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The purpose of this paper examines how the challenge of poverty can be effectively addressed by broadly adopting Islamic value based cooperative model (IVCM) where the members come together to overcome and eventually eradicate the curse of poverty for themselves and for their future generations.

The elimination of poverty by adopting IVCM and its impact on the cooperative members, as well as its effects on major macroeconomic variables, are examined on the theoretical ground by using the general equilibrium model of demand and supply-side variables.

The IVCM for the elimination of poverty reveals that the poverty gap can be eliminated through resource mobilization, as well as by creating new and additional income, wealth and resources through collaborative efforts. Through cooperative organizations based on Islamic values and principles, eventually, the entire poverty pool can enjoy income-earning opportunities through employment or self-employment, as well as promoting skills and education, leading to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

Cooperatives in general and Islamic cooperatives, in particular, are not new in the discourse about poverty. Indeed, there are cooperatives throughout the Muslim world and beyond and there are many studies related to cooperatives and their role in development. However, this might be the first theoretical contribution that models the role and impact of cooperatives in a macroeconomic framework, and thus, advances the scientific repertoire of knowledge and understanding about the related discourse by developing a rigorous mathematical model.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate by text and empirical facts, the need to reform the rules in force.

This study confronts current standards with empirical facts. To do this, it is postulated that even though current market access standards are better that the Gatt 1947 rules, they leave the possibility for some members to hijack them to eventually increase their protection effective tariff.

Market access standards for agricultural products should be reformed because of their asymmetry. To put an end to this asymmetry, these standards should be rebalanced. This is precisely the challenge of the current multilateral negotiations.

Unlike the studies conducted on this subject (to my knowledge), which are mainly based on economic or political science methods, this analysis is essentially based on legal reasoning law.

The purpose of this study was to bring library practitioners and researchers together to develop two co-designed tools for helping library practitioners gain a more holistic understanding of families in underserved groups and identify their values with the goal of developing more relevant learning experiences for them. The co-designed tools were then tested with Master’s of Library and Information Science (MLIS) students at two universities, whose feedback yielded several valuable findings and informed revisions to the tools.

A participatory, design-based approach was used throughout the study, both with engaging library practitioners in the co-design of different tools and processes introduced in the Toolkit, and to help MLIS students and library practitioners test the tools and provide feedback on the tool revisions.

Students indicated that the tools helped them develop a deeper understanding of underserved groups and their values and gave the students the time and space to reflect on their understanding of the socio-cultural and value contexts of their communities and the values they hold.

This study can help libraries more effectively design strengths-based learning experiences that are meaningful and relevant to underserved groups and their values, particularly for children and families from underserved communities.

Capitalism is fundamentally an economics of producers that has always served the cause of producers. Its special concern for economizing the production process in the guise of economic efficiency went always in favor of producers at the cost of interests of workers and consumers thereby creating a strong sense of economic deprivation in the conscience of workers and low‐income consumers who generally constitute the majority of the population in almost all the developed countries including the United States of America. It is this growing sense of economic deprivation that can be easily observed, especially in the big cities of the United States of America, as a catalyst for Marxist reaction. The Marxist fruit of Capitalist international economics appeared in the form of cold war within the global economy between the rich and the poor countries. Keeping in view the historical dynamics of Marxist movement, twentieth century Capitalist economists have consciously started to counter the threat of Marxism by incorporating in economics the extensive analysis of issues such as social welfare function, interdependent utility functions, intertemporal utility functions, equity in distribution, unemployment insurance, economic development, labor unionism, full‐employment of labor, economic rents, consumer protectionism etc. in the form of labor economics, public sector economics and development economics. It was no doubt a Capitalists' cleverish attempt to redress the grievances, mainly resulting from market failures, of the economically depressed classes within the Capitalist system. So far problems of the depressed classes could not be solved and are not at all expected to be fully solved within the original Capitalistic framework due to its inherent exploitative tendencies.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how some born global firms can leverage the rich social capital in their local (home country) horizontal network for accelerated international market entry and growth. Horizontal networks warrant separate attention from their vertical counterparts, which, along with those focussed on external international contexts, dominate most network studies in the realm of born global research.

