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11 – 20 of over 5000The purpose of this paper is to develop gendered entrepreneurship theory through a focus on the roles of space and place in the daily lives and businesses of mothers who have…
Abstract
Purpose –
The purpose of this paper is to develop gendered entrepreneurship theory through a focus on the roles of space and place in the daily lives and businesses of mothers who have configured business around the daily routines of family work.
Design/methodology/approach –
Through a consideration of the accounts of 29 “mumpreneurs” and using a framework forwarded by Jarvis to understand the geographically embedded “infrastructure of everyday life”, this paper seeks to understand mumpreneurial decision making, choice and constraint.
Findings –
Spatial factors, in their myriad forms, run through and affect mothers’ different levels of capability and constraint, and thus the (gender-role and entrepreneurial) “choices” that individuals and families make. Placing families in the realities of specific, material locales helps to embed our understandings of these decision-making processes in real places.
Originality/value –
This discussion: advances new understanding about how space and place enable or constrain mumpreneurship (in particular) and entrepreneurship (more generally); and provides a lens through which to examine the structure/agency dualism in relation to gendered entrepreneurship.
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We must begin, of course, by understanding the strengths and limitations of our own approach. If we are to make progress, it is necessary to examine carefully the institutionalist…
Abstract
We must begin, of course, by understanding the strengths and limitations of our own approach. If we are to make progress, it is necessary to examine carefully the institutionalist position, to view it not just as a battering ram with which to inflict damage on currently prevailing orthodoxies, but to identify the strengths and weaknesses in its current incarnations. In so doing, we must be critical as well as constructive.
Recent developments in the competitive landscape of the management support software industry sub-sector — characterised by saturation, consolidation and defragmentation — have…
Abstract
Recent developments in the competitive landscape of the management support software industry sub-sector — characterised by saturation, consolidation and defragmentation — have also attracted attention to the phenomenon of cluster formation. Layers of SMEs forming satellite systems centred on large players in this industry fill in structural holes in the competitive fabric of the market which are left open — at least temporarily — by the large ‘incubator’ company, while at the same time also acting as a type of capacity buffer or technology spearhead for the larger player which does not need to invest its own capacities into certain niches. This paper discusses the significance of clustering in the management support software sector and aims to offer explanations predicated on intangible constructs which may retrofit traditional agglomeration economies approaches. The findings of a pilot study corroborate the implications of clustering in relation to knowledge spillover effects, labour mobility, network formation, the generation of social capital, reputation building and effects of the urban ambience as factors potentially moderating the competitive environment within clusters vis-à-vis outside. Moreover, effects of the density of cluster labour pools and spin-off are considered. Simultaneously, the unique efficacy of these effects by means of mitigation of the idiosyncratic growth constraints affecting SMEs in this industry context — such as high levels of customer dependence, lack of legitimacy and the importance of reputation as well as customer references — is proposed.
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Carlos Riojas and Angélica Basulto
This chapter's objective is to analyze, with a long-term perspective, the formation of an entrepreneurial culture in Mexico's Midwest, specifically in the state of Jalisco, in…
Abstract
This chapter's objective is to analyze, with a long-term perspective, the formation of an entrepreneurial culture in Mexico's Midwest, specifically in the state of Jalisco, in terms of the geographical environment, the culture in general, and the local economic institutions that, when viewed interconnectedly, will globally impact the practices, representations, and imaginaries of persons who at a given time have made the decision to undertake profitable economic activities – individual and collective entrepreneurs, in other words. To this end, we have divided the text into two sections. In the first, we conceptually review what we understand as entrepreneurial culture; in principle, we deconstruct its terms and then conjugate them from a social science perspective. We also emphasize the importance of studying the milieu as a scenario of action with different arenas, where a variety of agents have been involved. In the second part, without sidelining conceptual analysis, we present concrete empirical evidence of the role played by culture and local economic institutions that shape entrepreneurial culture in Midwestern Mexico over time, specifically in Jalisco. The text ends with some final considerations.
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Annie Tubadji, Masood Gheasi and Peter Nijkamp
An interest in social transmission as a source of welfare and income inequality in a society has re-emerged recently with new vigour in leading economic research (see Piketty, 2014…
Abstract
Purpose
An interest in social transmission as a source of welfare and income inequality in a society has re-emerged recently with new vigour in leading economic research (see Piketty, 2014). This paper presents a mixed Bourdieu-Mincer (B-M) type micro-economic model which provides a testable mechanism for culturally biased socio-economic inter-generational transmission. In particular, the operationalisation of this mixed B-M type model seeks to find evidence for individual and local cultural capital effects on the economic achievements, in addition to the human capital effect, for both migrants and locals in the Netherlands. The purpose of this paper is to examine two sources of wage differential in the local labour market, namely: individual cultural capital (approximated by immigrant background), which affects schooling results; and the local cultural capital (approximated with the cultural milieu), which directly biases the selection of employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilises the 2007-2009 data set for higher professional education (in Dutch termed HBO) graduates registered in the Maastricht database. The Mincer-type equation is augmented with a control variable for the local cultural milieu. The authors cope with this model empirically by means of 2SLS and 3SLS methods.
