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1 – 10 of 139The aim of the study is to determine the key development stages of small entrepreneurship in Belarus depending on the impact of reformative activity of authorities on…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the study is to determine the key development stages of small entrepreneurship in Belarus depending on the impact of reformative activity of authorities on socio-innovative activity of entrepreneurs. Also we seek to determine the projective behavioral strategies of entrepreneurs in the context of contradictory socio-economic processes in Belarus.
Design/methodology/approach
Historico-sociological approach to the development of small entrepreneurship in Belarus is based on the analysis of books, articles, official documents and official statistics available mostly in the Russian and Belarusian languages. Expert survey is used as the most effective method of survey to predict further development of small entrepreneurship. Within the framework of the activity-structure concept, (T. Zaslavskaya) combination of both approaches allows presenting quantitative and qualitative changes in business structures in order to coordinate socio-economic progress.
Findings
In Belarusian transition economy the reformative activity of the authorities is absolutely dependent on politico-administrative influence. That is why the behavioral strategies of entrepreneurs are formed as reaction-adaptive behavior under mounting pressure of state policy.
Research limitations/implications
The results are primarily applicable for post-Soviet republics and countries with transition economy.
Practical implications
This paper implies that in post-Soviet economies like Belarus socio-economic integration of entrepreneurs is overly dependent on politico-administrative activity of the authorities.
Originality/value
This study includes two approaches: historico-sociological and expert survey as a forecasting method. This sociological approach gives the opportunity to characterise the continuity in behavioral strategies of entrepreneurs.
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Modern scholars of the history of economic thought recognise that John Bates Clark’s earlier works bear far less formal abstraction and, instead, fervently appeal for economic…
Abstract
Modern scholars of the history of economic thought recognise that John Bates Clark’s earlier works bear far less formal abstraction and, instead, fervently appeal for economic reforms that are inspired by Protestant ethics and German Historicism. After the violent Haymarket incident in Chicago in 1886, Clark is assumed to have entirely dismissed his preoccupation with social reforms and ethics. We provide a counterpoint to this common understanding by finding out that Clark’s originally ethical impetus persists throughout his writings beyond Haymarket. The striking parallelism of his earlier ideas on moral progress and the role of Protestant ethics herein and his later model of natural evolution and entrepreneurial change allow us to characterise Clark’s economics as persistently reformative in character. Further, his application of marginalism must not be understood as purely deductive analysis. Instead, it shows the ideal of an economy that performs analogously to a coherent organism. Clark’s theory of value and distribution is found to build substantially on his reformative claim that the American economy should be founded on a principle of equal and voluntary exchange. This republican idea of the economy is integrated into an ontological reflection of the very preconditions of social wealth.
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This paper aims to focus on the perspectives of correctional officers supervising young offenders on community supervision in Singapore.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on the perspectives of correctional officers supervising young offenders on community supervision in Singapore.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a qualitative research framework, where attention was devoted to understanding the perspectives of eight reintegration officers, and what they perceived to have helped young offenders successfully discharged from community supervision.
Findings
The five essential factors that emerged are compliance to supervision conditions, education and/or employment, ability to cope and efforts to change, support and environment. Each factor is defensible and had been substantiated by past research that incorporates evidence-based practice in correctional rehabilitation for offenders.
Research limitations/implications
Due to constraints imposed on the research timeline, the five factors identified do not take into account societal-level barriers such as stigma, discrimination and inequalities, which are important factors that can be further explored in subsequent studies.
Originality/value
In Singapore, there is no research study on the Reintegration Officers' perspectives on what they deemed as critical for offenders to be discharged from community supervision. Understanding these key factors may help to shape future research in determining supervisees’ readiness for discharge from community supervision in Singapore. This knowledge gained could further inform and bolster the correctional rehabilitation services provided by SPS and be further developed into a tool that can be used to systematically assess the readiness of offenders to be discharged from community supervision.
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Sara Hajmohammad, Anton Shevchenko and Stephan Vachon
Firms are increasingly accountable for their suppliers' social and environmental practices. Nonmarket stakeholders nowadays do not hesitate to confront buying firms for their…
Abstract
Purpose
Firms are increasingly accountable for their suppliers' social and environmental practices. Nonmarket stakeholders nowadays do not hesitate to confront buying firms for their suppliers' misconducts by mobilizing demonstrations, social media campaigns and boycotts. This paper aims to develop a typology of response strategies by targeted firms when they face such contentions and to empirically investigate why these strategies vary among those firms.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on social movement and stakeholder salience theories, the authors develop a set of hypotheses linking their typology of four response strategies to three key contextual factors – nonmarket stakeholder salience, nonmarket stakeholder ideology and the target firm reputation – and examine them using a vignette-based experiment methodology.
