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1 – 7 of 7Aki Harima, Julia Freudenberg and Jantje Halberstadt
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize business incubators and their support for entrepreneurial refugees. While the number of initiatives supporting refugees’…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize business incubators and their support for entrepreneurial refugees. While the number of initiatives supporting refugees’ entrepreneurial activities has increased in recent years, we still know little about how they differ from other types of business incubators.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study investigates a business incubator in Hamburg, Germany, targeting enterprising refugees. For this paper, 14 in-depth interviews with program participants and incubation managers were conducted.
Findings
This paper inductively derives five functional domains of refugee business incubators: providing structured entrepreneurial knowledge; alleviating anxiety related to institutional differences; guiding through the process at the incubator and motivating participants; understanding and tapping into social capital in the host country; and providing soft support concerning personal matters. The findings show that business incubators could and possibly should address specific needs of refugees and that there is much room for improvement. This study suggests that the five domains listed above represent key characteristics that distinguish refugee business incubators from traditional business incubators.
Practical implications
This paper offers valuable practical insights for refugee business incubators, which need to consider and develop functional domains listed above. Because these kinds of incubators are a fairly recent phenomenon, there is a general lack of and need for blueprints. The findings of this paper suggest that business incubators could integrate and support entrepreneurial refugees provided that they consider the five functional domains identified here. The findings also provide evidence that entrepreneurship can be a possible means of vocational integration for refugees and one way of institutions and policy-makers in host country seeking to support refugees’ entrepreneurial activities, for example, by developing or subsidizing business incubators targeting refugees.
Originality/value
This paper’s contributions are twofold. First, this paper addresses a gap in the literature on refugee entrepreneurship by providing insights concerning the important role of support institutions. Second, this paper conceptualizes business incubators for enterprising refugees as a distinctive type of business incubators. This paper has, however, some limitations. Because it only considered a relatively small number of refugee entrepreneurs, it is difficult to generalize the findings. The cross-cultural setting of the empirical study, with its potential for linguistic and cultural misunderstandings, may have affected the results.
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Tijno Voors, Julia Nehring and Robert Hill
Blackthorn Garden is a work‐rehabilitation project attached to a general practice. In the first part of this paper, Tijno Voors, Director of Blackthorn Garden, describes its…
Abstract
Blackthorn Garden is a work‐rehabilitation project attached to a general practice. In the first part of this paper, Tijno Voors, Director of Blackthorn Garden, describes its development, its aims and approach to work, its connection with the general practice and the views of its workers. In the second part, Julia Nehring and Robert Hill discuss Blackthorn Garden as a community mental health service and relate this to findings from a two‐year evaluation of the project.
The purpose of this paper is to look at the recent history of proposals to tax resource rents in Australia, from Australia’s Future Tax System Report (the “Henry Tax Review”…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to look at the recent history of proposals to tax resource rents in Australia, from Australia’s Future Tax System Report (the “Henry Tax Review”) through to the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax (“RSPT”) and then the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (“MRRT”). The process of change from Henry to the RSPT to the MRRT can best be understood in the context of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as a capitalist workers’ party. The author argues that it is this tension in the ALP, the shift in its internal balance further towards capital and the lack of class struggle, that has seen Labor preside over what the father of rent tax in Australia, Ross Garnaut, describes as a “problematic” tax.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research using Marxist tools.
Findings
The paper argues that the poor health of the MRRT is a consequence of the nature of the Labor Party as a capitalist workers’ party, the shifts in power and influence within its material constitution and in essence the ascendency of capital in the capitalist workers’ party.
Originality/value
A very original approach to understanding the nature of the MRRT in Australia.
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Women are increasingly involved in a range of drug supply activities, but their role is overlooked in scholarship and policy processes. Women are key actors in plant cultivation…
Abstract
Women are increasingly involved in a range of drug supply activities, but their role is overlooked in scholarship and policy processes. Women are key actors in plant cultivation (opium poppy, coca and cannabis), trafficking and distribution, but roles in the illegal drug economy are highly gendered stratified. Women most usually occupy low levels in supply and distribution chains, with their access to markets mediated by men. Nevertheless, participation by women in drug supply enables them to support precarious household incomes and/or cover the costs of dependent or casual drug use. More women are coming into drug supply and use at a time when a number of countries are adopting more repressive and punitive drug policies. The impact of enforcement is a sharp increase in numbers of incarcerated women, with implications for care of families and children.
Moral agents have moral choice. This chapter argues that moral choice denies historical inevitability when moral choice is informed by both moral imagination and historical…
Abstract
Moral agents have moral choice. This chapter argues that moral choice denies historical inevitability when moral choice is informed by both moral imagination and historical imagination. I explore this by way of one specific historical example which should be used, as the philosopher Bernard Mayo argued, as a moral exemplar. In pursuing my arguments I utilise work by Sir Isaiah Berlin, amongst others. I do though take issue with Berlin, whom I argue has confused not the nature but the role of historical imagination, claiming dominance for it where it cannot dominate. I conclude with historical inevitability being refuted by moral choice, informed by both moral imagination and historical imagination.I argue that the refutation of historical inevitability has implications for Australian businesses in their current dealings with the People’s Republic of China. Australia escaped the Global Financial Crisis because of Chinese purchases of Australian commodities. But Australian business in trading with China is trading with an unjust regime. Hoffman and McNulty (2009) argue that regarding a regime such as China we can ‘learn from our past’. Regarding the past I argue that Australian business executives dealing with China would benefit by studying the historical example of Churchill’s May 1940 decision and should use that as a moral exemplar. Earlier generations of Australian managers contemptuously dismissed Chinese workers. The current generation of Australian managers, who fail to morally acknowledge China’s workers and citizens, risks being equally contemptuous, dismissive and racist.
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Elena Fuetsch and Julia Suess-Reyes
One of the central requirements of research is that the knowledge acquired should not only be academically rigorous, but also socially useful. If an article fails to address…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the central requirements of research is that the knowledge acquired should not only be academically rigorous, but also socially useful. If an article fails to address practical relevance, the audience will question its value and respond with “so what?”. Due to recent criticism regarding the practical relevance of innovation research, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether a similar “ivory divide” prevails in research on innovation in family businesses. More specifically, this paper investigates to what extent and at what depth researchers generate practical implications for innovation in family businesses. Furthermore, different strategies to bridge the “ivory divide” are discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
This literature review systematically analyses the findings of 50 journal articles focusing on innovation in family businesses published between 2004 and 2015. Based on this, the articles are classified according to their degree of practical relevance.
Findings
Although the findings unanimously show the relevance of innovation for strengthening business’s performance, only a minority of articles offer in-depth implications for practitioners in terms of practical guidance for action and application-oriented recommendations. A number of reasons for the development of this “ivory divide” are discussed and suggestions for how the connection between research and practice could be strengthened are provided.
Originality/value
This paper attempts to provide an impulse toward more practically oriented family business research in order to increase its interestingness to academics and its value to practitioners.
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