Search

The paper aims to explore small and medium enterprise (SME) owners' and managers' personal values, orientations, and motives towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) using the stakeholder theory. This study used a qualitative approach aligned with the constructionism philosophy. Ten respondents were purposively approached and interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyze and interpret data. Findings showed that SME owners and managers' values, orientation, and motives influence CSR engagement and explain their nexus. This study gives a unique perception of awareness among SME owners and managers in Sri Lanka about CSR implementation while contributing to the existing area. It is proposed to conduct an in-depth exploration of the complexity in which CSR initiatives are embedded in the SME sectors of developing countries. This study will become a benchmark for other CSR studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study expands on current knowledge through how female entrepreneurs form and develop their networks in the Sri Lankan context. It adopts social constructionism philosophy and narrative design to explore the female entrepreneurs' networking behaviour. Thematic analysis is used to understand the life stories of fourteen women entrepreneurs in the tourism sector. Findings suggest that female entrepreneurs are likely to rely on more informal recruitment methods and informal training practices. They have strong relationships with local communities, but they focus on customers beyond the locals. Seasonality within tourism has emphasised tourism literature due to its disruptive effect on economic transactions. However, less of the literature has examined the social effects of seasonality, which is where this study can contribute by exploring how gender roles related to social and domestic responsibilities are renegotiated during the low and high seasons when tourism entrepreneurs re-adjust to new time-demand realities. Nevertheless, the narrative research design is not widely used in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this article adds to the entrepreneurial networking knowledge by analysing stories about female entrepreneurs' experiences and social constructionist perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic minority female entrepreneurs play a vital role in developed countries, yet they rarely receive recognition. The research explores the experiences of Sri Lankan female immigrant entrepreneurs and their challenges in London, the United Kingdom. The research followed the path of a narrative approach of qualitative methodology, which is an efficient method to explore people's experiences through a sociologically based theory on “othering” and “belonging.” Seven participants were purposively approached and asked to narrate their stories and share their experiences. The research findings suggest that female immigrant entrepreneurs face many hardships in their businesses. Institutional and consumer racism and a lack of networking are the external barriers they had to face. The internal challenges include the liability of newness and the host country's cultural values. Sri Lankan female entrepreneurs’ identities are labeled as an “othered” social group in the UK business community context, treated as outsiders, and made to face structural exclusion. However, gender is not the real villain; ethnicity is the actual undercover devil at business. This research offers a unique insight into female and immigrant entrepreneurship, thereby casting light on an aspect of Sri Lankan female entrepreneurs living in the United Kingdom, which is currently under research [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The area of female entrepreneurship has recently received considerable attention, which is dominated by quantitative studies. However, the narrative methodology approach offers the opportunity to gain in-depth, rich information beyond the boundaries of a question-response type of interview. Therefore, the article puts forward researching female entrepreneurship through the application of the narrative design. Fourteen women were purposively approached and interviewed. Findings revealed that researcher characteristics including understanding and respecting others, insider, outsider perspectives, and multiple identities as critical attributes of success in conducting narrative interviews. In addition, interview skills such as building trust and language were crucial to sustaining such characteristics when bringing together the stories of the respondent. Therefore, narrative design can be identified as an essential method that produces new knowledge, permitting, in this case, to better understand the complexity of women's experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a systematic review of the literature on ethnic minority entrepreneurship. A total of 174 articles converging on ethnic minority entrepreneurship, published between 2010 and 2020, were investigated. This paper extends existing knowledge of the subareas in ethnic minority entrepreneurship research by focusing on two different angles. Firstly, Citation analysis was performed to review research papers to recognize and classify the key areas of ethnic minority entrepreneurship currently being focused on and examined by the research community. Secondly, Thematic analysis was executed to discover the specific themes that are being researched. The study found seven different themes: immigrant studies, ethnic entrepreneurial motivations, ethnic startup process, motives of ethnic business success, failure factors of ethnic businesses, ethnic unique challenges, and favourite strong ties of ethnic minorities were identified as main themes. The number of research gaps identified should encourage novel paths and scopes in the ethnic minority entrepreneurship research field to fill these gaps in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]