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There is a growing requirement for multi‐cultural, transnationally competent managers in to‐day's global economy. However, the impact of culture, positive and negative, on management development programmes is often recognised, but not formally addressed. The cultural diversity of students undertaking management development programmes, such as an MBA, presents great opportunities to business school educators to facilitate the development of vital cross cultural management skills. Management development programmes traditionally address interpersonal skills development. However, based on our experience presented here, providing training to develop cross cultural skills specifically will be of growing importance to students, business schools and multinational companies, as they consider the effectiveness of management development programmes. This article sets out several of the key cross cultural issues which we have identified as relevant to management development programmes in an attempt to highlight the important impact of culture on students and teaching practice. These issues include teaching methods, tutor/student and peer group feedback, working in groups and cultural approaches to learning. We believe that such cultural issues can have a dra matic effect on students experience of management development programmes. We suggest a possible framework for initiating and developing cross cultural skills so that cultural richness can be taken from the classroom into the global boardroom.

This article develops an innovative multidisciplinary conceptual framework in the field of refugee entrepreneurship by combining the theory of mixed embeddedness with the concepts of intersectionality and agency. Focusing on the phenomenon of refugee entrepreneurship, this conceptual framework addresses the following questions: how is entrepreneurship informed by the various intersectional positions of refugees? And how do refugees exert their agency based on these intersecting identities?

By revising the mixed embeddedness approach and combining it with an intersectional approach, this study aims to develop a multidimensional conceptual framework.

This research illustrates how the intersectional positions of refugees impact their entrepreneurial motivations, resources and strategies. The authors' findings show that refugee entrepreneurship not only contributes to the economic independence of refugees in new societies but also creates opportunities for refugees to exert their agency.

This conceptual framework can be applied in empirical research and accordingly contributes to refugee entrepreneurship studies and intersectionality theory.

Over the course of their service, veterans are exposed to elevated levels of chronic stress that contribute to a greater prevalence of mental illness than observed in the general population. When mental illness is present, comorbidity is normative. Convergent evidence suggests that co-occurring substance use and mental illness is among the most prevalent forms of comorbidity within veteran samples. The purpose of this paper is to explore issues associated with dual diagnoses among veterans in the USA.

Research on dual diagnoses among veterans was reviewed and consolidated for presentation into three substantive content areas consisting of prevalence, associated conditions, and treatment of dual diagnoses.

Dually diagnosed veterans represent a group at particularly high risk for myriad adverse biopsychosocial and treatment outcomes, including poor health, suicidality, violence or aggressive behavior, arrest, homelessness, and unemployment. A comprehensive strategy has been implemented within the Veterans Health Administration to address dual diagnosis and related problems. Additional research is required to more readily identify co-occurring substance use and mental illness and to refine integrated intervention approaches to minimize burden while improving treatment outcomes for veterans and their families.

The current review includes a wide range of research spanning more than two decades and describing dual diagnosis among combat veterans of all modern eras. Areas in need of further research (e.g. dual diagnosis among female veterans; early detection of psychopathology and fully integrated care among returning veterans) are identified and discussed.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from developing economies has increased sharply since the beginning of the 2000s. While most investment flows correspond to firms from large economies, small developing economies have also witnessed the increase of outward investment flows from their domestic companies. The literature on outward FDI (OFDI) from developing economies has focused mainly on large emerging countries, such as China and India. In the case of small developing economies, for which there is scant empirical evidence, firms willing to invest abroad face a different business environment with several barriers such as a small domestic market to achieve economies of scale and a limited supply of specialised resources. In this setting, the purpose of this paper is to examine firm-level strategies and the home-country effects in a small developing economy.

A research case study is conducted through a representative sample of Costa-Rican firms investing abroad. Costa Rica makes a strong case since it stands out among small developing economies investing abroad in terms of both the number of operations and the amount of OFDI.

The main findings are: outward investment is not only for large and mature firms, as medium and small-sized firms are actively investing abroad; most firms pursue a market-seeking strategy; the benefits for the firm and the home country are stronger when companies follow a clear outward investment strategy; and there is a positive relationship between international trade and OFDI.

This paper provides novel empirical evidence to better understand an emerging trend in OFDI: in an increasingly integrated world economy, even SMEs from small developing economies are compelled to internationalise their operations in order to compete successfully.

Child criminal exploitation (CCE) emerges from the complex interplay between potential targets, motivated perpetrators and conducive environments. Drawing on contextual safeguarding and rational choice theory. The purpose of this paper is to explain the relational dynamics that lead to CCE in terms of complex systems.

This paper reviews the existing criminological and public health perspectives on CCE and compare against current assessment protocols used to identify child victims of exploitation.

Findings demonstrate a conceptual and empirical flaw in existing practice. This flaw can be understood in terms of a failure to include both environmental conditions and the perpetrator’s motivation when trying to prevent CCE.

To correct this, this paper develops an original systemic model called circles of analysis. This model builds on contextual safeguarding to overcome this identified flaw by also including perpetrator motivation to develop a Systemic Investigation, Protection and Prosecution Strategy.

It is worth considering as to whether our model can be scaled up to look at trafficking of children and adults for modern slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour in different contexts and jurisdictions. Alongside this, is there capacity to build perpetrator behaviours into the contextual safeguarding model?

The potential for further development and alignment with the principles of contextual safeguarding is tantalising, and it is hoped that the contribution to this important special edition will open up new avenues for collaboration with both academics and practitioners who are concerned with protecting children and combatting CCE.

This strategy is uniquely designed to improve how police and social workers identify and investigate CCE and safeguard potential victims and survivors.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges faced by West Midlands (UK) information communications technology (ICT)‐oriented small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in adopting and coping with the speed of fast‐changing technologies.

