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We theorize the critical role of angel investors' affective experiences and first impressions in the context of entrepreneurial finance. We develop a model and propositions to illustrate why angel investors make the decision to continue screening, thus explaining why certain investment proposals make it, while others do not.

Drawing on affective events theory and the literature on affective experiences, we theorize how the perceptions of pitches that trigger positive or/and negative physiological arousal, short-lived emotions, and associated thoughts are different, thus allowing us to build new theory of how these different experiences can influence the outcome of the evaluation process in the initial screening stage.

Our model suggests that the initial evaluation unfolds in five stages: perception of an entrepreneurial pitch, physiological arousal, emotions, first impression, and a decision to continue screening. When different manifestations of physiological arousal and subsequent emotions set the tone of first impressions, they can be either a positive, negative, or mixed experience. While positive and mixed first impression can lead to selection, negative first impression can lead to rejection.

We illustrate what is of value for angel investors when they look for new investments, and why certain entrepreneurial pitches lead to the decision to continue screening, while others do not. We propose that what angel investors feel is particularly important in situations where they are not yet making the ultimate decision to invest money but are involved in decisions about whether to continue to spend time to investigate the investment proposal.

Purpose – By analysing the experience of homelessness, this chapter aims to understand how individuals experience involuntary life changes in uncertain contexts and analyses the role of consumption, in terms of possessions and practices, along the process.

Methodology/approach – This study adopts a phenomenological approach, focusing on the homelessness experience. It involves an 18 month quasi-ethnography study in a charity that supports the homeless individuals, where interviews about their retrospective biographical accounts were performed. The data was analysed using existential phenomenological procedures.

Findings – Informants’ pathways to homelessness reveal a four-stage process of forced self-transformation (initial self, forced negotiation, transition, transformed self) which takes place across two stressful situational contexts: the triggering events for transformation (i.e. that led informants to lose their home) and the persisting state of uncertainty (i.e. further survival living in the streets).

Social implications – In the current postmodern times there is greater uncertainty surrounding individuals’ life changes. The consequences of the current economic crisis have threatened individuals to lose their homes. By having a better understanding of the way individuals experience this type of loss, the study brings new information about how to support them.

Originality/value of chapter – This study highlights contexts where Van Gennep's transformational routine may not be suitable in the current postmodern times, and provides an alternative transformational routine that takes into account the uncertainty that accompanies involuntary transformations.

Purpose – In this chapter we consider how two apparently disconnected practices – one very human (loving relationships), another the apparently alienating outcome of consumer technology (videogame play) – may turn out to be linked in very intimate and perhaps surprising ways. In making this connection we hope to comment on how consumer practices may be understood in the context of dynamic human relationships and cultural ideals.

Methodology – We conducted 36 phenomenological interviews with adult videogame players in order to elicit everyday experiences of videogame play in the context of the individual's lifeworld. This chapter deals with aspects of data that explore relationships with partners and children.

Findings – We illustrate that consumer practices, ideals, and even couples are not stable things, but are subject to routine reconfiguration throughout life. We suggest the possibility of a triadic theory of human relationships that consists of the people themselves, their consumer practices, and ideas about what love means.

Originality/value of paper – Previous questions about the value of videogame consumption have tended to ask about violence or the normalcy of how we might spend our time. In this chapter we have attempted to shift the focus to questions about human relationships and how they might be enacted with consumer technologies. By understanding the interactions between human actors, their consumer practices and their ideals we are able to comment on existing critiques and celebrations of the impact of consumer culture on human relationships.

This article calls for closer attention to the Middle East in the wider debate on the purported rise of new modes of armed conflict following the end of the Cold War, particularly in relation to the notion of ‘regional conflict formations’ (RCFs). In so doing, it presents and analyses three main paradoxes. First, though the contemporary Middle East had its own share of intrastate conflicts that generally grew into regional constellations, a look at the region's post-colonial history suggests that such trends are not as novel as has often been claimed. Second, the striking longevity of regionally entwined conflict in the Middle East calls into question the common and generalizing argument that it was the end of the Cold War, together with the alleged disengagement of the superpowers, that constituted the radical shifts – including the rise of RCFs – that signalled the demise of old forms of politics and conflict involving weak states. Third, Middle Eastern states, mostly authoritarian in outlook, have over recent decades become stronger despite prevailing conditions of regionalized conflict; indeed, as tentatively suggested in this article, to some extent because of those factors.

