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As many businesses faced economic disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic and sought financial relief, existing bank relationships became critical to getting a loan. This study examines factors associated with the development of personal relationships of rural small businesses with community bank representatives.

We applied a mixed-method approach. We employed descriptive statistics, principal factor analysis and logistic regression for data analysis. We distributed an online survey to rural small businesses in five states in the United States. Key informant interviews with community bank representatives supplemented the survey results.

A business owner’s trust in a banker was positively associated with the establishment of a business–bank relationship. However, an analysis of individual trust’s components revealed that the nature of trust is complex, and a failure of one or more components may lead to decreased trustworthiness in a banker. Small businesses that preferred personal communication with a bank were more inclined to relationship banking.

Due to the relatively small sample size and cross-sectional data, our results may not be conclusive but should be viewed as preliminary and as suggestions for future research. Bankers should be aware of the importance of trust for small business owners and of the actions that lead to increased trustworthiness.

The study extends the existing knowledge on the business–bank relationship by focusing mainly on social (instead of economic) factors associated with the establishment of the business–bank relationship in times of crisis and high uncertainty.

Prior research indicates that family businesses have fewer management control practices in place and are more likely to have non-economic goals for their firm. Further, researchers in this domain contend that female-controlled businesses tend to underperform compared to male-controlled businesses. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance effects of management controls and goals for the business across both male and female-controlled farm and rural family businesses.

The data used in the analyses are from the 2012 Intergenerational Farm and Non-Farm Family Business Survey. The sample comprises 576 small- and medium-sized rural family businesses. The authors used probit analysis to model both family business objective and subjective success for women and men.

The results suggest that female-controlled farm and rural family businesses do not underperform their male counterparts in terms of objective or subjective assessments of performance. The results do indicate, however, that strategic management via management control practices within the firm influence objective and subjective performance differently across male and female-controlled farm and rural family businesses.

The results provide three primary contributions to the family business literature. First, the authors determined that strategic management practices via management control mechanisms, as well as the monitoring of managers, are of significance to the objective performance (i.e. gross income) of both men and women-controlled farm and rural family businesses. Second, the authors found that communicating economic vs non-economic goals do not influence satisfaction with the firm’s performance, but do influence the probability of success for female-controlled family businesses. Finally, the authors find that when we compare male and female-controlled businesses in the same industry, while controlling for family and business factors, men and women do not differ in a statistical sense in objective or subjective performance.

This study investigated the succession process in small and medium family farms as two distinct but related processes of management transfer and ownership transfer. Past studies focused on the broad subject of succession, without dissecting succession into the components that it contains. Furthermore, this study aimed to evaluate which business, family and owner characteristics were significant in the progress of each process toward the actual transfer of management and ownership.

Telephone interviews were conducted to gather information from rural family businesses in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. A bivariate ordered probit regression was utilized to model the processes of management and ownership transfer as separate but related processes. Both management transfer and ownership transfer were modeled utilizing three distinct stages of transfer.

Business and owner characteristics were significant to both management and ownership transfer, whereas family characteristics only influenced ownership transfer. Farm family businesses that discussed goals, identified a successor and were educated on how to start the transfer process were more likely to have made progress in both management and ownership transfer.

The authors contribute empirically to the literature by modeling the components of the succession process, management transfer and ownership transfer, as separate but interrelated processes. The authors specifically investigate which business, owner and family characteristics influence the progression of management and ownership transfer in farm family businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the factors associated with role satisfaction in farm and non-farm family businesses differ by gender of the business owner.

The data used are from a 30-minute telephone survey of owners of farm and non-farm family businesses in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. The sample consists of 627 small- and medium-size family businesses. Three ordered probit regressions are used to analyze role satisfaction.

Women’s participation in management and the number of family members in management are positively associated with women’s role satisfaction, while tension from resource competition is negatively associated with role satisfaction. In contrast, men’s role satisfaction is increased through high family business functioning and profit.

There is no difference in the level of role satisfaction between men and women when one controls for the owner, family and business characteristics. However, there is a difference in the factors that drive role satisfaction between men and women. This may be driven, in part, by what their roles are vis-à-vis the financial aspects of the business. Male and female business owners seem to focus on different aspects of their family business to achieve role satisfaction.

This paper determines the impact of gender on the role satisfaction of business owners of farm and non-farm family businesses in four Midwestern states. It identifies the different factors associated with role satisfaction for female and male family business owners based on their actual roles.

Strong leadership in primary care is necessary to coordinate an effective pandemic response; however, descriptions of leadership roles for family physicians are absent from previous pandemic plans. This study aims to describe the leadership roles and functions family physicians played during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada and identify supports and barriers to formalizing these roles in future pandemic plans.

This study conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with family physicians across four regions in Canada as part of a multiple case study. During the interviews, participants were asked about their roles during each pandemic stage and the facilitators and barriers they experienced. Interviews were transcribed and a thematic analysis approach was used to identify recurring themes.

