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Women are the change agents in today's society. They are not only the harbingers of growth and development but also act as a major catalyst in the economic advancement and prosperity of the nation. India has been witnessing an expansion in women entrepreneurs given the conducive startup ecosystem we have created over the years. It has inspired women to break the shackles and switch to being a game changer for themselves and many others over the years. The study aims to explore the impact of social entrepreneurial leadership on women empowerment and how does benchmarking help in this process.

Using a semi-structured questionnaire, the study conducted one-to-one in-depth and focused group interviews with the five women social entrepreneurs and their team. NVivo was used for content and thematic analysis.

Major themes identified from the study include financial independence, women empowerment, social identity, autonomy, mobility, attaining self-confidence, creativity and innovation, fulfillment of motives, action and social learning, and setting standards (benchmarks). The findings revealed that social entrepreneurial leadership has a significant impact on women empowerment through benchmarking.

Social entrepreneurial leadership has the potential to revolutionize the very concept of women empowerment. The research tries to study specific cases of social entrepreneurial leadership and how they have been instrumental in shaping up the life of others through their efforts and determination.

Today’s small enterprises are forced to rethink their business-as-usual management and shift toward corporate sustainability. The empirical paper responds to a crucial quest for many modern leaders and entrepreneurs, specifically small business owners in emerging economies. This paper aims to answer what they can do to increase long-term financial performance and enhance stakeholder satisfaction, thereby contributing to long-term business sustainability.

Using a convenience sampling, data were collected from a sample of 280 business leaders and entrepreneurs of small enterprises across industries in an emerging economy of Thailand. This study used a sustainable leadership research framework. Factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were used for data analysis.

Seven valid and reliable leadership factors were uncovered as new underlying leadership constructs to examine business sustainability in small entrepreneurial enterprises in Thailand. Results from multiple regressions revealed two significantly positive factors or drivers (i.e. trusting, innovative team orientation and strong, shared vision) for enhanced two sustainability performance outcomes (i.e. financial performance and stakeholder satisfaction). The findings thus contribute to advance our limited knowledge about the contextualised constructs and possible theoretical development of the developing research realm.

Successful small entrepreneurial organisations in Thailand and other emerging economies that wish to improve their business sustainability are suggested to adopt the essential leadership and management practices (i.e. trusting, innovative team and strong, shared vision). Future studies may examine data from a larger sample size and other countries to expand our limited understanding in different contexts.

The resulting practical insights can be used to guide business leaders, entrepreneurs, practitioners and policymakers towards making strategic priorities and investments for improved business competitiveness, resilience and sustainability in small entrepreneurial enterprises. Overall, this study may be a starting point for further investigation on developing entrepreneurial growth and business sustainability in small sustainable enterprises across emerging economies.

The paper responds to calls for more contextualised research studies in the evolving multidisciplinary field of entrepreneurial leadership and business sustainability, particularly in an emerging economy of Thailand. It also unveils the essential strategic leadership factors that positively drive business sustainability in small entrepreneurial firms. And, it empirically examines the effects of diverse strategic leadership factors and multiple sustainability performance outcomes in a single study. It further proposes an emergent leadership-performance model for entrepreneurial business sustainability in the context-specific study. Above all, it advances the currently limited empirical knowledge in the emerging research front towards more sustainable futures.

Social entrepreneurship is gradually becoming a potent driving force for economic and social development in developing countries as a result of governance deficits. The purpose of this study is to examine the determinant factors of successful social entrepreneurship in the emerging circular economy of Lebanon. The objective extends to exploring the mediating role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the success of social entrepreneurship in Lebanon.

Using a cross-sectional survey design, the authors collected primary data from 389 social entrepreneurs through questionnaires in selected locations in Lebanon. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The hypotheses were tested using linear regression and structural equation modeling (SEM) for predicting the impact of independent variable on the dependent variable. The validity, progressive and various models fits were tested using root mean square of approximation, root mean square of residuals, standard root mean square residuals, incremental fit index, fitness of the extracted and non-normal fit index.

The SEM estimations reveal that three main factors determine the success of social entrepreneurs in Lebanon, namely, environmental factors, psychological factors and prior experience. Moreover, the results reveal that support of NGOs positively moderates the relationships between the success of social entrepreneurship and two different variables (psychological factors and environmental factors), but failed to moderate the relationships between success of social entrepreneurship and four variables (experience, education, leadership and founding team composition).

The study contributes to the entrepreneurship and circular economy literature by explicating empirically the determinant factors of successful social entrepreneurship in Lebanon’s emerging circular economy. It also provides a fact-based social awareness on the role of local and international NGOs in supporting the social entrepreneurs in driving the idea of a circular economy. The study also validates multiple entrepreneurship theories.

The purpose of this study is to explore how social entrepreneurship empowers women and how it influences the existing gender based intersectionalities in the society. This paper is based on a single case study of a social entrepreneurial startup called “Pahal,” which used social entrepreneurial strategies to encourage women to engage in economic activities, which helped them in gaining economic empowerment.

