Influence of perceived risk on entrepreneurial desirability and feasibility: multidimensional approach for nascent entrepreneurs

This study examines the influence of perceived risk on entrepreneurial desirability and feasibility as determining factors in the intention to start a self-owned business. Specifically, a multidimensional approach is taken to examine the different types of risks associated with entrepreneurship: economic, social, time, health and personal risks. The results obtained from a sample of 376 new entrepreneurs in Mexico confirm the fact that the perceived desirability and feasibility have a significant and positive effect on the intentions to start their own company. On one hand, the empirical evidence obtained shows a heterogenic effect of the risk dimensions associated with entrepreneurship on the perceived desirability and feasibility in their behaviour. Therefore, it was found that the economic risk associated with entrepreneurship has a negative effect on the feasibility to start a business, but does not significantly influence the desirability of that behaviour. On the other hand, a significant effect from the risk related to health is not seen on desirability and feasibility, but the negative influence of personal risk is empirically supported for both variables. Finally, the results obtained related to social and time risk are contradictory. Social risk negatively influences entrepreneurship desirability, but a positive effect is observed on the feasibility to create a business. For its part, the empirical evidence obtained does not support any effect of the time risk on the perceived feasibility of starting a business, but there is a positive on entrepreneurship desirability. These results, which are contrary to the traditional concept of risk as a barrier to entrepreneurship, are justified by the vocational nature of this behaviour and by the social sacrifices that are sometimes necessary to be able to make a business work.     

Assessing the Impact of Fair Trade Coffee: Towards an Integrative Framework

This article presents an impact assessment framework that allows for the evaluation of positive and negative local-level impacts that have resulted from “responsible trade” interventions such as fair trade and ethical trade. The framework investigates impact relating to (1) livelihood impacts on primary stakeholders; (2) socio-economic impacts on communities; (3) organizational impacts; (4) environmental impacts; (5) policies and institutional impacts; and (6) future prospects. It identifies relevant local-level stakeholders and facilitates the analysis of conflicting interests. The framework was developed in the context of, and is applied in this article to, the fair trade coffee industry in northern Nicaragua. It was designed, however, so that it can be applied across commodity sectors and responsible trade initiatives. It is able to do this by accommodating for differences in the social, environmental, political and institutional contexts of different areas, and by taking into account the distinct nature of an initiative’s overall objectives, different levels of intervention, and the full range of stakeholders involved.     

Anatomy is not destiny: A feminist analysis of the scholarship on women's leisure

Abstract

The extent of the scholarship on women has accelerated over the past 20 years, yet many questions remain unanswered concerning what is known about women and their leisure behavior. Social science research about women and leisure that analyzes the interaction between the environment and biological sex has aided in understanding leisure behavior more completely and has enabled researchers to conclude that anatomy is not destiny. An analysis focusing on the critical corrective, and transformative aspects of feminist research provides a way to examine the trends in research on women specifically concerning women and leisure. The purpose of this article is to examine the foundations of the emerging scholarship on women and leisure, especially the research on gender differences, from a feminist perspective. The emerging trends in feminist research and the “state of the art” concerning scholarship on women as it is occurring in other disciplines is examined in light of how research in other fields may offer guidance for leisure research.     

Opportunity is not everything

We experimentally investigate in village India how belief systems that hierarchize social groups affect the groups’ responses to economic opportunities. Earlier we found that making caste salient hurt low caste performance both absolutely and relative to the high caste's. To examine the possible role of mistrust, we manipulate the scope for discretion in rewarding performance. When offered a gamble in which success mechanically triggers rewards, making caste salient has no significant effect. Instead, it is in the case with scope for discretion that making caste salient creates a large caste gap in the proportion of subjects who refuse the gamble.     

Breaking new ground: base-of-pyramid service research

Two-thirds of the world's population lives in poverty, a global problem that researchers from a wide variety of disciplines study. Yet there is a fundamental lack of service research pertaining to this huge segment of society, commonly known as the base of the pyramid. This segment offers a rich source of information that could help break new ground in service research, by exploring services in contexts in which its current concepts, models, theories, and generalizations might not apply the same way. This article starts by exploring key contributions in base of the pyramid literature and identifying the main perspectives from which extant knowledge has developed. By revising existing service research priorities to identify useful intersections with base of the pyramid perspectives, this study offers new grounds deriving five research streams that reflect the integration of base of the pyramid research perspectives with service research priorities. Finally, this article details the emerging area of base of the pyramid service research using one of those research priorities, namely, transformative service research, in an effort to specify the relevant objectives, scopes, differences, and similarities and thereby identify common grounds for future service research at the base of the pyramid.     

What can be learned from China’s success?

Since 1978, China has experienced the most rapid economic growth of any country in world history, and the most rapid growth in living standards of any major economy. Following the latest international financial crisis, China outperformed any other major economy – from the second quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2014, China’s economy grew by 78% and the USA by 8%. In a single generation, China has gone from a ‘low income economy’ to the verge of achieving ‘high income’ status by World Bank criteria. Achieving this would double the population living in ‘high income’ economies globally. This extremely rapid development is sometimes explained in terms of unique ‘Chinese characteristics’, but research over the last 30 years suggests it is rooted in universal economic processes. While the combination of global forces producing economic growth is unique in China and produces unique ‘Chinese characteristics’, they can operate throughout the world economy. If other developing economies could achieve the scale of China’s economic success, global problems of poverty and its consequences would be solved. China’s policy response to the international financial crisis was far more effective than that of other major economies. This paper examines the chief strategic lessons to be drawn from China’s success.