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We seek to understand how informal entrepreneurship education and training (EET) processes support marginalised women in challenging institutional contexts into gainful participation in entrepreneurial activities, facilitating empowerment and emancipation.

The study employs an inductive qualitative approach drawing on in-depth individual interviews, a focus group and observation of how female informal EET educators facilitate hands-on EET to marginalised female entrepreneurs in Uganda.

We specify a range of novel complementary practices that informal EET educators undertake during the main instructional EET stage and present the wraparound purposive work, both pre-and-post the instructional stage, they enact to support female empowerment processes for their disadvantaged learners. We then propose a grounded model capturing practices enacted by EET practitioners that illuminates ways in which informal EET can contribute to processes of empowerment and emancipation.

Our contributions are twofold. First, we conceptualise EET educators as institutional entrepreneurs undertaking institutional work beyond core teaching. Second, we specify a range of novel complementary practices they undertake before, during and after the conventional instructional part. This illuminates how EET can contribute to processes of empowerment and emancipation. Drawing on data from a unique institutional context, we illuminate novel practices enacted by informal EET educators thereby extending both the pedagogy and the realm of entrepreneurship education with implications for grander empowerment and emancipatory outcomes beyond the development of entrepreneurial competencies.

This paper investigates how gender, ethnicity, and network membership interact to influence how small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner-managers become aware of finance support programmes developed by government policy and/or support schemes advanced by the banking industry.

Drawing on expectation states theory (EST), we develop eight sets of hypotheses and employ the UK SME Finance Monitor data to test them using bivariate probit regression analysis.

In general, network membership increases awareness, but more so for government programmes. We also find no differences between female and male owner-managers when in networks. However, we identify in-network and out-network differences by ethnicity, with minority females seemingly better off than minority males.

Business networks are better for disseminating government programmes than industry-led programmes. For native White women, network membership can enhance policy awareness advantage further, whilst for minorities, networks significantly offset the big policy awareness deficits minorities inherently face. However, policy and practice need to address intersectional inequalities that remain in access to networks themselves, information access within networks, and the significant out-network deficits in awareness of support programmes afflicting minorities.

This study provides one of the first large-scale empirical examinations of intersectional mechanisms in awareness of government and industry-led enterprise programmes. Our novel and nuanced findings advance our understanding of the ways in which gender and ethnicity interact with network dynamics in entrepreneurship.

This paper, through empirical evidence, presents a framework for exploring how entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of building legitimacy in a digital context. In so doing, this paper goes beyond the seemingly forgone conclusion that legitimacy is important for the entrepreneur's success by focusing on the contextualised mechanisms through which digital legitimacy is built.

Empirical findings are drawn from semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 digital entrepreneurs in Nigeria, a leading example of the West African context and analysed using a phenomenological approach.

The paper shows how digital entrepreneurs in a non-Western context draw on an aspect of legitimation in the digital space, and in particular, highlights three mechanisms via which this takes place, namely: digital shielding, digital curating and digital networking. Presented via an inductive approach, the three mechanisms described in the paper provide a scaffold for thinking about and understanding entrepreneurial legitimacy within a contextual framework, which incorporates institutional, cultural and digital dimensions.

This paper contributes to the literature on digital entrepreneurship by empirically identifying and theoretically elaborating themes that are important for understanding how entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of digital entrepreneurship and build entrepreneurial legitimacy in complex contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of accounting development and the adoption of IFRS in the four foremost economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—Egypt, Jordan, Libya and UAE. Through the lens of institutional theory, the study investigates the impact of economic, political, legal and cultural institutions on the development of these countries’ accounting practices and their readiness to use IFRS.

This research uses accounting development indices obtained from current literature as well as recent World Economic Forum and UNCTAD reports to examine the development of accounting in these MENA countries and their inclination to adopt IFRS.

The study identifies a number of impediments to the development of accounting practices and adoption of IFRS in these countries. It also reveals that three of the four MENA countries (Egypt, Jordan and UAE) could be placed on a level playing field with their principal trading partners (the US, the UK, Germany and Italy) given the formers’ business environments, methods of raising finance and levels of professional accounting practices.

Although limited to only four jurisdictions, findings from the study have important implications for investors and parties that are interested in improving the value relevance of the information presented by firms especially in a globalised economy with increasing cross-listing.

This study extends the frontier of knowledge on the development of accounting and IFRS adoption by focusing on the MENA region. It is the first effort that the authors are aware of to adopt such a multifarious approach.

The aim of this study is to explore the concept of operational excellence (OPEX) in the context of African businesses. It seeks to identify the main themes, topics and trends within the OPEX discourse and to uncover emerging areas and potential directions for future research. By emphasizing the unique challenges and opportunities in African markets, this study aims to broaden the understanding of OPEX and its applicability in diverse business environments.

This study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses. Using topic modeling and text analytics, the study examines a range of scholarly literature and social media content. The methodology involves a meticulous extraction and analysis of data from peer-reviewed journals, alongside an exploration of themes emerging from social media, blogs and forums. This approach allows for a comprehensive understanding of OPEX trends in both academic and practical contexts.

The study reveals that OPEX in African businesses is intricately linked with innovation, strategic leadership, cultural dynamics, global market integration and data analytics. Key findings include the importance of integrating cultural understanding into operational strategies, the role of adaptive leadership in navigating the African market and the necessity of aligning operational processes with global trends, innovations and data-driven insights. The research also highlights the unique challenges African firms face, such as balancing local and global business practices, leveraging cultural diversity for competitive advantage and harnessing the power of data analytics for OPEX.

This research contributes original insights into the understanding of OPEX in African business contexts, an area that has been relatively under-explored in existing literature. It offers a novel perspective by integrating academic and practical viewpoints, thereby providing a more holistic understanding of OPEX. The findings have significant implications for both business leaders and researchers, offering strategic directions for firms operating in or with African markets and suggesting new avenues for academic inquiry in the field of OPEX.