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This study explores the relationship between economic freedom and gender ideologies on the allocation of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries. Opportunity entrepreneurship is typically understood as one’s best option for work, whereas necessity entrepreneurship describes the choice as driven by no better option for work. Specifically, we examine how economic freedom (i.e. each country’s policies that facilitate voluntary exchange) and gender ideologies (i.e. each country’s propensity for gendered separate spheres) affect the distribution of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries.

We construct our sample by matching data from the following country-level sources: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s Adult Population Survey (APS), the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index (EFI), the European/World Value Survey’s Integrated Values Survey (IVS) gender equality index, and other covariates from the IVS, Varieties of Democracy (V-dem) World Bank (WB) databases. Our final sample consists of 729 observations from 109 countries between 2006 and 2018. Entrepreneurial activity motivations are measured by the ratio of the percentage of women’s opportunity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship to the percentage of female necessity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship at the country level. Due to a first-order autoregressive process and heteroskedastic cross-sectional dependence in our panel, we estimate a fixed-effect regression with robust standard errors clustered by country.

After controlling for multiple macro-level factors, we find two interesting findings. First, economic freedom positively affects the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship. We find that the size of government, sound money, and business and credit regulations play the most important role in shaping the distribution of contextual motivations over time and between countries. However, this effect appears to benefit efficiency and innovation economies more than factor economies in our sub-sample analysis. Second, gender ideologies of political equality positively affect the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship, and this effect is most pronounced for efficiency economies.

This study offers one critical contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating how economic freedom and gender ideologies shape the distribution of contextual motivation for women’s entrepreneurship cross-culturally. We answer calls to better understand the variation within women’s entrepreneurship instead of comparing women’s and men’s entrepreneurial activity. As a result, our study sheds light on how structural aspects of societies shape the allocation of women’s entrepreneurial motivations through their institutional arrangements.

Racism occurs in many ways and varies across countries, evolving and adapting to sociocultural history, as well as contemporary economic, political and technological changes. This chapter discusses the multilevel dimensions of racism and its diverse manifestations across multiracial societies. It examines how different aspects of racism are mediated interpersonally, and embedded in institutions, social structures and processes, that produce and sustain racial inequities in power, resources and lived experiences. Furthermore, this chapter explores the direct and indirect ways racism is expressed in online and offline platforms and details its impacts on various groups based on their intersecting social and cultural identities. Targets of racism are those who primarily bear the adverse effects. However, racism also affects its perpetrators in many ways, including by limiting their social relations and attachments, and by imposing social and economic costs. This chapter thus analyses the many aspects of racism both from targets and perpetrators' perspectives.

This study aims to examine the impact of national culture on classification shifting in Eastern European Member States of EU Eastern European countries (EEU) vis-à-vis the Western Member States of EU (WEU). The EEU provides a unique sample to study the quality of financial reporting that the authors measure with classification shifting given that for more than five decades they were following the model of a centrally planned economy, where market-based financial reporting was absent. Yet, the EEU transitioned to a market-based economy and completed its accession to the EU.

This study uses a panel data set of firm year observations from 1996 and 2020 that covers the full transition of EEU. This empirical analysis is based on fixed effects panel regression analysis where the authors report a plethora of identifications.

This study finds classification shifting in the EEU countries since their transition to the market-based economy, though they have no long record of market-based financial reporting. This study also notices that cultural factors are associated with classification shifting across all Member States of the EU. This study further examines the impact of interactions between cultural characteristics and special items and reveal variability between WEU and EEU. As part of the robustness analysis, this study also tests the impact of culture on real earnings management measures for both WEU vs EEU, confirming the variability of the impact of culture on earnings management.

Future research could explore the role of religion differences in WEU vis-à-vis EEU states, as they are also subject to cultural differences.

The findings are important for regulators, external monitors and investors, as they show that cultural factors affect earnings management with some variability across countries in the EU, and they should be acknowledged in policymaking.

The findings show that cultural differences between EEU and the “old” Member States of the EU could explain classification shifting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that sheds light on the impact of national culture on classification shifting in EEU of EU vis-à-vis the “old” WEU of EU.

This paper aims to unfold the intricate relations between private law design, the structure of organizations for collective action and cultural values and orientations that practically guide interpersonal interactions in Chinese society.

Drawing upon the Hofstede Insights National Culture survey (The Culture Compass) data and some judicial rulings in China, this paper examines the legislative development and judicial approach to settle condominium disputes to explain and address the cultural orientation for future legal reform. This paper examines how the law reflects and responds to the cultural and social variations/interactions among the stakeholders, namely, local government, developers, homeowner associations, condo owners and property management agents.

Culture plays a significant role in shaping how condominiums are governed in China. This analysis can highlight the role of cultural factors that influence the success or failure of condominium governance and suggest ways in which governance structures can be adapted to reflect the legal culture of the community better. The emphasis on social harmony, respect for authority, relationships and networks and knowledge and expertise all contribute to a unique approach to condominium governance that reflects the values and priorities of Chinese society.

While much has been written on the importance of property rights to economic development, relatively little seems to be understood about processes of change in complex property systems, particularly in China, a socialist-transforming country. Specifically, there is a lack of reliable knowledge about the intricate relations between the structure of organizations for collective action and cultural orientations that practically guide interpersonal interactions in Chinese society. The question at the heart of this research relates to the condominium rules most suitable for an emerging Chinese private property market.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

This study aims to explore the extent to which Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) rely on supranational institution – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – versus host country institutional quality to navigate their foreign location choice.

