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The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of polarisation on trust in government.

The authors use the ordered probit technique to model trust as a function of polarisation and various control variables. The authors apply the instrumental variables approach to address potential endogeneity in polarisation, using ethnic diversity as an instrument.

The results reveal that an increase in polarisation reduces trust in central government. However, trust in local government is non-responsive to this polarisation. The estimations controlled for government performance, and the authors found a positive association between government performance and trust in government, which, however, does not alter the relationship between polarisation and trust in government.

In ethnically polarised nations, policymakers should consider decentralisation measures. This can help sustain trust and development support, particularly in regions where citizens prioritise ethnicity over nationality.

The social implications of this research underscore the importance of promoting trust in government to foster social cohesion and stability, particularly in ethnically diverse societies.

The authors find that increased ethnic polarisation reduces trust in the central government, particularly among those prioritising their ethnicity over nationality. This adds a non-performance dimension to government trust literature, suggesting that policies focusing solely on performance may yield limited results. The research extends beyond central government trust to include local governments. Unlike central government, local government trust remains tied to performance attributes unaffected by polarisation. Hence, investing resources through local governments is a viable strategy for enhancing citizen support while mitigating polarisation’s adverse effects.

This article explores in a qualitative manner the motivations of women entrepreneurs who start and run ethnic food businesses in London.

Our approach is qualitative and deploys phenomenographical analysis of interview narratives around categories of motivation.

We find that women ethnic food entrepreneurs are driven by a combination of desire for self-actualisation, identity-maintenance and community considerations. We demonstrate that women ethnic food entrepreneurs often go against the logic of the market, and they do so not because they lack other options, but for reasons that have to do with their (self-)identification as women and professionals, their prerogatives as mothers and daughters, their ethnic heritage, their emplacement in urban and global communities and their need to contribute. Our findings enrich understanding of female-led ethnic food entrepreneurship not as a demanding, overall unproductive undertaking for women with no other options, but as a realm of inspiration, community engagement and female-led innovation.

Our main contributions are the qualitative interrogation of perceptions and experiences of identity and difference in urban entrepreneurship from the point of view of our interviewees; providing concrete empirical evidence for it through our sample and proposing an approach to thinking women-led ethnic food entrepreneurship as a vehicle for translating urban superdiversity into social interactions across barriers of difference. We speak to the field of women entrepreneurship studies but specifically to the understudied realm of women-led food entrepreneurship, and to the cross-disciplinary field of (im)migrant entrepreneurship.

This study links ethnic identity and global identity with perceptions of brand globalness (BG) and brand local iconness (BLI) regarding home country brands. Identity Theory considers consumer behavior as driven by multiple identities concurrently and interactively.

Samples from two populations, Mexicans living in Mexico and Mexican Americans in the United States, were exposed to eight randomly presented real-world Mexican brands, followed by existing measures for several constructs. Comparing such populations is uniquely appealing for studies of immigrants’ home country brands. Data is analyzed via linear regression.

Ethnic and global identities have an interactive effect on BG, BLI, and purchase intention even after controlling for ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism. With the interaction term between ethnic identity and global identity included in the model, (a) global identity exhibits more efficacy than ethnic identity in explaining purchase intention; and (b) relationships involving BLI grow stronger while those involving BG become weaker. The direction of the effect of global identity depends on whether BG or BLI serves as the mediator. Ethnic identity has a significant effect on purchase intention through BLI among Mexican Americans.

Simultaneous focus on two interacting identities is novel in the international branding space. This approach is useful for illuminating the effects of brand attributes including BG and BLI as well as studying branding effects where self-symbolizing is of interest.

Psychological well-being (PWB) is defined as one’s level of psychological happiness and health, encompassing life satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment. The literature on PWB has progressed rapidly in the past few decades. Meanwhile, camping has become a fast-growing outdoor recreation business in Taiwan. However, there is no extant research specifically focused on understanding the influences of travel distance on PWB in the context of eco-entrepreneurship such as sustainable camping management. This study aims to explore the PWB differences of campers who were from different living circles, travel distances, and regions in Taiwan. The study settings were the campgrounds in Wuling National Forest Recreation Area and Xitou Nature Education Area which were two renowned outdoor recreation and tourism destinations in Taiwan. There were totally 701 campers who responded to the on-site camper surveys. Campers’ residential zip codes were asked in the questionnaire and Google Maps was utilized to calculate campers’ travel distance, living circle, and residential region. To measure campers’ perceptions of PWB, the Ryff’s (1995) Scales of Psychological well-being theory was employed. The gravity model which provides an estimate of the volume of flows of goods, services, or people between two or more locations was used to explain the relationships between PWB and travel distance. The results indicated that campers who were members of a closer living circle and traveled shorter distance group to the campground, and campers who lived in the central region of Taiwan perceived higher levels of PWB. The management implications for eco-entrepreneurship on camping are provided.

This paper reports on the impact of China's Community of Shared Destiny Policy (CCSDP) on ethnicity, and the development and trade benefits in Africa, whilst proposing suggestions for improvements.

A mixed-research (desktop-based and online survey-based) approach was employed.

Trade and foreign direct investment alone can account for 11.8% of changes in the peaceful coexistence of China and some selected African countries, and cause changes to the mutual prosperity of China and African nations, to the tune of 6.3%. Therefore, the activation of mutual prosperity among these nations is not necessarily trade and foreign direct investment. The CCSDP is effective and has increased economic development for ethnic groups (50%), although with some negative concerns.

Inadequate/small sample size for the study.

