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Years of research into immigrant entrepreneurship motivation (IEM) call for a synthesis of the field to note field developments and identify thematic antecedents and measurement elements. The paper aims to fill this literature review gap in IEM field. Improving existing analytical frameworks and establishing a research agenda are also goals of the research.

Adopting the PRISMA procedure, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted. This produced 53 IEM research papers (internationally, from 1974 to 2020) from a database search and other sources, each of which was reviewed based on extracted variables, findings and suggestions. A well-accepted entrepreneurial motivation model is used for thematic measurement analyzes.

IEM research has gained attention over the past 25 years as to the number of publications, research foci and antecedent discoveries. The review suggests that there are six motivational thematic dimensions: individual characteristics, personal experiences and circumstances, personal values, business ideas and opportunities, goal-setting and self-efficacy and immigrant entrepreneurial ecosystem (IEE). The results also reveal a relationship between entrepreneurship motivations and the IEE which is one of the keys recommended future research strands.

This research contributes to entrepreneurship literature by providing a chronological timeline of IEM field development and antecedent discoveries. The review suggests applying the IEE and its associated components to investigate host and home countries’ interactive effects on IEM.

The research provides guidance for policymakers and practitioners concerning available policy instruments and IEM determinants in addition to individual factors.

This study is the first SLR on IEM. It presents a holistic view of the IEM field.

This paper aims to explore 15 UK adult social care workers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper’s 15 open-ended interviews with adult social care workers are complemented by digital ethnography in COVID-19 social media forums. This data set is taken from a global mixed-methods study, involving over 2,000 participants from 59 different countries.

Workers reported a lack of planning, guidance and basic provisions including personal protective equipment. Work intensification brought stress, workload pressure and mental health problems. Family difficulties and challenges of living through the pandemic, often related to government restrictions, intensified these working conditions with precarious living arrangements. The workers also relayed a myriad of challenges for their residents in which, the circumstances appear to have exacerbated dementia and general health problems including dehydration, delirium and loneliness. Whilst COVID-19 was seen as partially responsible for resident deaths, the sudden disruptions to daily life and prohibitions on family visits were identified as additional contributing factors in rapid and sudden decline.

Whilst the paper’s sample cohort is small, given the significance of COVID-19 at this present time the findings shed important light on the care home experience as well as act as a baseline for future study.

Care homes bore the brunt of illness and death during the first and second COVID-19 waves in the UK, and many of the problems identified here have still yet to be actioned by the government. As people approach the summer months, an urgent review is required of what happened in care homes and this paper could act as some part of that evidence gathering.

This paper offers revealing insights from frontline care home workers and thus provides an empirical snapshot during this unique phase in recent history. It also builds upon the preliminary/emerging qualitative research evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted care homes, care workers and the residents.

This paper studied organizational culture in two different countries during the COVID-19 lockdown, a stressful social and labor context that obliged entire working populations to telecommute from home. We considered how people have coped with this new scenario, bearing in mind that one of the most relevant aspects of organizational culture and climate is the face-to-face interactions that take place in offices. With telework, that important physical relationship disappears and, since body language has its own grammar, work-related messages logically become open to misunderstanding between leaders and subordinates, as well as among peers.

An anonymous questionnaire (in Spanish and Russian) was distributed through the LinkedIn social media platform. The study intended to capture responses from white-collar professionals with managerial profiles, including those occupying high and medium-level positions, consultants, section directors, and project managers across different industries in both the countries. We collected 142 responses from Spain and 115 from Kazakhstan, with a total of 257 valid responses. Principal component's analysis (PCA), to obtain factorial axis was applied. We then performed a factor analysis of those principal components using Coheris Analytics SPAD 9.1.

The first finding herein points to the fact that the same experience had different consequences in these two different places, which can be traced back to national-cultural values. Spain and Kazakhstan share some common values and, at the same time, are culturally opposite. People fear uncertainty and one of the best ways to avoid this feeling is to provide them with technical and emotional support to manage a situation. During the COVID-19 lockdown, professionals from both countries expected their bosses to be assertive, driven, attentive and encouraging. And it seems they got just that. Secondly, a robust structure is mandatory for feeling secure: workers reported devoting more hours to telecommuting at home and even felt that their jobs were invading their personal lives, but they handled it because they knew to whom they should report. Procedures, rules, and methods were clear enough to avoid uncertainty. They even invented new rituals, patterns and practices that helped to reinforce their sense of belonging to the team. On top of this, in their responses, they noted that leaders acted consistently, even admirably, during lockdown and, for this reason, they gained their subordinates' respect.

