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There is a dearth of research about how startup companies use public relations in their tenuous and critical first few years of existence. While there does exist a small body of literature focused on how startups should use marketing, the public relations literature is limited (exceptions: ter Halle, Beekhoff, and Ruel, 2016; Schlierer, Hans-Jörg, et al., 2012).

The leaders of startups usually have very limited resources, and that includes very few personnel to whom they can delegate responsibilities. Unlike the C-suite leaders in a more established business, the startup leaders are almost solely responsible for crafting the messaging and communication strategy of the startup. Being tasked with not only the management and growth of the business as well as all things marketing, public relations and brand strategy, the leaders of startups, having limited time and resources, often focus on what they view as the most pressing tasks (usually related to product development or financing) (Halle, Beekhoff, and Ruel, 2016).

Given the lack of previous research on the subject and the unique insight that startup leaders can provide, the research focused on:

• RQ1. How do startup leaders conceptualize Public Relations?

• RQ2. What value do startup leaders place on Public Relations?

RQ1. How do startup leaders conceptualize Public Relations?

RQ2. What value do startup leaders place on Public Relations?

In the fall of 2017, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 leaders of startups in St Louis, Missouri. The answers were thematically analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The responses were analysed using the constant-comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) allowing researchers to identify recurring patterns in the interviews. After the initial coding was complete, axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) was conducted, making connections between the initial themes. The emergent themes from each question are discussed in the results section and the implications for the fields of PR and entrepreneurship will be covered in the discussion section. Some of the key findings are that many startup leaders do not understand what PR is, they don’t understand its benefits and they cannot differentiate PR from marketing.

Purpose: The prominence of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) as the practice of exploiting market opportunities is becoming increasingly important to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). It has been stated that SMEs lack resources such as finance, knowledge, experience, and information, compared with larger firms that integrate marketing with innovativeness, which is critical to enhancing entrepreneurship. Therefore, this chapter aims at establishing the theoretical foundation that links entrepreneurial orientation with marketing practices in Jordanian SMEs. More specifically, this chapter provides deep recognition of the current status of EM opportunities and challenges in Jordanian SMEs.

Design/methodology/approach: As SMEs are one of the important components in the private sector in Jordan and contribute to the creation of almost half of the GDP. Accordingly, this chapter adopts a critical review of the relevant literature, governmental reports, business studies, and published surveys in EM among Jordanian SMEs. Moreover, this chapter will present a thorough analysis of the published statistics and insights about EM orientations from different sectors of Jordanian SMEs. Based on the reviewed and analyzed secondary data, EM initiatives, opportunities, and challenges can be extracted and highlighted to achieve the purpose of this chapter.

Findings: The expected outcomes of the chapter are to build the theoretical foundation and promote a deep understanding that bridges the knowledge gap about the status of EM in Jordanian SMEs supported by literature and published report evidence. Another outcome of this chapter is highlighting the important entrepreneurial issues and identifying areas for further research in the Middle East generally and Jordan particularly.

Practical implications: The chapter provides relevant knowledge, literature-based evidence, and lessons learned to empower entrepreneurs in SMEs. This chapter also enhances the best practices of EM for entrepreneurs, marketers, and policymakers. Moreover, this chapter proposes how to overcome potential challenges and threats that may be encountered by practitioners, especially in different cultural contexts such as the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

Originality/value: The chapter proposed a conceptual foundation about EM in SMEs aimed at different cultural contexts like Jordan. Moreover, the chapter provides a critical review of published research that explains entrepreneurs aspirations for growth, expansion, and innovation, which is critical for the growth and sustainability of SMEs. Finally, the chapter concludes by providing policy implications and practical recommendations that can encourage policymakers in formulating and implementing the relevant interventions and strategic trends for enhancing entrepreneurship in Jordan.

As its market and society open up, China has transformed itself from a closed agrarian socialist economy to an urban state and an economic force. This has released accumulated tourism demand, led to the development of a diversified industry, and the spread of university and vocational courses in this field. However, the industry faces challenges to recruit and retain staff, with tourism education in higher education blamed for the shortfall in numbers and quality of candidates with suitable purpose, knowledge, and passion to serve. This chapter provides a background to the development of and problems facing tourism education in China, and suggests how to support student engagement and hence the future workforce.

Given the increasing use of social media and other digital technologies, critical theorists argue that social life has become increasingly structured by neoliberal market logics. Little research has empirically tested these claims.

