Search results

Women entrepreneurship is designated as the new engines of economic growth in developing countries. Prior research shows how men and women differ in starting a business, with women normally facing more restrictions on entrepreneurial financing, entrepreneurial growth, and entrepreneurial performance. This has often been explained by gender role, yet we still lack a systematic understanding of how gender roles impact on women's entrepreneurial process in developing countries. In this chapter, we review literatures on female entrepreneurship in developing countries to show how gender role works in developing countries and especially its influence on the intention/entry/business participation and performance of female entrepreneurs.

Purpose – This chapter examines how sentiment analysis and web-crawling technology can be used to conduct large-scale data analyses of extremist content online.

Methods/approach – The authors describe a customized web-crawler that was developed for the purpose of collecting, classifying, and interpreting extremist content online and on a large scale, followed by an overview of a relatively novel machine learning tool, sentiment analysis, which has sparked the interest of some researchers in the field of terrorism and extremism studies. The authors conclude with a discussion of what they believe is the future applicability of sentiment analysis within the online political violence research domain.

Findings – In order to gain a broader understanding of online extremism, or to improve the means by which researchers and practitioners “search for a needle in a haystack,” the authors recommend that social scientists continue to collaborate with computer scientists, combining sentiment analysis software with other classification tools and research methods, as well as validate sentiment analysis programs and adapt sentiment analysis software to new and evolving radical online spaces.

Originality/value – This chapter provides researchers and practitioners who are faced with new challenges in detecting extremist content online with insights regarding the applicability of a specific set of machine learning techniques and research methods to conduct large-scale data analyses in the field of terrorism and extremism studies.

Several official institutions (NBER, OECD, CEPR, and others) provide business cycle chronologies with lags ranging from three months to several years. In this paper, we propose a Markov-switching dynamic factor model that allows for a more timely estimation of turning points. We apply one-step and two-step estimation approaches to French data and compare their performance. One-step maximum likelihood estimation is confined to relatively small data sets, whereas two-step approach that uses principal components can accommodate much bigger information sets. We find that both methods give qualitatively similar results and agree with the OECD dating of recessions on a sample of monthly data covering the period 1993–2014. The two-step method is more precise in determining the beginnings and ends of recessions as given by the OECD. Both methods indicate additional downturns in the French economy that were too short to enter the OECD chronology.

Purpose – This chapter aims to explore the strategies used by the Hong Kong government to respond to the adult worker model and the male-breadwinner model; and to explore the views of women on the desirability of these strategies. The male-breadwinner model posits that men work full-time outside the home and women take on domestic work. The adult worker model suggests that women and men should be equally expected to participate in formal employment.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter analyses the policy measures used by the Hong Kong government to support women in their participation in formal employment and the local work-based pension scheme (the Mandatory Provident Fund) as well as other policy measures that offer potential for enabling family care providers to accumulate resources for secure retirement. Additionally, it draws on semi-structured interviews with 30 Hong Kong young women to examine their views on the extent to which the government supports them to save pension incomes.

Findings – This study shows that the Hong Kong government uses a ‘weak action strategy’ to respond to the adult worker model and the male-breadwinner model, and that this strategy fails to meet women’s diverse preferences for their roles in the labour market and the family.

Originality/value – Based on a newly developed framework, this study examines the responses made by the government to both the male-breadwinner model and the adult worker model. It sheds new insights into possible ways of assisting women to achieve secure retirement .

This paper explores the relationship between size, book-to-market, beta, and expected stock returns in the U.S. Information Technology sector over the July 1990–June 2001 period. Two models, the multivariate model and the three-factor model, are employed to test these relationships. The risk-return tests confirm the relationship between size, book-to-market, beta and stock returns in IT stocks is different from that in other non-financial stocks. However, the sub-period results (the periods before and after the technology crash in April 2000) show that the nature of the relationship between stock returns, size, book-to-market, and market factors, or the magnitude of the size, book-to-market, and market premiums, is on average unchanged for both sub-periods. This result suggests the technology stock crash in April 2000 was not a correction of stock prices.

Films are arguably one of the most influential phenomenon of modern society. They are remarkable and effective means of conveying stories and influencing humans. Films are one of the most important factors that motivate people to travel to a destination. This chapter will explore the phenomenon which is widely known as film tourism and its role in tourist experience. To gain a better understanding of film tourism experiences, this chapter presents key concepts and analyzes existing studies. The analysis investigates important aspects of film tourism experience, including experience satisfaction and storytelling. It tries to highlight how films can influence tourist experiences beyond the travel itself, with a strong emphasis on the role of storytelling and film tourism experience satisfaction. To help readers achieve a clearer and more detailed understanding of the unique and dynamic nature of film tourism experiences, this chapter provides an overview of the tourist experience by conducting a comprehensive literature review on the subject. By doing this, this chapter proposes a new framework of film tourist experience satisfaction while describing the relationship between influential factors such as previous film experiences, motivation to visit a destination, destination expectations, on-site destination experience, and tourist involvement. Finally, conclusions are drawn presenting storytelling as a contemporary approach in the domain of film tourism experiences.

