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1 – 10 of 798The purpose of this paper is to describe developments and results of the Global Libraries Initiative project in Latvia, known as the “Father's Third Son” project, which started in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe developments and results of the Global Libraries Initiative project in Latvia, known as the “Father's Third Son” project, which started in 2006.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an analysis of the results of the assessment of the impact of the “Father's Third Son” project so far among the public libraries of Latvia.
Findings
Public libraries in Latvia play an important role in reducing the digital divide. No one is left behind and the public library offers opportunities for everyone, with a library always in reach within 20 minutes. Survey data shows a high potential for public libraries to reduce social exclusion, especially in rural areas. The project team believes that after the full implementation of activities, every public library in Latvia will have competence, confidence, capacity and growing number of strong library supporters to advocate for sustainability.
Originality/value
The paper provides a wide range of improvement examples that can be easily transferred to other countries.
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This paper aims to present a methodology, early findings, possible applications of results and lessons learned from the research study “Public libraries: value, trust and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a methodology, early findings, possible applications of results and lessons learned from the research study “Public libraries: value, trust and satisfaction”, which has been conducted within the public library development project ‘Father's Third Son’ in Latvia.
Design/methodology/approach
A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used (although the findings reported here are largely drawn from the quantitative study) drawing on various theories of information behaviour and use‐oriented information service evaluation.
Findings
The study gives a good picture of user information needs in Latvia, the sources they use to fulfil them and the role of public libraries within this picture, especially in relation to cultural and recreational interests and public support for public libraries in terms of potential funding. The public library influence on people's leisure hours and their support for education are highlighted. The advocacy implications of this work are reviewed.
Research limitations/implications
Although this report is confined to the early stages of the study, the work was conducted on a substantial scale.
Originality/value
The work reported here provides new evidence of library use and appreciation in Latvia. The later results of this study, combined with evidence gathered by other participants in the Global Libraries initiative, will provide a commanding view of the significance of public libraries across a range of countries.
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Reinhard Schumacher and Scott Scheall
During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl Menger…
Abstract
During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl Menger. The younger Menger never finished the work. While working in the Menger collections at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, we discovered draft chapters of the biography, a valuable source of information given that relatively little is known about Carl Menger’s life nearly a hundred years after his death. The unfinished biography covers Carl Menger’s family background and his life through early 1889. In this chapter, the authors discuss the biography and the most valuable new insights it provides into Carl Menger’s life, including Carl Menger’s family, his childhood, his student years, his time working as a journalist and newspaper editor, his early scientific career, and his relationship with Crown Prince Rudolf.
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Joseph Deutsch, Gil S. Epstein and Tikva Lecker
This paper presents a three-generation migrant analysis, comparing the relative economic performance of various migrant generations to the native population. We develop a…
Abstract
This paper presents a three-generation migrant analysis, comparing the relative economic performance of various migrant generations to the native population. We develop a theoretical model to explain the relationship between the different earnings of the migrants over three generations and relate the model to the results in the literature. The empirical analysis explores the suitability of the theoretical implications based on data from the 1995 Israeli Census. We show that assimilation of the third generation into the local population is far from clear.
Gonzalo Gómez Betancourt, Isabel C. Botero, Jose Bernardo Betancourt Ramirez and Maria Piedad López Vergara
Although researchers have highlighted the importance of relational and family factors for the sustainability of a family firm, there is not much empirical research exploring how…
Abstract
Purpose
Although researchers have highlighted the importance of relational and family factors for the sustainability of a family firm, there is not much empirical research exploring how emotions and the management of emotions play a role in the interpersonal dynamics of family business owners. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the way family members manage their emotions affects the interpersonal dynamics in the family, business, and ownership subsystems of a family firm.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents an in-depth case study from a family firm in Colombia-South America.
Findings
The results indicate that the capability that family members have to manage their emotions influences the interpersonal dynamics that take place in the family firm at the individual and group level. In this case, the paper found that although emotional intelligence (EI) affected interpersonal relationships in a firm, this effect was based on the individual's willingness to use their EI capabilities, previous history between people, and the goals individuals have within each subsystem in a family firm. The paper also found that interpersonal dynamics, in turn, influence how family members work together.
Research limitations/implications
Because this study uses an in-depth case study, the intention of the paper is to provide an initial picture of how EI can play a role in the interpersonal interactions between family business owners. The authors hope that this study can be used as a building block to enhance the understanding of the role of EI in family firms.
Practical implications
EI represents an individual's capability to perceive, understand, manage, and regulate self and other's emotions. For family firms, this means that family business owners can use this capability to determine how to enact their roles in the family firm and how to interact with other to ensure harmony in their relationships.
Originality/value
This paper builds on previous work on emotions in family firms to explore the role of EI in family firms, and provides an empirical exploration of the role of management of emotions in family firms.
