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1 – 10 of 16Alfred Austin Farrell, James Ashton, Witness Mapanga, Maureen Joffe, Nombulelo Chitha, Mags Beksinska, Wezile Chitha, Ashraf Coovadia, Clare L. Cutland, Robin L. Drennan, Kathleen Kahn, Lizette L. Koekemoer, Lisa K. Micklesfield, Jacqui Miot, Julian Naidoo, Maria Papathanasopoulos, Warrick Sive, Jenni Smit, Stephen M. Tollman, Martin G. Veller, Lisa J. Ware, Jeffrey Wing and Shane A. Norris
This study aims to ascertain the personal characteristics of a group of successful academic entrepreneurs in a South African university enterprise and the prevalent barriers and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to ascertain the personal characteristics of a group of successful academic entrepreneurs in a South African university enterprise and the prevalent barriers and enablers to their entrepreneurial endeavour.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a Delphi process to identify and rank the characteristics, enablers, barriers and behaviours of entrepreneurial academics, with a Nominal Group Technique applied to establish challenges they encounter managing their enterprise and to propose solutions.
Findings
Perseverance, resilience and innovation are critical personal characteristics, while collaborative networks, efficient research infrastructure and established research competence are essential for success. The university’s support for entrepreneurship is a significant enabler, with unnecessary bureaucracy and poor access to project and general enterprise funding an impediment. Successful academic entrepreneurs have strong leadership, and effective management and communication skills.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is the small study participant group drawn from a single university enterprise, which complicates generalisability. The study supported the use of Krueger’s (2009) entrepreneurial intentions model for low- and middle-income country (LMIC) academic entrepreneur investigation but proposed the inclusion of mitigators to entrepreneurial activation to recognise contextual deficiencies and challenges.
Practical implications
Skills-deficient LMIC universities should extensively and directly support their entrepreneurial academics to overcome their contextual deficiencies and challenging environment.
Originality/value
This study contributes to addressing the paucity of academic entrepreneur research in LMIC contexts by identifying LMIC-specific factors that inhibit the entrepreneur’s movement from entrepreneurial intention to entrepreneurial action.
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Amy Kracker Selzer and Patrick Heller
In this chapter we argue that South Africa's premier city, Johannesburg, has undergone a massive reconfiguration of its social geography since the demise of formal apartheid…
Abstract
In this chapter we argue that South Africa's premier city, Johannesburg, has undergone a massive reconfiguration of its social geography since the demise of formal apartheid. Using census data and geographic information systems (GIS), we present evidence that this spatial transformation has been driven by a process of residential deracialization but one that has taken place within narrow class bands. Indeed, we show that change has been marked by a new process of middle-class formation that has specifically taken the form of what we call middle-class enclavization. We show moreover that this process of enclavization is marked by internal fragmentation with the increasing spatial compartmentalization of different fractions of the middle class. These findings in turn support broader arguments in the literature that emphasize the strategic practices, including the centrality of residential location, through which upper middle-class privilege is preserved.
The Teaching Excellence Framework was explicitly introduced as a mechanism to ‘enhance teaching’ in universities. This chapter suggests, however, that the highly complex ‘black…
Abstract
The Teaching Excellence Framework was explicitly introduced as a mechanism to ‘enhance teaching’ in universities. This chapter suggests, however, that the highly complex ‘black box’ methodology used to calculate TEF outcomes effectively blunts its purpose as a policy lever. As a result, TEF appears to function primarily as performative policy act, merely gesturing towards a concern with social mobility. Informed by the data and metrics driven Deliverology approach to public management, I suggest the opacity of the TEF's assessment approach enables policymakers to distance themselves from and sidestep the wicked problems raised by the complicated contexts of contemporary higher education learning and teaching. At the same time, however, I argue that the very indeterminacy through which the framework achieves this sleight of hand creates a space in which engaged teaching practitioners can push through a more progressive approach to inclusive success.
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Jesus Valero-Gil, José-Julián Escario, Daniel Belanche and Luis V. Casaló
Based on goal-directed behavior, this study explores the direct effects and the interaction between health and environmental concerns as the main drivers of organic food…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on goal-directed behavior, this study explores the direct effects and the interaction between health and environmental concerns as the main drivers of organic food consumption. Consumer's economic problems are proposed as the main barrier for such behavior from a cost-benefit approach theoretically grounded on decision theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using the 26,669 European 95.1 wave participants of the Eurobarometer survey. Logistic regression estimates are used to analyze the hypotheses postulated.
Findings
The results indicated the significant association of both health and environmental concerns with organic food consumption, as well as the existence of an interactive effect between both consumer goals. As a novel finding, health concern weakens the influence of environmental concern on organic food consumption. Consumer's economic problems harms the expansion of organic food consumption as well as other socio-demographic factors included as control variables.
