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The paper investigates factors that contribute to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) surviving major exogenous shocks. Global crises such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have increasingly heightened scholarly interest in post-crises responses. However, studies that compare the relative responses to external shocks and the outcomes for SMEs operating in different institutional settings are limited. We examine the relative degrees of success European and African SMEs experienced in avoiding the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We use the resource dependency theory (RDT) with variants of institutional theory since the RDT has been shown in practice to have greater explanatory power when used in this way. We augment our framework with a feminist theory dimension. To test our hypotheses, we apply regression analyses using cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES), which include responses from private enterprises in 26 European and eight African countries. We construct our data by combining the COVID-19 follow-up surveys with relevant firm-specific characteristics from the WBES conducted in 2020–2021 using firm-specific unique IDs. After removing the firms with missing observations, the sample number of SMEs is 15,178.

Our empirical findings support the theoretically posited positive effects of innovativeness, institutional connectedness and governance capability on SMEs’ survival in the face of external shocks. Further, we confirm the importance of firm-specific characteristics (financial status, size and age) for SMEs’ survival. Female-owned SMEs are more likely to suffer during COVID-19, especially in Africa. The results are more nuanced when we consider industry specificity and heterogeneity of government support.

Our article helps answer the theoretical (and policy-relevant) question of whether SMEs that are resilient to major exogenous shocks may share certain characteristics despite operating in different institutional environments. If that is so, then it may be that lessons from one continent may have at least some relevance for the other. Our approach’s broad value lies in its capacity to test the degree to which established bodies of theory developed in the Northern Hemisphere may be deployed in Africa, well beyond the contexts which provided their initial empirical basis. This paper also contributes to the literature on the effect of environmental-change shocks on entrepreneurship performance outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to test Shattock’s legacy reputation thesis that non-leading universities in the UK face insuperable resource barriers to entering the leading group.

Employing regression analysis, the authors examine whether prioritizing research performance is a viable strategy for non-leading UK universities aiming to improve their organizational effectiveness. The dependent variable, organizational effectiveness, is measured by the annual Guardian rankings of universities. The main independent variable, research performance, is measured using “research power” (“RP”). RP is derived from the UK Research Excellence Framework.

For 2008-2014, the authors find that changes in research performance impacted university rankings. However, the authors also find that changes to the rankings are largely confined to non-leading universities and have not led to these institutions breaking into the group of leading universities. Therefore, Shattock’s thesis is supported.

Failing to maintain research performance can have significant negative consequences for the rankings of non-leading universities.

This is the first study that examines the relationship between the research performance of universities in the UK with a measure of their overall organizational effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the associations between management direct communication to employees, unionization, foreign direct investment (FDI) and company performance in Mauritius, Africa's most successful economy.

The authors use firm data from a survey conducted in Mauritius in late 2011. The authors conduct regression analysis to study the relationship between direct communication, unionization and performance conditional on ownership type.

Mauritian labour unions, in common with their counterparts from mainland Africa, are strongest in the public sector. They have been characterized as weak and lacking in influence on management. Yet the authors find a strong association between unionization and management communication in the private sector. The authors also find a positive association between direct communication and company performance which the authors argue is likely to be an indirect consequence of unionization. FDI shows no particular effects.

It appears that the consequences of union presence transcend pay and conditions. The effects are unexpectedly marked, particularly when the stress by some authors on union weakness in the private sector is taken into account.

It may be that local unions’ strong focus on the enterprise – a form of representation favoured by US-based multinational companies, constitutes a strength in stimulating management communication to employees by focusing union activities at that level. Whilst the authors have suggested that this is unlikely to be primarily a result of conscious union strategy, the enterprise focus may serve to buttress existing employee attitudes. In any event, unionization is certainly closely associated in this African country with a practice that is linked to positive economic effects at the enterprise level.

Accession of Bulgaria to the European Union is expected to result in increases in the prices of all types of real estate, these changes are expected to differ across the segments of the national real estate market. Real estate prices have been influenced primarily by local demand, government policies and the perception that EU accession is promoting investment. It is likely that prices of flats will further differentiate, the market for office space will stabilize, demand from retail sector will strengthen the market for urban development sites, provision of infrastructure will importantly influence prices in holiday resorts and industrial estates, and agricultural land prices will initially upsurge.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impacts of overweight and obesity on the probability of employment, wages, and the incidence of sick-leave days by gender, in Russia, over the transition period, 1994-2005.

The authors uses panel data and appropriate instrumental variables techniques to estimate a set of three models.

The results show a linear negative effect of body mass index (BMI) on probability of employment for women and positive effect for men. The authors did not find evidence of wage penalty for higher BMI, a result different from findings of several studies on developed market economies. There is also positive impact of BMI on the number of work days missed due to health problems for women.

The results derived in transition context add evidence to the growing obesity and labour market outcomes literature emphasising the relative importance of the labour supply side compared to the demand side. The policy implications of our study are gender specific.