

It is a scape for scholarly attention, both in itself and as one world – somewhat brighter and friendlier – than the expanding galaxy of aggressive computer games that attract our attention and our money. It can be understood as a manifestation of human needs: our desire to be entertained, delighted, occupied, friended and creative. It can also be understood as a commercial exercise: returns from inputs within a global legal framework that fosters the flow of capital and a shared experience based on digital networks and artificial intelligence.

What does the concept of hybrid heroes mean to people and businesses, and how do the notions differ in various cultures? How can we apply the theory, and what are the pitfalls? As we all come from different backgrounds, we discussed our perspectives.

How should we define the concept of hybrid heroes?

What does the concept of the hybrid hero mean for your area of expertise?

Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was one of the most influential and creative mythographers. His most important achievement is no doubt the modeling of a single great story, which he calls the hero's journey. The basic motif is to leave one state of being and find a way to transform the social world into a richer condition. In his foundational work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell (2008) regarded the monomyth as universal across time and cultural spaces. Therefore, he was less interested in cultural differences and contemporary fashions and trends but more in the discovery of the similarities and the common ground of myths as well as real or fictional stories. Although Campbell analyzed the elementary themes of myths and stories worldwide for common ground, he did point out that their expression is different in various sociocultural environments. Though myths resonate with local needs, they are revered by all people on earth, “appearing everywhere in new combinations, while remaining, like the elements of a kaleidoscope, only a few and always the same” (Campbell 2007, 15).

Campbell was deeply influenced by Jung's (1969) conceptualization of the archetype, Zimmer's (1992) mythological Indian studies, and in particular Rank's (1952) psychological approach to myths. His insights also parallel related developments in ritual theory offered by van Gennep (1960) and Turner (1969). Campbell's (1991) ideas were disseminated to a larger, non-academic audience by an interview series with Bill Moyers, which was broadcast one year after his death and published as The Power of Myth. Campbell's influence on popular culture is indisputable, and in fact, it was in the movies that he gained his greatest fame (Vogler 2007). His intellectual influence is readily apparent in the first Star Wars film trilogy (Campbell 1991, 2004). However, his multilayered work has not received enough acknowledgment from the academic community (Rensma 2009). As inspired by Campbell, heroism science emerged over the last decade as an interdisciplinary research field, and he is regarded as its founder (Allison and Goethals 2017).

This chapter will zoom in on the villain-hero dynamic in fictional narratives and its impact on career identity and conceptualizations of moral leadership in business contexts. Illustrated by empirical research, I will describe how hybrid heroes and their journeys can influence career identity via different pathways. Second, I will explore the influence of the hybrid hero on the field of leadership—presenting a more dynamic perspective on leaders in the context of situational and temporal change. A link between heroic leadership and hybrid heroes will be theorized. Can we be the saint-like heroes we often initially aspire to become? A more complex and holistic perception of heroism may broaden our understanding of moral leadership. Moreover, the hybrid hero spectrum could offer people a window into the morally ambiguous parts within themselves, stimulating conscious, critical reflection.

In my chapter, I consciously use the term “hero” to refer to all genders. This is partly because I am not keen on the word “heroine” to specifically refer to female heroes, and also because the traditional male connotation feels outdated. Everyone can be a hero.

Villain-Heroes in Fictional Narratives and Literature

Jeff Lindsay's books featuring Dexter Morgan tell the story of a man with a troubled childhood who grows up to be a hero and a villain at the same time. Early on, his adoptive father realizes that Dexter has psychopathic traits that fit early onset conduct disorder (formerly labeled “psychopathy”) with an insuppressible urge to kill. His father teaches him to at least follow a strict moral code when he kills, and he becomes a dark vigilante. During the day, Dexter works as a blood spatter analyst for the police, yet at night he kills rapists and murderers who are slipping through the cracks of the legal system. This makes him both villain and saint—a morally ambiguous hybrid hero (Amper 2010; Brophy 2010; Van Tourhout 2019).

Eight Views of Animal Crossing

A world of talking animals and haute couture, trade and Japanese tea houses, lovingly tended gardens, seasonal weather and sociability, self-fashioning and construction. A world that offers insights about performance, global audiences, intellectual property, gift giving, contract law and play in virtual environments. A world that affirms creativity and non-violent sociability, in contrast to digital platforms that embody destruction, mayhem, toxic masculinity and a hyper-kinetic ‘kill or be killed’ ethos. A world that has enchanted millions of people across the globe – a validation of the world maker's capability – and has attracted diverse demographics on the basis of personal recommendations rather than extensive advertising. A world that gained scholarly attention as a consequence of uptake by consumers in many parts of the world as a source of comfort and delight during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book explores that world, the world of Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It offers a transdisciplinary view of a cultural and commercial phenomenon, including a study of law relating to the operation of Animal Crossing and the virtual world's users.

It is written by an Australian academic with an interest in the interaction of commerce, culture, consumption and law. That interaction is on a global and local scale: from billion-dollar sales to the varying experiences of individual players. The transdisciplinary approach means that it is not intended as a textbook for media and game studies scholars or for lawyers concerned with, for example, intellectual property as a focus of global trade disputes and the dynamics of consumer engagement with copyright. Instead, it resembles two of Japan's iconic cultural productions: Hokusai's 1830–1832 Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and Kurosawa's 1950 Rashomon.

Both Kurosawa and Hokusai offer multiple accounts – different, conflicting and engaging perspectives – of a single landscape or event. They have been emulated by non-Japanese artists, film-makers and authors. The persuasiveness of understanding through different views means that media and communication specialists have come to refer to the ‘Rashomon Effect’ as a shorthand for understanding complexity through a non-linear narrative and conflicting claims regarding truths.