Responses from female participants more than doubled those from males in this sample. Women are assumed to prefer flexible working conditions so that they can better take care of children and/or elderly or dependent persons, but this could just be a long-standing bias. On the other hand, the incorporation of women into professional life has feminized work environments, translating into more concern for workers' personal circumstances and more awareness of the human relationships therein. Thus, independent of the country studied, gender is another factor to consider for future research.

This article proposes further exploratory study of how organizational contexts are affected by unexpected, informal and even radical changes, as well as of organizations' ability to manage said changes by looking to their cultural values.

Facing a common enemy— the coronavirus— seems to have made workers more positive and less prone to complaining. Workers have been resolute and have tried their best not only in their individual work, but also with their co-workers and teams. The data suggests that, even when analyzing two diverse countries in terms of their cultural historical, and sociological contexts, companies' reactions impacted their employees somewhat similarly and engendered similar responses. At the same time, the reactions of Spanish and Kazakhstani professionals vary on certain aspects, and, surprisingly, converge in terms of avoiding uncertainty, which suggests a conservative reaction in both countries. This study concludes that structure (clarity of procedures, norms, patterns) and leaders' recognition of their employees' efforts to overcome uncertainty were of utmost importance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organisational change can affect the development of personal identities using a narrative approach.

This paper derives from qualitative and inductive cross‐national research into organisational change and learning. Three manufacturing firms, one each from the UK, South Africa and Russia, were studied to investigate sensemaking under conditions of change. Data were collected through narrative interviews and interpreted using an inductive approach borrowing elements from grounded theory and analytic induction.

The data suggest that organisational change affects the personal identities of those involved through the way in which organisational actors' expectations are being met, exceeded or disappointed. The conclusion is that changes in the work environment can result in major revisions to organisational actors' biographical selves and accompanying stories that give meaning to past experiences and future expectations.

Further qualitative and inductive research is required to further investigate the dynamics of identity construction under conditions of organisational change.

Five short biographical stories by selected research participants provide rich insights into the dynamics of identity development under conditions of organisational change.

Although the way in which, for example, substance use problems are conceived and reacted to (by experts and treatment professionals but also by the environment), can have vast consequences for those directly or indirectly concerned, there is little systematic knowledge about how various preferred approaches differ between types of problems and sociocultural settings. In an ambition to at least partly mend this gap, this paper aims to compare how the general public in Sweden, Finland, and Canada appraise four generically different approaches to dealing with substance use problems, as these are applied to problem use of alcohol, cannabis, heroin, and cigarettes.

The paper uses data from three national surveys, aimed at uncovering how representative population samples from Sweden, Finland, and Canada perceive and understand the character of, and the proper way of handling, various addictive problems. Data from these surveys have been used to discern and operationalize four basic “models of helping and coping” as these have been outlined by Brickman et al. (1982). The analysis has aimed at investigating how the popular preferences for either of these models vary with type of addiction (to cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis, and other (“hard”) drugs, national setting, and potentially important respondent characteristics.

The results point to large differences between the ways in which the general public understands the proper way of handling the four types of addiction, and shows, for example, that addiction to “hard” drugs is predominantly perceived as a matter for expert treatment, whereas smoking, or addiction to cigarettes, is more often perceived as a bad habit which the user is able to break on her/his own. In addition, the popularity of different handling models is found to vary between countries, and with personal characteristics such as gender, age, and substance use experiences.

The study is one of few that have systematically tried to find out how various forms of substance use problems, or addiction, are conceived and reacted to in various national and social settings.

The physical and psychological effects of human trafficking1 can be severe and long‐term (Zimmerman et al, 2006). Yet with appropriate support at all stages of the trafficking process women can be rehabilitated and re‐integrated within society (Zimmerman et al, 2003). This article highlights the unique needs of trafficked women and explores the work of the POPPY Project (the sole UK government‐funded dedicated service for women trafficked into prostitution) in helping trafficked women integrate into UK society successfully.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating roles of work and family demands and work-life balance on the relationship between self-efficacy (to regulate work and life) and work engagement. Specifically, it seeks to explain how self-efficacy influences employees’ thought patterns and emotional reactions, which in turn enable them to cope with work and family demands, and ultimately achieve work-life balance and work engagement.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) of survey data obtained from a heterogeneous sample of 1,010 Australian employees is used to test the hypothesised chain mediation model.

