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The purpose of this paper is to examine the microcredit system, social networks within self-help groups (SHGs) and micro-entrepreneurial activities at the grassroots aiming at well-being, sustainability and income generation. The empirical study took place in Phnom Penh.

Focus group and in-depth interviews were employed. Two SHGs in Phnom Penh were selected for this study. The social network approach was used to distinguish the type of nodes and cliques within SHGs.

The result suggests that there exist lending and borrowing nodes and cliques. Strong ties exist within a clique and only weak ties link between cliques. Job and business information transmits well on weak ties but not entrepreneurship. This explains the failure of the process of microcredit in fostering microenterprise among very poor and low-educated borrowers.

The findings were based on a small sample from two SHGs. Further study is needed for justification of the findings.

It was original research which took place in Phnom Penh. Homogeneous lending and borrowing cliques in microcredit networks were identified. A model of hierarchical microcredit network was hypothesized to explain how some members of a SHG are able to utilize the credit in starting up their microbusinesses while others failed.

The relationship between trust, accountability and procedural justice is studied via research into British credit unions (CUs) following regulatory reform to remedy problems exposed by the 2007–2008 global financial crisis.

Interviews at 13 case studies of different types and sizes of credit unions in Glasgow, Scotland, are examined using template analysis and abductive theorizing to understand the effects of disproportionate reforms on small credit unions.

Smaller credit unions found three regulatory changes – namely dual regulators, increased minimum reserves and introduction of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime – excessive. Excessive change generated distrust in regulators. Regulators' insufficient attention to procedural justice contributed to this distrust.

Linkage of multidimensional confluent trust to a multilevel system of accountability provides an original way of understanding how indiscriminate attempts at trust repair damage some elements of trust in formal regulatory systems. Recognition of the need for procedural justice to enable smaller credit unions to articulate their extant checks and potential exemption from formal regulations provides another valuable contribution. The explanation of the abductive logic employed is also original.

Microcharity is a non-profit organization promoting social brotherhood through small donations and volunteer services among diverse members, aiming to address poverty through compassion, cooperation and humanitarianism. The study aims to comprehend the role of microcharity as an alternative to microcredit for poverty alleviation. It sheds light on the modus operandi, prospects and problems associated with microcharity.

The current study used a qualitative research design to investigate a social phenomenon while involving the researchers directly. The study applied participatory action research by involving participants and researchers to comprehend social challenges and evaluate their experiences. The study made considerable use of participant-observer data and field observations.

It has been revealed that microcharity has potential to address social challenges faced by the marginalized and vulnerable section of society.

This study is based on participatory action research, and therefore, it suffers from academic standardization and heavily depends on researchers. On the other hand, it offers practical approach to solve social problems and would bring forth realistic resolution by offering insights of those making use of micro charity for philanthropic activities.

The article is especially helpful for communities that must respond to emergencies and will be beneficial to individuals and institutions working for social welfare.

It will bring forth various facets of micro charity as an alternate for fundraising to rescue sufferers of social exigencies through collective efforts.

The article represents original scholarly research, leveraging the researchers' personal experience to enrich the understanding of microcharity. Its implications are valuable for communities involved in social welfare and can benefit individuals working for charitable institutions, cooperative societies, NGOs and social welfare programmes of government. Additionally, the study's insights can aid researchers in designing new methodologies to explore microcharity and its impact on social welfare initiatives.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Social scientists have long been interested in how political institutions affect economic performance. Nowhere are these effects more apparent today than in the current U.S. financial meltdown. This article offers an analysis of the meltdown by showing how government regulation among other things helped cause it. Specifically, the article shows how regulatory reforms closely associated with neoliberalism created perverse incentives that contributed significantly to the increased lending in the mortgage market and increased speculation in other financial markets even as such behavior was becoming increasingly risky. The result was the failure of mortgage firms, banks, a major insurance company, and eventually the market for short-term business loans, which triggered a general liquidity crisis thereby thrusting the entire economy into a severe recession. Implications for future research are explored. The article also offers a few policy prescriptions and an assessment of their political viability going forward.

The paper models the financial interconnectedness and systemic risk of shadow banks using Granger-causal network-based measures and takes the Indian shadow bank crisis of 2018–2019 as a systemic event.

The paper employs pairwise linear Granger-causality tests adjusted for heteroskedasticity and return autocorrelation on a rolling window of weekly returns data of 52 financial institutions from 2016 to 2019 to construct network-based measures and calculate network centrality. The Granger-causal network-based measure ranking of financial institutions in the pre-crisis period (explanatory variable) is rank-regressed with the ranking of financial institutions based on maximum percentage loss suffered by them during the crises period (dependent variable).

