Entrepreneurship and mutuality: social capital in processes and practices

Social capital, which offers the broader theoretical construct to which networks and networking relate, is now recognized as an important influence in entrepreneurship. Broadly understood as resources embedded in networks and accessed through social connections, research has mainly focused on measuring structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of the concept. While useful, these measurements tell us little about how social capital, as a relational artefact and connecting mechanism, actually works in practice. As a social phenomenon which exists between individuals and contextualized through social networks and groups, we draw upon established social theory to offer an enhanced practical understanding of social capital – what it does and how it operates. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Robert Putnam, we contribute to understanding entrepreneurship as a socially situated and influenced practice. From this perspective, our unit of analysis is the context within which entrepreneurs are embedded. We explored the situated narratives and practices of a group of 15 entrepreneurs from ‘Inisgrianan’, a small town in the northwest of Ireland. We adopted a qualitative approach, utilizing an interpretive naturalistic philosophy. Findings show how social capital can enable, and how the mutuality of shared interests allows, encourages and engages entrepreneurs in sharing entrepreneurial expertise.     

Ambivalence and ambiguity in social enterprise; narratives about values in reconciling purpose and practices

Social enterprises are unusual change organizations; typically their purpose is to bring about change to improve social well-being. Yet they do so in unusual ways. Traditional entrepreneurs generate social value as a by-product of economic value; whereas for social entrepreneurs the reverse is true. This brings about an ambiguity in integrating business and social well being, most manifest in identity and in managing the enterprise. Moreover, the values which drive social enterprise are “different”. Consequently, we examine how values shape practices and how they give direction and purpose to what social enterprises do and how this shapes identity over time. Using the social organisation as the unit of analysis, we collected the narratives about tensions and how these were reconciled. We contribute by improving our understanding of social enterprise by showing how values are worked, used and deployed to give direction in reconciling ambiguity. Moreover, these ambiguities provide a unique identity and purpose for social enterprise.     

Top Executive Remuneration: A View from Europe*

abstract We argue that the dominance of principal‐agent theory as an approach to investigating executive pay has led to an overly narrow focus which may be unhelpful when considering cross‐country differences and probably also hinders within‐country analysis. The paper discusses the interlinked nature of three available theoretical lenses, namely principal‐agent, executive power, and stewardship/stakeholder theories. It argues that institutional theory can provide a useful overarching framework within which appropriate variants of these approaches can be deployed to better comprehend developments in executive pay. We illustrate our approach with a discussion of executive pay in the UK and in Germany.     

Scholarship funding through strategic reporting: the case of Koro Island

• This study used observational and textual analysis to ascertain how the Koro Island Scholarship Fund developed a reporting model to access funding for educational scholarships that facilitated access to high schooling for disadvantaged children in the Lomaiviti Group of Eastern Fiji. The reporting model also provided information to key stakeholders, such as donor groups and aid organizations, for the assessment of student and funding performance. It appears that sound financial accountability of a scholarship fund is welcomed by donors. The scholarship fund appeared to work well if there was limited intrusion into the operations of a donee school, providing space for interrelations between traditional Fijian school values, the island landscape and the local conventions and customs.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

National Indicators of Well-being: Lessons from Pacific Island Countries' Tourism

Are economic indicators the only nation-level variables that are predictive of future investment returns? Using the tourism industry of the nine independent Pacific Island countries, this study compares economic and non-economic predictors of web media tourism coverage. The results suggest that rather than economic and industry-specific indicators, health conditions, human rights and low population growth are significantly associated with our proxy measures of future performance. Our results support theory-derived predictions that national indicators of trust provide value-relevant information for investors.     

New entry,strategic diversity and efficiency in soccer betting markets: the creation and suppression of arbitrage opportunities

ABSTRACT

We find that prices offered by competing bookmakers within the same quote-driven soccer (football) betting market provide arbitrage opportunities. However, the management practices of bookmakers prevent informed bettors exploiting these in practice. We identify two groups of bookmakers, ‘position-takers’ and ‘book-balancers’. Position-takers alter their odds infrequently, while actively restricting informed traders. Book-balancers actively manage inventory by adjusting odds, and place few restrictions on their customers. We identify 545 arbitrage portfolios, and find that around 50% would require a bet on the favourite at the position-taking bookmaker. The management practices of position-takers generally prevent these opportunities being exploited in practice.     

Establishing high-tech industry: The Tunisian ICT experience

Although the high-tech sector in developed countries is well understood, there are considerable gaps in our knowledge about the high-tech sector in developing countries. This study addresses questions about the nature of high tech in Tunisia and about factors associated with information and communications technology (ICT) firms’ success as examples of the high-tech sector. The literature identifies the key characteristics of the sector to be human capital, access to appropriate finance and supporting institutions to provide synergy. Thus we address these factors to establish if they have led to success in Tunisian ICT high tech. We surveyed 60 Tunisian ICT firms and employing a multiple component analysis, supported by a multinomial LOGIT analysis, we found that research and development was negatively associated with firm success. This, we argue, indicates the early stage of high-tech development. Our findings also suggest a subordinate role in the global value chain.The paper concludes with some observations and recommendations.