This study uses a conditional logit regression model using a sample of 1,302 greenfield investments by Chinese MNEs in 54 BRI participating countries during the period 2011–2018.

The results indicate that as a supranational institution, the BRI serves as a substitution mechanism to address the deficiencies in institutional quality in BRI participating countries, thereby attracting Chinese MNEs to invest in those countries. In addition, the BRI’s substitution effect on host country institutional quality is more pronounced for large MNEs, MNEs in the manufacturing industry and MNEs in inland regions.

This study expands the understanding of the BRI as a supranational institution for MNEs from emerging markets and reveals its substitution effect on the host country institutional quality. Furthermore, it highlights that MNEs with diverse characteristics gain varying degrees of benefits from the BRI.

Being awarded world heritage status is a distinguishing factor when it comes to promoting tourism in a city. Tourism in these cities should be developed in a way that does not compromise either the city’s heritage or the inhabitants' quality of life. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of a European city achieving world heritage status on the subjective quality of life of its citizens.

First of all, we classify European cities according to whether or not they have been declared world heritage sites. Then, we analyze the effect of this classification on the main aspects used to measure the residents' perception of quality of life that are available in the Flash Eurobarometer 419.

The results show that achieving world heritage status has a negative effect on residents' perceptions of the noise level, air quality and feeling of safety. However, it does not affect their perceptions of public transport or cleanliness. In addition, world heritage status positively affects residents’ perceptions of the cultural activities in the city and their ease of finding a job. Residents report high levels of happiness in both world heritage and non-heritage cities, although levels are somewhat higher in non-heritage cities.

Residents' perceptions of the influence of tourism on their quality of life are undoubtedly of major importance; however, due to a lack of available data, few studies have examined this subjective quality of life at the city level.

This study aims to analyze the effects of socialization mechanisms (belief system and peer mentoring) on managers’ job engagement and their desire to have a significant impact through work, that is, the desire to substantially improve or facilitate the lives of others by performing their work. The study also examines the moderating role of organizational identification.

A survey was conducted with middle and lower-level managers at one of the largest banks in Brazil, the BankCo. The authors obtained a sample of 201 respondents and tested the research hypotheses with structural equation modeling. The authors also performed a complementary data analysis with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

The results suggest that belief systems and peer mentoring directly promote job engagement and indirectly promote desire to have a significant impact to a better world through work (through full mediation of job engagement). The effects of job engagement on desire to have a significant impact through work are even greater when managers have high organizational identification. Finally, several causal combinations are sufficient for high levels of desire to have a significant impact through work.

Beyond studies that examine how organizational mechanisms influence employee outcomes (e.g. performance), this study explores how socialization mechanisms can promote desire to have a significant impact through work. Thus, the authors demonstrate how organizational core values, mission statement and peer mentoring collaborate for managers to develop altruistic behavior, that is, directly related to other human values, such as empathy and ethics, being able to contribute to a world better.

This study developed and empirically tested a model that connects socialization mechanisms, job engagement, organizational identification and managers’ desire to have a significant impact through their work. Therefore, the paper provides insights into the relevance of socialization mechanisms for orchestrating managers’ proactive and altruistic behaviors.

Little is known about how religious-related beliefs (i.e. karmic beliefs and beliefs in a just world) might affect consumers to engage in more environmentally friendly behavior. Drawing on the justice motive theory, this study aims to explore the individual, complementary, congruent and incongruent impacts of karmic beliefs and belief in a just world on consumers’ proenvironmental consumption.

A sample of 736 consumers was recruited by means of a mall-intercept survey in the most populus cities in Vietnam. An advanced technique – polynomial regression with response surface analysis – was used to test the hypothesized model, whereas the PROCESS macro approach was used to estimate indirect effects.

The findings indicate that while karmic beliefs do not directly affect proenvironmental consumption, they can inspire environmentally friendly behaviors through belief in a just world. High levels of both beliefs enhance proenvironmental consumption, but imbalanced levels erode such behaviors. Importantly, the findings revealed gender differences concerning the role of religious beliefs in influencing proenvironmental consumption among male and female consumers.

The findings of this study offered several theoretical and managerial implications for proenvironmental consumption.

The research provides new insights into how religious beliefs (karmic beliefs and belief in a just world) affect, interact, balance and imbalance with each other to trigger proenvironmental consumption. The research also contributes to the sustainable consumption literature by indicating the mediation roles of belief in a just world and proenvironmental consumption intention in the relationship between beliefs in karma and actual proenvironmental consumption behavior, as well as offering empirical evidence about the gender differences regarding these relationships.

This paper aims to explore how the competence-based vocational education and training (VET) curricula facilitate shaping of work values of VET students. It discusses methodological and ideological orientations of competence-based VET in teaching work values and discloses the typical characteristics of teaching work values in the VET system of Lithuania.

A quantitative research approach leading to a survey method is adopted to investigate how VET students acquire and apply work-related values and attitudes to work.

The survey of the VET students has disclosed that students are open to accepting different values of work, including cognitive values, social prestige and altruist values. However, orientation of the VET curricula to and provision of instrumental values lead to relatively weak internalization of the work values related to societal and spiritual dimensions.

The paper provides empirical evidence regarding the implications of the competence-based curricula for teaching students work values in the school-based VET.