This chapter seeks to investigate the role of student emotional intelligence (EI) in countering in-class cyberloafing behaviour by students, by exploring the mediating role of boredom proneness through a quantitative approach. A sample of 163 postgraduate university students in India was selected. The authors assessed the mediation model using PROCESS macro. The authors found that students who are more aware of their emotions are better equipped to handle internal and external distractions and work towards a desired goal or outcome and therefore are less likely to experience boredom. Results from this study revealed a significant direct and indirect negative relationship between students’ EI and cyberloafing behaviour. This chapter contributes to the body of literature by highlighting the positive effects of EI as an important antidote to student cyberloafing behaviour. On the practical front, the findings of this study can be used by academicians who are charged with the responsibility of understanding and enhancing student learning by diminishing cyberloafing behaviour among them. The proposed framework could provide a foundation for countering cyberloafing behaviour in educational settings.

It is suggested that, to be successful, innovation teams should be small and consist of people with key expertise who want to participate and develop new solutions within their organisations. When it comes to conducting innovation work, I suggest shared leadership may be a factor influencing success. In this chapter, a theoretical framework is presented on the shared leadership of innovation teams. The key to establishing shared leadership in innovation teams is to plan for it as the team is created, not after the team has already been formed, as this may result in various problems in the intended innovation project. The proposed framework details key aspects to consider; some of which are related to external factors such as management and resources, and some to internal factors such as the team’s size, competencies, and their ability to develop norms and ways of working together. The proposed framework is applicable for managers, innovation leaders, and team members, and contributes to previous research on shared leadership and innovation leadership. Further research on the proposed framework is suggested.

This chapter examines how the breakthrough of Zhang Ziyi's depiction of a female kung fu master in The Grandmaster (2013) transforms the figure of the heroine in Chinese action films. Zhang is well known for her acting in action films conducted by renowned directors, such as Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar-wai. After winning 12 different Best Actress awards for her portrayal of Gong Ruomei in The Grandmaster, Zhang announced that she would no longer perform in any action films to show her highest respect for the superlative character Gong. Tracing Zhang's transformational portrait of a heroine in The Grandmaster alongside her other action roles, this analysis demonstrates how her performance projects the directors' distinctive gender viewpoints. I argue that Zhang's characterisation of Gong remodels heroine-hood in Chinese action films. Inheriting the typical plot of a daughter's use of martial arts for revenge for her father's death, Gong breaks from conventional Chinese action films that highlight romantic love during a woman's adventure and the decisive final battle scene. Beyond the propensity for sensory stimulation, Gong's characterisation enables Zhang to determine that women can really act in action films – demonstrating their inner power and ability to create multi-layered characters – not merely relying upon physical action. This chapter offers a relational perspective of how women transform the action film genre not merely as gender spectacles but as embodied figures that represent emerging female subjectivity.

Urbanisation, environmental sustainability and property markets are intertwined. Consequently, studies on any of these three topics need to take the other two topics into consideration. By critically reviewing 33 hedonic pricing studies in 16 key journals in the urban studies and environmental policies areas, we summarise quantitative evidence on the price of environmental externalities resulting from China's urbanisation process. We find that Chinese residents are willing to pay more for the access to green space and waterbody as well as the treatment of urban pollution. The cost and benefit of these amenities and disamenities have already been capitalised in house prices. The central and local government in China can leverage market force to encourage, support and facilitate sustainable urban development and environmental protection, instead of directly intervening in the property market by using public resources. Meanwhile, the estimated hedonic price of Urban Green, Urban Blue and Urban Grey helps policymakers to understand the cost and benefit of their urban development decisions. Our review of the papers on Urban Green, Urban Blue and Urban Grey suggests that there have been promising and encouraging development in studies on all three topics in the last decade. The quality and quantity of hedonic price research has been improving notably. However, it is also clear that there is virtually no empirical evidence from the second- or third-tier cities, particularly, regarding Urban Green and Urban Blue investigations. The small number of existing hedonic studies is far from sufficient to draw reliable conclusions about the costs of environmental externality for cities that have not been studied. What works in first-tier cities may not hold elsewhere in China due to the large geographical variation in natural endowment, economic development status and local customs. There are many pieces that are missing from this big picture. More hedonic price studies are needed.