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We analyze the food security implications of off-farm labor reallocation decisions of rural farm households in transitional Albania. We accomplish this by examining local and nonlocal off-farm incomes for at-home food consumption expenditures.

An instrumental variable approach is employed to correct for endogeneity and censorship biases of off-farm income variables in a two-stage estimation of the food consumption expenditures.

We find that local off-farm income exerts a positive and significant effect on per capita food consumption expenditures of farm households, while private remittances from nonlocal off-farm income has the opposite effect on food consumption expenditures. In terms of regional heterogeneity, we discover that the mountain region spends significantly less on annual per capita food consumption compared to the central region. This confirms anecdotal evidence that food and nutrition insecurity in rural Albania is predominant in the mountain region.

Our findings suggest the need for policy makers to promote a development agenda that enables farm households to exploit the synergies among the various income-generating activities in the rural economy. This spectrum of income-generating activities forms complex livelihood strategies adopted by rural farm households to improve and maintain their food security.

We distinguish between local and nonlocal sources of off-farm income. Knowing which off-farm income source(s) has the largest impact on household welfare through improved food security status should be of interest to policy makers.

The Albanian migration has always reflected a family character, be that before 1945 when Albania was not yet completely isolated, as well as after 1990 when borders were reopened. This feature characterized all types of movement, internal or international, permanent or seasonal migration, return migration or transnational movements and remigration. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the family as a very important factor in making decisions regarding migration and answering questions from why to how to migrate, from when to where, whom to ask for help or how to invest remittances.

Based on the case study of a rural area in Northern Albania, the Administrative Unit of Dajç, this paper explores in detail the roles of family and kinship on decisions regarding return migration, the re-adjustment process, remigration or transnational life.

By exploring the role of the family context in remigration and vice-versa, the paper reflects that the family biography – including the lifestyle, plans for the future or expectations – has changed due to previous migration experiences or challenges and difficulties when returning to the home country.

It demonstrates how individual decisions to migrate or to “return home” are negotiated and supported within families making transnational life a family project. The paper adopts a new approach in the Albanian Migration Studies, which may be implied on broader areas for further research in the future.

Public sector management, policy-making, sustainable development, post-Communism.

The case is designed to be used with undergraduate-level and MBA/MPA students. With undergraduate levels, the case can be used on the subject strategic management. In MBA/MPA programs, this case can be used in subjects such as strategic planning for public administration. Here, it can be stressed as being about the problems faced by a country on the long road toward democracy. Issues to be discussed in class include: environmental scanning, competitiveness, public policies and strategic agenda.

At the most general level, the case allows for the analysis and evaluation of the strategy and performance of the Albania from 1928 to 2014 along economic, political and social dimensions, using the techniques of country analysis (see Country Analysis Framework, HBS No. 389-080). Depending on time limitations and the particular objectives of the individual instructor, the case can be used to explore all phases of the nation's development or, alternatively, to focus on a specific era, such as Albania, in the way toward a free market economy. The case provides a setting in which to explore the diamond model as a tool for analyzing competitiveness and setting the economic policy agenda. In the Albania case, we highlight diamond analysis in an emerging economy. Albania also highlights the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, and the importance of a cross-border regional integration in competitiveness.

The case is written to serve a number of purposes: Understanding the problems and challenges to sustainable development, especially in a post-communist emerging economy like Albania. The transition/changes that all policymakers have to go through in their efforts for sustainable development of the country. To discuss production factors and the importance of a growth model based on the production factors.

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The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed analysis of the socioeconomic and demographic determinants driving food away from home (FAFH) consumption expenditures at full service and fast food restaurants in transition Albania.

Using a nationally representative data set, this study estimates a system of full service and fast food restaurant consumption expenditures under sample selection framework. The system estimator exploits full information about the error correlations for gain in efficiency.

The results indicate that future growth of the foodservice industry in Albania will be driven by increased spending at full service restaurants due to rising opportunity cost of the food manager’s time at home, household income and years of formal schooling of Albanians.

The findings of this study can inform policy deliberations in designing nutrition and education programs for the Albanian Government to combat rising obesity rates. Moreover, the findings can inform marketing strategies by foodservice firms in Albania. On FAFH–obesity debate, future research can focus on the analysis of FAFH consumption expenditures on obesity rates in Albania.

Consumption of FAFH is fast evolving in developing and transition economies. Albania, a typical transition country, is no exception. Concurrently, Albania is under epidemiological transition facing increased incidence of non-communicable diseases and obesity. Any intervention program by the Albanian Government aimed at reversing the rising obesity trend by targeting FAFH consumption should be based on sound empirical findings. Analysis of FAFH consumption expenditures across different foodservice facilities is an under-researched topic for Albania in the literature.

