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This study aims to provide a contextualized look at the artisan sector in Zambia and asks: What factors contribute to scaling positive impact in artisan ventures in Zambia, and how can these factors be leveraged to promote positive economic, social and environmental outcomes for women and their communities.

This study uses an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach to gain a multi-layered understanding of artisan craft social enterprises in Zambia.

Purpose is found to be the primary driver of social and environmental impact in artisan social enterprises in Zambia, with female leadership a critical factor. Access to finance, markets and resources are also essential to help these organizations achieve their social missions.

While this study provides valuable insights into the artisan sector, its scope was limited to the Zambian context, making the generalizability of the findings to other geographies uncertain.

This research makes a valuable contribution to the literature on social enterprises by highlighting the critical role of female leadership and purpose in driving positive impact in artisan businesses in Zambia. Additionally, the study underscores the importance of understanding the mechanisms through which artisan social enterprises create positive change. The study highlights the importance of artisan craft employment for women in Zambia and illustrates the impact of Zambian artisan ventures, both formal social enterprises and informal businesses, on creating positive social and environmental impacts in the country.

This study aims to conduct a geographical analysis of the distribution and type of activities developed by social enterprises in rural and urban areas of Ireland.

The study analyses data of more than 4,000 social enterprises against a six-tier rural/urban typology, using descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests to test six hypotheses.

The study shows a geographical rural–urban pattern in the distribution of social enterprises in Ireland, with a positive association between the remoteness of an area and the ratio of social enterprises, and a lack of capital-city effect related to the density of social enterprises. The analysis also shows a statistically significant geographical rural–urban pattern for the types of activities developed by social enterprises. The authors observe a positive association between the remoteness of the areas and the presence of social enterprises operating in the community and local development sector whereas the association is not significant for social enterprises developing welfare services.

The paper shows the potential of using recently developed rural–urban typologies and tools such as geographical information systems for conducting geographical research on social enterprises. The findings also have implications for informing spatially sensitive policymaking on social enterprises.

The merging of a large national data set of social enterprises with geographical tools and data at subregional level contributes to the methodological advancement of the field of social enterprises, providing tools and frameworks for a nuanced and spatially sensitive analysis of these organisations.

Context matters in social entrepreneurship, and it matters a lot. Social entrepreneurs are deeply entrenched in the context where they operate: they respond to its challenges, are shaped by it, and attempt to shape it in turn. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how social entrepreneurship in Africa is still understood within the scope of Western theories, without much consideration for local variations of the commonly shared archetype of social entrepreneurship or for how African norms, values and beliefs may shape our common understanding of this phenomenon.

The authors survey the often-neglected literature on social entrepreneurship in Africa and bring it together in this paper to discuss – also from the vantage point of their own experience and research in diverse African countries – how important assumptions in the social entrepreneurship literature are confirmed, enriched or challenged by key dimensions of African contexts.

Four important themes in the literature on social entrepreneurship in Africa emerged – institutions, embedding values, entrepreneurial behaviour and bricolage and scaling impact – each with its own considerations of how African contexts may challenge predominant assumptions in the extant social entrepreneurship literature, as well as implications for future research.

The authors uncover ways in which the peculiarities of the African context may challenge the underlying – and mostly implicit – assumptions that have shaped the definition and analysis of social entrepreneurship. They end by offering their understanding of social entrepreneurship and its concomitant dimensions in Africa as a stepping stone for advancing the field in the continent and beyond.

This study aims to explore the ways that social enterprises (SE) create value by embedding themselves in networks through the process of social innovation (SI). The processes of achieving common social missions were studied through selected organizations using an open approach to SI. Novel operational structures as well as unique forms of created value were explored.

Two organizations embedded in local and international networks were studied and were chosen due to their SI profiles. The study was based on qualitative exploratory research. In-depth analysis was conducted through interviews, open discussions, document analysis as well as personal observation to understand the dynamic interrelatedness of the main factors influencing success of SI ventures.

This paper identified the role of SI in SEs embedded in networks. Furthermore, the social value creation processes of these organizations as well as the value they create were explored. Based on the findings, SI is rooted in the personality of the included members of the network. The tools of collaboration are platforms that connect the network members to each other. The embedded organizations apply the concept of community sharing with the aim of social value creation.

By focusing mainly on system design principles, the sample consists of mainly those at the core of organizations in facilitator roles, leaving peripheral actor perceptions to be determined by secondhand observations.

While providing a general summary of factors influencing SI activities from extent literature, the paper mainly contributes by providing deeper insight into complex models of SI practices used by SEs. The paper further contributes to popularizing the growing role of SI activities in SEs.

Though the circular economy (CE) is a current buzzword, this still lacks a precise definition. In the absence of a clear notion of what that term includes, actions taken by the government and companies may not be well informed. In particular, those actions need to consider what people mean when people talk about the CE, either to refocus people's decisions or to undertake a more effective communications strategy.

Since people voice people's opinions mainly through social media nowadays, special attention has to be paid to discussions on those media. In this paper, the authors focus on Twitter as a popular social platform to deliver one's thoughts quickly and fast. The authors' research aim is to get the perceptions of people about the CE. After collecting more than 100,000 tweets over 16 weeks, the authors analyse those tweets to understand the public discussion about the CE. The authors conduct a frequency analysis of the most recurring words, including the words' association with other words in the same context and categorise them into a set of topics.