Findings
The results suggest that nonmarket stakeholder salience significantly impacts the nature of response (reject or concede), whereas the nonmarket stakeholder ideology is significantly related to the intensity of response (trivial or vigorous). Interestingly, the firms' reputation was found to have no significant effect on their response strategy when they faced stakeholder contentions.
Originality/value
This paper adds both theoretical and methodological value to the existing literature. Theoretically, the study develops and tests a comprehensive typology of response strategies to nonmarket stakeholder contentions. Methodologically, this study is original in leveraging a vignette-based experiment that allows establishing causal factors of response strategies following a supplier sustainability misconduct.
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Joyce P.S. Chan, Jessie H.Y. Yeung, Nicholas C.Q. Wong, Richie C.H. Tan and N. Musa
The purpose of this paper is to understand how digital media technologies can enhance offender rehabilitation in correctional institutions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how digital media technologies can enhance offender rehabilitation in correctional institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was adopted for this study involving young prisoners who had been incarcerated for at least six months. In total, 16 participants who fulfilled the criteria of listening to at least 30 of the podcasts were eventually selected for face-to-face interview.
Findings
This study focuses on how the radio podcast impacted the rehabilitation process of the 16 young inmates. From data collected through the interviews, three major themes emerged from the study, namely, reflective thinking, increased motivation to change and structured routines. The participants highlighted how these factors are essential in moving them towards successful rehabilitation upon their release.
Research limitations/implications
A convenient sample was used as there was a lack of a more diverse sample to better represent the prison population in Singapore. The number of participants who took part in the study were limited and only young inmates. Thus, the outcome of the research may not be directly applicable to the general prison population. Another issue is that media has short-lived effects and does not encourage persistent learning, it would be prudent to explore other options that can complement the radio podcasts.
Originality/value
The study indicated that the use of digital media technology can effectively aid the rehabilitation of offenders in Singapore. It enhanced work efficiency since fewer resources were required as inmates can have podcast access within their cells. The content of the podcasts complements the overall framework of rehabilitation for young inmates when they are serving their sentences in the institutions.
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Lilian Julia Trechsel, Clara Léonie Diebold, Anne Barbara Zimmermann and Manuel Fischer
This study aims to explore how the boundary between science and society can be addressed to support the transformation of higher education towards sustainable development (HESD…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how the boundary between science and society can be addressed to support the transformation of higher education towards sustainable development (HESD) in the sense of the whole institution approach. It analyses students’ learning experiences in self-led sustainability projects conducted outside formal curricula to highlight their potential contribution to HESD. The students’ projects are conceived as learning spaces in “sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning” (Wals, 2020) in which five learning dimensions can be examined.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an iterative, grounded-theory-inspired qualitative approach and sensitising concepts, 13 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted exploring students’ learning experiences. Interviews were categorised in MAXQDA and analysed against a literature review.
Findings
Results revealed that students’ experiences of non-formal learning in self-led projects triggered deep learning and change agency. Trust, social cohesion, empowerment and self-efficacy were both results and conditions of learning. Students’ learnings are classified according to higher education institutions’ (HEIs) sustainability agendas, providing systematised insights for HEIs regarding their accommodative, reformative or transformative (Sterling, 2021) path to sustainable development.
Originality/value
The education for sustainable development (ESD) debate focuses mainly on ESD competences in formal settings. Few studies explore students’ learnings where formal and non-formal learning meet. This article investigates a space where students interact with different actors from society while remaining rooted in their HEIs. When acting as “change agents” in this hybrid context, students can also become “boundary agents” helping their HEIs move the sustainability agenda forward towards a whole institution approach. Learning from students’ learnings is thus proposed as a lever for transformation.
