Informal tourism entrepreneurs’ capital usage and conversion

ABSTRACT

This article examines informal entrepreneurs’ capital usage and conversion in the Thai tourism sector. On the Bourdieusian assumption that people perpetually transform tangible and intangible forms of capital, this study seeks to answer how informal tourism entrepreneurs transform intangible capital into tangible capital, and vice versa, at different stages of their development process. A visual dataset of 78 filmed interviews and of 426 photographs of informal entrepreneurs in three tourist-island destinations in Thailand was compiled and analysed using thematic qualitative analysis. The results show the importance of diversification of capital mix at informal entrepreneurs’ different development stages. Whereas cultural and symbolic capital are more salient for freelancers and small-size entrepreneurs, economic and social capital are more important for mid-size and large informal entrepreneurs. Furthermore, this study introduces dream capital as a new form of capital. Developing countries are recommended to introduce a policy on profiling informal tourism entrepreneurs so that the appropriate level of regulation can be applied in order to maintain or increase their benefits to society.     

Women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa: An institutional theory analysis from a social marketing point of view

This paper takes an international marketing (IM) approach to the study of women entrepreneurs (WEs) in sub-Saharan Africa by examining factors in the environments in which WEs operate. The goal is to understand better how environmental barriers of many types impact the efforts of WEs. Using institutional theory-driven analysis, findings from a wide range of literature are integrated, with special attention to issues of the social legitimacy of women as entrepreneurs. Results of this study demonstrate that WEs in sub-Saharan Africa face a daunting array of challenges arising from the socio-cultural, economic, legal, political, and technological environments in which they live. Moreover, unfavourable conditions in local regulatory, normative, and cognitive systems place additional burdens on women who desire to become entrepreneurs or to expand an entrepreneurial business. In order to address these gender-specific problems, social marketing is recommended with the goals of (1) changing social beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that negatively affect Wes, and (2) improving conditions in institutional systems and market environments. Recommendations in the paper suggest how to bring about changes in attitudes towards women, work and their independent enterprise. In conclusion, directions for future scholarly research are identified.     

When do female-owned businesses out-survive male-owned businesses? A disaggregated approach by industry and geography

Studies have invoked several theoretical perspectives to explain differences between female-owned businesses and male-owned businesses. Yet, few have considered the possibility that differential outcomes between female-owned businesses and male-owned businesses vary from setting to setting, an insight that we derive by combining social constructionism with feminist theory. We articulate hypotheses regarding the outcome of business survival duration based on this insight. Then, using a dataset of one million Texan proprietorships, we test these hypotheses by estimating separate gender effects for many individual industries and geographic areas. We find that female-owned businesses consistently out-survive male-owned businesses in many industries and areas.     

创业战略态势实证研究述评与展望

创业战略态势是影响创业企业生存与发展的关键因素之一,然而学者们对其内涵和测度尚未达成共识,当前相关研究主题也比较分散、理论繁杂,这影响着创业战略态势理论研究的纵深发展和研究成果的应用。因此有必要对已有的相关研究进行系统性梳理,提出一个可供借鉴的研究框架,从而推动该领域理论研究的深入发展。文章首先分析了战略态势与创业战略态势的概念界定,接着对创业战略态势与战略选择、创业导向进行比较,从而对其内涵进一步辨析,然后围绕其维度测量以及影响因素、作用机制展开述评,最后围绕现有研究成果的特征和不足,对未来研究进行展望。     

岭南文化对企业家精神影响分析

岭南文化以其独特的文化特征,影响了古往今来的岭南商人,铸就了粤商独特的人格特征。文章首先从创新精神、敬业精神、合作精神、冒险精神和诚信精神等五个方面分析企业家精神,接着就岭南文化的敢为天下先、务实求真、开放兼容、独立自主、求富敢富的精神及其对企业家精神的促进作用进行分析,最后从提高企业家知识修养等方面对加快岭南企业家的成长提出了一些建议。     

The housing bubble and a new approach to accounting for housing in a CPI

Over the course of the recent house price bubble in the United States, the price of homes rose rapidly from 1999 Q4 to 2005 Q4 (11.3% annually as measured by the Case-Shiller index, and 8.4% annually as measured by the Federal Housing Financing Agency) but slowly as measured by owner equivalent rents (3.4%), so measured core inflation remained relatively docile during this period, since only rents are used to measure inflation for housing services in the United States. Over the last several decades, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has experimented with both rental equivalence and user cost approaches for accounting for owner occupied housing (OOH) services in the CPI. We explain the basics of these approaches, and outline the BLS experiences with using them. This assessment leads us to conclude that the time has come to try a new approach: the opportunity cost approach. We argue this approach has advantages over both the conventional rental equivalence and user cost approaches, though it embeds components of the measures for both those approaches and builds solidly on the research of Verbrugge and others at the BLS. Also, we take up empirical issues that must be faced regardless of which of the approaches discussed is adopted. We explain how the repeat-sales and various hedonic regression methods can be placed in a common framework, thereby facilitating understanding of the properties of and the tradeoffs between the methods. We also consider measurement complications that arise because the land and structure components of properties depreciate at different rates.     

Necessity and Opportunity Entrepreneurs and Their Duration in Self-employment: Evidence from German Micro Data

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), we analyze whether necessity entrepreneurs differ from opportunity entrepreneurs in terms of self-employment duration. Using univariate statistics, we find that opportunity entrepreneurs remain in self-employment longer than necessity entrepreneurs. However, after controlling for the entrepreneurs’ education in the professional area where they start their venture, this effect is no longer significant. We therefore conclude that the difference observed is not an original effect but rather is due to selection. We then go on to discuss the implications of our findings for entrepreneurship-policy making, and give suggestions to improve governmental start-up programs.

基于企业家成长的地方产业集群战略

产业集群发展的基础是市场机制,培育和善待作为市场主体的企业家群体,是产业集群战略的起点和突破口。企业家的成长,不仅具有经济学的意义,而且具有社会学的意义,能引起社会结构的变迁。地方政府基于企业家成长的产业集群发展战略,重在夯实产业集群的微观基础、激活企业家的创新功能、优化企业家的生存环境。     

创业者社会资本与新企业融资工具选择

以社会资本理论为基础,构建模型分析在存在双重道德风险的情况下,创业者社会资本对债务融资与风险资本股权融资两种融资工具选择的影响。研究发现,当创业者有能力选择债务融资或者风险资本两种融资工具时,同时当创业者的社会资本拥有度较高或者较低时,创业者倾向于选择债务融资;而当创业者社会资本拥有度在中等水平时,倾向于选择风险资本股权融资。研究的主要贡献在于,将创业者社会资本纳入到新企业融资工具选择的研究框架之中,深化了新企业融资的研究成果。     

创业学习与新创企业成长——浦东的案例

创业学习对创业企业成长具有积极的作用。本研究通过对上海市浦东新区新创企业的跟踪调研资料,运用学习理论和企业成长理论,结合具体案例信息,区别分析了创业者个人学习、组织学习同创业企业成长之间的关系。本文认为创业企业中,创业者更为注重个人学习,并且创业者个人学习同企业成长之间表现出更为显性的相关关系;而组织学习在创业企业中的受重视程度低于创业者个人学习,同时对创业企业成长的贡献并不显著。因此,本文建议创业企业需要重视组织学习,实现创业企业从生存到持续发展的转变。