This study is the first to examine whether the use of digital technologies in the avant-garde literary field is accompanied by neoliberal logics. Developing a cultural logics approach to neoliberalism, which allows for the identification of the independent logics of entrepreneurship, market-faith, profit-maximization, efficiency, and individualism, I draw on archival data and interviews with editors and writers to explore the relationship between digital technologies and neoliberalism.

Editors and writers legitimate some neoliberal logics and reject others. Entrepreneurship and efficiency are strongly legitimated. Profit-maximization is generally rejected. Market-faith and individualism are legitimated differently by editors and writers who occupy different positions within the field, drawing attention to the importance of field position, organizational affiliation, and career exhaustion in the use of digital technologies in the avant-garde literary world. Many of these findings are surprising given the historically non-economic orientation of the field.

Future research should explore neoliberal logics in other aspects of literary production and in other social domains.

This study provides a novel approach to the study of neoliberal logics as well as their relationship to digital technologies. Such an approach complements recent agendas in economic sociology and contributes to debates about the relationship between new technologies and capitalism.

Market actors are simultaneously constrained and enabled by the structures they operate within, which opens opportunities for strategic actors. We build on cultural entrepreneurship and market category research to advance an agency-based perspective that brings together research streams on positioning for optimal distinctiveness and shaping with category strategy. We distinguish legitimating narratives for an individual position from initiatives aimed at category construction, and propose that linking these is a basis for strategic advantage. Market transformation involves strategic actors crafting differentiating stories that make an individual position compelling, and then extending these narratives to construct an abstract schema that creatively combines cultural defaults. We further highlight that transformative agency requires an engaged audience, such that stakeholders are willing to consider a new narrative.

Rivers are very close to Indian culture and civilisation. Indians treat rivers as holy and connect them to their faith. Human-induced activities unintentionally pollute the water bodies. The present case revolves around an innovative social enterprise – PHOOL, which deals with the recycling of flowers offered by devotees at temples. Thus, preventing thousands of kilograms of floral waste from being dumped into rivers daily and polluting them. The idea was conceived to save the most revered river – the Ganges. These flowers are mostly loaded with pesticides and insecticides, which further merge with river water making it even more toxic, endangering marine lives. PHOOL collects flowers from various places of worship and recycles them into handcrafted incense sticks and biodegradable Styrofoam. This unique venture has also been patented for its process and technology of floral waste recycling. Their mission is to save and preserve the river Ganges and empower marginalised women by providing employment opportunities while at the same time giving a livelihood and a future to Indian child and the generations to come. The child could now afford schooling, in hopes of a better economic future in a healthier environment while maintaining all societal traditions. It is essentially a case of social entrepreneurship that aims to help readers understand the intricacies of starting and surviving a social enterprise and ensuring continual sustainability. To create the case, an interview was carried out with Ms Ekta Jain (Associate, Marketing and Communications, PHOOL), as well as a literature review and data were collected on the social enterprise and significant events that take place in the Indian social entrepreneurship ecosystem. PHOOL is a case on ensuring a balanced approach between the economy, environment and society. It aims at protecting and creating a balance between the environment, the economy and the society, generating a new inflow to the economy, providing a purpose in life for those most in need of it and a livelihood free from pollution and deprivation, and making the world a better place to live in. It is creating a balance between societal needs, the environment that requires protection, the economy and ensuring continuity.

The first Wisconsin Ph.D.s who came to MSU with an institutional bent were agricultural economists and included Henry Larzalere (Ph.D. 1938) whose major professor was Asher Hobson. Larzalere recalls the influence of Commons who retired in 1933. Upon graduation, Larzalere worked a short time for Wisconsin Governor Phillip Fox LaFollette who won passage of the nation’s first unemployment compensation act. Commons had earlier helped LaFollette’s father, Robert, to a number of institutional innovations.⁴ Larzalere continued the Commons’ tradition of contributing to the development of new institutions rather than being content to provide an efficiency apologia for existing private governance structures. He helped Michigan farmers form cooperatives. He taught land economics prior to Barlowe’s arrival in 1948, but primarily taught agricultural marketing. One of his Master’s degree students was Glenn Johnson (see below). Larzalere retired in 1977.

To identify what scholars consider to be important and interesting for future research in social entrepreneurship (SE), this chapter analyzes 248 SE papers and generated 327 topics for future research. From these 327 topics, a modified Delphi process generated 27 underlying themes. Subject matter experts were surveyed as to how interesting each research topic is and the extent to which the topics lend themselves to theoretical or empirical development; this assessment was also used to calculate aggregate scores for each theme. In this chapter, we present all research topics that scored at or above 2.5 on a 5-point scale for both questions. We discuss the implications of both the method and the results of the study.