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Howard E. Aldrich and Phillip H. Kim
Using a life course perspective, we develop a theoretical model of how parents can influence their children's propensity to enter self-employment. We draw on the sociological…
Abstract
Using a life course perspective, we develop a theoretical model of how parents can influence their children's propensity to enter self-employment. We draw on the sociological, economic, psychological, and behavioral genetics literatures to develop a model in which parental influence occurs in different ways, depending on someone's stage in their life course. We review and summarize existing findings for parental influences on entrepreneurial entry using a three-part life course framework: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We also analyze new data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics on the extent to which children were involved in their parents’ businesses. From our review, we propose strong effects from genetic inheritances and parenting practice (during childhood); moderate effects from reinforcement of work values and vocational interests (during adolescence); and little influence from financial support but stronger effects from other tangible means of support (during adulthood).
Mentoring is an intense relationship between a senior experienced individual who is the mentor and a less experienced individual who is the protégé. Mentors provide counselling…
Abstract
Mentoring is an intense relationship between a senior experienced individual who is the mentor and a less experienced individual who is the protégé. Mentors provide counselling, guidance, advice, support and feedback for the protégé's personal and professional development. With the well-being of the family as the central issue in family firms, mentoring is often seen to be akin to a parent–child relationship. In Bangladesh, paternalistic and informal parental mentoring is the norm for grooming children both morally and professionally. Using six caselets of large family firms of Bangladesh, this chapter provides insight into the paternalistic style of mentoring, and also the generational differences in mentoring between the firm's owner and his successor.
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Christina Constantinidis, Teresa Nelson and Issaka Oumarou Harou
This chapter expands our understanding of daughters’ inclusion in family business succession, analyzing why and how it can and does take place. Our work reveals that things are…
Abstract
This chapter expands our understanding of daughters’ inclusion in family business succession, analyzing why and how it can and does take place. Our work reveals that things are much more complex and diverse than research tells us in terms of daughters, their families, and their businesses.
Daughters are not only “in” or “out” of the family business. They can be included in a variety of ways, at different moments, following different paths, in a diversity of contexts. Based on 10 years of qualitative research data on family business succession, we explain and discuss how gender dynamics in the family and the business systems affect succession practices and outcomes, beyond the individual level analysis.
We used six selected and contrasted cases to illustrate the influence that gender, birth order, family inherited culture, business hierarchies and history, interpersonal relationships (parents-heirs-other stakeholders), as well as ownership transfers, governance rules and management procedures have on intergenerational succession, and particularly in daughters’ family business inclusion. From our findings, readers can draw practical recommendations for family business owners, managers and successors.
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This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu pastoralist community in Northern Kenya. The research challenges the strict dichotomy between private and collective rights often found in property rights literature, which does not match empirical findings of overlapping and contested rights.
Design/methodology/approach
Part of a long-term ethnographic project investigating the process of land privatization and its outcomes, this paper draws on in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted by the author in Samburu County in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Interviews focused on how land is being used post-privatization as well as emerging social norms regulating its use.
Findings
Privatization privileges male household heads with powers including rental, sale, and bequeathal of land. However, informal rights to land extend to women and other household members. Exercise of legal rights is frequently limited due to knowledge and resource gaps. New rules regulating land use have emerged, some represent sharp divergences from past practice while others support shared access to land. These changes challenge Samburu cultural notions of individuality, reciprocity, and shared responsibility.
Practical implications
This research illuminates complex changes following legal shifts in property rights and demonstrates the interactions between formal laws and informal social norms and cultural beliefs about land. The result is that privatization does not have easily predictable outcomes as some theories of property would suggest.
Originality/value
Empirical investigation of the effects of legal changes enables fuller understanding of the implications of policy changes that many governments are pursuing privatization with limited understanding of the likely effects.
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Kristin Turney, Britni L. Adams, Emma Conner, Rebecca Goodsell and Janet Muñiz
The rapid growth of mass incarceration in the United States means that a historically unprecedented number of children are exposed to paternal incarceration. Despite a growing…
Abstract
The rapid growth of mass incarceration in the United States means that a historically unprecedented number of children are exposed to paternal incarceration. Despite a growing literature investigating the intergenerational consequences of incarceration, little research collects information from the children who experience paternal incarceration. In this chapter, we describe an ongoing data collection effort, the Jail & Family Life Study, a longitudinal in-depth interview study designed to understand the consequences of paternal incarceration for families and children. Part of this study involves conducting in-depth interviews with 8- to 17-year-old children of incarcerated fathers during and after the father’s incarceration. First, we document the challenges and strategies to gaining access to children of incarcerated fathers, paying particular attention to the role of children’s mothers and caregivers in facilitating this access. Second, we document the challenges and strategies to developing rapport with this group of vulnerable children. Third, we describe the opportunities that children can provide for researchers. Taken together, these findings suggest that it is both challenging and imperative to incorporate children into research on the collateral consequences of incarceration.
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