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1 – 10 of over 2000The purpose of this paper is to explain how student‐written diaries and journals serve as a specifically feminist pedagogy for teaching feminist economics, thereby challenging the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain how student‐written diaries and journals serve as a specifically feminist pedagogy for teaching feminist economics, thereby challenging the lecture‐based techniques used to teach and uphold the mainstream, market‐fundamentalist paradigm.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach involves the author's observations and experiences using student‐written diaries to teach a feminist economics course.
Findings
Student‐written diaries have the potential to dislodge both the market‐fundamentalist economics paradigm and the lecture‐based teaching method that dominate the undergraduate economics curriculum. Student‐written diaries are especially useful in teaching feminist economics courses which strive to elevate women's economic status and/or to reduce the androcentric bias in economics. The paper describes how student‐written diaries are used to achieve both of these goals and to create a more inclusive classroom culture, while simultaneously challenging market fundamentalism.
Originality/value
The paper offers a new pedagogical technique to be used for teaching feminist economics courses and for countering lecture‐based courses that focus on market fundamentalism.
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Investigates two issues raised by D.C. Moore: the apparent failureof critical accounting theory to launch and sustain a critical programmeand relative lack of critical accounting…
Abstract
Investigates two issues raised by D.C. Moore: the apparent failure of critical accounting theory to launch and sustain a critical programme and relative lack of critical accounting activity in the USA. These concerns are related in that radicalization and change of one′s own academic discipline would seem to be one of the highest‐priority political activities to be undertaken by critical theorists. Offers feminist economics as an example of a critical social theory that meets Moore′s four criteria for successful criteria endeavour and is applicable to accounting research. Compares the feminist economic critique with critiques of accounting by Cooper, and by Shearer and Arrington, based on the French feminist philosophers. The two approaches differ in goals and politics. Suggests that the experience of feminist economics in reforming economics also provides insights into the slow growth of critical accounting theory in the USA.
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Marta B. Calás and Linda Smircich
This paper aims to bring to the fore the importance of feminist epistemologies in the history of the organization of management studies since the 1980s by following various…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to bring to the fore the importance of feminist epistemologies in the history of the organization of management studies since the 1980s by following various intellectual moves in the development of feminist theorizing as they cross over to organization studies, including their analytical possibilities for reclaiming historically the voices of major women scholars, especially in doctoral seminars. The paper narrates these epistemological activities by mobilizing and reconsidering from the past to the present, the notions of “unmuting,” “mutating” and “mutiny.” It ends in a reflection addressing the state of business schools at present and why the field of organization and management studies needs “mutiny” now.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a narrative approach in which the voices of its authors appear to be central as they consider and reconsider over time their understanding of “unmuting,” “mutation” and “mutiny” as notions with analytical potential. This approach is influenced by Foucault’s “history of the present” but with contingencies brought about by feminist interpretations. The application of these notions is demonstrated by reclaiming and clarifying the epistemological underpinning in the works of three major women scholars as included in a doctoral seminar: Mary Parker Follett, Edith Penrose and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These notions are further redeployed for their potential in institutional applications.
Findings
At present, the findings are discursive – if they can be called so, but the main motivation behind this writing is to go beyond discourse in the written sense, and to mobilize other activities, still in the realm of epistemological and scholarly work. These activities would legitimize actual interventions for changing business schools from their current situation as neoliberal entities, which mute understanding of major problems in the world, as well as the voices of most humans and non-humans paying for the foibles of neoliberalism.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates the necessity of developing approaches for interventions in knowledge producing institutions increasingly limited by neoliberal premises in what can be said and done as legitimate knowledge. In doing this, the paper articulates the importance of keeping history alive to avoid the increasing “forgetfulness” neoliberalization brings about. The paper, in its present form, represents an active act of “remembering”.
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Mechanisms that measure the social impact of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) activate a dialogue between the language and principles of economics and the lived-reality…
Abstract
Purpose
Mechanisms that measure the social impact of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) activate a dialogue between the language and principles of economics and the lived-reality of marginalised groups. This paper aims to critically strengthen social impact measurement as a process by ascertaining epistemic gaps in the methodology of a dominant measure, based on an exploratory case study of a social enterprise supporting immigrant women in Sweden.
