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The purpose of this paper is to describe the role of women in rural communities of South‐Western Nigeria in entrepreneurial engagement through craft practice.

Literatures were reviewed on crafts practice and appreciation in Nigeria. This enabled the contemplation of the place of craft practice as occupational engagement before, during and post colonial periods. The process of data gathering consists of field work, interviews, observation and photographing; through this, the technical production of mat and indigo dyed fabric were explored.

Women of rural communities in Western Nigeria have been actively been involved in crafts production to make ends meet in a male dominated economy. They form professional guilds to revive craft production/patronage, to network among members, and to seek help from the government and relevant organizations. The study found out that the potentials of the rural women can be fully developed if the method of making their products is given a facelift through partial mechanization.

An average Nigerian wants to be employed in white collar job and people are no longer interested in craft practice. The apprenticeship system of learning in the traditional system whereby skill is transferred from parents to their children is almost becoming a history. Thus, craft production is in the hand of few people among which the rural women are very spectacular.

This paper considers the women of rural communities in Southwestern Nigeria as a factor in the revilitalization of traditional crafts through occupational engagement in craft practice.

Several indigenous credit and savings schemes have been accredited recently in developing countries for the benefit of households and entrepreneurs alike. Famous among them are the Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) that exist in almost all continents currently. The rapid development of ROSCAs and their varied structures in many countries have been the subject of numerous studies. What has not been thoroughly analysed is the optimum size of these associations and the fact that lending and borrowing is without interest. The aim of this paper is to present a model that would determine the optimum size of ROSCAs and deal with the following issues: how the group size varies with changes in the income level of the members, the demand for the loan, the size of the collected loan and its duration. Further, the question of whether or not lending to the association in return for obtaining larger sums is a violation of the qarḍ (loan) contract is dealt with, and several Sharīʿah compatible formulations are provided.

Economic analysis has been applied to show the optimum size of Qarḍ Ḥasan Associations (QHAs), which are the Sharīʿah-compliant equivalent of ROSCAs, and the Sharīʿah rules of the qarḍ contract to illustrate the legitimacy of group lending.

The major findings of this study are determination of the optimum size of QHAs, the factors that affect the size and suggestion of alternative legal forms for group financing.

Inaccessibility to sources of data to test the hypothesis that has been put forth is the main difficulty encountered when conducting research on the subject.

The paper concludes that the development of informal interest-free ROSCAs in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries is an efficient informal microfinance scheme and that it is compatible with Sharīʿah rules.

The optimum size of ROSCAs and QHAs has been presented in this paper.

If you knew one of your child’s friends smoked pot with her mom, would that worry you? If you knew another one of your child’s friends spoke in tongues, would that worry you more or less?

It appears that of late the consumption of bread has fallen in this country; and I find that a scheme of advertising the necessity for eating more bread has been decided upon by the Association of Millers, and is now in operation.

What drives this diffusion process? One neo-institutional answer to this question is that new models of nationhood, organization, and social identity exist in the larger world environment (Meyer, 2009, p. 36ff). Because they are external, these “identities” and models can be adopted without huge costs and without necessarily entailing the reorganization of society or actors’ personalities. Thus the models of modern society can spread quickly because they are relatively easy to assume and because they have high legitimacy in the international environment. Conformity produces instrumental rewards as well. And it also signals to significant “other” nations and international bodies that a nation has accepted modernity and its responsibilities (see Boli & Thomas's discussion, 1999). Thus, foreign aid, loans, and credit may flow quickly to those developing countries that enact modern institutional structures like mass education and democratic elections.

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of time within a business‐to‐business financial services context. No study has attempted to do this in the financial services sector. We discuss the methodological debate, literature on temporality and multi‐disciplinary conceptualisations of time. Time as it operates in business relationships is also considered. We analyse effect and problems of the present, past and future in business relationships, and evaluate how these critical temporal junctures affect exchange, relationship development, and the internal and external effectiveness of companies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the resolution of the conflicts which arise out of different temporal perceptions and needs, an examination of those conflicts, and managerial applications for effective management of the alignment of time between interacting organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question as to why until 2004 there had been no systematic, effective implementation of HACCP in the hospitality industry anywhere in the world. It is the third article in the second Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management presenting a new method of HACCP for the hospitality industry and proof of its utility.

In‐depth narrative interviews, supported by documentary analysis, were carried out in 22 hospitality businesses in Greater Manchester.

The research techniques find 21 practical and psychological barriers to success at knowledge, attitude and behavioural levels. These are investigated in depth in order to develop a model for overcoming the problems and achieving tangible improvements in food safety and HACCP in the hospitality industry.

The research techniques chosen for the project documented in this paper overcome the methodological limitations of most previous research in the area. Using an in‐depth psychological perspective they have uncovered important barriers not previously considered.

The paper presents an English translation of the short story The Stub‐book by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, one of the great literary figures of ninteenth century Spain. The paper also offers some introduction and explanation to this delightful story, which ultimately deals not merely with accounting but even one of its modern off‐springs, “forensic accounting”. It closes with some notes about de Alarcón.