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Franchising has shown considerable growth in recent years and in advanced economies, such as the USA and the UK, and currently accounts for approximately one‐third of all retail sales. It would seem, therefore, that franchising and retailing represent a fruitful partnership, though there has been little research as to why this should be. In this article the authors seek to address this situation by considering those characteristics that make retailing particularly suitable for franchising, through an examination of the UK context. Given the changing nature of the retail industry and the advent, in particular, of e‐commerce, consideration is given to the future for retail development through franchising.

This chapter describes how the technologies of big data might apply to rural contexts. It considers the relative advantages and disadvantages of such ‘new’ innovations.

It uses two case studies, one of online community specialist groups linked to rural activities and a second from a policy shift relating to firearm legislation in the English context.

The chapter suggests that digital data in the forms discussed here can be both benign and underutilised in its potential. In relation to the management of datasets holding information on firearm owners, these need careful reflection regarding their establishment, access and general use.

The chapter provides insight into the rural context and makes a case that such locales are not immune from the influence of the dataverse. The appearance of ‘big data’ here is not without political implications. The case of UK firearm legislation reform demonstrates the implications of policy falling short of its potential and how a social science analysis can unpack the operation of power as well as position the debate more broadly.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

Barack Obama has had considerable support among scholarly circles since his win in the Iowa primary in early 2008. A segment of the Association of Black Sociologists (ABS), “Black and Progressive Sociologists Obama Working Group (BPSOWG),” was particularly active during the 2008 campaign. The purpose of this chapter was to determine if the level and type of activism among this group differed from other progressive groups of sociologists.

The data for this study were collected from a web-based survey administered to approximately 800 professional sociologists in the United States. The survey consisted of items that focused on the extent to which respondents supported the Obama campaign for the presidency and the extent to which they were satisfied with and/or agreed with his policies during first two years of his presidency.

The response rate for the survey was 40% (N=305) and 96% of respondents (N=293) submitted surveys with complete information. Over two-thirds of participants were members of the American Sociological Association Section on Race and Ethnic Relations and 5.5% of respondents identified themselves as members of the BPSOWG. A slight majority (53.6%) of study participants were females and the largest two racial groups making up the study population were whites (47.1%) and African Americans (36.1%). Most of the respondents provided support for President Obama during his first campaign, including financial contributions (66%).

Sociologists who responded to the survey were generally positive about Barack Obama as a candidate and a President. However, the subtle differences between groups about Obama administration policies and the use Presidential power highlighted key areas in which diverse coalitions for progressive change are needed.

This introduction provides an overview of the discourse on alternative agrifood movements (AAMs) to (1) ascertain the degree of convergence and divergence around a common ethos of alterity and (2) context the chapters of the book. AAMs have increased in recent years in response to the growing legitimation crisis of the conventional agrifood system. Some agrifood researchers argue that AAMs represent the vanguard movement of our time, a formidable counter movement to global capitalism. Other authors note a pattern of blunting of the transformative qualities of AAMs due to conventionalization and mainstreaming in the market. The literature on AAMs is organized following a Four Questions in Agrifood Studies (Constance, 2008) framework. The section for each Question ends with a case study to better illustrate the historical dynamics of an AAM. The literature review ends with a summary of the discourse applied to the research question of the book: Are AAMs the vanguard social movement of our time? The last section of this introduction provides a short description of each contributing chapter of the book, which is divided into five sections: Introduction; Theoretical and Conceptual Framings; Food Sovereignty Movements; Alternative Movements in the Global North; and Conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review of available research evidence on risk management in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors aim to reveal ambiguities, gaps and contradictions in the literature, and to sketch avenues for further research.

The authors follow the tenets of Tranfield et al. (2003) for conducting a systematic literature review. Following a key word search and an assessment of fit for this review, 27 papers were analyzed with respect to bibliographical information, research design and findings.

The review identified various types of risks that may occur in SMEs. In addition, the publication analysis demonstrates the importance of a risk management process in SMEs and that the characteristics of SME owners have a significant impact on their business strategies.

Additional empirical research on risk identification, risk analysis, strategy implementation and control in the SME risk management process is needed.