Design/methodology/approach
The author undertook participant observation and informal interviews with managers at Yalla Trappan – a women’s cooperative social enterprise in Malmö, Sweden – for the integration of long-term unemployed, immigrant women into the labour market. Through an interpretivist framework, themes of “social sustainability” and “feminist economics” formed a theoretical inquiry for data collection within the organisation and resulting in a critical discussion of the social return on investment (SROI) method.
Findings
The case study of women’s cooperative social enterprise is seen to challenge some systemic assumptions made by the SROI metric through its validation of knowledges and economic principles which are congruent with feminist epistemologies. The relationship between social and work life is re-configured by the organisation for the specific features of its beneficiary group (in which gender is a determining factor), with implications for intergenerational cohesion, past trauma resolution and positive postpartum practices that present challenges to a SROI measurement process.
Originality/value
This study applies a distinctive disciplinary understanding of feminist economics and epistemologies onto the relatively new field of social sustainability and innovation, illustrating its critique through the impact on practical steps that may be taken in the process of a dominant social impact measure (SROI).
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The aim of this paper is to review Fred Lee's book A History of Heterodox Economics.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to review Fred Lee's book A History of Heterodox Economics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a context for Lee's research within the current debates over the financial crisis, then reviews and evaluates his analysis.
Findings
Lee has provided valuable and almost overwhelmingly meticulous documentation of the struggle to maintain space for heterodox economics within the discipline of economics, beginning before the turn of the twentieth century and continuing into the present. He is most concerned to use this research to formulate strategies to build community among heterodox economists, to provide a strong alternative to mainstream economics.
Originality/value
The author was less than convinced by Lee's suggestion that heterodox economics should emulate a professional model based on publications and citations that bears a striking resemblance to the methods of mainstream economics. That said, the author shares his belief that heterodox economics has important insights to offer economic theory and policy. In all, Lee has provided an important service in his documentation of the rise of heterodox economics as well as the attempts of mainstream economics to marginalize other schools of thought.
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This paper aims to contribute to entrepreneurship theorising by highlighting the salience of feminine caring positions in creating novel entrepreneurial roles and investigating…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to entrepreneurship theorising by highlighting the salience of feminine caring positions in creating novel entrepreneurial roles and investigating how these roles contribute to community resilience. Using a critical feminist economics lens, alternative conceptualisations of the economy are expanded upon to reveal how an economic externality influences entrepreneurial discourse, gender roles and community resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
In this interpretive approach, empirical evidence is drawn from six months of intensive ethnographic research with 20 tourism handicraft micro-entrepreneurs in Crete and Epirus, Greece, in 2012 and hence in the context of a macroeconomic crisis. Ethnographic interviewing and participant observation are used as the methods to achieve the research objectives.
Findings
Thematic analysis is used to investigate how gender roles and entrepreneurial roles interact and how this interaction influences community resilience to an economic crisis. Using the critical theory to critique neoclassical economics interpretations of entrepreneurship, it becomes evident that politico-economic structures perpetuating feminised responsibility for social reproduction configure feminine entrepreneurial roles, and these roles have a positive effect on increasing community resilience. By conceptualising entrepreneurial involvement as being primarily for community gain, participants highlight how feminine entrepreneurial discourse differs from the neoclassical economics entrepreneurial discourse of entrepreneurial involvement being primarily for individual gain.
Social implications
This paper contributes to theoretical advancements on the role of gender in entrepreneurship and community resilience by investigating the entrepreneurs’ gendered responses to an exogenous shock. Providing insight into the role gender has in entrepreneurial adaptation and sustainable business practices means that new policies to combat social exclusion and promote rural development can be formulated.
Originality/value
The theoretical interplay between gender and entrepreneurship is investigated from a novel angle, that of critical feminist economics. The relationship between feminised interpretations of entrepreneurship and community resilience is brought to light, providing a unique insight into entrepreneurial resilience.