The researcher alongside the social entrepreneur visited the field for eight months from August 2016 to March 2017 and interviewed multiple stakeholder-employees (as partners) of the social enterprise. This study was done by conducting interviews with all the stakeholders in all the three social entrepreneurial phases, i.e. pre-Pahal, during-Pahal and after-Pahal. The interviews and observations were recorded and analysed using social entrepreneurial lens and intersectionality.

“Pahal Initiative” – is a social entrepreneurial intervention that helped the women in the household to start a food delivery business with the support of the social entrepreneur. Consequently, women gained confidence and self-respect. The attitude of men in the household changed when the women in the household generated additional income. It impacted their position and status which led to an increase in their participation in decision-making in the household and economic independence. The women become more interactive and expressive in a predominantly patriarchal household. Within one year, the entrepreneur had to stop the Pahal initiative. Then, this study observed and recorded that this event curtailed the economic activities undertaken by the women in their village and their social status reverted to what it was before the initiative.

First, social entrepreneurial strategies lead to economic value creation and lead overall socio-economic gains. Second, social entrepreneurial strategies address the problems of patriarchy and gender discrimination. Third, economic activities undertaken by women changed the social perceptions of the family members towards women in the families.

From this case study, one observes that social entrepreneurship has a strong potential to bring about social and economic change. This study helps policymakers and non-governmental organisations to solve poverty and gender discrimination related problems using social entrepreneurial strategies.

This study uses social entrepreneurial intervention to understand and bring about change in the socio-economic status of women in rural India. This study uses an intersectionality lens to make sense of the data, reality and reflects on how intersectional positions are altered when women are economically empowered either through training or through a proper organisation or both.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this study is to examine how feminist attributes are expressed within entrepreneurial identity.

The study employed a purposive sampling technique to recruit 15 self‐identified “feminist entrepreneurs”. This included retailers, manufacturers, exploration operators, consultants, and professionals. Qualitative data were subject to content analysis.

Contrary to a feminine archetype portrayed as caring and nurturing, respondents do not describe themselves as typically portrayed in the feminist literature. Prevalent themes included participative leadership, action‐oriented, and creative thinker/or problem solver.

Researchers should use caution in assuming feminist discourse has direct application to characterizing or stereotyping “feminist” entrepreneurs. The applicability and reliability of “off the shelf” psychometrics to describe contemporary gender roles across the myriads of processes associated with venture creation must also be questioned. Limitations: the purposive and small‐sample limits the generalizability of findings to the diverse community of female entrepreneurs. Testing of the applicability, validity, and reliability of the nomenclature used to describe self‐identity is warranted across international samples of feminist entrepreneurs.

The current study provides an inventory of feminist entrepreneurs' self‐described leadership attributes. The nomenclature can be used by women‐focused trainers to help clients to recognize their entrepreneurial attributes.

The study may assist women in recognizing identity synergies and conflicts (e.g. within themselves and among family, employees, clients, etc.).

This is the first study that documents feminist entrepreneurs' leadership attributes. As such, the work is a step in seeking to reconcile feminist theory and entrepreneurial practice.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The sociology of professions literature has theorized that the professions are undergoing a dramatic transformation from being traditional professions to “entrepreneurial professions” populated by “knowledge workers.” In part, this transformation is associated with the commodification and commercialization of professional endeavor.

Our purpose is to enlist the processual ordering perspective to examine the ongoing transformation of the Big 5 (and following the collapse of Arthur Andersen during our field study)/4 public accounting firms to become entrepreneurial firms populated by global knowledge experts. More specifically, we focus on the inter-play of power and meta-power across three moments of the social construction process – externalization, objectivation, and internalization – through which the ethos of entrepreneurialism is being socially constructed within these firms, their individual members, and in the public accounting profession. Finally, we explore impressions gleaned from our qualitative, naturalistic field study.

This paper aims to offer a wider examination of the research concerning entrepreneurship characteristics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region via a review of recent studies relevant to this topic. Research publications concerning entrepreneurship within the MENA region evidence growing interest in this field of study, with the potential to boost and drive future economic development and growth. This focus within entrepreneurship research is because of the economic development in the region, which is becoming increasingly important for policymakers and businesses.

The author performed a systematic literature review to produce robust information about entrepreneurship in the MENA region, followed by a thematic analysis to identify key research themes within each category.

Despite the growth in entrepreneurship research in the MENA region, research on certain factors is lacking. An analysis of 271 studies published between 2009 and 2019 identifies 9 main research categories, within which 30 themes have attracted significant academic attention. Female entrepreneurship and gender, youth entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship behaviour and orientation are the three key categories influencing perspectives on entrepreneurship in the MENA region. This study highlights research gaps and provides recommendations to guide future research on the sustainable development of entrepreneurship in the MENA region.

This paper highlights trends in entrepreneurship research amongst scholars within the MENA region and suggests paths for future research efforts.