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Drawing on social feminist theory, this paper aims to close gaps between knowledge about gender-related barriers to information, communication and technology (ICT) adoption and the provision of entrepreneurship education and training (EET) programs.

Empirical findings are drawn from 21 semi-structured interviews (22 informants) possessing differing training expertise regarding digital technology among women entrepreneurs. An open-coding technique was adopted where descriptive codes were first assigned to meaningful statements. Interpretive and pattern codes were then assigned to indicate common themes and patterns, which were reduced to higher-order categories to inform the research questions.

The findings specify and validate further gender influences in the digital economy. Digital skills are identified, and strategies to close gender barriers to ICT adoption with EET are described. The findings are discussed in reference to a large-scale, Canadian ICT adoption program.

Perceptual data may be idiosyncratic to the sample. The work did not control for type of technology. Gender influences may differ by type of technology.

Findings can be used to construct gender-inclusive ICT supports and inform ICT adoption policies. This includes program eligibility and evaluation criteria to measure the socio-economic impacts.

The study is among the first to examine the intersection between knowledge about gender-related barriers to ICT adoption and EET. The findings can be adopted to ICT support programs targeted at small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Because procurement policies are one of the means of redressing discrimination and economic exclusion, the US Government has targeted 23 per cent of its annual half-trillion dollar spend to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 5 per cent of its spend to women-owned businesses.

The research framework is informed by two theoretical paradigms, feminist empiricism and entrepreneurial feminism, and uses a secondary analysis of survey data of active federal contractors.

Empirical findings inform the extent to which certifications are associated with bid frequency and bid success. The results indicate that none of the various certifications increase either bid frequency or bid success. The findings are consistent with entrepreneurial feminism and call for federal accountability in contracting with women-owned supplier firms.

The findings are consistent with entrepreneurial feminism and call for federal accountability in contracting with women-owned supplier firms.

Recommendations include the need to review the impact of consolidated tenders on designated (as certified) SME vendors and to train procurement personnel about the economic contributions of women-owned businesses.

This research studies the efficacy of various certifications, with particular reference to that of women-owned, on the frequency with which SMEs bid on, and succeed in obtaining, US federal procurement contracts.

IT IS STRANGE how a sentence read in childhood can persist in the memory, by reason of some sentiment or overtone of glamour. One would expect the after weight of more solid literature to crush it from existence, but ‘bright is the ring of words’ to the child new to their power, and the reverberation may last a lifetime. My father confessed he could not read a simple tale of his early childhood without a lump in his throat at the remembered crisis, when the little boy, saved by his dog, cries, ‘Caesar, my dear Caesar, if it had not been for you I should this day have been eaten up by wolves!’ But I throw no stones, remembering the end of The Cuckoo Clock.

Purpose: At a conference inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, this chapter makes the case for his shadowy American contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe.

Methodology: Employing a comparative literary analysis, it contends that consumer culture theory (CCT) can learn more from Poe’s quothful raven than Andersen’s ugly duckling.

Findings: Principally that Poe’s Ps of Perversity, Pugnacity, and Poetry are particularly pertinent to an adolescent, self-harm-prone subdiscipline that’s struggling to find itself and make its way in the world.

Originality: Poe and Andersen’s names rarely appear in the same sentence. They do now.

A study was conducted shortly after the 2001 general election to ascertain whether those elected to the House of Commons were keeping pace with their constituents by embracing the use of cyber‐technology. This was achieved by researching what percentage of MPs from the “Big three” parties had an e‐mail address and/or Web site, the degree of interactivity on politicians’ Web sites and the features offered on the sites. Interviews were also carried out to gauge the opinions held by MPs on cyber‐democracy and interactivity. The findings showed that the Liberal Democrat party has embraced the potential of the digital technology to an extent that shames the party of government and the official opposition. Labour and the Tories have a long distance to travel to catch up with the Lib Dems. They run the risk of becoming an irrelevance in an online world.