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This study aims to examine the problems encountered during the establishment of the Central Police Academy (CPA) under the Nationalist regime from 1936 to 1949. While the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the problems encountered during the establishment of the Central Police Academy (CPA) under the Nationalist regime from 1936 to 1949. While the authoritarian party-state unified the police academies by forceful means, this catalyzed the cleavage between the schools of police studies and resulted in power struggles over police education, intellectual thought, collectivity and even the national reform of police administration. More than narrating the progress of power consolidation, this study attempts to identify the problems underlying the factional strife and to reveal the interwoven pattern of these power struggles, exploring the confusion regarding what the police is, a question that troubled Chinese policemen from the mainland to Taiwan.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper explains the emergence of the factional strife from the beginning of the preliminary growth of the Police Academies in Nanking and Chekiang. It widely makes use of the official archives from Japan Center for Asian Historical Records and Historica Academia to show the dynamic situation in police education and administration. Rather, the official publications of the Police Academies and their affiliated associations reveal the hidden political agenda behind a unified framework as the party-state claimed. Moreover, official gazettes, memorials and newspapers are also used to strengthen the core argument of this study.
Findings
This paper examines the impact of the factional strife between the police leaders Dai Li and Li Shizhen on the CPA from 1936 to 1949. It illustrates that the establishment of the CPA ostensibly unified the nationwide police force but triggered power struggles over the control of the police administration. More importantly, it also shows how the factions strove for larger shares of power under the supreme doctrines that Chiang Kai-shek and the party-state imposed.
Originality/value
The failure of police education to become powerful was a special case among other more typical institutions. The governors coercively merged the police academies and created robust conditions for growth under the shelter of state authority. The police force did not follow the same path of national monopoly as what recent studies found but drifted apart with its vested interests and incompatible beliefs. Hence, the greater the demand for centralized control by the state, the greater the tension of the factional strife.
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While often used in everyday exchanges, feeling vigorous at work, that is individuals’ feelings that they have physical strength, emotional energy, and cognitive liveliness, has…
Abstract
While often used in everyday exchanges, feeling vigorous at work, that is individuals’ feelings that they have physical strength, emotional energy, and cognitive liveliness, has hardly been subjected to any conceptual inquiry or empirical research. In this chapter, I pursue the following objectives: (a) to review the range of behavioral science literature in which vigor has been considered as a distinct affect; (b) based on this review, to present a conceptual framework of vigor at work; (c) to explore the antecedents of vigor and its consequences, including vigor’s possible effects on individuals’ mental and physical health, and job performance; and (d) to describe a proposed measure of vigor at work and the results of an effort to construct validate the new measure. I conclude by pointing out a few open research questions that concern the study of vigor at work.
Sang Ho Kim and Yohan An
This paper aims to investigate the impact of the separation between control and cash flow rights (control-ownership disparity) on the earnings management practices of Chinese…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of the separation between control and cash flow rights (control-ownership disparity) on the earnings management practices of Chinese firms. The notable features of Chinese firms are those of concentrated ownership and the severe disparity that exists between the control and cash flow rights of controlling shareholders.
Design/methodology/approach
This study measures the level of Chinese firms’ earnings management by adopting two different methods of measurement: accrual-based earnings management (AEM) and real activity earnings management (REM). The authors also consider the possible trade-off effects between these two types of measurements. The data set in this study encompasses over 2,000 Chinese firms, using data from 2003 to 2015.
Findings
The results indicate that controlling shareholders are more likely to engage in AEM as their cash flow rights are more concentrated, while they are less likely to use REM as the disparity of control-cash flow rights increases. Further, this inverse relationship between REM and control-cash flow rights disparity becomes more pronounced in the case of a low cash flow rights group. As REM generally causes distortions in firms’ operations, it is possible that the controlling shareholders are more likely to constrain the use of REM as the disparity is perceived to grow. This result may indicate a reduced agency problem between controlling and minority shareholders due to the developing and/or existing ownership dispersions, which are mainly driven by recent reforms applied to Chinese capital markets. However, we do not entirely exclude the possibility of other types of expropriations by the controlling shareholders. It appears that the controlling shareholders are still able to exert a significant level of control, even following a substantial ownership dispersion, and they may seek alternative expropriation methods, including but not limited to intercorporate loan or related party transactions as the disparity of control-cash flow rights increases.
Originality/value
Although the Chinese economy is experiencing a series of reforms to infuse market forces into capital markets, little has been known about the effects of ownership-control disparity in Chinese firms. Our findings highlight the importance of the country specific context in this vein of research.
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