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Purpose – This chapter provides one aspect of the organizational side of the biology and politics enterprise.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter provides a historical description of two organizations that help to structure the “business” of biology and politics: The International Political Science Association’s (IPSA) Research Committee #12 and the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS).

Findings – Research Committee #12 had its origins in the early 1970s, whereas APLS came about in the later 1970s. The discussion of these two organizations gives the reader a better sense of the twin enterprises. In the process of discussing APLS, the chapter also outlines the contributions of its professional journal, Politics and the Life Sciences.

Originality/value – Seldom has there been a detailed discussion of these two organizations in one place.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the enterprise lending and control process in closely held banks, with special reference to Sri Lanka. It explores how those processes are being influenced by the distinctive cultural and political processes at organizational and societal levels.

The study relies on three cases built upon the life experiences of several employees in a closely held bank, articulating multiple sources of evidence: interviews, observations, documents, archival records, open-ended questionnaires, internet conversations and exchange of e-mails. The data analysis adopts cultural political economy theory.

The study’s findings reveal how cultural and political factors, such as egoistic motives and politics, gifts/rewards and a manipulative culture, along with exploitative and discriminatory politics at organizational and societal levels, articulate into the enterprise lending and control process (“five Cs”) in closely held banks. “Rational” enterprise lending and control processes in this context merely become a “ceremonial” practice, serving the petty interest of powerful capitalist business owners. Whereas previous studies emphasize that the criteria (five Cs) discriminate against ordinary people, as distinct from the élite, the findings of this study implicate that over and above that the criteria are set aside when it suits in order to favor or accommodate the élite.

The paper provides a “qualitative inquiry” on how cultural politics at organizational and societal-level effect on enterprise lending and control process within closely held banks in less developed countries (LDCs). The previous studies on bank lending and control used either large-scale surveys or alternatively devoted their interest toward the role and impact of accounting in World Bank and IMF-led lending schemes and policies, particularly in LDCs.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) technologies can, despite their apparent flexibility, act as a rather obdurate tool for management’s political programmes. To understand this, a combined organisational politics and sociology of technology approach is adopted, viewing technology as a political programme for change. A total of 30 manufacturing case studies grouped around three ERP vendors and systems, show that using technology is not only an issue controlled by an enterprise’s actors. IT suppliers and management consultants and others form communities, which promote certain political programmes. These cases demonstrate that enterprise configurations of ERP do share commonalities, whereas two longitudinal case studies are used to discuss unique enterprise politics. While some features of the systems/political programmes were frozen, others were fluid, and could be configured in micro political processes. Thus hardness is contextual. The political role of technology is not just a case of flexibility or hardness, but a complicated pattern of negotiability, resources, social and geographical distance.

This study aims to explore the linkage between organization climate, politics and enterprise system implementation in context to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Organizational climate and politics play a significant role in determining the outcome of enterprise implementations. Adequate focus on such factors can help resource-starved MSMEs to ensure a positive outcome of their enterprise system implementation exercise.

Primary data used in this study were collected from the users in 62 MSMEs who have been part of the implementation process in their organization. Responses were collected by means of validated questionnaires and personal interviews given by end-users. The study presents the reduced factors after analyzing the responses through exploratory study followed by a confirmatory study.

The results highlight that in addition to factors like project execution and management competency, package and vendor competency, top management support and leadership factors, organizational politics and organizational climate factors play a significant role in ensuring success of an implementation process. Organization climate in the form of organization politics emerges as a major inhibitor in context to MSMEs. The analysis also showed a statistically significant relationship between the identified factors like technical, project management competency and vendor- and package-specific competency.

MSMEs are resource-constrained and hence cannot afford any failure in the implementation of processes running within the system. For enterprise system implementation, not only financial commitments are required but a successful execution of processes is also required, otherwise there are chances of failures, which can adversely affect the business continuity of many MSMEs. Thus, the finding of this study can provide an insight into the management of such organizations, so that they can plan properly to ensure a successful implementation.

Some published studies have reported the role of top management in the enterprise implementation process but have not been able to provide specific evidence of the factor “organization climate” in the implementation process. Also in context to a developing economy, few published studies are available exploring this linkage in context to MSMEs, as attempted by this study.

The purpose of this paper is to present and interpret the “Enterprise Politics Model (EPM)” developed by Professor Antonio Valero, Founder and first Dean of IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Spain.

Drawing from a careful reading of Valero’s writings in their original context and some developments of these by his followers, this paper systematically presents and discusses the key ideas of Valero’s model for management and corporate governance.