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This paper aims to highlight secular and Islamic feminist approaches to entrepreneurship as potential means to challenge gender inequality in the Turkish context. In Turkey…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight secular and Islamic feminist approaches to entrepreneurship as potential means to challenge gender inequality in the Turkish context. In Turkey, gender equality remains elusive in a nation where secular and Islamic ideologies compete and produce different solutions to ongoing economic, socio-cultural and political issues. Women’s entrepreneurship has emerged as an important solution toward gender equality and economic development.
Design/methodology/approach
Using two women’s organizations that exemplify secular and Islamic feminist ideologies, the author examines whether the entrepreneurship activities they promote give way to challenging patriarchal norms, values and practices widespread in Turkish society.
Findings
Through their distinct practices and engagement with entrepreneurship, both secular and Islamic feminist positions allow for praxis and represent an ethico-political commitment to dismantling neo-liberal development ideologies in the Turkish context that perpetuate gender inequality.
Social implications
Secular and Islamic feminist practices and entrepreneurship practices have different implications for achieving gender equality including changes in gender norms, economic development policies and women’s empowerment in a Muslim-majority country. In addition, it raises questions around the popular notion of “entrepreneurship as women’s empowerment”.
Originality/value
This paper is of value to scholars who want to understand secular and Islamic feminisms and their implications for challenging gender inequality. The Turkish context with its traditional and modern societal norms and values provides a rich case study to examine these issues through the exemplars of entrepreneurship. It is also of value to scholars who want to understand structural constraints associated with gender equality beyond individual-level challenges.
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Wilfred Dolfsma and Loet Leydesdorff
This paper aims to provide a view and analysis of the immediate field of journals that surround a number of key heterodox economics journals.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a view and analysis of the immediate field of journals that surround a number of key heterodox economics journals.
Design/methodology/approach
Using citation data from the Science and Social Science Citation Index, the individual and collective networks of a number of journals in this field are analyzed.
Findings
The size and shape of the citation networks of journals can differ substantially, even if in a broadly similar category. Heterodox economics cannot (yet) be considered as an integrated specialty: authors in several journals in heterodox economics cite more from mainstream economics than from other heterodox journals. There are also strong links with other disciplinary fields such as geography, development studies, women studies, etc.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis is limited by its reliance on citation data in the Science and Social Science Citation Indexes provided by Thomson‐Reuters.
Practical implications
The analysis shows not only whence journals draw their strengths, but also how knowledge between journals and neighboring sub‐fields is diffused. This can be important for editors, authors, and others.
Originality/value
A network analysis not just focusing on a single journal as a focal point, but combining several journals in a single analysis enables one to visualize structural properties of the field of heterodox economics which otherwise remain latent. This study provides a structural approach to citation analysis as a tool for the study of scientific specialties.
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Rubén Lado-Sestayo, Milagros Vivel-Búa and Luis Otero-González
This paper aims to study the determinants of hotel performance, especially the role of location, in the Spanish hotel market.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the determinants of hotel performance, especially the role of location, in the Spanish hotel market.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample is composed of 1,034 hotels located in 97 tourist destinations in Spain during the period 2005-2011. The estimations were made by generalised least squares using panel data.
Findings
Overall, the results show that hotel attributes are the main determinant of performance. In particular, there is a minimum efficient scale in the hotel business. Location is the second most important determinant. This paper confirms that geographical location models, agglomeration models and competition models are relevant in the study of the effect of location on hotel performance. Regarding management practices, the performance is positively affected by good asset management.
Practical implications
Hotel managers can improve the total net revenue per available room by individually making decisions regarding its characteristics and management practices, especially size and asset efficiency. Moreover, they can collaborate with others (managers and policymakers) to manage tourist destination factors, particularly, demand level, accessibility, negative externalities and market concentration.
Originality/value
This research includes hotel characteristics, management practices and location as determinants of performance, by providing a broader framework of analysis than in previous studies. Regarding location, the empirical analysis considers simultaneously geographical location models, agglomeration models and competition models. The paper studies the Spanish hotel market, which is very important worldwide and which has heterogeneous tourist destinations, thereby making it a good context to analyse the relationship between location and performance.
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