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1 – 6 of 6Patrick Kraus, Peter Stokes, Neil Moore, Ashok Ashta and Bernd Jürgen Britzelmaier
Elite interviewing is a well-established area of interview research methods. Nevertheless, the actual casting of an “elite” has been generally conducted in a prima facie or broad…
Abstract
Purpose
Elite interviewing is a well-established area of interview research methods. Nevertheless, the actual casting of an “elite” has been generally conducted in a prima facie or broad manner. A consideration of entrepreneurs and owner-managers as “elites” has been less profiled and received less attention, therefore the paper views the entrepreneurs and owner-managers as constituting a form of “local elite” within given and varying sectorial, regional and community boundaries. The authors argue that a consideration of entrepreneurs as “local elites” and transferring knowledge from an elite interviewing perspective may strongly support scholarly research in the entrepreneurship field.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducts a comprehensive narrative literature review of elite interviewing literature and transfers key methodological insights to the entrepreneurship field. The methodological contribution based on literature is complemented by experiences and observations from an extensive inductive interview study with over 30 entrepreneurs of German manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) and are used to reflect on, and refine, interview research approaches with entrepreneurs.
Findings
The reflections and discussions in this paper provide valuable insights for other researchers conducting research in entrepreneurship domains regarding the power dynamics of negotiating access, procedural issues of interviews and thereby enhancing the quality of data.
Originality/value
The contribution to knowledge is mainly of a methodological nature. While the paper takes a novel act of recasting elite interviewing in the SME and entrepreneurship context, the paper methodologically contributes to the entrepreneurship and elite interview literature thereby facilitating higher quality interviews.
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Patrick Nunn and Roselyn Kumar
Climate change poses diverse, often fundamental, challenges to livelihoods of island peoples. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that these challenges must be better…
Abstract
Purpose
Climate change poses diverse, often fundamental, challenges to livelihoods of island peoples. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that these challenges must be better understood before effective and sustainable adaptation is possible.
Design/methodology/approach
Understanding past livelihood impacts from climate change can help design and operationalize future interventions. In addition, globalization has had uneven effects on island countries/jurisdictions, producing situations especially in archipelagoes where there are significant differences between core and peripheral communities. This approach overcomes the problems that have characterized many recent interventions for climate-change adaptation in island contexts which have resulted in uneven and at best only marginal livelihood improvements in preparedness for future climate change.
Findings
Island contexts have a range of unique vulnerability and resilience characteristics that help explain recent and proposed responses to climate change. These include the sensitivity of coastal fringes to climate-environmental changes: and in island societies, the comparatively high degrees of social coherence, closeness to nature and spirituality that are uncommon in western contexts.
Research limitations/implications
Enhanced understanding of island environmental and social contexts, as well as insights from past climate impacts and peripherality, all contribute to more effective and sustainable future interventions for adaptation.
Originality/value
The need for more effective and sustainable adaptation in island contexts is becoming ever more exigent as the pace of twenty-first-century climate change increases.
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Jorge Arteaga-Fonseca, Yi (Elaine) Zhang and Per Bylund
In this paper, the authors suggest that Central Americans can use entrepreneurship to solve economic uncertainty in their home country and that entrepreneurship can contribute to…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, the authors suggest that Central Americans can use entrepreneurship to solve economic uncertainty in their home country and that entrepreneurship can contribute to reducing the number of undocumented migrants to the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors first illustrate the context of Central American illegal migration to the USA from a transitional entrepreneurship perspective, the authors address the economic drivers of illegal migration from Central America, which results in marginalization in the USA. Second, the authors build a theoretical model that suggests that Central Americans can improve their entrepreneurial abilities through the entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism.
Findings
Central Americans at risk of illegally migrating to the USA have high entrepreneurial aptitudes. Entrepreneurship can help them avoid the economic uncertainty that drives Central Americans to illegally migrate to the USA and become part of a marginalized community of undocumented immigrants. This conceptual paper introduces an entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism as a tool for Central Americans to reshape their personalities and increase their entrepreneurial abilities in their home countries. In particular, entrepreneurial intentions reshape the personality characteristics of individuals (in terms of high agreeableness and openness to experiences, as well as low neuroticism) through the entrepreneurial cognitive adjustment mechanism, which consists of reflective action in sensemaking, cognitive frameworks in pattern recognition and coping in positive affect.
Originality/value
This paper studies Central Americans at risk of illegal migration using the lens of transitional entrepreneurship, which advances the understanding of the antecedents to marginalized immigrant communities in the USA and suggests a possible solution for this phenomenon. Besides, the authors build a cognitive mechanism to facilitate the transitional process starting from entrepreneurial intention to reshaping individuals' personality, which further opens individuals' minds to entrepreneurial opportunities. Since entrepreneurial intention applies the same way to all entrepreneurs, the authors' aim of constructing the entrepreneurial intention unfolding process will go beyond transitional entrepreneurship and contribute to intention-action knowledge generation (Donaldson et al., 2021). Moreover, the conceptual study contributes to public policy such that international and local agencies can better utilize resources and implement long-term solutions to the drivers of illegal migration from Central America to the USA.