The SEM results support the hypothesised model. Self-efficacy was significantly and negatively related to work and family demands, which in turn were negatively associated with work-life balance. Work-life balance, in turn, enabled employees to be engaged in their work.

The findings support the key tenets of social cognitive theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory and demonstrate how self-efficacy can lead to work-life balance and engagement despite the presence of role demands. Study limitations (e.g. cross-sectional research design) and future research directions are discussed.

This study incorporates COR theory with social cognitive theory to improve understanding of how self-efficacy enhances work-life balance and work engagement through a self-fulfilling cycle in which employees achieve what they believe they can accomplish, and in the process, build other skills and personal resources to manage work and family challenges.

Minamata disease was first officially recognized in May 1956. Its earliest victims were small children. Environmental contamination most rapidly and seriously affected the physiologically weak among the residents. However, the outbreak of the disease in humans was preceded by abnormalities in the natural environment such as massive death of fish and shellfish, and the abnormal behavior and death of cats. It used to be considered that poisoning was caused by direct exposure to a toxic substance, and that toxic substances did not pass the placenta. Minamata disease is an indirect poisoning by methyl mercury through the food chain as a result of environmental contamination, and is the first known disease to cause abnomalities in the fetus due to a toxic agent passing through the placenta. Minamata disease, therefore, had implications in various fields. Namely it also stirred up legal, ethical, and eugenic arguments concerning fetal protection. This report reviews the course of Minamata disease, and evaluates its impacts. “Minamata Studies” has three intellectual and scientific missions to change the social systems that caused the disease; to pursue environmental justice; and to explore the possibility of an environment that permits coexistence not only of all humans, but of all living things.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how one tertiary enabling programme designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students uses a specifically designed pedagogy which goes beyond a focus on discrete academic skills to help students develop the resilience and knowledge about learning they need to be successful in tertiary learning contexts.

A narrative methodology is used to explore how graduates analysed and evaluated their experience of the course.

The stories show that for these students, resilience is a dynamic and multifaceted construct. Strength, confidence and resilience for these students come from seeing and valuing the strength and resilience that already exists in Indigenous people and Indigenous knowledge systems and using this as a basis for developing their own resilience.

This focus on resilience can provide a transformative experience for students who have largely been marginalised from the mainstream educational system, assisting them to build the crucial “cultural capital” required to be successful in their tertiary studies, while reinforcing the strength and knowledge they already bring with them. Through this process students are offered a way of navigating the higher education landscape on their own terms.

In Australia, as in many other countries, refugees are over-represented in the ranks of the unemployed, under-employed and precariously employed and often become frustrated in their attempts to secure work. Despite the construction industry being a major potential source of employment for refugees, there has been a surprising lack of research into their experiences of securing work in the industry. Addressing this gap and also the general lack of voice for refugees in construction research, the aim of this paper is to explore the barriers refugees face in securing employment in the construction industry.

This paper reports a survey of refugees who have worked or attempted to seek work in the Australian construction industry.

Results show that the main barriers to securing employment in construction are: lack of local work experience; employer discrimination; employer failure to recognise previous qualifications, skills and experience and employers not understanding the challenges they face. Government employment agencies and systems are also perceived to be of limited value and overly complex, in contrast to the activities of not-for-profit support agencies.

While the research is limited to Australia, the findings contribute an important and missing refugee dimension to the emerging body of research on construction social procurement. They also contribute unique sector-specific insights into the broader debate about refugee resettlement and employment. Further research is needed in other national contexts.

Recommendations are made to address the barriers to employment identified including: initiatives to provide refugees with work experience in the industry; education to break-down negative stereotypes of refugees among employers; greater support for not-for-profits supporting refugees and reform of government and employment agency systems and procedures.

By enhancing understanding of the barriers to employment for refugees in construction and proposing solutions to reduce those barriers, this research contributes new insights into a growing global challenge of how we better integrate growing numbers of refugees into harmonious and prosperous societies.

The findings are important in facilitating the smoother integration of refugees into society. Beyond the moral imperative, there are significant social, cultural and economic benefits which successful refugee integration brings to host countries and industries like construction which in many countries are now being required to employ refugees in their workforce as a condition of public sector contracts.