Purpose – We study weight loss communities to contribute to the understanding of how gifting, sharing, and the relationship between them allow individuals to pursue status transitions for a social identity.

Methodology – We employed archival netnography to capture emic experiences for a stigmatized circumstance in American society. We analyze data from four communities to obtain a broad range of consumer experiences within fee versus free communities.

Findings – We explain how individuals differentially employ sharing and gifting to create and sustain communities in support of status transitions within a social identity. Further, we describe roles of gifting, sharing, and prosumption, and their contributions to the transformative process of weight loss.

Research limitations/implications – The data comes from communities that may be viewed as stigmatized within the United States, one cultural milieu. Future research should examine these concepts across additional contexts and cultures.

Practical implications – Our analysis reveals the basis for virtual community development in support of status transitions. These results underscore the necessity to examine how consumers co-opt market resources to enact private, albeit life altering, goals.

Originality/value of paper – Most extant literature focuses either on gifting or sharing with little attention to how consumers employ community and membership to achieve personal goals. Our research articulates how individuals employ market resources to enact customized rituals and achieve individual goals within communities.

Purpose – The purpose of the current research is to enhance our understanding of how nouveaux pauvres consumers use consumption to cope with their life situations. We use the term nouveaux pauvres to represent middle-class consumers who experience a decrease in sociocultural status relative their previous situation.

Methodology – The data for this study were collected over a four-year period in Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. Various qualitative data collection and analysis methods were used, such as phenomenological and ethnographic interviews, as well as ethnographic observation.

Findings – We identify three different ways that nouveaux pauvres consumers experience their loss of status. Some experience feelings of shame and guilt, others are left in a vacuum and some grieve their lost identity position. We then propose three different strategies that nouveaux pauvres consumers might choose to cope with the loss of status. Some engage in inventing a new consumer role for themselves, others choose a more reluctant strategy of opting out of social circles and isolating oneself, and finally there are those that engage in straightforward reconstruction of their old identity. Furthermore, each of the three consumption strategies links to a specific kind of downward movement – from unfamiliar/familiar to familiar/unfamiliar social spaces – for each individual.

Originality/value of paper – The consumer experience of downward status transformations has been curiously neglected in consumer culture theory. Since contemporary consumer cultures are increasingly characterized by liquidity and movement, it is likely that the experience of descending in status will be more common in the future and therefore of utmost importance to understand more fully.

This manuscript provides an overview of the recent trends in business ownership and performance of firms owned by minorities and females in the United States. A review of the literature is provided from the perspective of the four major streams of research on minority and female entrepreneurs and their ventures: economic, business management, psychological and sociological. The review culminates with a synthesis of findings for both minorities and females. An integrating model is presented and results of a survey examining select components of the model are presented. Directions for future research are discussed.

This chapter invites leaders to tread the Noble Eightfold Path as a constructive and rewarding practice. It discusses two major instructional steps, each including a series of personal reflections and suggested exercises.

Step 1 explains the Four Noble Truths, which confronts us with the many ways we suffer through our challenges. Leader developers are encouraged to clarify the first Three Noble Truths through a process of contemplating, reflecting, meditating and sharing. Step 2 explains the fourth Noble Truth, also known as the Noble Eightfold Path, which offers a pathway to end our suffering. The Eightfold Path consists of eight contemplations we should practise at all times: (1) right view, (2) right intention, (3) right speech, (4) right action, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness and (8) right concentration. Participants may obtain best insight into step 2 by focussing on the issues they identified in step 1.

Using the Noble Eightfold Path in the development of leaders illustrates the importance of engaging in leadership practices that elevate wellbeing of the self and others, by practising a set of interrelated behaviours, which could be described as a process of connecting the heart with the mind. The strategy discussed in this chapter may appeal to leaders who aspire choosing the high road and aim to keep their conscience as clean as possible, while paving a constructive and sustainable global path towards acceptance, understanding, respect and collective wellbeing.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.