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The purpose of this paper is to understand how social and commercial ventures interact with each other. It investigates how the entry, exit and prevalence of commercial ventures in a given region can influence the creation of social ventures.

Market failure theory has been used as a framework for analysing the interaction between social and commercial ventures. The results of the theoretical analysis were further empirically examined using a large-scale database covering all 290 municipalities in Sweden from 1990 to 2014 and applying the panel-corrected standard errors method.

The results of this study, in general, reveal a competition between social and commercial ventures. Its specific results, however, are related to influences that the entry, exit and prevalence of commercial ventures can have on the creation of social ventures. The study’s results reveal that while the entry and prevalence of commercial ventures in a region negatively influence the creation of social ventures, commercial ventures’ exits have a positive influence.

Within social entrepreneurship literature, this is the first study that empirically investigates the influence of commercial ventures’ entry and exit on social venture creation and the second study to investigate the influence of commercial ventures’ prevalence on social venture creation. It is also the first of such studies in the Swedish context. The study is also unique due to the large-scale database it uses.

In an ongoing process of globalization and technology improvements and due to an increase in worldwide actors in the economic sector, commercial diplomacy is an important tool for countries to support their business community during the internationalization process and afterwards. Nevertheless, commercial diplomacy literature is still in its infancy. Therefore, this chapter reviews existing research on the topic and develops a framework, which integrates the topics examined so far and provides the reader with a more complete picture of the topic at hand.

By means of a literature review, this chapter shows that the body of literature involving research of both disciplines, International Relations and International Management, is still rather limited. As a consequence, we determine a future research agenda and call for more empirical studies, especially in the field of (political) economy.

The purpose of this paper is to focus in customer-based store brand value by comparing three different retailing formats – supermarkets, hypermarkets and discounters – in order to assess how store brand value stems from and to understand the store format influence.

Respondents were randomly selected and data were collected using an on-line structured questionnaire, focussing on Spanish large retailers. Then, hypotheses were tested performing structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that perceived quality, price image along with store commercial image have significant positive influence on store brand value and purchase intent. Moreover, store brands’ performance in the marketplace depends on different variables across the analyzed retailing formats.

These variables may be managed by retailers in order to enhance their own brands’ value proposition. These research implications should be considered within the context of a geographical limitation, despite providing the basis for further research on the topic.

The study adds to the growing literature in retailing a cross-store format comparative analysis, remaining a deeper understanding on how store brands create value from the consumers’ standpoint, based on an empirical research in a European developed market.

With the rapid development of the economy in China, the wealth of residents has continued to increase, and most families have gradually been aware of the importance of commercial insurance. The family purchase of insurance in China was still not optimistic. Many scholars focus on wealth allocation, but the attention to the commercial insurance market was still less. Based on previous research studies, this study aims to investigate the impact of education and financial literacy on the commercial insurance purchase in China.

China Household Finance Survey data was used to investigate the purchase of commercial insurance in Mainland Chinese families. Factor analysis was used to construct financial literacy, and the education data were combined to analyze the commercial insurance purchase using the Probit model and the Tobit model. Finally, the contributions of education and financial literacy to commercial insurance purchases were analyzed.

Both education and financial literacy exerted a positive impact on the purchase of commercial insurance in China. Individual characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, risk attitude, purchase of social insurance and consultation with a financial advisor possessed significant effects; household factors like household size and assets, macro factors such as the density of financial institutions and the density of financial industry staff, and regional factors as local unemployment rate excreted influences on the commercial insurance purchase.

Based on the current economic development in China, this study investigated and expressed opinions on the public and insurance companies regarding commercial insurance purchases. It accentuated financial literacy and education as factors that facilitated commercial insurance development.

This paper aims to discuss how collaborative classification works in online music information retrieval systems and its impacts on the construction, fixation and orientation of the social uses of popular music on the internet.

Using a comparative method, the paper examines the logic behind music classification in Recommender Systems by studying the case of Last.fm, one of the most popular web sites of this type on the web. Data collected about users' ritual classifications are compared with the classification used by the music industry, represented by the AllMusic web site.

The paper identifies the differences between the criteria used for the collaborative classification of popular music, which is defined by users, and the traditional standards of commercial classification, used by the cultural industries, and discusses why commercial and non‐commercial classification methods vary.

Collaborative ritual classification reveals a shift in the demand for cultural information that may affect the way in which this demand is organized, as well as the classification criteria for works on the digital music market.

Collective creation of a music classification in recommender systems represents a new model of cultural mediation that might change the way of building new uses, tastes and patterns of musical consumption in online environments.

