This paper focuses on social innovation dynamics in extreme contexts where institutional volatility is deeply rooted and enduring. In other words, the authors focus their…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper focuses on social innovation dynamics in extreme contexts where institutional volatility is deeply rooted and enduring. In other words, the authors focus their discussion on the challenges that social innovators are facing in their endeavor of solving wicked social problems within an extreme institutional environment. This research is guided by the following question: How does an extreme institutional environment influence social innovation processes?
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research builds on the unique case of the Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) sector, a rarely studied context in organizational studies. The authors combine archival sources with 24 semi-structured interviews with Palestinian NGOs.
Findings
The authors theorize three barriers that hinder social innovation in such contexts: institutional trap, effectiveness trap and sustainability trap. The authors also theorize five mechanisms through which these barriers influence each other dynamically: mingling, surviving, undermining, binding and reinforcing. Taken together, these barriers and mechanisms shed light on social innovation processes taking place within extreme institutional environments.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this study is the methodological design, based on an extreme single case-study which, on a bunch of features, is quite unique in the world. The authors argue that the results are all the same transferable to other relatively similar contexts.
Practical implications
By theorizing the institutional barriers to social innovation in an extreme institutional context, the research thus sheds light on how social innovation could be sustained and stimulated in Palestine and other contexts that face similar institutional challenges.
Social implications
From an engaged scholarship perspective, studying Palestine cannot be more relevant than today considering the turmoil in which Palestinians are. The research thus provides a deeper understanding of organizational and institutional dynamics with crucial social repercussions.
Originality/value
The social innovation literature has overemphasized success stories to the detriment of the struggles that hinder social innovations in extreme institutional environments. By focusing on the barriers that social innovators experience in these contexts, the authors provide novel empirical insight. Furthermore, this study enriches the understanding of the institutional dynamics of social innovations by proposing a process model that elucidates how an extreme institutional context can influence social innovations.
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Rabeh Morrar, Mohamed Amara and Hélène Syed Zwick
This paper aims to study the impact of micro-level socio-economic, demographic and geographical factors on the likelihood of self-employment entry of young adults in Palestine and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the impact of micro-level socio-economic, demographic and geographical factors on the likelihood of self-employment entry of young adults in Palestine and filling a gap in the analysis of determinants of self-employment for young adults in Palestine.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design is based on a multinomial logistic (MNL) model and on the testing of seven hypotheses deriving from the review of the theoretical and empirical literature, using a micro-level longitudinal data set from the Palestinian Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) between 2009 and 2016. In the analysis, the dependent variable (employment status) is a discrete variable that takes four unordered and independent outcomes: wage employee, self-employed, employer and unpaid family member.
Findings
This study has strong evidence that the likelihood of self-employment increases with age. However, results are inconsistent with the well-known curvilinear relationship between age and self-employment. Regarding the role of gender, results show that young men are more likely to become self-employed than young women. Results indicate that there is a significant and negative impact of an increasing level of education on self-employment entry for both youth and the whole population. On the opposite, training after graduation increases the likelihood of self-employment entry for youth with high education level. Besides, this paper finds that young workers living in urban areas have more likelihood to enter self-employment than those in rural areas and young workers in Gaza have more likelihood to enter self-employment than their counterparts in West Bank.
Practical implications
First, in both West Bank and Gaza, young women are less inclined to actively engage in self-employment, which confirms structural inequalities between men and women. Therefore, this study calls for social protection programmes and for national programmes that would promote and develop women’s self-employment. Second, because this paper finds that youth self-employment is more an opportunity-driven phenomenon than a necessity-driven one, this study calls for programmes that provide youth with small business grants and training on entrepreneurship and business models.
Originality/value
Insights are valuable as both government institutions and universities and entrepreneurial startups can benefit from knowing which factors contribute to the self-employment likelihood of youth in Palestine and use the policy recommendations to develop capacity-building programmes to provide the youth and women with skills and competencies which enable them to turn to self-employment.
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Enrico Testi, Fadi Kattan, Rabeh Morrar and Vittoria Vineis
The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to create a localised participatory research agenda (LPRA) for social enterprises (SEs) to bridge the gap between the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to create a localised participatory research agenda (LPRA) for social enterprises (SEs) to bridge the gap between the information needs of stakeholders in SE ecosystems (SEEs) and academics.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology incorporates a literature review, semi-structured key informant interviews and a questionnaire. A participatory approach was used engaging stakeholders of the SE sector in Palestine to elaborate the research agenda.
Findings
The proposed LPRA methodology, centred on localised and participatory engagement, has shown effectiveness in bridging the gap between stakeholders and academics in SEs research. Piloted in Palestine, it provided relevant insights and enabled the grassroots identification of policy directions to improve the local SEE. Being tested in the specific context of Palestine, the methodology demonstrates considerable adaptability to different maturity levels of SEEs and varied socio-economic environments. Nonetheless, further research is necessary to refine the LPRA methodology and determine its suitability in diverse SE contexts.
Practical implications
The present methodology offers the advantage of involving local stakeholders, enabling their participation in the construction of knowledge and serving as a possible tool for researchers to fulfil the Third Mission of the university. The methodology could be particularly useful in contexts that have uncommon political, economic or social features and need a tailored approach when building research questions and answers for local stakeholders; in contexts where non-local researchers could use the methodology to mitigate biases stemming from the application of non-local perspectives; and when the research is aimed at the creation of useful knowledge for the development of the ecosystem.