The study utilises a multi-level qualitative approach in the study of a multi-firm population of animators in Ireland that, due to the small domestic market for their product, needed to pursue global customers from inception. The case study domain was purposely selected as a critical exemplar of a local horizontal network operating in a highly globalised industry. The authors collected data through in-depth interviews with 16 company founders. This primary interview data were complemented by interviews with staff at the apposite industry association and triangulated with secondary data on the local and global industry conditions, members’ international successes and awards.

The results demonstrate how active membership of a local horizontal network can be leveraged for the acquisition of international market knowledge and customers for born global ventures. This arises from the sharing of collective market knowledge and communal global customer information within the network to mutual benefit.

Although limited by the specific conditions in this highly globalised, non-competitive industry context, this study is unique in that it finds that cooperative interpersonal and inter-firm relationships embedded in a local horizontal social network, and mediated in part by an institutional support actor, emerge as important levers for a born global’s accelerated acquisition of foreign market knowledge and of global customers.

Purpose – We explore two characteristics of groups in today's work environments, membership dispersion and geographic dispersion, and the effects that these conditions have on group and organizational learning.

Approach – We integrate findings on group membership dispersion and geographic dispersion and develop predictions of dispersion's effects on group learning, incorporating the literature on knowledge transfer, transactive memory, turnover, and communication.

Findings – Members in multiple work groups, while exposed to knowledge from different areas, have weaker group identities and are more adversely affected by time constraints than members who belong to only one group. Group members can be dispersed sequentially through turnover, which creates more knowledge-retention problems than those experienced by stable groups. Members of geographically dispersed groups are in positions to integrate novel knowledge. The necessary use of technology to communicate, however, reduces the ability of geographically dispersed group members to convey ideas as effectively as their collocated counterparts. Geographically distributed group members experience less common ground and more difficulty in transferring knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, than their collocated counterparts.

Originality/value – We discuss how membership and geographic dispersion pose challenges to and provide opportunities for group learning. We suggest how learning within dispersed groups can be supported as well as what the future holds for the role of these groups in the new economy. The chapter concludes that although membership and geographic dispersion pose challenges to learning at the group level, these conditions enable learning at the level of the organization.

The authors considered three regional trading agreements (RTAs): European Union (EU-25), ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), and South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) to test the hypothesis that poor members within a RTA catch rich members and thereby follow the path of income convergence. Of particular interest is to test whether partial openness (i.e. formation of RTAs) or openness or political conditions are conducive to economic growth among the member countries of RTAs. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors used pooled datasets from three different RTAs, namely the EU-25, the AFTA, and the SAFTA. Taking five years average for all variables, starting from 1961 to 1965 and extending to 2001-2005, the authors tested the hypothesis that the growth rate of per capita GDP is negatively related to the initial level of per capita GDP. Constructing a dynamic behavioral equation and forming the reduced form equation, the authors calculated the s-convergence, and both conditional and unconditional convergence.

The authors found that both the EU-25 and the AFTA exhibit s-convergence, and both conditional and unconditional convergence, while the reverse evidence was observed in the case of the SAFTA. However, the speed of convergence of the AFTA was found to be much higher than that of the EU-25.

Formation of RTA by countries should be considered as an essential condition to achieve sustained economic growth. In addition, political rights, trade openness, and more importantly benevolence of the member countries within the RTA must be shown to sustain economic growth and convergence; otherwise with the passage of time, divergence among the RTA members will be evident.

The present study aimed to examine the value creation process in an online forum community of a crowdsourcing company by analyzing members' interactions and network structures.

A mixed-method approach was adopted. First, a participation-observation netnographic approach was employed to identify the interactions that lead to the collective creation of three types of value: social, intellectual, and cultural. Second, using social network analysis, the collective value creation process was examined through the network structures, and the key actors and their roles in value creation were identified.

findings presented that members collectively create value in a unique manner for enhancing product designs in a crowdsourcing community. Three types of value coexisted and were often created inter-dependently. The interactions among the members were not dense yet were fairly knitted without any significant core-periphery structures, indicating a less restrained flow of value. The findings of the study identified that most of the bridging members in the network were likely to have diverse social and intellectual resources.

The present study was one of the first to examine the collective value creation process through a network perspective. In particular, this study offered a richer understanding of the unique collective value creation process in a crowdsourcing community and the role of bridging actors in the network. Implications for crowdsourcing companies are provided to sustain a continuous flow of quality contributions from the forum community members.