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The purpose of this research is to assess the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model from the perspective of small organisations and to offer a tentative methodology for the provision of a standard framework to serve the movement and preservation of digital materials and associated metadata between organisations, maintaining OAIS compliance throughout.

Structured analysis of the INGEST function, moving through three scenario‐based transfers of digital materials, using Lavoie's economic models for digital preservation to demonstrate the relevance of the function and sub‐functions.

Provides a conceptual example of how the OAIS model can be used in a multiple transfer context, working through three scenarios for one function of the standard. Describes how the research will be carried forward to complete the analytical framework and test with a real digital deposit.

Provides a means by which small organisations can begin to consider the preservation of their digital assets and assess their position in relation to the OAIS model.

This paper addresses the difficulties of practical implementation of the OAIS model and suggests a way forward for achieving seamless transfer of digital records that can be used by both small donor organisations and larger receiving institutions.

This paper aims to examine how technology presents both problems and opportunities for the historian, the researcher, small organisations, and cultural heritage institutions. Ways of safeguarding historical material in digital form are suggested, and the role of cultural heritage bodies as managers of sustainable digital collections is examined.

The tools available for online access to historical material are discussed, with some comparison made between current efforts on access provision and long‐term preservation.

At present, access to historical material in digital form is often given precedence over its preservation. This could have potentially serious long‐term implications. Lack of funding for the traditional collecting bodies suggests that new mechanisms for dealing with digital archive collections need to be found. Managing digital material from its creation moves responsibility back to owners, but can provide a platform for effective transfer to new custodians at the appropriate time. Small organisations can participate, increasing the volume and diversity of available material, enriching the base of knowledge upon which history is created.

Further research is required into possible models to enable seamless transfer through the custodial chain. Limitation: lack of quantitative analysis of existing and planned digital preservation projects.

The paper challenges the status quo and sets out some radical ideas concerning the creation, acquisition, management and preservation of digital records, and the roles of the key stakeholders in the cultural and historical domains.

In developing economies, 30% of the gross domestic product on average is undertaken by unregistered businesses. The informal economy leads to high opportunity costs by preventing gains from trade with strangers. To overcome this obstacle, sellers who usually operate in the informal economy should strive to move to formal markets. Current theories are drawn from a view of markets as institutions governed by formal and informal rules. In a nutshell, informal-formal market transitions must be met with a regulative solution. However, the overall results have been disappointing. This failure invites a re-diagnosis of the problem that informal sellers face to act in formal markets and suggesting novel solutions. This paper aims to address this gap.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors adopt MacInnis’s (2011) framework to characterize the approach to theory development.

The authors argue that extant views of formal/informal markets differences address only one of Scott’s (2014) three pillars (regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive). By drawing on Bourdieu’s legacy, the authors propose a cultural-cognitive reading of institutions and suggest it offers a lens to understand the problem as an access challenge, and thus a marketing problem. This perspective allows us to conceptualize informal/formal markets as two distinct institutional fields and argues that all individuals inhabit a particular habitus and contend that moving between markets requires a habitus shift. Thus, acting in formal markets involves bridging a habitus gap. Finally, the authors argue the need for a market-facing intermediary that takes on a market habitus bridging role.

The authors suggest future research efforts could benefit from this new conceptual lens as a means of re-diagnosing other forms of market access that have produced disappointing results.

By looking at differences between formal and informal markets as a habitus gap, the allocation of public funds to support transitions can be better targeted and spent.

The concept of market-facing intermediaries suggests that the beneficiary (e.g. informal seller) and target populations can be different. This insight could catalyze social innovation and trigger novel perspectives to design systemic solutions.

Conceptualizing the formal-informal market transition as a habitus gap suggests new directions to resolve access challenges and a new mediator solution.

This paper aims to contribute to the lack of research on female social entrepreneurs and their social and contextual embeddedness, promoting women’s social entrepreneurial activity as promising, specifically in the South African context.

By analyzing the founding process and networks of 11 female social entrepreneurs in South Africa using a mixed-method approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, media analysis and egocentric network analysis, this paper seeks to discover the idea-fruition process of female social entrepreneurs. This approach enables us to analyze contextual factors with a focus on personal networks and their influence on the processes of idea-generation and development.

The results indicate that social networks are an important part of the personal context which influences the idea-fruition process of female social entrepreneurs. The paper identifies specific actors as well as group outcomes as particular relevant within this context.

While the results enable the generation of a structure based on the authors’ first insights into how social relational networks influence female social entrepreneurship, it remains unclear if these results can be specifically traced to women or social entrepreneurial aspects, which suggests that further attention is needed in future studies.

Practical implications can be derived from the results concerning the support of female social entrepreneurs by, for example, optimizing or using their (social entrepreneurial) environment. Contrary to studies on business idea-generation, the results stress that women can make use of certain network constructions that are often considered to be obstructive.

This study introduces an innovative gender perspective on social entrepreneurship in South Africa and offers new directions for future research on the opportunity recognition process of female social entrepreneurs.