Originality/value
Conventional research agendas are typically developed by academics based on literature reviews. Such agendas, even if valuable for furthering research, often do not have a geographical focus and neglect the needs of diverse stakeholders in the SEE. The LPRA for SEs addresses this gap by providing a methodology able to include local SE stakeholders in building a research agenda tailored to address their specific information needs.
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Rabeh Morrar and Fernando Rios-Avila
This paper examines the level and structure of the wage inequality between nonrefugee and refugee workers in Palestine and the extent to which such wage gap reflects any…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the level and structure of the wage inequality between nonrefugee and refugee workers in Palestine and the extent to which such wage gap reflects any marginalization and discrimination against refugees. It also investigates how the disparities in distribution to individual worker characteristics contribute to the wage inequality in Palestine.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use both Oaxaca and Blinder (OB) (Oaxaca, 1973 and Blinder, 1973) and Fortin et al. (2011) unconditional quantile decomposition approaches to measure the size of the wage gap along with the wage distribution and to decompose the wage differences into productivity (i.e. explained or the composition effects) and wage structure effects (i.e. unexplained or discrimination effects).
Findings
Results indicate that most of the wage gap between refugees and nonrefugees is attributed to the wage structure effect (possibly explained by discrimination) against refugees in the Palestinian labor market. The wage gap between refugees and nonrefugees is not uniform throughout the wage distribution and supports the “sticky floor effect.”
Practical implications
This work introduces important policy implications for the policymakers in the Palestinian labor market. It reveals the economic and social factors, individual worker characteristics as well as labor market characteristics contribute to the wage inequality in Palestine.
Social implications
This research reveals a crucial social challenge in the Palestinian society, represented by the wage discrimination against refugees in Palestine. This is despite the denial of such discrimination from official bodies, local institutions and many other policymakers. It also captures gender inequality between men and women.
Originality/value
This is the first empirical work in Palestine that contends with a very sensitive issue in the Palestinian society, that is, the discrimination against refugees in the Palestinian labor market. Most of the existing studies have approached this issue from a humanitarian view in order to show the deterioration of social and economic situations in the refugee camps.
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Tarek Ben Hassen, Hamid El Bilali, Mohammad Sadegh Allahyari and Rabeh Morrar
Global lockdowns and restrictions linked to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have affected food environments and consumption patterns. Conflict-affected countries…
Abstract
Purpose
Global lockdowns and restrictions linked to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have affected food environments and consumption patterns. Conflict-affected countries are disproportionately affected from economic and food security perspectives. In this regard, the Palestinian territories (namely West Bank and Gaza Strip), which face a number of issues such as Israeli military and economic control, overcrowded cities and refugee camps (especially in Gaza Strip), rising poverty and food insecurity, are an especially interesting case study. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the selection and intake of foods and drinks, as well as consumer behavior and attitude toward food in the Palestinian territories.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws upon an online survey in the Palestinian territories administered in Arabic through the Survey Monkey platform from September 15 to October 10, 2020, with 322 adults. The survey findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics and several nonparametric tests. Particularly, the U-Mann Whitney test was used in dichotomous, categorical independent variables (e.g. gender), while the Kruskal–Wallis test was run to analyze multi-choice responses (e.g. occupation).
Findings
The results reveal that food attitudes and consumer behavior towards food have been widely affected. First, they reveal that Palestinians try to have healthier diets but ate more between meals (e.g. snacks). Second, the pandemic transformed respondents' shopping behavior and induced panic buying, negatively affecting food affordability due to increased prices of some foods (e.g. fruits and vegetables). Some food behaviors were shaped by negative psychological determinants (e.g. depression and anxiety). The pandemic effects are moderated by different sociodemographics (age, education and income). COVID-19 negatively affected food security but also opened a “window of opportunity” to trigger the transition towards more sustainable diets.
Originality/value
The paper results show that the eventual effects of COVID-19 will most likely vary from country to country, based not only on the epidemiological circumstances but also, among other factors, on the baseline socioeconomic situation and shock resilience. The findings contribute to the clarification and critical analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on food behaviors in the Palestinian territories, which would have several policy implications.
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Muhammad Saad Amjad, Muhammad Zeeshan Rafique and Mohammad Aamir Khan
In the modern manufacturing environment, it is imperative to apply the manufacturing concepts of lean, agile, resilient and green, collectively known as LARG manufacturing, to…
Abstract
Purpose
In the modern manufacturing environment, it is imperative to apply the manufacturing concepts of lean, agile, resilient and green, collectively known as LARG manufacturing, to achieve excellence in which lean manufacturing eliminates wastes; agile manufacturing makes processes fast, efficient and flexible; resilient paradigm deals with countering the uncertainty while green manufacturing improves environmental performance. The objective of this study is to develop an integration framework that synergizes LARG manufacturing with Industry 4.0.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a literature review, the authors have explored the possibility of collaboration between constituents of lean, agile, resilient and green manufacturing with the facets of Industry 4.0.
Findings
The authors have developed a comprehensive integration framework that has been divided into 11 phases and 31 steps in which the various Industry 4.0 facets have supplemented the lean, agile, resilient and green paradigms.
Practical implications
This investigation and adoption of technologically intensive automation shall provide clarity to practitioners regarding the synergy of LARG manufacturing & Industry 4.0, so that fast and efficient manufacturing processes can be achieved.
Originality/value
The framework provides detailed insight towards implementation of LARG practices in a manufacturing organization in coalescence with Industry 4.0 practices.