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First-generation college students in the United States are a unique demographic that is often characterized by the institutions that serve them with a risk-laden and deficit-based model. However, our analysis of the transcripts of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 22 “first-gen” respondents suggests they are actively deft, agentic, self-determining parties to processes of identity construction that are both externally imposed and potentially stigmatizing, as well as exemplars of survivance and determination. We deploy a grounded theory approach to an open-coding process, modeled after the extended case method, while viewing our data through a novel synthesis of the dual theoretical lenses of structural and radical/structural symbolic interactionism and intersectional/standpoint feminist traditions, in order to reveal the complex, unfolding, active strategies students used to make sense of their obstacles, successes, co-created identities, and distinctive institutional encounters. We find that contrary to the dictates of prevailing paradigms, identity-building among first-gens is an incremental and bidirectional process through which students actively perceive and engage existing power structures to persist and even thrive amid incredibly trying, challenging, distressing, and even traumatic circumstances. Our findings suggest that successful institutional interventional strategies designed to serve this functionally unique student population (and particularly those tailored to the COVID-moment) would do well to listen deeply to their voices, consider the secondary consequences of “protectionary” policies as potentially more harmful than helpful, and fundamentally, to reexamine the presumption that such students present just institutional risk and vulnerability, but also present a valuable addition to university environments, due to the unique perspective and broader scale of vision their experiences afford them.

The current environment is unhelpful to female entrepreneurs, and they need to overcome numerous barriers when starting their own businesses. In this study, the researchers investigated the significant barriers that Pakistani female entrepreneurs require to overcome in this respect.

In this study, the researchers used a quantitative study and they used a questionnaire to survey the respondents and collect cross-sectional data. The researchers targeted female students who were undertaking bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in different Pakistani public and private sector universities. Accordingly, the researchers based this study’s findings on the usable samples received from 498 Pakistani female students.

The researchers used a structural equation model (SEM) in this study and its findings highlight that aversion to risk (ATR) has an insignificant impact on entrepreneurial inclinations (EI). In addition, fear of failure (FoF), lack of resources (LoR), aversion to hard work and stress (ASH) and the lack of social networking (LSN) have negative and insignificant effects on EI. The ATR factor has an insignificant effect on entrepreneurial success (ES), whereas FoF, LoR, ASH and LSN are negative and insignificant predictors of Pakistani female students’ ES.

This study’s findings may help Pakistani women to overcome the barriers to ES. In this respect, the researchers recommend that the Pakistan Government and policymakers develop significant strategies to provide the conducive business environment and to financially support Pakistani women to start their own businesses. Furthermore, this study’s findings contribute greatly to the vast amount of current literature and help to overcome the entrepreneurial conditions and barriers that potential entrepreneurs from advanced and developing countries experience frequently.

This study’s findings provide empirical evidence of EI and ES in Pakistan.

This paper describes the development of a digital role play game (RPG) designed to help construction apprentices to better communicate with their supervisors about issues with the potential to impact on their physical and psychological health and safety.

A participatory approach was adopted to utilise the knowledge and insights of the target users to inform the digital RPG development. Apprentices and supervisors were interviewed to identify characteristics of effective supervisor-apprentice communication, which became the RPG’s learning objectives. The scenarios constructed in the RPG were drawn from lived experiences shared by the apprentices in the interviews. During the development process, consultations were conducted with an advisory committee comprising of apprentices and supervisors to improve the realism of the RPG scenarios.

Three scenarios were developed for the RPG. In each scenario, players are asked to make decisions at various interaction points about how the characters should respond to the unfolding and challenging situations. Scripts were developed for the game, which were acted out and motion captured to animate digital MetaHuman characters embedded in a virtual construction site. Two example situations are introduced in this paper to illustrate the development process.

To our knowledge, the RPG introduced is one of the first applications of digital game-based training in the construction industry. The adoption of a participatory design approach ensures that the game content relates to real-world experiences. The digital RPG is highly interactive and engaging in nature and presents a novel approach to developing “soft” skills in construction.

