Search results
1 – 10 of 10Louise St-Arnaud and Émilie Giguère
This paper aims to examine the experience of women entrepreneurs and the challenges and issues they face in reconciling the work activities of the family sphere with those of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the experience of women entrepreneurs and the challenges and issues they face in reconciling the work activities of the family sphere with those of the entrepreneurial sphere.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a materialist feminist perspective and a theory of living work that take into account the visible and invisible dimensions of the real work performed by women entrepreneurs. The methodology is based on a qualitative research design involving individual and group interviews conducted with 70 women entrepreneurs.
Findings
The results show the various individual and collective strategies deployed by women entrepreneurs to reconcile the work activities of the family and entrepreneurial spheres.
Originality/value
One of the major findings emerging from the results of this study relates to the re-appropriation of the world of work and organization of work by women entrepreneurs and its emancipatory potential for the division of labour. Through the authority and autonomy they possessed as business owners, and with their employees’ cooperation, they integrated and internalized tasks related to the work activities of the family sphere into the organization of work itself. Thus, not only new forms of work organization and cooperation at work but also new ways of conceiving of entrepreneurship as serving women’s life choices and emancipation could be seen to be emerging.
Details
Keywords
American and Lebanese women may feel they have different needs and therefore have different wants. This distinction brings to the fore the importance of an integrative analysis of…
Abstract
Purpose
American and Lebanese women may feel they have different needs and therefore have different wants. This distinction brings to the fore the importance of an integrative analysis of forced and voluntary (push-pull) factors that influence entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to compare Lebanese and American women to determine their push-pull drive for entrepreneurship. Background: women entrepreneurship is developing in various cultural settings internationally as well as domestically. This research paper attempts to address the inference of autonomy, creativity, and non-conformity in comparing American and Lebanese women entrepreneurs with respect to the push-pull framework of entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive analysis of 102 extensive in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs from the USA and Lebanon allows the exploration of the relevance and salience of the proposed push-pull gender related entrepreneurship framework. Contrasting American and Lebanese women responses explains why the number and rate of women entrepreneurs is greater in the USA than in the Arab world, and attempts to answer why American women are more entrepreneurial and how the environment impacts them.
Findings
Emerging patterns of female business entrepreneurship in this analysis demonstrate that forced push entrepreneurship is more prevalent among women from a developing economy such as Lebanon than in industrially advanced USA. By contrast voluntary pull entrepreneurship claims more global validity as discovered in the US business culture. Entrepreneurial dimensions analyzed include autonomy, creativity, and non-conformity.
Originality/value
The dynamic interplay of micro, meso, and macro levels of the integrated framework of gender entrepreneurship is taken into further depth by exploring the gender autonomy debate, and highlighting creativity and non-conformity within the push-pull framework of entrepreneurship. This research contributes to reach scopes of practice and research. At the practice level the results show that the economic need is more than the self-satisfaction need to the initiation of new start-up business enterprises for Lebanese women compared to American women. This research sheds a new light on the balancing act of women entrepreneurs between tradition and modernity, between Oriental and Western cultures, and between Americans and Lebanese Arabs.
Details
Keywords
Yun Ling Li, Karoline Evans and Meg A. Bond
The current case study investigated how intentional, systematic planning can help organizations harness the energy of these willing allies who may be motivated to support change…
Abstract
Purpose
The current case study investigated how intentional, systematic planning can help organizations harness the energy of these willing allies who may be motivated to support change. The focus of the study is the development of a peer-to-peer approach, involving “Equity Leaders (ELs),” that was part of a larger, multi-level organization change initiative that addressed personal, interpersonal and structural considerations at a mid-sized public university in northeastern USA.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used multiple methods to collect data for the current study, including observations and interviews. Over the course of four years, the authors attended more than 50 EL meetings. In these meetings, the authors took notes regarding ELs' discussions on workshop development and planning, debates on workshop substances and ELs' personal reflections on these workshops. Following the fourth year of the program, the first two authors invited all current ELs to participate in semi-structured, open-ended interviews about their experience.
Findings
The case study shows that through careful planning, peer change can play multiple roles in pushing organizational changes. By embracing their formal responsibilities and yielding their informal power, change agents are able to cause radiating impact across as organizations. Organizations can also capitalize on the fact that employees are more likely to be engaged in the change effort when it is promoted by peers. Finally, the support and resources from the organizational leaders is important because these inputs not only legitimize change agents' roles but they also signify the importance of the actions.
Research limitations/implications
This study has limitations. First, the authors recognize that this was a qualitative study grounded in a single context. Although the study explored a novel context for understanding change agents—a deliberately planned initiative targeting social norms through addressing subtle biases like microaggressions—the authors recognize that additional examination would be necessary to understand how implementation may work in different contexts or organization types. Second, the authors also acknowledge that the authors’ positionality, as females studying a change initiative targeting gendered and intersectional microaggressions, may have shaped the role as researchers.
