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This paper examines how entrepreneurship focused programs build capacities for disadvantaged groups to pursue more dignified lives. The struggles of disadvantaged entrepreneurs against pronounced structural constraints are well documented, but less is known about how targeted programs of entrepreneurship focused support change the status quo for disadvantaged communities.

The paper is grounded in a mainly inductive, interpretive study and explores the work of an entrepreneurship focused program targeted at refugee participants. The paper reports on intensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews with 23 program participants in London, UK.

The empirical sections elaborate three key mechanisms supporting greater self-determination and better opportunities: building entrepreneurial intention, building contextual legitimacy and building proximal ties. These mechanisms empower disadvantaged groups to pursue a wide variety of meaningful goals, including but not limited to starting a business.

This paper draws attention to problems of over-emphasizing the disadvantaged entrepreneurs' agency. It uses the vocabulary of self-determination theory (SDT) and offers a psychosocial perspective of the consequences of disadvantage and the potential for entrepreneurship focused programs to build key capacities and improve precarious lives.

This study aims to provide information on particular combination of benefits or disadvantages with exact timing of their appearance in the company after its first certification, along with the information on the value range each benefit and disadvantage would take, as well as on the duration period of expected values.

Survey was conducted from October 2015 to January 2019 in 306 certified companies with respondent rate of 58.82%. A questionnaire, structured using literature review to identify all possible benefits and disadvantages of QMS, was used to determine the time of appearance, value range and duration of each identified benefit or disadvantage. Results were used to define indicators for fully applied QMS in each age of its maturity, then the indicators were verified using the records of two ISO certified companies.

There is a difference in the set of benefits and disadvantages in companies with fully implemented QMS and those that are using QMS only to maintain the certificate. In each age of QMS application a specific set of benefits and disadvantages can be expected as well as the volume range of each of them. These timely sets of benefits and disadvantages can be used as indicators to distinguish well-implemented QMS from those partially implemented.

The sample consists of companies from Balkan area, therefore economy, politics and culture could have influenced results, predominantly regarding the value ranges of some benefits and disadvantages.

Companies which already have implemented or are about to implement QMS may use results of the research to plan its effects in years ahead, concerning costs and profit dynamics, as well as to prepare themselves for upcoming probable issues. Auditors can use results in addition to certification criteria to determine the level of QMS implementation and to forecast whether audited company would keep the certificate in the future.

Supply chain management could use research findings in selection of chain members to support and speed up third party audits since the benefits and disadvantages of fully implemented QMS are known for each QMS age. This would further imply better structure of supply chains, which would consequently lead to lower production costs, higher quality and competitive prices at the market, which has beneficial implications on the whole society.

For each age of QMS maturity, starting from the first year of certification, expected combination of benefits and disadvantages along with its expected value range and duration are defined. A set of indicators with their expected values.

This paper provides insight into the behaviour and attitudes of an under‐researched group of consumers, and identifies some useful pointers for future research on consumer disadvantage. More specifically, the paper explores the relationships between the potential causes of consumer disadvantage, forms of consumer disadvantage and accessibility. The exploratory study consisted of a combination of quantitative (diary survey) and qualitative (semi‐structured interviews) methods. The diary survey data were used to measure grocery retailing accessibility for each participant, while the semi‐structured interviews captured participants’ attitudes, preferences and expectations with regard to grocery shopping, which were then used to construct a context for the accessibility findings. The findings suggest a way in which consumer disadvantage can be conceptualised, recommend the use of qualitative methods when researching this area, and highlight issues of interest (such as identifying whether an individual shops through choice or constraint) which could be considered by future research designs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of university undergraduate students who originate from disadvantaged South African schools. The perceptions probed are those that relate to their material circumstances, learning and teaching environment and academic progress.

The paper draws on a theoretical framework that underscores the primacy of the environment blended with transition theory to explain environmental influences on disadvantaged students’ academic progression at university. Data were gathered through detailed face-to-face interviews with eight participants and from the open-ended section of a questionnaire administered to 41 students from which the 8 students were drawn.

The findings demonstrate that disadvantaged students require both physical and socio-psychological support in order to succeed at university.