A total of 73 company managers (most of them are owners) were interviewed in various sub‐regions of West Midlands. Among the companies, 81 per cent of SMEs opted for face‐to‐face interview, while 19 per cent opted for a telephone interview.

Several factors that affect the speed of adopting new technology were identified, ranging from SME owner or manager level of education, lack of strategy and perceived benefits in adopting new technologies, to ICT investment, involvement in research, innovation and research and development.

The study focused on the ICT‐oriented businesses in general. ICT is a wide area and so there is a need to test each type of ICT and see how other factors like geographical location affect the business. Also, it would have been interesting to have large number of medium‐sized businesses involved in the survey.

The identified factors need to be addressed if sustainable ICT adoption within the ICT‐oriented SMEs in the region is to be achieved. The research provides a basis for the establishment of future projects that will embed these factors.

This is the first study that uses a large data sample collected through face‐to‐face interviews to present the challenges faced by the ICT‐oriented businesses in West Midlands in adopting new technologies. The study suggests means to achieve a successful and sustainable technology adoption for ICT‐oriented SMEs in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on two main aspects: the extent of shift in consumer demand from traditional to global products and the factors that influence this change in consumption behavior. The growing size of the Diaspora and corresponding increase in disposable income form one reason for examining shifts in buying behavior of rural consumers in Kerala. Most of the studies describe a shift in consumption styles, but have not yet explored the extent to which this shift is being influenced by Diaspora culture and, if so, why? Focusing on the extent of the shift in Kerala consumers’ choice from traditional to global products, this paper aims to fill the gaps in past reviews.

Six villages were randomly selected from three districts ranking top in foreign remittances. Applying a 50-50 combination of Diaspora and non-Diaspora consumers, 300 respondents were included in the survey.

Two hypotheses were formulated to test salient shifts in consumers’ choice and revealed a significant influence of the Diaspora community in the shift from traditional to global products. An equal number of non-Diaspora consumers preferred traditional products, but the purchase volume of Diaspora consumers and sales of global products by small rural shops reveal the influence of Diaspora affluence. The findings illustrate emerging changes in rural consumers’ choice.

Kerala rural markets and Keralites’ consumption choices are an apt example on which to base research. This paper focuses on two main aspects: the extent of the shift in consumer demand from traditional to global products and the factors that influence this change in consumption behavior. The findings would support global distributors in designing a business platform to penetrate rural markets.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the disciplinary divide between international finance and international business (IB) to realign academic research with business reality in which strategy and finance align to determine firms’ success or failures.

The authors discuss theoretical differences between the fields of international finance and IB strategy that caused the fields to develop in isolation with little fertilization across disciplines. The authors review scarce interdisciplinary contributions between the fields. Finally, the authors identify complementarities that suggest fruitful avenues for future research.

The authors find a persistent disconnect between finance and strategy/IB literature that can be explained by fundamentally different aims and assumptions about the markets. While finance theory seeks to explain typical effects under functioning markets, strategy and IB theories focus inherently on exceptional effects and market inefficiencies.

The fundamental theoretical differences that isolate finance and strategy/IB create avenues for interdisciplinary research that harness the complementarities of the two disciplines. These include strategic aspects of capital structure, internal capital market inefficiencies, corporate governance, capital market liability of foreignness and institutional aspects of financial management.

With this paper, the authors not only bring academic researchers in finance and strategy closer to corporate practice. The theoretical discussion also challenges the functional blind spots of practitioners and encourages more holistic decision-making.

Challenging market functioning and recognizing market inefficiencies using strategy and IB foundations connects financial economics with non-market topics such as environment, society and governance or impact investing.

The value and originality of the paper come from the qualitative, epistemological approach to study and analyse the divide between international finance and strategy/IB scholarship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between women entrepreneurs’ firm performance and two dimensions (enrichment and interference) of the business-family interface (BFI) in the moderating context of the level of economic development in two emerging countries – Morocco and Turkey. The enrichment perspective was operationalized as family instrumental (financial) and affective (moral) support, while interference was operationalized as gender-related personal problems.

The study drew upon the work-family interface (WFI) theory from the family embeddedness perspective in the context of institutional economics. In Morocco, a purposive sample of 116 women entrepreneurs completed a self-administered questionnaire using field collection, mail, and phone surveying methods. In Turkey, 147 women entrepreneurs completed the questionnaire online and through personal contacts in business organizations.

The findings indicated a positive relationship of family financial support with business performance of female entrepreneurs in Morocco, a less economically advanced country. However, family moral support is related to better firm performance in Turkey, a more advanced economy. Gender-related personal problems of women entrepreneurs appear to hamper their business performance in Turkey; while in Morocco, the performance of women entrepreneurs seems to improve in the face of such impediments.

The results provide initial evidence that female entrepreneurs benefit from the linkages of family-to-business enrichment in different ways, depending on the country’s level of economic development. In less economically developed countries, women entrepreneurs benefit more from instrumental rather than affective components of the enrichment dimension of the BFI. Conversely, in more economically advanced countries, female entrepreneurs benefit more from affective rather than the instrumental elements of this dimension. Likewise, the components of the interference dimension of the BFI affect female entrepreneurs differently depending on the economic development of the countries. Women in the less-developed country of Morocco are less impeded by their personal problems compared to their counterparts in Turkey, a more developed economy. Actually, Moroccan women entrepreneurs improved their business performance when facing obstacles, most likely due to their increased inner strength and resilience acquired when battling adversarial institutional conditions.

The present study makes three unique contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. First, the study links the two BFI dimensions (enrichment and interference) to firm performance with an exclusive focus on female business owners. Second, within the construct of enrichment, the study employs both family instrumental and emotional support. Third, the study shows that the country’s level of economic development moderates the relationships between the BFI dimensions and firm performance.