This paper is the first comprehensive review of the body of literature on risk management in SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating effect of an owner’s growth goal on the relationship between the gender of new venture owners and the growth outcomes of their ventures.

This is a quantitative study using a large, national database and structural equation modeling.

The findings indicate that the negative relationship between gender and growth outcomes is fully mediated by the growth goals of new venture owners, their available internal resources and the amount of time and money they are able (prepared) to invest in their new venture.

The research implications include the need to better understand the impact of goal setting on new venture performance outcomes.

The government policies (for example, to stimulate firm growth) need to be designed by having a proper understanding of the various motives/goals that entrepreneurs might have when launching a new venture. Similarly, anyone providing advice to individuals involved in establishing a new venture should, before providing that advice, ensure that they have a clear understanding of the individual’s goals.

Social implications include a need to better understand the negative impact that lower available human and financial capital can have on the goals set by female new venture owners and the outcomes achieved by those ventures.

This research makes an original contribution to the literature by demonstrating: the impact of gender on human, social and financial capital; the influence of these resources on new venture goals; and, in turn, the influence of goals on new venture performance outcomes.

This paper aims to increase our understanding of the nature and role of communities within organizations with regard to innovation management, the drivers of community innovation and macro-processes of community innovation management.

The authors first use an inductive qualitative technique to analyze data gathered from a UK university to build up the concept of communities of innovation and then refine the concept of communities of innovation by contrasting it to the more established literature on communities of practice. Finally, with the aid of existing literature on collaborative innovation and the innovation processes, the authors induce from the data the drivers of community innovation and the three macro-processes of community innovation management.

The research findings suggest communities of innovation play a central and pivotal role in contributing to the generation of innovations within organizations. Drivers of innovation included corporate culture, money and time, intellectual property management, motivation, knowledge facilitators, activists and maintenance and opportunities to interact. The three macro-processes of community innovation management are identified as divergence management, gateway management and convergence management.

As this is an exploratory research into communities of innovation, all the 11 communities of innovation analyzed belong to ABC University. It is necessary to expand on this research within the education industry, as well as into other industries to further test the reliability of the findings in this paper.

Business executives who have a better understanding of communities of innovation, the drivers of community innovation and the macro-processes of community innovation management will be better able to promote innovation within their organizations.

Governments that have a better understanding of communities of innovation, the drivers of innovation and the macro-processes of community innovation management will be better able to promote innovation within their countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first research studies attempting to understand communities of innovation and the macro-processes of community innovation management.

The question of whether female‐owned firms underperform male‐owned firms has triggered much research and discussion. Klapper and Parker's review concluded that the majority of prior research suggests that female‐owned firms underperform relative to male‐owned firms. However, using performance measures that control for size and risk (and after controlling for demographic differences such as industry, experience and hours worked) Robb and Watson found no gender performance difference in their sample of newly established US firms. The aim of this study, therefore, is to replicate Robb and Watson's study to determine whether their findings can be generalized to another geographical location, Australia.

The authors test the female underperformance hypothesis using data from the CAUSEE project, a panel study which follows young firms over four years. They use three outcome variables: survival rates, return on assets and the Sharpe ratio.

Consistent with Robb and Watson the results indicate that female‐owned firms do not underperform male‐owned firms.

While replication studies are rare in entrepreneurship, they are an important tool for accumulating generalizable knowledge. The results suggest that while female‐owned firms differ from male‐owned firms in terms of many control variables (such as industry, owners' previous experience and hours worked) they are no less successful. This outcome should help dispel the female underperformance myth; which if left unchallenged could result in inappropriate policy decisions and, more importantly, could discourage women from establishing new ventures.

Internet based information and communication technology provides the opportunity for small firms to improve their competitiveness. This paper presents a methodology that responds to the needs of small firms whilst overcoming the constraints to their use of these technologies. Key features of this methodology are: provision of a turnkey package of hardware, software, installation and training for Internet connection and operation; identification of opportunities for integrating Internet ICT into business processes that will deliver performance improvement; ongoing IT and business support for a year. The effectiveness of this methodology was examined during its application in 21 SME automotive component suppliers in the West Midlands region of England. This exercise found that 90 per cent of firms continued to use their Internet based ICT capability after a year.