Managing resources is crucial for firms to gain competitive advantages and succeed, particularly for startups with limited resources. It is important to understand how digital startups in general and digital academic spin-offs (ASOs) in particular may orchestrate their resources to optimize value. This paper integrates the resource-based perspective with digital entrepreneurship to analyze the resource configurations leading to success of digital ASOs.

The paper adopts an inductive approach and applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) on a longitudinal dataset of digital ASOs to identify the resource configurations for a successful outcome.

The authors' paper identifies two main paths to success among digital ASOs, consisting of five distinct resource configurations. The first path is termed “market exploiters” that operate in favorable market conditions where specific technological resources and research collaboration resources are lacking. The second path involves “technology explorers” that combines both technological and commercial resources to achieve success.

By outlining distinct pathways to the success of digital ASOs, this paper contributes to the digital academic entrepreneurship literature and the resource-based view of entrepreneurial firms. The paper also suggests implications for policymakers and managers in managing resources for the success of digital ventures.

By exploring the resource configurations leading to the success of ASOs commercializing digital technologies, the paper shows that favorable market conditions and complementary resource configurations can be alternative pathways to success.

The vast bulk of the discourse surrounding reproduction is centered on women. Yet, the rate of childlessness in the United Kingdom (and much of the world) is higher among men. Recently, there has been an increased focus on fatherhood and fathering in academia, policy, practice, and the general media. However, data on men who do not become fathers has been excluded and their experiences minimized and dismissed. Infertility research has shown that failure to achieve the high social status of parenthood has the similar effects on mental and physical health as a diagnosis of life-threatening illness. In this chapter, I will draw on two qualitative research studies to show how not achieving the pronatalist ideal of parenthood impacts on men’s identity, sense of self, behaviors, health and well-being and social networks across the life course. The workplace is an arena where people who do not fit socio-cultural norms and expectations are overtly and/or covertly stigmatized and discriminated against through policy, working practices and everyday interaction between groups and individuals. I will argue that failing to acknowledge men’s experience of non-reproduction has a significant impact on both individuals and institutions alike.

Drawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

Findings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.

The findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.

FinTech offers numerous prospects for significant enhancements and fundamental changes in financial services. However, along with the myriad of benefits, it also has the potential to induce risks to individuals, organisations and society. This study focuses on understanding FinTech developers’ perspective of the dark side of FinTech.

This study conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 Nigerian FinTech developers using an exploratory, inductive methodology The data were transcribed and then thematically analysed using NVivo.

Three themes – customer vulnerability, technical inability and regulatory irresponsibility – arose from the thematic analysis. The poor existing technological infrastructure, data management challenges, limited access to data and smartphone adoption pose challenges to a speedy integration of FinTech in the country, making customers vulnerable. The lack of privacy control leads to ethical issues. The lack of skilled developers and the brain drain of good developers present additional obstacles to the development of FinTech in Nigeria.

FinTech operation in a developing country differs from that in developed countries with better technological infrastructure and institutional acceptance. This study recognises that basic banking operations through FinTech are still not well adopted, necessitating the need to be more open-minded about the global practicalities of FinTech.

FinTech managers, banks and policymakers can ethically collect consumer data that can help influence customer credit decisions, product development and recommendations using the mobile app and transaction history. There should be strict penalties on FinTech for selling customers’ data, sending unsolicited messages or gaining unnecessary access to the customer’s contact list. FinTech can offer to educate consumers about their financial management skills.

Whereas other studies have focused on the positive aspects of FinTech to understand client perceptions, this study offers new insights into the dark side of FinTech by analysing the viewpoints of FinTech developers. Furthermore, the study is based in Nigeria, an emerging economy adopting FinTech, adding a new dimension to the body of knowledge.

This article provides an overviews of the concept of racelighting. Racelighting is “is an act of psychological manipulation where Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) receive racial messages that lead them to second-guess their lived experiences with racism”

This conceptual paper articulates four primary ways that racelighting manifests in the lives and experiences of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

There are four common messages that often lead to racelighting: stereotype advancement, resistive actions, inauthentic allyship and misrepresenting the past.

While much has been written about gaslighting, few frameworks articulate how gaslighting occurs in a racialized context.