The authors show that the discussion focuses on the usage of resources and materials that heavily endanger sustainability, i.e. carbon and plastic and the harmful habit of wasting. On the other hand, the two most common good practices associated with the CE and sustainability emerge as recycling and reuse (the latter being mentioned far less). Also, the business side of the CE appears to be relevant.

The outcome of this analysis can drive suitable communication strategies by which companies and governments interested in the development of the CE can understand what is actually discussed on social media and call for the attention.

This paper addresses the lack of a standard definition the authors highlighted in the Introduction. The results confirm that people understand CE by looking both at CE's constituent activities and CE's expected consequences, namely the reduction of waste, the transition to a green economy free of plastic and other pollutants and the improvement of the world climate.

Since the core issue of Chinese economics is to elucidate the logical relationship between socialism and the market economy, it necessitates a robust foundation for microeconomic analysis to uncover the behavioral patterns and characteristics of microeconomic agents in a socialist market economy and identify the conditions and methods for the functioning of market mechanisms.

The core issue of microeconomics with Chinese characteristics is to identify the economic logic of how market mechanisms play a decisive role in resource allocation under the basic socialist economic system based on China's reform.

The core issue in building the foundation of microeconomic analysis of Chinese economics is addressing the compatibility issue between SOEs and a market economy.

In the author’s view, this can be achieved under the logic of classified reform so as to build the microeconomic foundation for the effective functioning of a socialist market economy.

The creation of positive social change (PSC) is considered the primary success criterion when evaluating social enterprise performance. However, despite a proliferation of PSC-measurements, their empirical validity and applicability in emerging economies remain largely unclear. The quantitative study examines the validity of the PSC-measurement approaches proposed by Bloom and Smith (2010; Bloom and Smith approach [BSA]) and Weaver (2020b; Weaver approach [WA]) in South Africa.

Investigating a representative sample of 347 social entrepreneurs from Gauteng and Limpopo provinces, the authors use questionnaire data to explore the factorial, convergent and discriminant validity of both PSC-measurement approaches. Statistically, this is done by applying factorial and correlation analyses.

The results yield acknowledgeable differences. BSA has a high factorial and convergent validity, while its discriminant validity remains doubtful. For WA, problems concerning factorial validity occur.

Despite limited generalizability, the authors provide a first guideline for scholars regarding the empirical validity of BSA and WA outside the context of developed economies.

The current study sheds light on the validity of two PSC-measurement approaches in an emerging economy context. This way, the authors contribute to the field by addressing the scarcity of empirical research and the restricted scope of developed economies regarding PSC-measurement.

The integration of the digital economy and the real economy has been a key focus in promoting digital economic development. It denotes a comprehensive digital transformation of national economic activities regarding technological infrastructure and production modes, which is crucial for establishing a modern economic system, advancing industrial infrastructure and modernizing industrial chains.

Firstly, the study delves into the internal logic behind the emergence of the new development dynamic resulting from digital technology's evolution. Secondly, it explores the mechanism of mutual promotion and support between the new development dynamic and the digital economy based on China's shift in focus from international engagement to the domestic economy during different stages of industrialization. Subsequently, it analyzes the characteristics and critical factors of digital economy development and examines the macro-, meso- and micro-level constraints on these factors. Finally, the paper explores approaches to promoting digital economy development while constructing the new development dynamic and provides relevant policy suggestions.

The construction of the new development dynamic and the development of the digital economy are inextricably linked, and only by mutually reinforcing each other can they provide an inexhaustible impetus for China's high-quality economic development.

The new development dynamic and the digital economy development form an indivisible whole. The new development dynamic creates the necessary conditions for digital economy development and promotes the formation of digital production modes. In turn, the development of the digital economy should strive to improve the mainstay position of the domestic economy, enhance the synergy between the domestic economy and international engagement, upgrade value chains while improving the supply and the industrial chains in China and ensure a parallel increase in labor income alongside improved productivity.

Levels of unemployment and environmental challenges make social entrepreneurship and social enterprise very important for the sustainability of society. Higher education has played a fundamental role in driving entrepreneurship and innovation in local, national, regional, and global contexts. The authors of this article explore the state of the legislative framework in Ghana, as well as social enterprise education, stakeholder engagement, models and challenges. The methodology applied for this paper is concept mapping, enabling the critical exploration of the relevance of social enterprise in the context of higher education, and demonstrating how it could practically serve as a panacea to rising youth unemployment. This research concludes by making a case for including social enterprise in the higher education curriculum.

In the new development stage of comprehensively building a socialist modern state, it is imperative to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, comprehensively summarize China's practical experiences in economic development, strengthen research on capital issues, construct theories of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics regarding capital and provide scientific theoretical guidance for further promoting the positive role of various types of capital while preventing and overcoming their negative effects, which is a major theoretical issue and a glorious task for the theoretical and economic circles in China.

From the perspective of Marx's theory on capital and historical development, modern capital represents the organizational mode of socialized mass production and market economy. It serves as both the economic foundation of bourgeois society and a tool for socialist economic development.

The market economy represents an inevitable historical stage and form of socialist economic development, necessitating the adoption of capital as an organizational form within socialist economies.

The utilization of capital to advance a socialist economy is a remarkable achievement by the CPC and Chinese people, representing a significant innovation in both theory and practice. The role of capital is inherently dual under any social condition. In the context of a socialist system, capital can play a positive role effectively, and its behavior can be guided and regulated correctly to curb its negative or even destructive impact.