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Most of us believe that entrepreneurs are special. We do this because both scholars and practitioners tell us so.

This chapter discusses conceptual links among Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption (1923), the overall work of Thorstein Veblen, and Wesley C. Mitchell’s essays on spending and money. The three authors are concerned with transformations in production, related changes in the organization of consumption, and the effects on people. The approach is based on reading of Kyrk’s book in light of an integrated view of Veblen’s overall work. This chapter explains how Mitchell’s essays on money and spending built on Veblen’s work and discusses their relevance for understanding Kyrk’s book as conceptually linked to institutional economics. This chapter delineates the following commonalities: conception of living humans and money as an institution; distinction between business and industrial concerns; connection between distribution, waste, and consumption; and Veblen’s “machine process” of standardization in production and its relation to consumption. This chapter brings more detail in the conceptual and theoretical discussion of Veblen’s influence on Kyrk’s book.

In this chapter, we update stakeholder salience research using the new lens of stakeholder work: the purposive processes of organization aimed at being aware of, identifying, understanding, prioritizing, and engaging stakeholders. Specifically, we focus on stakeholder prioritization work — primarily as represented by the stakeholder salience model — and discuss contributions, shortcomings, and possibilities for this literature. We suggest that future research focus on stakeholder inclusivity, the complexity of prioritization work within intra-corporate markets, the integration of stakeholder prioritization with other forms of stakeholder work, and the development of managerial tools for multiobjective decision making within the strategic management context.

Lucy Sprague Mitchell's belief was that active, experiential learning, in particular human geography, was the core to which all content areas were tied. Given that life is lived in a social context, she believed that early childhood education should mirror the same. At Bank Street, education began with the child's world. Educators linked it to the community and moved outward. Children learned how their lives of the here and now connected to other places and people in the world. Mitchell was a forerunner in curriculum development and qualitative research methods. She envisioned teaching critical pedagogy, although, she did not use the verbiage. Mitchell's commitment to social justice was that of a renaissance educator.

Reports on an empirical study of the decision to purchase computers in a single firm. States it is a competitive bidding situation with several suppliers attempting to win a contract that eventually reached £3.5 million pounds. Illustrates how the politics of the firm can influence significant purchase decisions and, in particular, how gatekeepers within the firm's buying centre can structure the outcome of purchase decision in line with their position in the political process. Bases the study on a large organisation in England, in the period 1957–1968, with regard to four computer purchase decisions. Concludes that it is clear that the computer suppliers had differential access to the firm's power structure and it was also evident they had differential knowledge of its operation.

Just now we are having an interesting discussion among the Boards of Study (on Economics, Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, and History) of London University on the existing confusion and overlapping in their theoretical basis (arising from a claim by the sociologists for a separate degree). If Law were not so strongly professionalized in England the Law Faculty would also be concerned. I prepared a memorandum, based on the examination questions during the last five years, showing that the conception of human nature now given, or assumed, in Economic teaching is quite different from that given in Sociological teaching, and that all the other groups of study differed in that respect among themselves. The sociologists, e.g. emphasise “Imitation” and ignore Hedonism. The economists assume Hedonism and ignore Imitation. The Psychologists reject both Hedonism and Imitation. Law is either purely empirical or Benthamite. Even the distribution of concrete subject matter leaves great gaps. No one, for instance, treats of the newspaper Press, or the Churches, or advertisement. At Oxford the confusion, overlap and insufficiency is more marked. Could you not make a memorandum showing how things stand at Columbia?

Intractable conflict is a long-time violent and self-perpetuating crisis. The peacemaking revolution has the potential to stop the destructive dynamic of the conflict. The purpose of this paper is to present a contractualist model of a peacemaking revolution and its theoretical foundations. It analyzes the revolutionary peacemaking process in Northern Ireland during the 1990s in light of the contractualist model.

The paper presents a contractualist model to describe the interplay between leaders (policymakers) and people (public opinion) and its impact on the strategy to cope with situations of intractable conflict. The paper includes theoretical background and a case study analysis.

The peacemaking revolution is a process of dynamic equilibrium between peacemaking policy and public expectations for change. It progresses from one point of equilibrium to the next.

The paper intends to add a fresh perspective to the study of the peacemaking revolution, in general, and the interplay between peacemaking policy and public support in particular. It points out that a consensus-building process, which combines political-elite diplomacy and public diplomacy, has the potential to create the conditions for a peacemaking revolution. Political-elite diplomacy offers diplomatic channels for leaders to begin a peace process, support it and conclude agreements. Public diplomacy offers instruments to involve the people in the peacemaking efforts, prepare them for a change and motivate the leaderships to conclude agreements.

Indicators of economic and social phenomena can be useful descriptive and analytical inputs for public policy. The “social indicators movement” has emerged in the last decade and is devoted to the measurement of widely‐ranging dimensions of human welfare. For the most part, questions of systematic measurement for public policy are explored here. Drawing initially on some traditions of measurement in economics, the principal aim is to provide a broad theoretical frame of reference for policy indicator design. Questions of indicator development necessarily involve ideas of suitability or validity of indicators designed for a purpose. Approaches to indicator design for the purpose of enhancing collective decision‐making—including formal model building approaches—are subsumed as special cases once a more general theory is espoused in sections II and III.

They are as follows: to identify strategic growth opportunities for SMEs in the South African craft beer industry; to understand the complexities associated with operating a craft beer SME in the South African alcohol sector and analyse the SME’s strategic decision-making process that happens as a result; to understand the challenges and identify opportunities for entrepreneurship and growth in an emerging economy and niche segment; to develop a differentiation strategy for a small player in a competitive market; and to impart industry-specific knowledge and insight on the craft brewing industry.

The case is centred on the challenges that Hein Swart, managing director of Mitchell’s Brewery, is facing in sustaining business operations amid heavy regulations and increasing competition from existing craft breweries. In addition, there is the entry of a different type of competitor into the South African market that did not exist previously. The case narrative broadly presents several industry themes that interact with each other and create the existing complexities.

This case is targeted at postgraduate business school students with some work experience who want to build their critical thinking, business management and strategic decision-making skills such as Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and Executive MBA academic programmes, and also delegates on Executive Education programmes. The case is expected to be used as a case study for courses in entrepreneurship and strategic management; however, it can also be applied in strategic marketing courses.

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CSS 3: Entrepreneurship