The main features of Valero’s philosophy of the firm and of senior management can be summarized in four points: the firm as a community of persons; the firm as an intermediate social institution serving the common good of society; the different nature of political and technical practice, which leads senior management to exercise practical reason – not only science or technique, and at the same time a kind of political art, or wisdom; and the role and responsibility of entrepreneurs and top management. Valero emphasizes the political nature of management and, from a practical perspective, suggests a global analysis based on four big areas of governance: business activity, managing structure, institutional configuration, and professional community. He makes his model applicable by developing “political procedures”.

Valero’s “EPM” is an original humanistic approach to management and corporate governance, with implications to business education. Valero’s contributions were based on his business and teaching experience and in a deep humanistic background, but adopted an intuitive outlook and need further conceptual development, actualization to contemporary business context and empirical research on the relationship between this model and performance.

Valero’s “EPM” is a practically oriented humanistic approach to management and corporate governance which can be a realistic alternative to conventional, and often criticized, approaches to management and corporate governance. In fact, it has already been successfully applied in several companies.

In a context of growing discontent toward capitalism and the role of business in society, the “EPM” – discussed in this paper – shows how business might be run and organized to be socially responsible, contributing to the common good and respecting individual rights and flourishing.

The paper discusses, systematizes and interprets an innovative way of understanding management and corporate governance.

As testified by its secular history, Catholic Social Teaching is closely bound to the various attempts that have been made at putting it into practice. Today, one of the most interesting ones is that of the enterprises' association Compagnia delle Opere. Particularly in Italy, the Compagnia wants to become an important point of reference for Small and Medium Enterprises, the heart of Italian production system, through a new socioeconomic concept, based on the Subsidiarity Principle and the growth of the nonprofit sector. In many ways, it aims to create an alternative to classical capitalism, also supported by Benedict's XVI recent social encyclical; nevertheless, numerous ambiguities persist.

There is no general theory of public enterprise, and the miscellany of separate theorizations on the subject has created a conceptual quagmire. Examines the rather confusing state of the research on public enterprise performance and behaviour. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it seems that in certain circumstances (as in the case of Singapore) public enterprise can be quite efficient, as well as an effective form of national competition.

This paper examines the case of Nashoba, a Tennessee-based social enterprise founded in 1824 by Scottish immigrant Frances Wright. The Nashoba venture intended to diminish the institution of slavery in the USA through entrepreneurial activity over its five years of operation.

This study methodology entailed mining primary source data from Wright’s letters; communications with her cofounders and contemporaries; and documentations of enterprise operations. The authors examined these data using social enterprise theory with a focus on personal identity and time-laden empirical aspects not captured by traditional methodologies.

The social enterprise concept of a single, self-sustaining model generating more than one denomination of value in a blended form has a deeper history than the literature acknowledges. As an entrepreneur, Wright made strategic decisions in a context of supply-side and demand-side threats to the venture. The social enterprise engaged injustice by going beyond market and state contexts to generate impact in the realms of institutions and non-excludable public goods.

This study generates two formal implications for the development of new research questions in social enterprise studies. The first implication addresses the relation between social entrepreneurs and their constituencies. The second implication pertains to the effects of macro-level education, awareness and politics on social enterprise performance and impact. The implications herald new insights in social enterprise, such as the limits of moral conviction and the importance of social disruption.

This paper broadens the current understanding of how social enterprises redress unjust and unethical institutions. It also contributes new insights into social enterprise launch and growth based on shared values within communities and coordinated strategic intentions across communities.

In this article an arrangement of concepts intended as a framework for analysis of a public enterprise system is portrayed. This conceptual structure delineates a broad array of ideas in the general context of the dichotomous policy approaches of government intervention versus laissez‐faire and, on an organisational basis, between the meanings of “public” and “enterprise”. The result is a taxonomy of elements of public enterprise, delineating particular aspects of a public enterprise system. Finally the author suggests a practical way to operationalise the model, by selecting one key expression from the set of dichotomous terms which was deemed to be a proxy for the general meaning conveyed in the conceptual structure. This one expression, centralisation/autonomy, lent itself well to the design of a questionnaire survey to “test” a given public enterprise system. The Singapore system was tested in a pilot exercise.

There is no general theory of public enterprise (PE), and the miscellany of separate theorizations on the subject has created a conceptual quagmire. Advances some hypotheses gleaned from the literature on the PE concerning confusion in the PE′s objective function, investment tendencies and cost of capital, “fairness” as international competitors, influence of the societal environment, and other major theoretical issues. Hypotheses are modified to accommodate the Singapore experience with PEs. Singapore represents a rare phenomenon – a case of a successful PE system.