Originality/value
The findings underscore the notion that allies can serve as organized peer change agents to affect organizational culture. In alignment with the principles in the social ecological framework, the approach involved selecting change agents who are internal to the organization, have informal influence or power and can broaden the impact to other parts of the organization. Moreover, the results underscore the need for organizations to provide essential support and resources that can assist change agents to bridge organizational goals and individual actions.
Details
Keywords
Nicola Patterson, Sharon Mavin and Jane Turner
This feminist standpoint study aims to make an empirical contribution to the entrepreneurial leadership and HRD fields. Women entrepreneur leaders' experiences of gender will be…
Abstract
Purpose
This feminist standpoint study aims to make an empirical contribution to the entrepreneurial leadership and HRD fields. Women entrepreneur leaders' experiences of gender will be explored through a framework of doing gender well and doing gender differently to unsettle the gender binary.
Design/methodology/approach
Against a backcloth of patriarchy, a theoretical gender lens is developed and a feminist standpoint research (FSR) approach taken in this study. There are five case studies of women entrepreneur leaders operating small businesses across North East England in sectors of IT, law, construction, beauty, and childcare. In each case study a two‐stage semi‐structured interview process was implemented and the women's voices analysed through a framework of doing gender well and differently.
Findings
This paper highlights the complexities of gender experiences offering four themes of women entrepreneurs' experiences of gender within entrepreneurial leadership: struggling with entrepreneurial leadership; awareness of difference; accepting and embracing difference; and responding to difference, which are offered to challenge the gender binary and capture the complexities of how gender is experienced.
Research limitations/implications
The field must begin to shift its focus from the dominant masculine discourse to foster understandings of gender experiences by using gender as an analytical category to enable the field to truly progress.
Social implications
Women are still an under‐represented group within entrepreneurship and within the higher echelons of organisations. This requires greater attention.
Originality/value
This feminist study calls for both scholars and practitioners to analyse critically their underlying assumptions and bring a gender consciousness to their HRD research and practice to understand gender complexities within entrepreneurial leadership and organisational experiences more widely.
Details
Keywords
Carla Oliveira-Silva, Andreia Soares-Semedo and Beatriz Lopez-Bermudez
When graduates cannot get a job in their field of study, they have to consider alternative scenarios: extending studies while waiting for labor market conditions to improve;…
Abstract
Purpose
When graduates cannot get a job in their field of study, they have to consider alternative scenarios: extending studies while waiting for labor market conditions to improve; continuing looking for a qualified job; accepting a less qualified job; creating their own business; change their country of residence, which in the case of foreign citizens living in Portugal may involve new emigration or return to the country of origin.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was conducted with 108 foreign graduates, unemployed, 47 of whom already hold Portuguese nationality. They were asked about their country of origin, nationality, graduation, field of education, previous jobs, unemployment and alternatives to face it.
Findings
The results suggest that the main options considered are extending studies, continuing to seek skilled employment or a second migration. The desire to return to the country varies according to gender and, in some cases, the country of origin.
Originality/value
There are no studies available on the possibilities for foreign recent graduate students in terms of their choices between entering the labor market or pursuing further education.
Details
Keywords
Silvia Rossi, Claudia Colicchia, Alessandra Cozzolino and Martin Christopher
Sustainability and the search for solutions that are both efficient and ecologically sound (eco-efficient) have become topics of great interest. However, companies seeking to…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainability and the search for solutions that are both efficient and ecologically sound (eco-efficient) have become topics of great interest. However, companies seeking to develop supply chain solutions that are eco-efficient are often hampered by their ability to control the wider supply chain and they may need to draw on external support from logistics service providers (LSPs). This paper aims to explore the innovative strategies undertaken by LSPs in the eco-efficiency arena and the logistics and learning capabilities needed to achieve eco-efficiency in supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
The insights derived from a systematic literature review approach to identify the most relevant articles to be included in the analysis represented the starting point for building the authors empirical investigation, based on case studies with in-depth interviews to investigate the phenomenon under consideration and to explore trends and evolving paradigms.
Findings
The systematic literature review enriches the existing literature by drawing on three bodies of knowledge, i.e. logistics service providers, eco-efficiency and logistics innovation, and putting them into a single framework. The findings from the interviews suggest that although LSPs are well placed to implement innovative initiatives for eco-efficiency there is a range of inhibitors that prevent major change programmes.
Research limitations/implications
The research reported in this paper is exploratory and limited in its scope. It is based on in-depth interviews within six companies. However, it does provide a platform from which more detailed research may be conducted.
Practical implications
The managerial implications arising from the research offer a wide range of current practices in sustainability, from which strategic and operative directions to compete can be derived.