Originality/value
For the first time, this research explores the interaction effect between health and environmental concerns as antecedents of organic food consumption. The study argues that these consumer goals present differential features in terms of individual importance, feasibility, abstractness and outcome demonstrability, resulting in a prevalence of health over environmental goals for some consumers. The research provides not only novel insights for understanding organic food consumption but also provides additional evidence for practitioners to develop sales strategies and policymakers to formulate policies to guide the promotion of this so desired example of sustainable consumption.
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Purpose: Researchers and advocates alike have noted that persons with disabilities and older persons are the two groups most marginalized by neoliberal economic policies and…
Abstract
Purpose: Researchers and advocates alike have noted that persons with disabilities and older persons are the two groups most marginalized by neoliberal economic policies and therefore could come together as a broad-based movement against the roll back of their rights. Yet, these two groups fail to collaborate, and instead compete against one another for an ever-shrinking pool of benefits. This chapter explores the barriers to their collaboration within the context of structural adjustment in Jamaica.
Methods/Approach: The author engages in a critical analysis of neoliberalism's effect on the advocacy strategies of the disability and older persons' movements in Jamaica based on 32 semi-directed depth interviews, participant observation of numerous events, and a survey of media written by local advocates.
Findings: The disability movement makes claims on behalf of their members by focusing on the potential returns that society will gain by providing the opportunities that will make young persons with disabilities productive employees over their lifetime. The older persons' movement advocates by portraying themselves as “vibrant” and worthy of social investment because of the contributions they make. Both of these arguments for inclusion are also exclusionary. The disability movement excludes older persons as potential contributors and the older persons' movement similarly excludes persons with disabilities.
Implications: The only way neoliberalism will successfully be rolled back and universal rights returned is if the disability movement and older persons' movements build an alliance that is more inclusive, including of one another, by rejecting the language of investment and productivity, and instead focus on rights and inherent dignity.
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Ajax Persaud, Shu Wang and Sandra R. Schillo
Currently, the bulk of research on marketing innovation focuses on various firm-level dimensions using relationships from the technological (product and process) innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
Currently, the bulk of research on marketing innovation focuses on various firm-level dimensions using relationships from the technological (product and process) innovation literature. Research on industry-level differences in marketing innovation is lacking. Testing relationships form the technological paradigm in the context of the marketing innovation paradigm is also lacking. This paper aims to present empirical evidence on both aspects using a large-scale data set.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses two large-scale datasets, each consisting of approximately 4,000 Canadian enterprises in 18 industries. The data was collected by Statistics Canada in 2009 and 2012 through its nationwide Survey of Innovation and Business Strategies program. Two widely used theoretical frameworks, resource-based view of the firm and the competitive perspective, are used to generate constructs and hypotheses in relation to marketing innovation. The data was analyzed using multi-level logistic regression.
Findings
The findings show that industry-level competition is a much more important driver of marketing innovation than firm-level competition. The authors also show that marketing constructs that are significant in the context of technological innovation are also significant for marketing innovation.
Research limitations/implications
This study extends the firm-level literature by providing evidence of how industry-level dynamics enhances marketing innovation. The study also provides empirical evidence from Canadian enterprises that complement those from other countries.
Practical implications
A deeper understanding of the drivers of marketing innovation can enable managers to enact innovation strategies that can enhance organizational performance, differentiate themselves and enhance customer engagement and brand image.
Originality/value
As one of the few studies to examine industry-level differences in marketing innovation, the authors show that disaggregating competition into industry-level and firm-level provides a clearer picture of how competition advances marketing innovation. Additionally, this study is the first of its kind to provide empirical evidence on Canadian enterprises, thereby complementing evidence on marketing innovation from other countries. Thus, this study makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to the emerging marketing innovation literature.
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S.M. Riad Shams and Rajibul Hasan
Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a…
Abstract
Purpose
Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a less explored research domain. Also, knowledge management for transnational education (TNE) marketing is not well-researched. Capacity building is an established research-stream, with a key focus on socio-economic and ecological development; however, prior research on capacity building from the context of TNE’s knowledge management and marketing is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyse TNE marketing mix, to understand the influence of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) on knowledge management in TNE to uphold their transnatioalisation processes through capacity building in TNEs’ marketing management.
Design/methodology/approach
An inductive constructivist method is followed.
Findings
Organisational learning from the context of transnational market and socio-economic competitive factors, based on analysing the transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) is imperative for proactive knowledge management capacity in TNE marketing. Following the analysis of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) to learn about the cause and consequence of the transnational stakeholders’ relationships and interactions, an initial conceptual framework of knowledge management for TNE marketing is proposed. Practical insights from different TNE markets are developed in support of this novel knowledge management capacity building framework of TNE, and its generalisation perspectives and future research areas are discussed.
Practical implications
These insights will be useful for TNE administrators to better align their knowledge management perspectives and propositions with their transnational stakeholders to underpin TNE marketing. Academics will be able to use these insights as a basis for future research.
Originality/value
This study proposes a novel conceptual stakeholder-centred capacity building framework for TNE’s knowledge management to uphold TNE marketing and supports the framework, based on practical insights from three different transnational markets.
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