Search results

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is a complex phenomenon designed to resolve numerous societal challenges while remaining economically viable. However, how social entrepreneurs in developing countries have deployed digital technologies to address communal challenges during the Covid-19 crisis is largely undocumented. This research examines social entrepreneurs' adoption of digital technologies, the multi-level organisational conditions, and associated innovative outcomes of engaging digital technologies.

Based on the organisational resilience theoretical framework, this research employs a qualitative methodology, comprising 38 semi-structured interviews with Nigerian SE firms, to investigate social entrepreneurs' engagement with digital technologies.

The study’s findings reveal 19 pathways through which digital technologies enabled organisational resilience outcomes by Nigerian SE firms during the Covid-19 pandemic. This allows the authors to show, via a 3 × 3 matrix, how social entrepreneurs deploy digital technologies to build proximate, dynamic, and continuous resilience in a weak institutional context.

The study’s findings enables the authors to advance the SE – digital technologies – resilience scholarship in a developing economy.

Organizations depend on multiple factors to maintain competitiveness and continuously adapt to the environment. Managers must know how to implement strategies while motivating the commitment of those involved. This study aims to present a model for prioritizing factors to promote effective strategy implementation in small- and medium-sized companies.

The authors adopted a systemic approach to articulate two instruments: social network analysis to identify the components that could affect strategy implementation, designing a conceptual model with this information, and analytical hierarchy process to validate the resulting construct.

The factors for effectively implementing strategies relate to the need for reinforcement, commitment, organizational culture, managerial skills, clear communication and involvement to reduce inconsistencies between the expected and current organizational state without neglecting coordination and management mechanisms.

This work is limited to organizational matters. This study was conducted in collaboration with medium-sized Mexican companies with the participation of 94 managers with 10 years of experience. Although the results are mathematically rigorous, increasing the number of participants could enhance the approach to the problem.

This study could encourage academics and practitioners to target resources more accurately and improve organizational relationships to bridge the gap between strategic planning and practical implementation.

This study contrasts with previous research in proposing a systemic perspective that integrates participants’ experiences, developing a construct to determine and prioritize the factors to be addressed in strategy implementation. Therefore, this work invites the adoption of the proposed method as a complementary path to enrich academic and professional exchange.

The purpose of the study was to provide greater understanding of the policing recruitment crisis by exploring if and how recruit decisions to become an officer were influenced by negative media publicity, As police recruits are a viable source for recruitment data.

Basic law enforcement (BLE) candidates attending a southeastern state police academy were surveyed (N = 395) on perceptions of danger and current officer motivation (i.e. the “Ferguson Effect”), as well as motivation variables for entering police work.

Results found little to no influence of negative media on decisions and career motivations, despite respondents acknowledging agreement to Ferguson Effect variables.

Findings suggest negative media publicity was not a contributing factor for the studied sample; however, further recruit-based research is advocated to understand contemporary law enforcement recruitment strategies.

As police organizations continue to face difficulty in hiring and retaining qualified candidates, understanding the next generation of officers has never been more crucial. This study provides a model for police organizations to incorporate recruit data into evidence-based procedures.

As findings suggest the acknowledgment of Ferguson Effect variables to be present, social implications include the possible long-term impacts of these perceptions on officer career progression and the police culture.

At the time of this study, no known work has examined police recruit motivations against the backdrop of negative media. This study is the first known research to explore the potential impact of Ferguson Effect variables on police academy recruits in the United States.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse stakeholders’ perceptions on the accounting of crypto-assets. They also look at the need to amend/clarify existing accounting standards or develop new accounting standards.

The authors use a qualitative approach featuring interviews with four stakeholder groups including academics, professional bodies, standard setters and accounting practitioners. Interview recordings are transcribed and then analysed through NVivo.

The interviewees identify various issues in the application of current accounting standards to crypto-assets. The interviewees perceive that the rapid development of crypto-assets and fluidity hinder the development of accounting guidance. Hence, continuous monitoring by standard-setters is required. The general consensus is that unless there are crypto-assets with economic characteristics and functionality that are pervasive enough to warrant a new accounting standard, principles of current accounting standards are robust to address gaps in accounting requirements for crypto-assets.

This study adds to the discussion on harmonising the current practices in accounting of crypto-assets. By examining perceptions of multiple stakeholder groups, this study provides insights into the applicability of current accounting standards to the classification, measurement and disclosure of crypto-assets. The findings will inform standard setters and aid their efforts towards providing formal guidance on the accounting of crypto-assets.

The aim is to expand the challenge-hindrance framework and develop a coherent theoretical framework that explains individual differences in the way small business owners appraise their job demands. Literature has shown that dealing effectively with job demands leads to competitive advantage and depends on individual appraisals.

For this qualitative study, 20 in-depth interviews were analyzed using a partially grounded theory approach.

Open and axial coding revealed a broader range of demands than have hitherto been studied, related to actions rather than job characteristics. Selective coding confirmed expectations based on the Conservation of Resources Theory that appraisals of demands differ between business owners and change over time depending on role identities, and material, social, personal and energy resource levels, via the valence (identities) and degree of anticipated outcomes. Business owners appraised certain demands as challenging when they were co-occurring with other demands usually categorized as challenges, whereas these same demands were appraised as hindering when co-occurring with demands usually categorized as hindrances.

The results imply that appraisals can be influenced by societal context, life events, processes of formal and informal learning, personal growth and aging. These topics would be interesting avenues for future research.

The results of this study challenge our understanding of job demands in general and current categorizations of job demands as challenges versus hindrances in specific, by providing an in-depth, contextualized and dynamic view of the appraisal of demands related to owning and running a business.