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Jagjit Singh Srai, Gary Graham, Patrick Hennelly, Wendy Phillips, Dharm Kapletia and Harri Lorentz
The emergence of distributed manufacturing (DM) is examined as a new form of localised production, distinct from previous manifestations of multi-domestic and indigenous…
Abstract
Purpose
The emergence of distributed manufacturing (DM) is examined as a new form of localised production, distinct from previous manifestations of multi-domestic and indigenous production.
Design/methodology/approach
Supply network (SN) configuration and infrastructural provisioning perspectives were used to examine the literature on established localised production models as well as DM. A multiple case study was then undertaken to describe and explore the DM model further. A maximum variation sampling procedure was used to select five exemplar cases.
Findings
Three main contributions emerge from this study. First, the research uniquely brings together two bodies of literature, namely SN configuration and infrastructure provisioning to explore the DM context. Second, the research applies these theoretical lenses to establish the distinctive nature of DM across seven dimensions of analysis. Third, emerging DM design rules are identified and compared with the more established models of localised production, drawing on both literature and DM case evidence.
Practical implications
This study provides a rich SN configuration and infrastructural provisioning view on DM leading to a set of design rules for DM adoption, thus supporting practitioners in their efforts to develop viable DM implementation plans.
Originality/value
The authors contribute to the intra- and inter-organisational requirements for the emerging DM context by providing new perspectives through the combined lenses of SN configuration and infrastructural provisioning approaches.
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Jérôme Boutang and Michel De Lara
In a modern world increasingly perceived as uncertain, the mere purchase of a household cleaning product, or a seemingly harmless bottle of milk, conveys interrogations about…
Abstract
Purpose
In a modern world increasingly perceived as uncertain, the mere purchase of a household cleaning product, or a seemingly harmless bottle of milk, conveys interrogations about potential hazards, from environmental to health impacts. The main purpose of this paper is to suggest that risk could be considered as one of the major dimensions of choice for a wide range of concerns and markets, alongside aspiration/satisfaction, and tackled efficiently by mobilizing the recent findings of cognitive sciences, neurosciences and evolutionary psychology. It is felt that consumer research could benefit more widely from psychological and evolutionary-grounded risk theories.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, some 50 years of marketing management literature, as well as risk-specialized literature, was examined in an attempt to get a grasp of how risk is handled by consumer sciences and of whether they make some use of the most recent academic works on mental biases, non-mainstream decision-making processes or evolutionary roots of behavior. We then tested and formulated several hypotheses regarding risk profiles and preferences in the sector of insurance, by participating in an Axa Research Fund–Paris School of Economics research project.
Findings
It is suggested that consumer profiles could be enriched by risk-taking attitudes, that risk could be part of the “reason why” of brand positioning, and that brand, as well as public policy communication, could benefit from a targeted use of risk perception biases.
Originality/value
This paper proposes to apply evolutionary-based psychological concepts to build perceptual maps describing people and consumers on both aspiration and risk attitude axis, and to design communication tools according to psychological research on message framing and biases. Such an approach mobilizes not only the recent findings of cognitive sciences and neurosciences but also the understanding of the roots of risk attitudes and perception. Those maps and framing could probably be applied to many sectors, markets and public issues, from commodities to personal products and services (food, luxury goods, electronics, financial products, tourism, design or insurance).
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Renée O'Leary and Riccardo Polosa
This paper aims to overview the need for tobacco harm reduction, the consumer products that facilitate tobacco harm reduction and the barriers to its implementation. The worldwide…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to overview the need for tobacco harm reduction, the consumer products that facilitate tobacco harm reduction and the barriers to its implementation. The worldwide endemic of tobacco smoking results in the death of over seven million smokers a year. Cigarette quit rates are very low, from 3%–12%, and relapse rates are high, from 75%–80% in the first six months and 30%–40% even after one year of abstinence. In addition, some smokers do not desire to quit. Cigarette substitution in tobacco harm reduction is one strategy that may reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality.
Design/methodology/approach
This review examines the displacement of smoking through substitution of non-combustible low-risk products such as snus, heated tobacco products and e-cigarettes.
Findings
Toxicological testing, population studies, clinical trials and randomized controlled trials demonstrate the potential reductions in exposures for smokers. Many barriers impede the implementation of product substitution in tobacco harm reduction. These products have been subjected to regulatory bans and heavy taxation and are rejected by smokers and society based on misperceptions about nicotine, sensational media headlines and unsubstantiated fears of youth addiction. These barriers will need to be addressed if tobacco harm reduction is to make the maximum impact on the tobacco endemic.
Originality/value
This review provides the rationale for tobacco harm reduction, evaluates the current products available and identifies the barriers to implementation.
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