A university in South Africa and the students from low quintile schools provide the case study for the explication of the findings of this study. Ethical issues such as seeking the informed consent of the participants to access their academic records weighed against the potency or robustness of the results of this study, because few of the participants allowed this researcher to access their results. Thus, this study focussed on potentially sensitive areas such as the academic records of students and poverty. As such it was extremely difficult to persuade disadvantaged students to participate in this study.

The study is thus useful for the school system, families and higher education institutions in the quest to provide the much-needed socio-psychological or “empathetic infrastructure” that acts as the cytoplasm for disadvantaged students’ academic progress at university.

By invoking the primacy of the environment under the rubrics of epigenetics, this study also sought to contribute to the debate around the human genome – a grand ambitious global scientific project launched in the late 1980s to generate a catalogue of all the genes present in humans. However, this was a smokescreen because there are simply not enough genes to account for the complexity of the human life or human disease. By invoking the theory of transition, this study sought to fathom how to promote a favourable teaching and learning environment for poor students at university in a holistic manner.

This study utilised an empirically supported definition of disadvantage: that of students coming from no fee schools, as classified by the Department of Education based on Household Expenditure statistics of 2002 using the quintile system. The quintile system is based on average measures of income, unemployment rates and educational levels. To date, there is no published research utilising the school quintile system to define disadvantaged students in higher education in South Africa. This paper, which investigates such a sample from a university, is therefore ground-breaking and novel.

It is well established that there are several benefits of taking a placement year, for example, higher academic attainment, the acquisition of transferable skills and enhanced employability. It is therefore important to understand why students choose to take or not to take a placement. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In the current study, 159 first year students studying psychology were asked about their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of taking a psychology professional placement year. Their responses were analysed using thematic analysis, and the number of participants who provided information relating to each main theme was also tabulated.

Students perceived the main benefits of placements as relating to career certainty, future prospects, experience, knowledge and skills. In contrast, they perceived the main disadvantages as practical disadvantages, social/emotional disadvantages, difficulty, and there being no guaranteed benefit of a placement.

The results are discussed in terms of their potential to inform practices for developing and enhancing psychology placements within higher education. For example, providing further empirical evidence of the benefits of placements may help staff in higher education to further promote placement years.

The study contributes to the knowledge of perceived advantages and disadvantages of taking a placement in psychology. Placements in psychology are likely to be very beneficial for employability, but are often only available on a voluntary basis.

This article analyses UK Early Years policy in terms of service expansion and service transformation since the Labour Government's election in 1997. Childcare is now a matter of public policy, driven largely by concerns about child poverty and inequalities in children's life chances. The evidence is considered, first, on service expansion, increased take‐up and increased employment by parents with young children, and, second, on service transformation and child outcomes: to what extent have changes benefited disadvantaged children, families and neighbourhoods? The Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) research shows that pre‐school can boost disadvantaged children's intellectual development in particular, and the article concludes that programmes such as Sure Start and Neighbourhood Nurseries have been successfully targeted at the most disadvantaged areas, although better‐off families and neighbourhoods may have benefited even more, and that problems of cost and sustainability remain. It is too early to judge whether better integrated services now being developed will be successful in transforming the lives of the most disadvantaged children.

Disadvantaged students face social exclusion and undergo a different treatment than mainstream students. This alters their entrepreneurial intention subsequently. This study aims to investigate the factors affecting disadvantaged students’ intention in their willingness to undergo entrepreneurship education as a vocational course. The variables include self-efficacy, need for achievement (nAch) and family background. The paper further examines whether entrepreneurship education intention enhances their entrepreneurial intention.

This study uses a deductive quantitative study as the chosen approach as it ensures complete anonymity and hence researcher bias is minimized. The sample consists of the third year, final year and postgraduate first year disadvantaged students from different streams of engineering, economics, arts and commerce. The study was conducted with a total of 319 students completing the questionnaire which used a five-point Likert scale.

Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the results show that willingness of disadvantaged students to study entrepreneurship as a vocational course is highly driven by their family background followed by self-efficacy and nAch. The results further strengthen the TPB and has implications for educators of entrepreneurship and a possibility of a widening of entrepreneurship education in disadvantaged community.

The study measured attitudes and willingness with intentions, but not actual behavior as this was a cross-sectional study. Also, repeated observations could not be made and dynamics of change could not be captured.