Findings
The authors find convincing evidence for the existence of both an individual cultural capital and a local cultural capital effect on schooling and wage differentials. This can be interpreted as a migrant background effect leading to a disadvantaged position on the labour market due to less frequently attending high-quality secondary schools.
Originality/value
More importantly, the authors find evidence for a classical Myrdalian effect of self-fulfilling prophecy, in which graduates with second-generation migrant background have a disadvantaged position due to access only to poorer quality of schooling.
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The existing theoretical and empirical research on cultural impact is rather inconsistent. The purpose of this paper is to deal with the reasons for this inconsistency by debating…
Abstract
Purpose
The existing theoretical and empirical research on cultural impact is rather inconsistent. The purpose of this paper is to deal with the reasons for this inconsistency by debating the adequate inclusion of the cultural factor in the growth model and the way to properly measure cultural capital (CC) for this purpose.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper starts with analyzing the limitations of growth theory (in particular Paul Romer ' s endogenous growth model) when CC is not taken into consideration. The amelioration is suggested through involvement of the Weberian mechanism of cultural impact. The difference between Weber ' s mechanism and using religion as a measurement proxy for cultural attitudes is enlightened. The improvement of Weber ' s measurement of CC by elevating Pierre Bourdieu ' s approach to CC from individual to aggregate regional level is suggested. Real data from five EU countries on NUTS II level is addressed for illustrating the above reasoning.
Findings
The evidence shows that the suggested by the paper measurement strategy for CC allows for treating culture indeed as a single factor both in theoretical and econometrical sense of the term factor, but without loss of information, which is otherwise inevitable if the author try to approximate culture with a single mono-dimensional variable such as religion.
Originality/value
Through discussion on Rome ' s endogenous growth model and Weber ' s cultural mechanisms of impact, the amelioration of growth theory by inclusion of CC is explained, operationalized and applied on a real data example.
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Annie Tubadji and Nataly Gnezdilova
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between redistribution, convergence and local cultural capital (as defined by culture-based development concept).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between redistribution, convergence and local cultural capital (as defined by culture-based development concept).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper infers the basic mechanism of the cultural dependence of convergence and inequality – through an empirical test for the case of the “German job miracle” during the current crisis. Two empirical questions are asked: first, is local income inequality associated with local cultural capital and second, is the negative convergence between East and West Germany during the crisis related to culturally sensitive employers’ preference for job preservation vs job loss. An OLS enquiry and two deeper estimation methods (a logit model and a 3SLS simultaneous equations model) are alternatively applied in order to triangulate the empirical results.
Findings
The findings support the existence of cultural effect on local income inequality and cultural path dependence of employers’ preferences for job preservation vs job loss in a condition of economic shock.
Originality/value
The paper provides both theoretical reasoning and empirical illustration of the significance of the cultural effect on human preferences which may or may not allow for redistribution and convergence between localities.
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Aycan Kara and Mark F. Peterson
Many international management scholars have expressed concern about whether societal culture changes so rapidly that research which attempts to represent it has little utility. We…
Abstract
Many international management scholars have expressed concern about whether societal culture changes so rapidly that research which attempts to represent it has little utility. We address this fundamental concern of international management by providing three theoretical lenses to examine the forces that produce and maintain a society's culture: functional theory, neo-institutional theory and complexity theory. We consider principles of progressive change and problems of social psychology from functional theory, the three pillars and conflicting institutional logics of neo-institutional theory and the ideas of stable equilibrium, oscillations and chaos of dynamic systems from complexity theory. Although these three theoretical lenses sometimes produce conflicting explanations of culture change, they often complement each other. Together, they provide a more realistic picture of the dynamics of the societal cultural milieu of organizations than do cultural representations that favour stability or those that completely discount the utility of any attempt at representing cultural continuity.
Annie Tubadji and Frank Pelzel
The purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth exploratory test of the innovative culture-based development (CBD) concept and to evaluate its potential for empirical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth exploratory test of the innovative culture-based development (CBD) concept and to evaluate its potential for empirical research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use the partial least squares path modelling (PLS-PM) method to look closely at the latently present factor culture and investigate its various possible relationships with the rest of the sub-components of socio-economic development. The authors estimate two alternative specifications of the CBD model, with regional data for Germany in 2006.
Findings
The main finding is that according to the PLS-PM quality criteria, the CBD model is a suitable approach for measuring the cultural impact on regional level. The expected sign of the cultural effect suggested by the CBD concept is also confirmed by the results.
Originality/value
The authors identify interesting potential bottlenecks in applying the CBD concept incorrectly and demonstrate the PLS-PM potential to control for them.
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