Originality/value
There is little existing literature that addresses the innovative strategies undertaken by LSPs in influencing and moving supply chains towards eco-efficiency and hence the present paper is meant to help fill this gap.
Details
Keywords
Cristina Figueroa-Domecq and Mónica Segovia-Perez
This paper aims to present a conceptual model that identifies and relates the different approaches and thematic areas in the research area of tourism and gender.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a conceptual model that identifies and relates the different approaches and thematic areas in the research area of tourism and gender.
Design/methodology/approach
The design of the conceptual model is based on a critical review of the literature and the evolution of feminist paradigms and theories.
Findings
The aforementioned theoretical frameworks are the basis for the further development of feminist studies and a gender perspective in the tourism industry research area, including research design, objectives, methodologies, analysis and result’s presentation.
Research limitations/implications
Based on literature review, is theoretical.
Originality/value
Presentation of a conceptual model around the gender perspective in tourism, that leads to the identification of important research opportunities in this area.
Marius Thériault, François Des Rosiers and Florent Joerin
This paper is an attempt to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, the mobility behaviour of households and their perception of accessibility to urban amenities and, on the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is an attempt to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, the mobility behaviour of households and their perception of accessibility to urban amenities and, on the other hand, house price dynamics as captured through hedonic modelling.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to analyse the mobility behaviour of individuals and households, their sensitivity to travel time from home to service places is estimated so as to assess their perceived accessibility, using “subjective” indices based on actual trips, as reported in the 2001 origin‐destination survey designed for Quebec City. For comparative purposes, both objective and subjective accessibility indices based, in the former case on observed travel times and, in the latter case on fuzzy logic criteria, are computed and used as a complement to a centrality index in a hedonic model of house prices.
Findings
Findings indicate that there are statistically significant differences in the way accessibility is structured depending on trip purposes and household profiles. They also suggest that, while an objective measure of accessibility yields good results, resorting to subjective, and more comprehensive, accessibility indices derived from fuzzy logic provides greater insight into the understanding of commuting patterns and travel behaviour of people.
Practical implications
Better understanding the complexity of individuals’ and households’ mobility behaviour should result in more adequate initiatives and decisions being taken by transportation and city planning authorities.
Originality/value
Accessibility to jobs and services has long been known as a major determinant of urban, residential and non residential, rents. Yet, it is more often than not assumed to derive from a rather straightforward process, which this paper shows is not the case.
Details
Keywords
Brenda Nansubuga and Christian Kowalkowski
Following the recent surge in research on carsharing, the paper synthesizes this growing literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of research and…
Abstract
Purpose
Following the recent surge in research on carsharing, the paper synthesizes this growing literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of research and to identify directions for future work. Specifically, this study details implications for service theory and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Systematic selection and analysis of 279 papers from the existing literature, published between 1996 and 2020.
Findings
The literature review identified four key themes: business models, drivers and barriers, customer behavior, and vehicle balancing.
Practical implications
For managers, the study illuminates the importance of collaboration among stakeholders within the automotive sector for purposes of widening their customer base and maximizing utilization and profits. For policy makers, their important role in supporting carsharing take-off is highlighted with emphasis on balancing support rendered to different mobility services to promote mutual success.
Originality/value
This is the first systematic multi-disciplinary literature review of carsharing. It integrates insights from transportation, environmental, and business studies, identifying gaps in the existing research and specifically suggesting implications for service research.
Details
Keywords
Whereas the extant literature on women's entrepreneurship is almost exclusively focused on developed nations, the effect of many context-specific issues of other countries on…
Abstract
Purpose
Whereas the extant literature on women's entrepreneurship is almost exclusively focused on developed nations, the effect of many context-specific issues of other countries on ventures of women has been overlooked. The study aims to reveal how political unrest, a common feature of the developing nation, can significantly affect the experiences of women in small businesses of that region.
Design/methodology/approach
This feminist research is conducted on Bangladesh, which is one of the most politically unstable countries in the world. The study conducts interviews with women to explore the adverse effect of political unrest on their small firms.
Findings
The feminist research reveals some problems of women business-owners concerning political unrest in this highly patriarchal context. It also discloses how political chaos challenges the government initiative in financially supporting women business-owners.
Practical implications
Policymakers of developing nations can be benefitted by taking into account the problems of women business-owners concerning political unrest, specifically the access to debt financing issues while designing policies for women's empowerment.
Originality/value
The article contributes to the women's entrepreneurship scholarship with reference to political unrest, a contextual issue of developing nations. Whereas the existing studies mostly concentrate on holding women individually liable for the limited scale of their business operation, this research potentially challenges the view by drawing upon political unrest as an external factor that negatively affects their ventures. The study further advances the prevailing knowledge by critically unveiling some gender-specific problems of women business-owners regarding political unrest.
Details