This is one of the few studies focused on entrepreneurial intention of students who are socially excluded and therefore it offers a possibility of widening of entrepreneurship education in countries such as India which display a collectivist culture and provides an intention-based linkage to entrepreneurship education among disadvantaged students. This study also puts subjective norm as a strong predictor of intentions which previous studies have refuted. The findings also suggest that there is a strong intent to study entrepreneurship among disadvantaged students in India, which makes entrepreneurship education a seemingly acceptable choice of education and suggests promise for its wider reach and penetration.

CRM treats various profiles of customers or individual customers differently, purposively favoring certain customers while deliberately disadvantaging others. This research aims to provide insights into how advantaged (favored) and (non-favored) disadvantaged customers perceive fairness in retailers’ marketing tactics.

A multiple study approach has been adopted, influenced by a three-stage process, which involved exploratory interviews, pilot tests, and the main survey.

The results have provided marketers with a perspective on maintaining and enhancing relationships. Service and marketing communications concern the advantaged customers most, while pricing is the most important aspect for the disadvantaged customers.

In terms of handling customers, there are important implications from recognizing how those who are favored and those who are not so advantaged perceive their treatment. Failure to appreciate the pitfalls for visibly treating certain customers more favorably and others demonstrably less so, will have stark consequences for retail management and consumer marketing.

Contributions are made to the literatures on CRM and on unfairness, particularly in terms of how to address the inevitable inequities inherent in retailers’ CRM offerings. Identification of the advantaged and disadvantaged customers and their respective views allows marketers to develop more appropriate approaches for handling customers who are sensitive to perceived unfairness.

This paper seeks to investigate the level of competitive disadvantage experienced by Malaysian listed companies by disclosing segmental information as required by the new accounting standard on segments disclosure by Malaysian Accounting Standards Board.

A total of 116 Malaysian listed companies are included in the study. Their annual reports for financial year ended 2002 are the main sources. The dependent variable is competitive disadvantage, which is proxied by Total Performance Index. The independent variables are quality of segmental disclosure by employing weighted average correlation technique, size of companies, the use of stricter accounting standard and the choice of business segment or geographical segment as the primary segment. To examine the developed hypotheses of the study; a multivariate least square regression model is employed. The analysis is also supported by correlation technique.

The outcomes of the study indicate that competitive disadvantage exists by disclosing segments information but it is not significant. In addition, larger companies experience greater competitive disadvantage than smaller companies, more extensive segment disclosure standard leads to less competitive disadvantage and the state of competitive disadvantage is greater when geographical segment is disclosed as the primary segment.

Since the standard allows the reporting companies to disclose their segment information based on internal structure of the organization, the potential existence of materiality judgement may distort the comprehensiveness of the outcome. In addition, the limited number of companies included in the final sample leads to a more cautious approach in generalizing the findings.

Since the new accounting standard governing segment disclosure in Malaysian environment took effect in 2002, the study is considered timely. It allows the relevant accounting bodies to continue monitoring the level of compliance among the listed companies towards the new standard and, more importantly, it permits further improvement of the standard given the level of competitive disadvantage that may be experienced by reporting companies.

The remarkable contribution of the study lies in its timely effort to investigate the potential competitive disadvantage suffered by reporting companies in the first year of the implementation of the new accounting standard governing segment disclosure.

With the expansion of school resource officer programs and the increased use of harsh disciplinary measures in schools, there is a growing concern that school safety measures are contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline, particularly in already disadvantaged schools. However, there is a lack of research on the relationship between social and educational disadvantage in schools and the roles and functions of school resource officers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using the School Survey on Crime and Safety (2006), this paper utilized structural equation modeling to investigate to what extent, if any, does social and educational disadvantage in schools influence the roles and functions of school resource officers.

Findings suggest that school resource officers assigned to schools with greater levels of social and educational disadvantage perform more law enforcement-related functions, while school resource officers assigned to schools with less social and educational disadvantage perform more education-related functions.

There is a lack of empirical literature on the specific roles and functions of school resource officers and whether or not the varying levels of social and educational disadvantage can predict how school resource officers are utilized. The current study aims to address this gap in the literature by examining how the social and educational disadvantage of schools predicts the roles and functions of school resource officers.