The empirical result demonstrated that the shadow bank complex network during the crisis is denser, more interconnected and more correlated than the tranquil period. The closeness, eigenvector, and PageRank centrality established the systemic risk transmitter and receiver roles of institutions. The financial institutions that are more central and hold prestigious positions due to their incoming links suffered maximum loss. The shadow bank network also showed small-world phenomena similar to social networks. Granger-causal network-based measures have out-of-sample predictive properties and can predict the systemic risk of financial institutions.

The study considers only the publicly listed financial institutions. Also, the proposed measures are susceptible to the size of the rolling window, frequency of return and significance level of Granger-causality tests.

Supervisors and financial regulators can use the proposed measures to monitor the development of systemic risk and swiftly identify and isolate contagious financial institutions in the event of a crisis. Also, it is helpful to policymakers and researchers of an emerging economy where bilateral exposures' data between financial institutions are often not present in the public domain, plus there is a gap or delay in financial reporting.

The paper is one of the first to study systemic risk of shadow banks using a financial network comprising of commercial banks and mutual funds. It is also the first one to study systemic risk of Indian shadow banks.

WE write on the eve of an Annual Meeting of the Library Association. We expect many interesting things from it, for although it is not the first meeting under the new constitution, it is the first in which all the sections will be actively engaged. From a membership of eight hundred in 1927 we are, in 1930, within measurable distance of a membership of three thousand; and, although we have not reached that figure by a few hundreds—and those few will be the most difficult to obtain quickly—this is a really memorable achievement. There are certain necessary results of the Association's expansion. In the former days it was possible for every member, if he desired, to attend all the meetings; today parallel meetings are necessary in order to represent all interests, and members must make a selection amongst the good things offered. Large meetings are not entirely desirable; discussion of any effective sort is impossible in them; and the speakers are usually those who always speak, and who possess more nerve than the rest of us. This does not mean that they are not worth a hearing. Nevertheless, seeing that at least 1,000 will be at Cambridge, small sectional meetings in which no one who has anything to say need be afraid of saying it, are an ideal to which we are forced by the growth of our numbers.

One of the lessons learned from the recent financial-sector crisis is that institutions may sometimes sow the seeds of their own destruction. We offer a two-tiered analysis of how the diffusion of innovative practices – in this case, issuing and securitizing subprime mortgages – can lead to an unanticipated breakdown of established institutions. At the institutional level, we demonstrate that the lack of effective external regulatory presence, the emergence of new norms through the introduction of a new institutional logic, and intense mimetic and competitive pressures may lead organizational actors to exploit a suboptimal innovation. At the organizational level, we argue that over-embeddedness of central actors within relatively closed networks and superstitious learning processes can exacerbate the biases to which decision makers are susceptible, leading to the institutionalization of a suboptimal organizational practice. These two parallel sets of processes led to severe consequences at the institutional level, which we label “terminal isomorphism.” We end by discussing consequences for institutional theory, future research directions, and recommendations for policy makers.

We have from time to time suggested that librarians should pool experiences in regard to annual estimates, but there seems to be no enthusiasm for the suggestion. If library work is to develop it must be by gently progressive finance, and nothing helps one librarian more than to be able to point to another who is progressing. We all tend to wait upon one another. In such a matter as salaries, a librarian circulates his colleagues to learn what they are getting; and library authorities almost invariably ask, “What is paid at So and So ?” This is a vicious circle which cannot be broken unless librarians in consultation can reach a Standard. Perhaps the active London and Home Counties Branch of the L.A. will give a lead since the L.A. itself is too busy to do so.

Funding small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may be especially valuable in China to stimulate innovation and its emerging market economy. These firms have been advised to build on the Chinese value of guanxi to manage conflicts and develop relationships with banks. This study aims to explore the nature of relationships that help SMEs inform banks and convince them to provide credit.

As this study’s theorizing is about whether banks and firms that manage their conflicts for mutual benefit set the foundation for bank’s confidence in extending credit, therefore, both the bank officers and the company managers were asked to provide information for the study. In total, 106 pairs of bank officers in the loan department of four banks and SME managers in Shanghai, China, completed a questionnaire survey for this study.

Results support the argument that marketing research on customer orientation and organization behavior research on conflict management identify how to develop effective marketing relationships between SMEs and banks in China. Banks that were customer-oriented laid the groundwork for managing conflict cooperatively and not competitively with borrowing firms. Cooperative conflict management in turn was found to convince banks that they could confidently provide credit and to convince borrowers that their transaction costs will be reasonable.

This study identifies that developing guanxi and the capacity to manage conflict cooperatively are an important foundation for providing credit to SMEs in China.