The paper highlights the way in which the classification process might influence the behavior of the users of music information retrieval systems, and vice versa.

This paper seeks to provide a systematic understanding of the controversy surrounding commerce in US schools.

The paper surveys the history, research and policies related to commerce in schooling (1890‐2005) within the USA. The literature is organized according to four emergent US perspectives – protectionist, celebrant, cultural critic, and educated consumer.

The review finds that dominant US assumptions of commercial media subscribe to a stimulus‐response model of learning, rather than an active model of young people as constructing their own experiences with commercial media. Much of the research and many of the policies about commercial media in schools reflect adult assumptions about how young people learn, rather than provide empirical research about how young people actually interact with commercial texts while in school. The paper questions an excessive emphasis on the texts and technologies of instruction and calls for more empirical research that is grounded in theories of social constructivism, symbolic interactionism, and media education.

The four dominant media perspectives generated through this review of literature are limited to the USA.

A useful review of literature and schema to inform the understanding of educators, policy makers, and researchers as to the dominant US perspectives about commercial media and the education of young people. The schema can be used as a springboard for research and inquiry into the perspectives and policies of commercial practices and education in other countries.

This paper contextualizes nearly a century of research on commercial media and the education of youth in the USA, and provides a historical and theoretical context for researching education, technology and commerce in the USA and other countries.

The purpose of this paper is to first provide an overview of children's spending power, media exposure, and identification with brand names in the usa along with an updated overview of the major findings in the consumer socialization literature, and to then provide an empirical explanation of how the consumer socialization process works with today's children.

Based on a survey administered to 663 children, a factor analysis was performed on items designed to measure young people's attitudes toward, and interaction with, the various consumer socialization agents and marketplace factors, including shopping and media usage behavior.

Five major consumer socialization influence factors emerged: irrational social influence, importance of television, familial influence, shopping importance, and brand importance; and were used as dependent variables in subsequent analyses looking at the effects of a number of independent variables. Results indicate that the relative impacts of the various consumer socialization influence factors do vary according to the child's gender, age, amount of spending money available, amount of television viewing, and how he/she spends time after school.

These results are important to practitioners because they show that the traditional consumer socialization models may apply differently to children with different demographics and lifestyle characteristics.

The global economic power shift towards the East has caused the governments of developed economies to support national businesses which are involved in the process of internationalizing and expanding across borders. Commercial diplomacy provides a means for governments to increase their international trade and to stimulate their national economies. Foreign posts play a crucial role in offering effective diplomatic support for international business. But what are the factors that can explain commercial diplomacy effectiveness at the foreign post level? This chapter presents the results of a survey that was conducted among commercial diplomats stationed at foreign posts. It appears that the amount of experience that commercial diplomats acquired at these foreign posts, combined with their established business network, form two of the most important factors which have a positive impact on the quality of commercial diplomacy. This extends further to include the importance of the client (business) preparedness in terms of knowledge and skills as well. Furthermore, the results indicate that the less favourable a cognitive institutional environment in a host country is, for instance in terms of information availability, the more relevance commercial diplomacy will have. The results of this study promote the understanding of how commercial diplomacy works and show how the debate on the future of commercial diplomacy can be taken a step further. This study should also be seen as a starting point for a holistic framework of commercial diplomacy effectiveness.

This paper aims to explore social enterprise accountability with respect to their dual social and financial objectives. Drawing on theories of accountability, stakeholders and institutional logics, this paper examines to whom and how social enterprises are accountable, focusing on the potential differences in accountability where social enterprises have a dominant versus a diversified commercial customer base.

Case studies on four work integrated social enterprises are analysed. Primary data include interviews with general managers of each social enterprise. Secondary data include social media, websites and internal and external reports.

Findings reveal accountability is largely influenced by dominant stakeholders (dominant commercial customers and parent organisations). Further, a connection between to whom and how social enterprises are accountable was noted, with formal accountability directed to the main stakeholders of the social enterprises, while less formal types of accountability were directed to less powerful stakeholders.

The integrated nature of the social enterprises facilitated complementarity rather than conflict among their commercial and social logics. While formal accountability was directed to those with power, expectations of these stakeholders ensured social and commercial logics were balanced, highlighting the importance of powerful stakeholders supporting both logics for social enterprises to effectively manage their hybridity. Conclusions consider the importance of social enterprises’ reporting practices.

A sample of 217 Saudi children was surveyed to determine the impact of television commercials on their purchase behaviour. Reports the results of this survey, broken down by gender and discusses their implications. Offers suggestions for future research.