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The purpose of this study is to examine the role of leader and organisational credibility in influencing customers’ intention to support Islamic social enterprises.

The credibility of the leader and that of the social enterprise are exposed through advertising. Ads portraying the six largest Islamic social enterprises in Indonesia and their social entrepreneur leaders were shown to 221 existing customers via online and offline surveys.

The findings indicate that organisational credibility and organisational branding have much greater influence than leaders’ personal credibility on customers’ intention to support Islamic social enterprises.

The study has highlighted the greater role of organisational credibility and branding over advertising in attracting support for Islamic social entrepreneurship.

Islamic social enterprises need to develop a trusted brand and establish a more effective way to communicate with their stakeholders besides advertising, as the impact of ads on customer support intention is not significant.

The study contributes to the field of marketing and social entrepreneurship by providing empirical results on the Islamic social entrepreneurship phenomenon.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of extrinsic factors, namely, age, education, gender, marital status and income on customers’ intention to support Islamic social enterprises via donation. The paper also assesses the influence of religiosity on support intention (SI). The impact of customers’ perceptual reaction to the credibility of social enterprises’ advertising is also measured to assess its influence on SI.

A total of 214 completed questionnaires from online and offline surveys were analysed using several statistical analyses, including structural equation modelling, to assess the effects of the independent variables on SI.

The study found that customers’ socioeconomic status and religiosity have no significant influence on their intention to channel their donations via Islamic social enterprises. It is the social enterprises’ advertising which significantly influences their SI.

The study focuses on an Islamic research context of social entrepreneurship. Thus, the results cannot be generalised directly to the non-Islamic social entrepreneurship context.

Findings of the study suggest that organisations should develop effective communication strategies through advertising to highlight organisational credibility as it plays an important role in shaping customers’ attitudes and intentions.

The study investigates the effects of marketing on customers’ SI. It also considers credibility, advertising, and the concept of branding in a context of social entrepreneurship, a concept that is still largely unexplored in the literature.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

With the rapid increase in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in many firms and the development of social enterprises (SE), questions regarding the ways in which CSR affects consumers’ attitudes and behaviours have become crucial. This study aims to investigate how consumers’ CSR expectations and knowledge relate to their attitudes and purchase intentions regarding SE products.

This study investigates how consumer expectations of CSR and their own social responsibility affects purchase intention of SE products. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 397 individuals recruited through snowball sampling online. The research hypotheses are tested by structural equation modelling. Most of the hypotheses are supported by the data analysis.

The results show that consumers’ CSR expectations, subjective knowledge and consumer’s perceived social responsibility (CPSR) have positive effects on their attitudes and purchase intentions concerning SE products. The results contribute to the literature on marketing of SE products and demonstrate that consumer CSR expectation and their CPSR are important antecedents of intention to purchase SE products.

There is limited empirical study on the purchase intention of SE products. The findings provide the empirical evidence that individual-level antecedents, including consumer’s CSR expectations, perceived social responsibility and subjective knowledge, have a significant relationship to their intentions to SE products. This study also supports the view that the general rise in CSR expectations and CPSR creates a favourable context for the marketing of SE products.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Several studies have investigated the factors affecting innovation in medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at different levels. However, research into the characteristics of the entrepreneur (individual level) in social economy enterprises (SEE), and the relationship to innovation is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to build upon previous innovation literature to analyse SEE innovativeness.

This paper empirically analyses data from 193 face-to-face interviews with the founder/owner/managing director of small (zero to nine employees) SEE in Andalucía, Spain. A semi-structured questionnaire was produced using the literature review. To ensure the reliability of the data collection and the consistency of the results, several researchers reviewed the codification and analysis of the answers. Quantitative analyses were performed on the data, including descriptive statistical analysis and multivariate analysis (factorial for innovativeness construct validation, multiple regression, cluster, and discriminant). The software SPSS IBM PASSW Statistics 18 was used.

Considering the individual factors, it was determined that a proactive attitude towards innovation and a degree-level education were positively related to SEE innovativeness and that these were the most significant factors considered. The identification of attitude towards innovation was perhaps not surprising; one might expect a relationship between proactiveness and innovativeness. Furthermore, this result is consistent with the positive impact exerted by entrepreneurial characteristics, such as entrepreneurial confidence and adaptability, or SME entrepreneurs’ proactive personality and prospector strategy orientation towards their firms’ innovation.

This study has a number of limitations. First, the study is an exploratory study of innovativeness in SEE in a limited geographical area. Second, the fact that the interviews were conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire limited the opportunities for obtaining more detailed information regarding the factors affecting innovativeness in SEE. Third, other variables may have been used as control variables, such as firm age. Sector was used as control variable and it was found as not significant. Fourth, other statistical analyses, such as hierarchical linear modelling, would benefit the results, as different levels of analysis would be considered simultaneously. Fifth, other components of entrepreneurial orientation would render the results more complete.

The research findings suggest that SEE would benefit from degree-level people with proactive attitudes towards innovation. Clearly, attitude and education are important aspects of the individual's mindset. This study demonstrates that the mind sets of the owners of SEE, in terms of both education and attitude, positively impact innovativeness. At least in SEE, degree-level entrepreneurs with positive attitudes towards innovation run more innovative firms. The challenge for regional policy makers is to look beyond the formal education system to promote innovation skills programmes for social and economic impact.

This paper contributes to the entrepreneurship and innovation literature by identifying the importance of developing individual-level skills as well as formal education in order to foster innovation in SEEs.