Transnational migrant entrepreneurship is an increasingly important and multi-faceted process. Because of the ‘double transition’ of Albanian migrants, in terms of migration (spatial transition) and in terms of transition from socialism to capitalism and more specifically the absence of entrepreneurship experience in their homeland during the communist regime, we might think of Albanians as being in a weak position for mastering entrepreneurship. But, paradoxically, the evidence tends to prove the opposite. Albanians have succeeded in identifying various entrepreneurial opportunities, and are nowadays increasingly engaging in a wider range of entrepreneurial activities. The overall aim of this chapter thus is to analyse the causes and consequences of transnational entrepreneurship among Albanian migrants doing business with Albania and Albanian returnees pursuing business activities with their former destination countries. For this purpose, the author draws on face-to-face interviews with 50 Albanian migrant entrepreneurs engaged in cross-border economic activities in Albania, Italy and Greece, supplemented by further interviews with key informants, as well as government policy documents. The analysis in this chapter offers important insights into the two main types of entrepreneur, which are ‘necessity’ and ‘opportunity’ entrepreneurs; the emergence of academic entrepreneurship among Albanian transnational entrepreneurs; and the contribution of transnational migrant entrepreneurs in terms of added value at the individual and community levels, as well as potentially impacting on the country’s economic and social development.

In contexts of transition economies generally characterized by weak formal institutions, a rich literature remarks the important role of informal institutions in fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems. Nevertheless, in the agricultural context, little is known yet about how and why institutions shape farmer entrepreneurship. To better understand how informal institutions shape farmer entrepreneurship, this paper investigates how farmers' trust towards their buyers influence their entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the rural context of a transition economy.

A structured survey was conducted in June–July 2017 with Albanian dairy farmers. In total, 238 milk producers were interviewed. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is employed to develop measures for the latent variables of the study (e.g. farmers' trust, EO), and an instrumental variable (IV) approach is employed to estimate the effect of farmers' trust towards the buyer on their EO, by using farmers' reciprocity as a suitable IV.

Empirical findings reveal that innovativeness, risk-taking and proactivity represent effective dimensions of farmers' EO also in the rural context of a transition economy. Furthermore, farmers' trust towards their buyers shapes their EO, and, at the same time, younger and wealthier farmers are more likely to have higher levels of EO.

The results show that there is an association between farmers’ wealth and their EO. This relationship can go both ways. However, cross-sectional studies are not appropriate to investigate feedback loops.

This study addresses a knowledge gap in the institution–entrepreneurship literature in transition economies, by making two contributions. First, it tests the measurement model for farmers' EO, an established psychological antecedent of farmers' entrepreneurial activity. Second, it tests the hypothesis that farmers' trust towards their buyers may influence their EO.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of off-farm work on food security in rural Bangladesh. We use rural household-level data and a nonparametric propensity score matching (PSM) estimator. Matching estimators are used in observational data to address the potential selection biases caused by nonrandom allocation of the treatment. Monthly food-consumption data and household income and expenditure surveys from rural Bangladesh for 2013–2014 are used in this chapter. We found that rural Bangladeshi households participating in nonfarm income-generating activities, especially in higher return nonfarm employment, enjoy higher levels of per-capita food expenditures and diet diversity – two of the measures of food security. In particular, we find that rural households increased diet diversity in cereals, fruits and vegetables, and meats. Finally, our estimates reveal that rural households participating in off-farm work increased per-capita food consumption by about Taka 1,576, on average, and increased per-capita expenditures on milk and milk products (Taka 212), and fruits and vegetables (Taka 235) significantly. Policy makers should design and implement policies that create off-farm livelihood activities. These nonfarm activities would help smallholder farm families to diversify, to supplement their income, and to continue their agricultural operations as well as increase food security.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay of skill-enhancing human resources practices, customer orientation (CO) and tourism small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) performance indicators.

Data for 194 valid cases are gathered through face-to-face techniques in Albanian tourism SMEs. Structural equation modeling is implemented to analyze data and test the hypothesis proposed.

Overall, both skill-enhancing human resources (HR) practices (i.e. recruitment/selection and training) are not associated with SMEs performance. Results suggest that using HR selection/recruitment practices are not associated to SME’s CO. Contrary, implementing skill-enhancing HR training practices is significant for SMEs strategy to focus and address customers’ wants and needs. Finally, it was found that the CO mediates the relationship between skill-enhancing HR training practices and performance, but this was not true on the skill-enhancing HR recruitment/selection practices-performance relationship.

This study makes contributions by further informing the debate about the direct and indirect link between skill-enhancing HR practices and performance. Additionally, it examines the precise role of the skill-enhancing HR practice on SMEs’ culture and or strategy to create value for customers.

In this chapter, using a narrative approach, the author reflects on her experience traveling to rural Alaska to teach an undergraduate course to a group of Alaska Native students. She reflects, using five words, on her own upbringing, how she prepared for the experience, and her lessons learned, with the intention of helping other educators consider who they are, how they teach, and how they might help their Indigenous students succeed.

The purpose of this paper is to present a statistical examination of the factors affecting the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Data on MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia during the period 1999‐2004 were used in this study. A statistical analysis of the performance of these MFIs was conducted utilizing a cost function approach, which was estimated using seemingly unrelated regressions.

During the study time period, MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and with a higher percentage of loans to women had lower costs. The presence of subsidies is also found to be associated with higher MFI costs.

Providing financial services to women, and use of group loans was associated with lower costs in Eastern Europe and central Asian microfinance institutions in the early 2000s.

This study focuses exclusively on efficiency of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the first to explicitly measure outreach efficiency when output is measured by number of active clients, rather than the value of the overall MFI lending portfolio.