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This paper describes a dispersed service operated by Age Concern Leominster in North Herefordshire. The service uses local facilities to offer day‐care services to older people living in isolated rural communities. Discussion focuses on the challenges facing a service provider in developing and maintaining a localised service across a diverse range of communities, and presents a series of essential strategies for success.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether being female increases the probability that an individual feels difficulty in obtaining finance is a barrier to starting a business. The study aims to extend this to examine if a pure gender effect exists or whether it is the interaction of gender with demographic, economic and perceptual characteristics that plays the most important role in the perception of financial constraint.

The data within this study are drawn from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) adult population survey between 2005 and 2007. The first stage of the study splits male and female respondents into separate sub‐samples and runs individual regressions on each portion of the sample. The second stage of the study combines the male and female portions of the sample to directly examine the differences in perceived financial constraint between genders.

The findings suggest that a greater proportion of women are solely constrained by financial barriers than their male counterparts. The gender of the respondent was also found to interact with a number of other personal characteristics in a significant manner.

This finding suggests that policymakers should be encouraged to market the availability of start‐up finance from various sources to encourage women to attempt to obtain the necessary finance rather than being discouraged at the first hurdle.

Although actual financial barriers faced by female entrepreneurs have been extensively studied, this is one of the first studies to focus on the concept of perceived financial constraints faced by potential female entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how far Jamaica has come regarding women economic empowerment, female entrepreneurship and its development policies in favour of women entrepreneurship development.

This exploratory study employs a mixed method approach to achieve its research objectives, consisting of literature review and corroboration with existing database and indices. Key insights of research on female entrepreneurship are used to reflect on published data to assess progress of female entrepreneurship development in Jamaica. The 2017 editions of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Gender Entrepreneurship and Development Index were examined to gain a better understanding of how the Jamaican business environment has progressed or regressed over time and how the economic development and business environment impact female participation in Jamaica’s labour force and entrepreneurial initiatives.

The economic conditions in Jamaica and the role of females as domestic caregiver have made it difficult for women to enter the labour force even though Jamaican women are relatively better educated than men. Women remain at a disadvantage in the labour force. Jamaica’s legislation and budget allocations in favour of female entrepreneurship are analysed to identify where and how Jamaica is investing its efforts to improve women’s participation in the labour force. The authors conclude with suggestions on how the Jamaican government could facilitate further women entrepreneurship development to reach a more gender balanced inclusive socio-economic development.

While global policy has been promoting women empowerment through entrepreneurial development, little is known on the actual outcome of such human capital investment strategy and the critical vectors that contribute to such outcome. This scarcity of knowledge is also applicable to Jamaica. This paper attempts to contribute to women entrepreneurship research by reaching beyond the output-oriented perspective of various skill development programmes and attempts to link policy choice with overall macro results of entrepreneurship development in general and women entrepreneurship development in specific. The study thus provides a rare glimpse of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Jamaica.

Nations with high levels of economic inequality tend to have high rates of entrepreneurial activity. In this paper, we develop propositions about this relationship, based upon current research. Although we provide some descriptive analyses to support our propositions, our paper is not an empirical test but rather a theoretical exploration of new ideas related to this topic. We first define entrepreneurship at the individual and societal level and distinguish between entrepreneurship undertaken out of necessity and entrepreneurship that takes advantage of market opportunities. We then explore the roles that various causes of economic inequality play in increasing entrepreneurial activity, including economic development, state policies, foreign investment, sector shifts, labor market and employment characteristics, and class structures. The relationship between inequality and entrepreneurship poses a potentially disturbing message for countries with strong egalitarian norms and political and social policies that also wish to increase entrepreneurial activity. We conclude by noting the conditions under which entrepreneurship can be a source of upward social and economic mobility for individuals.

ALMOST EVERY communication we receive from manufacturers or suppliers, whether sent direct or from professional public relations companies, claims that the firm concerned is the most important firm in its category.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the personal and contextual factors that influence entrepreneurial intention between two student populations from the United States and Portugal.

The data were obtained through the Entrepreneurship Education Project, a large study that collected over 17,000 responses from students in 70 countries. A subset of this data resulted in 3,008 responses from students in the United States and 1,026 respondents in Portugal. The model predicted that entrepreneurial intention would be influenced by entrepreneurial capital and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), and that the model results would be stronger in the US than in Portugal.

The main effect hypotheses were supported while moderating effect hypotheses were not, although post hoc analysis revealed some interesting culturally relevant anecdotes.

This study contributes to the generalizability of previously established antecedents of entrepreneurial intention to two highly different cultural contexts – the United States and individuals from Portugal. The cross-sectional, correlational nature of the survey limits the findings to one point in time.

Findings suggest that having the opportunity to start a business as part of entrepreneurship education may provide useful in not only enhancing ESE but also in entrepreneurial intentions. Programs might consider including starting a business, either a new venture, or as part of a corporate program as part of the degree requirement. It may be that starting a business will provide critical experience students need to choose entrepreneurship as a career.

This research explored the similarities and differences in characteristics between students from a highly individualistic nation with low uncertainty avoidance (United States) and one that is more collectivist and less uncertainty avoidant (Portugal). Findings highlight the importance of entrepreneurial capital, ESE and the role that culture plays in students' entrepreneurial intentions.

This chapter examines the context for the implementation of the global commitment to early childhood education (ECE) within the framing of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) under SDG 4.2. We first define the concept of ECE as broadly understood in the field of education and in practice related to a focus on education of children. The essay adopts chronological age of children served outside of the formal school system, which has traditionally been recognized as basic education, to represent the population captured under ECE in both pre-school and pre-primary settings. UNICEF identifies those ages 3–6 to fall into this category. We present an exploration of the challenges and opportunities presented by multiplicity in multilateral agencies and other agencies driving the international initiatives around advancing ECE and the means by which they promote education opportunities for children. We offer a comparative perspective on the delivery, types, and funding mechanisms of ECE services in both developing and developed country contexts, which informs the possibilities for the realization of the SDG goal of inclusive quality education for all. An examination of the socio-cultural and economic context of accessibility to inclusive and equitable quality ECE is also presented. An overview of settings within which ECE is provided is interrogated within differing national contexts. We conclude with challenges and opportunities for sustained accountability, monitoring and evaluation of SDG 4.2 interventions from a comparative perspective.

The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.