This research sets out to examine how the process for developing a training needs analysis tool could influence organisational change.

The organisation that is the subject of this research is a large, complex health system which is in transition from a traditional bureaucratic, hierarchy with a command and control management style to a more participative, people centred approach. A processual, organisation development, action research‐based approach to the development of a training needs analysis process was taken in the study so that the changes desired in the organisation could be modelled in the first instance and secondly, in order to learn and understand more about what works and does not in order to continuously develop and progress the change agenda. In order to do this a parallel structure was established through which to progress the process which was tracked in an action research process. In addition, a series of interviews were conducted with top and senior management in order to ascertain their views about the process, its necessity, roles in relation to it, its potential benefits and how to introduce the process across the organisation.

A number of key points emerged from the research: first, the culture and change issues arising during the development of the learning and development needs analysis process were very significant. Second, the development and piloting of the needs analysis process needed to be approached as a change management process. Third, linking the needs analysis process with existing organisational processes was a key factor in the success of the process and created a strategic dimension. Finally, in a large, complex organisation a balance must be struck between standardisation and customisation of the needs analysis process to allow for the different structures, subcultures and levels of readiness in the organisation.

This research highlighted the significant impact the dynamics of hierarchy and the legacy of a bureaucratic, autocratic system has on the way a system operates and how people react to change and participation.

Through activism, brands participate in the sociopolitical controversies that shape society today. Based on social identity theory, this study aims to examine the moderating effects of consumer–brand identification (CBI) and political ideology in explaining consumer responses to brand activism. Furthermore, the role of perceived marginalization that can arise in the case of consumer–brand disagreement is explored.

The hypothesized effects were tested in three experiments. Study 1 (n = 262) and Study 2 (n = 322) used a moderation analysis, which was supplemented by a mixed design analysis with repeated measures in Study 1. In Study 3 (n = 383), the mediating effect of perceived marginalization by the brand was tested using a moderated mediation model.

The results show that strong CBI as well as a conservative ideology buffer the negative effects of consumer–brand disagreement on brand attitude and word-of-mouth intentions. In the case of agreement with a brand’s stance, no direct or interactive effects of brand activism on consumer responses occur. Perceived marginalization by a brand mediates the effects of brand activism.

This study extends the “love is blind” versus “love becomes hate” debate to the realm of brand activism and finds evidence for the former effect. It also contributes to the research on political consumption by highlighting the role of political ideology as an important boundary condition for brand activism. Perceived marginalization is identified as a relevant risk for activist brands.

There are growing expectations that students graduating from health courses and current health professionals have some proficiency in using telehealth. However, there is limited accessibility to multidisciplinary-based material to meet this need. This paper describes the development of an online telehealth education resource using a co-design approach and the strengths and challenges of embedding authentic learning principles in an open-access online course with a broad target audience.

The authors first describe the co-design process of the course and discuss the pedagogy underpinning the course design. Then learner enrolment data is discussed to evidence uptake across key characteristics. Finally, the authors assess the efficacy of the co-design approach by analysing feedback collected from learners at the end of the course.

The course is structured across four modules and comprises interactive content, reflective tasks, case studies and purposefully developed digital material. Responses from the working group and from learner feedback indicate that the course is an authentic and relevant introduction to telehealth practice for both health students and current health professionals, despite some limitations.

This case study demonstrates the value of a co-design process and key learning design choices in online course development to meet the educational needs of learners from broad disciplinary backgrounds, in various stages of learning/understanding of telehealth and/or requiring a practice-based resource in the context of a rapidly changing policy environment.

The purpose of this paper is to present personal testimony of one of the early researchers on small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship in France.

The story of a half‐century evolution is divided into five decades, of SME and entrepreneurship development in France. The development of the French academic system of research on SME and entrepreneurship is described through some teams.

During the two early decades (1955‐1975), both the social legitimacy and economic competitiveness sharply and deeply lowered, while that after the world crisis (1975) until nowadays (2005), the social, political, and economic interest for SME and entrepreneurship has continuously increased.

The academic research pioneered SME during the 1960s, and entrepreneurship during the 1980s. The historical development of the national network of teams and associations is described, increasingly including the international context.

Beyond the personal testimony, this contribution enlightens the problems entailed by the lack of legitimacy of the spirit of enterprise anchored in French society, and, more generally, in all the societies averse to individual risk taking.

The testimony is based on the personal experience of one scholar who early promoted in the French academic system Master and Doctoral courses on SME and entrepreneurship. It outlines some original concepts relative to small firms.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a feminist perspective to the crisis in prison higher education in the US by exploring whether gender shapes access to on‐site, non‐occupational college programs in state prisons differently for women than for men.

The paper utilized a content analysis of official US state departments of correction websites and an email survey of state directors of education.

Findings show that while both women and men had little access to on‐site, non‐occupational college programming in the 2005‐2006 academic year, women in state prison had slightly greater access than men.

Theoretical implications of the findings include the importance of focusing a gender lens on correctional education programming, as well as the importance of extending analysis beyond gender alone towards an analysis of the intersections of gender, race, and class inequalities on access to prison higher education.

Practical implications include the identification of an emergent educational justice movement in the USA, and the presentation of exploratory data on the current college‐in‐prison programs useful for progressive activists, policymakers, correctional education administrators, equity scholars, and others interested in organizing around democratic access to postsecondary correctional education.

As there is little current research on college‐in‐prison programs in the US, and less on the gendered dimensions of program access, the paper makes an original valuable contribution to several literatures.