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Despite the abundance of small-scale farms in the USA and their importance for both rural economic development and food availability, the extensive research on small business management and entrepreneurship has mostly neglected the agricultural context, leaving many of these farms' business challenges unexplored. The authors focus on informing a specific decision faced by small farm managers: selling directly to consumers (i.e. farmer's markets) versus selling through aggregators. By collecting historical data and a series of interviews with industry experts, the authors employ simulation methodology to offer a framework that advises how small-scale farmers can allocate their product across these two channels to increase revenue in a given season. The results, which are relevant for operations management, small business management and entrepreneurship literature, can help small-scale farmers improve their performance and compete against their larger counterparts.

The authors rely on historical and interview data from key industry players (an aggregator and a small farm manager) to design a simulation analysis that determines which factors influence season-long farm revenue performance under varying strategies of channel allocation and commodity production.

The model suggests that farm managers should plan to evenly split their production between the two distribution channels, but if an even split is not possible, they should plan to keep a larger percentage in the nonaggregator (farmers' market/direct) channel. Further, the authors find that farmers can benefit significantly from a strong aggregator channel customer base, which suggests that farmers should promote and advertise the aggregator channel even if they only use it for a limited amount of their product.

The authors integrate small business management and operations management literature to study a widely understudied context and present practical implications for the performance of small-scale farms.

The purpose of this paper is to carry out a literature review of the quantitative studies that have analyzed the impact of green management on financial performance.

An examination of the literature was undertaken to review the quantitative studies that analyze the influence of environmental management on financial performance. A total of 32 studies were identified, examining the environmental variables used, the financial performance variables, the statistical analyses, and the main findings obtained by these studies.

Results are mixed, but studies where a positive impact of environment on financial performance is obtained are predominant. In addition, the findings show that the set of firms, industries and countries are varied. Some studies use environmental management variables and other works employ environmental performance variables, and regression analysis prevails.

The study does not consider studies that analyze the influence of environmental management on environmental performance. Implications for future research are suggested.

The paper offers interesting implications for managers, pointing out that a real commitment to green management may result in a positive influence on financial performance.

The findings are derived from an exhaustive literature review of quantitative studies that have studied the green management‐financial performance link. In addition, ideas for improving future research in this field are provided.

Many scholars and practitioners in the fields of business and management have recently published theoretical and empirical studies on the subject of business culture and its impact on its growth and effectiveness; yet, there has been a dearth of research on the topic of how organizational culture affects productivity. Moreover, there are hardly any theoretical or empirical research that examines these two concepts within the context of a micro-enterprise. This chapter uses a sample of 279 Ancash Region microenterprises to investigate the effect of local entrepreneurial culture on businesses’ overall performance. Among the four types of entrepreneurial cultures studied, only the Hierarchical culture was shown to have no effect on the degree of performance of the microenterprises. There is evidence of a significant causal relationship between the variables studied, the coefficient of determination was; business performance (r² = 0.796), with an SRMR of 0.037, the confirmatory model is relevant within its range of accuracy, while market culture has the greatest impact on business performance.

The issue of linguistic autonomy is a central one on the agenda of Catalan politics within the Spanish state. In the transition from Francoism, virtually all political groups in Catalonia supported a statute of autonomy (1982) which declares that “Catalan is the official language of Catalonia, as is Castillian, the official language of the entire Spanish State.”

Since the early modern age, the debt of the State was a constant source for concern to the Spanish governments. Episodes of defaults caused by enormous expenditure to keep the Empire slowly faded out until a certain reorganization of public finance was attained in the central decades of the nineteenth century. The core idea that finance ministers and economists, in general, had at that time was to balance the public budget controlling expenses, in order to handle the problem of public debt. However, alternative views on government finance existed. Focusing on a crucial period for the consolidation of Spanish liberal regime and its public finance, this chapter shows that, among a predominant concern for reducing public expenditure as the best way to stabilize the economy and promote economic growth, the character of Luis María Pastor emerges to support government expansionary policies financed with credit. Far from fearing deficit, Pastor, one of the leaders of the Spanish liberal school of economic thought, believed that investment in infrastructures financed through debt was the key to economic growth. Through a multiplicative effect, a program of public investment would enhance economic growth, eventually solving the long-term insufficiency of Spanish finance. This gives evidence that ideas on public finance of classical liberal economists were far from uniform, contributing to a more precise view on the body of doctrines of this school.

The aim of this chapter is to argue that charisma is a collective representation, and that charismatic authority is a social status that derives more from the “recognition” of the followers than from the “magnetism” of the leaders. I contend further that a close reading of Max Weber shows that he, too, saw charisma in this light.

I develop my argument by a close reading of many of the most relevant texts on the subject. This includes not only the renowned texts on this subject by Max Weber, but also many books and articles that interpret or criticize Weber’s views.

I pay exceptionally close attention to key arguments and texts, several of which have been overlooked in the past.

Writers for whom charisma is personal magnetism tend to assume that charismatic rule is natural and that the full realization of democratic norms is unlikely. Authority, in this view, emanates from rulers unbound by popular constraint. I argue that, in fact, authority draws both its mandate and its energy from the public, and that rulers depend on the loyalty of their subjects, which is never assured. So charismatic claimants are dependent on popular choice, not vice versa.

I advocate a “culturalist” interpretation of Weber, which runs counter to the dominant “personalist” account. Conventional interpreters, under the sway of theology or mass psychology, misread Weber as a romantic, for whom charisma is primal and undemocratic rule is destiny. This essay offers a counter-reading.

This is a selective annotated bibliography of the literature on Christopher Columbus from 1970 to 1989. The subject is particularly relevant considering the approach of the Quincentenary of the “discovery” of America in 1992. For that same reason, there has been an outpouring of literature on the subject since 1990, a significant subset of which contributes to are interpretation of Columbus the man, his voyages, and their impact on the new world. It is hoped that this more recent literature will be part of a subsequent annotated bibliography.

During the decade 1970 to 1979, more than 11 million immigrants came to the United States. The only comparable period in the nation's history was from 1900 to 1909, when entire towns emigrated from Italy, Poland, and Russia, and eight million immigrants arrived in America.