Chinese investment in Africa has had a transformative impact, driving economic growth, improving infrastructure, and fostering regional integration. The share of trade between China and Africa in the continent's overall external trade has increased dramatically. Overall, the CCSDP should be kept in place, but with some modifications to improve its effectiveness and mitigate its negative effects. Finally, as China's engagement with Africa evolves, it is vital that partnerships are founded on mutual understanding, respect, and benefit, and that policies reflect the different needs and ambitions of African communities.

Previous studies have shown how the nature of businesses and the strategies pursued by their owners are affected by the personality traits of their owners. These personality traits can be formed in the early stages of life due to experiences and the surrounding context, where religion is a particularly important aspect of this context. This study aims to explore how religion affects entrepreneurial activities through the personality traits created.

This study uses interviews with 43 Muslim entrepreneurs in Scotland to examine the role played by religion. This ensures that the national institutional context is kept consistent but also allows an in-depth examination of relationships, which are likely to be interlinked and recursive.

The traits created influence the nature of the entrepreneurial activities undertaken with the potential to harm and support the entrepreneurial endeavours. It is the combination of personality traits that are formed which have the greatest effect. As such, it is found that Muslim entrepreneurs display less openness and creativity associated with new ideas, but this does not reflect risk aversion rather hard work in itself is valued, and patience combined with an external locus of control mean entrepreneurial behaviours are not altered to boost poorly performing business activities.

For Muslim entrepreneurs in Scotland, their traits explain why growth may not be a foremost consideration of these entrepreneurs rather they may value hard work and meeting the ideals of formal and informal institutions associated with religion. For those seeking to support minority groups through the promotion of entrepreneurship, either they must seek to overcome these ingrained traits or alter support to complement the different objectives held by Muslim entrepreneurs.

This study elucidated the connections among the influence of Singaporean hawkers, local gastronomy involvement, and the three dimensions of authenticity (objective, constructive, and existential). Furthermore, it investigates how personal nostalgia affects the cultural identity of hawkers.

A self-administered questionnaire was created to assess hawker influence, gastronomy involvement, authenticity, personal nostalgia, and hawker cultural identity. Survey data was gathered from 401 Singapore residents aged 18 and older.

Results of the structural equation modeling revealed various significant aspects of hawker influence, including physical and social environments, uniqueness and cultural significance, and hygiene and food safety. Hawker influence and local gastronomy contributed to objective authenticity, which, in turn, affected constructive and existential authenticity, ultimately shaping personal nostalgia and hawker cultural identity.

The study offers guidance for stakeholders in sustaining hawker culture, emphasizing authenticity’s role and the importance of nostalgia in identity formation. By aligning with the progressive nature of Singapore, these implications aim to ensure the continued thriving of this invaluable legacy for generations to come.

The study affirms relationships between hawker influence, local gastronomy involvement, and authenticity constructs. It emphasizes the hawker’s role and gastronomy involvement in influencing individuals’ perceived authenticity and accentuates the potential for authenticity in strengthening national branding.

Research on Traveller education in Ireland is limited. Internationally, studies on the education of the Traveller, Roma or Gypsy community tend to focus on educational participation and exclusion, discrimination, identity and belonging with little focus on the representation of Traveller student across different types of schools and educational settings. This chapter examines the distribution of Traveller students across mainstream and alternative education settings in Ireland, and how this distribution varies across different types of schools and centres. Using data from the Growing Up in Ireland principal survey and survey data from Irish alternative education providers (The National Youthreach Programme), it explores the concentration of Travellers in mainstream provision, in designated disadvantaged schools (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools [DEIS]) compared to non-DEIS schools, and alternative education in Ireland. Findings show a higher representation of Traveller students in schools designated disadvantaged compared to non-disadvantaged settings and greater numbers of Traveller students in large primary and, to a lesser extent, secondary schools. The findings for alternative education show that Traveller young people make up 15% of learners which is higher than their representation in the general population or the school system. There is marked regional variation with higher representation of Travellers in alternative education settings in the West of Ireland compared to other regions.

With increasing policy emphasis on inclusive education and the need to increase retention of students from Traveller backgrounds, it is perhaps an opportune time to explore the distribution of Traveller students across different school and alternative educational contexts so that educational supports can be targeted more effectively.

This study explores whether ethnic minorities exhibit varying levels of income inequality compared to the host population.

The research leverages a unique immigration event in Italy, specifically the settlement of multiple Albanian groups in southern Italy during the 16th century. This historical occurrence enables an investigation into the role of cultural traits in income inequality, as these groups are situated in the same geographical region and often share borders.

The results, which remain consistent after undergoing various robustness checks, indicate that Albanian villages, while still preserving their identity and tradition, tend to experience an approximately 2% lower level of income concentration compared to similar Italian municipalities.

Our findings aim to provide supporting evidence for future policy considerations regarding the long-term impact of immigration on income inequality.

This study aims to analyze the connection between institutional isomorphic pressures and both women serving on boards and women’s influence on boards within large American firms.

This study examines a longitudinal panel data set of all Standard and Poor’s (S&P) 500 organizations across a seven-year period from 2009 to 2015.

The analyses affirm that institutional isomorphic pressures impact the prevalence and influence of women on boards. Evidence suggests that coercive and normative pressures strongly impact the number of women serving as corporate directors, whereas the power of women directors is linked only to mimetic pressures.

The research suggests that to increase the number of women serving as directors, the industry must first increase the overall number of women serving in senior management roles. Once women directors gain a critical mass of three women on the board, the association with the total number of women directors, the number of boards upon which they concurrently serve, the power of women directors being selected to board leadership and the influence of women directors increase.

This paper extends existing board diversity work by examining institutional pressures at the international, national and firm levels. By examining the relationship between coercive, normative and mimetic pressures on both the prevalence of women on boards and the influence of women on boards, the authors illuminate certain mechanisms that shape the likelihood of board appointment and placement in more powerful positions.