Sixty-eight family physicians completed interviews. Three key functions of family physician leadership during the pandemic were identified: conveying knowledge, developing and adapting protocols for primary care practices and advocacy. Each function involved curating and synthesizing information, tailoring communications based on individual needs and building upon established relationships.

Findings demonstrate the need for future pandemic plans to incorporate formal family physician leadership appointments, as well as supports such as training, communication aides and compensation to allow family physicians to enact these key roles.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to examine the leadership roles of family physicians, which have been largely overlooked in past pandemic plans. This study’s findings highlight the importance of these roles toward delivering an effective and coordinated pandemic response with uninterrupted and safe access to primary care.

Imperialism was, from its commencement, a racially and sexually gendered reality and the power differential among masculinities emerged in the master/slave relationship that characterized Empire. Hegemonic masculinity generated by the white conquistador birthed a resultant subordinate masculine identity that came to signify the non-White man – initially slave and, later, the free African laborer – in the New World. The subjectification of this non-White man, this Other, proved to be fundamental to the constitution of masculinity along racialized and sexualized frames, complementing how related ideologies functioned in a primarily economic enterprise underpinned by greed as the catalyst for the Conquistador’s actions. The impact? Almost indelible gender identity ramifications on the enslaved African and his offspring across the Caribbean diaspora. This chapter seeks to explore Empire-resultant and Empire-resistant constructions of masculine identity in Olive Senior’s “The View from the Terrace” and Paule Marshall’s “Barbados.” The overarching aim is to underscore that, in the postcolonial Caribbean, as the Afro-Saxon’s proclivity for all things White crumbles, the Afro-Creole man’s own emerging, defining and robust sense of self and masculine identity becomes visible.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Gabrielle Civil, a Black feminist performance artist and professor, discusses developing and teaching her “Pleasure Syllabus,” a three-lecture module for a mandatory first-year undergraduate writing course. Grounded in Black feminism, especially adrienne maree brown's call for “pleasure activism” and Audre Lorde's embrace of the erotic, this syllabus aimed to consider and activate embodied knowledge. Contemplating pleasure (“what does and does not feel good”) also became a way to confront rape culture. With this module, Civil hoped to intervene in the rampant sexual violence happening on college campuses. She acknowledges the challenges of negotiating trauma and gender-based violence in the classroom. (Teaching about desire, sexuality, violation, and consent on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic was especially tough.) She shares specific strategies that supported her pedagogy and offers some suggestions for curricular planning while emphasizing that no one-size-fits-all approach exists to trauma-informed teaching. Her curriculum included visual art, music, graphics, and movement exercises along with critical/creative writing. Civil includes her actual “Pleasure Syllabus” and her module's signature assignment.

The purpose of this study is to analyse perceived physical and social isolation and how they are linked in various places of work.

A nationwide study was conducted involving 3,352 Estonian office workers in spring 2021. Physical isolation was measured in terms of what proportion of time a person works away from co-workers (0%, 1%–25%, 26%–50%, 51%–75%, more than 75%). Social isolation diverged into two factors: lack of contacts and lack of meaningful connections. The different places of work the authors considered in the study included working from home with and without a dedicated room and different types of offices (private office, shared-cell office, activity-based office and open-plan offices of various sizes).

The results show that the negative consequences of physical isolation in the form of perceiving social isolation start to show when a person works 51% of the time or more away from others. However, the authors revealed the dual nature of social isolation in that when a person experiences a lack of contacts, the connections they do have with their colleagues are actually more meaningful.

The originality of the study comes from the fact that the authors uncovered the paradoxical nature of social isolation. This reveals itself in various places of work depending on the conditions at home and the type of office. Therefore, the authors move away from the simplified distinction of home vs office and take into account the level of physical isolation (what amount of time a person actually works away from colleagues).

The purpose of this paper is to analyse relations between geographical and competence proximity and development of cooperation in cluster initiatives.

The research was based on an original theoretical concept referring to the trajectory of the development of cooperative relations in cluster initiatives. The research was carried out in mid-2017, in four purposefully selected cluster initiatives. The research sample was 132 cluster enterprises. The main research strategy involved non-experimental models; the basic method of data collection was an online questionnaire.

The results indicated that the role of geographical and competence proximity depends on the level of cooperation in a cluster initiative. In both these dimensions, proximity was important during the initial stage of cluster development: to start cooperation between the members, however, when more mature forms of cooperation were undertaken, the factor of common location was not so crucial any longer. It was also recommended to maintain some competence distance between the partners.

The main limitations referred to the static character of the data, the use of original measurement tools, which had not been tested before, the small and little differentiated research sample and the subjective nature of the research. The above-mentioned limitations should be viewed as a starting point for further empirical research.

Knowledge on the significance of geographical and competence proximity at various levels of cooperation in clusters is valuable for efficient management of a cluster and for higher competitiveness that it can achieve.

The research study contributes to the literature, which refers to the question of proximity in clusters through the analysis of relations between geographical and competence proximity and development of cooperation in cluster initiatives. The results of the research point out that the role of geographical and competence proximity evolves with the development of cooperation in cluster initiatives.