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This study explores the complex identity work undertaken by women refugee entrepreneurs in the UK. Whilst popular discourse proposes self-employment as an accessible means to integration and autonomy for marginalised people, many refugees engage in entrepreneurial activities to avoid discrimination and disadvantage in the labour market. Drawing on translocational intersectionality to examine the experiences of this under-researched group of women, this thesis examines how the intersection of gender, ethnicity/race, class and other identity markers influence efforts to move from a stigmatised refugee identity to an entrepreneurial identity. In considering the multi-dimensional and dynamic agentic dialogue negotiated with institutional and socio-cultural structures, this study contributes to contextualised scholarship on identity and entrepreneurship. The thesis proposes the following research question: How does engagement in entrepreneurial activities influence the identity construction of refugee women? Underpinned by a critical realist ontology and a social constructionist epistemology, the study is based on five in-depth case studies. It focuses on a UK context as a recipient nation of refugees fleeing persecution in their country of origin. Three important theoretical contributions are made in this thesis. First, the thesis addresses the gap in entrepreneurship scholarship that overlooks the heterogeneity of women entrepreneurs. Thus, it presents as a legitimate subject women refugees from the Global South as they develop and perform their entrepreneurial identities in a Global North setting. Second, it proposes a process of identity construction in the context of refugee women entrepreneurs. Third, in its use of a translocational intersectionality framework, it contributes to greater contextualisation within entrepreneurship literature. In acknowledging institutional, temporal, social, cultural and gendered influences that enable and constrain the entrepreneurial identity process, it exposes notions of stigmatisation and liminality which affect this group of entrepreneurs. Beyond the theoretical contributions, there are practical implications for policy makers and other stakeholder networks. In understanding the experiences of women refugee entrepreneurs, prevalent assumptions can be challenged. This has the potential to lead to a review of services, training programmes and engagement strategies offered to refugee women entrepreneurs.

This thesis is a study of banking regulation in Nigeria. It has three main objectives: to explain the evolution and impact of banking regulation after independence to discuss the reasons for the persistent failure of financial regulation; and to highlight the role of external agencies in Nigeria's financial system. The thesis offers a historical perspective on the developments in Nigerian banking regulation, but focuses mainly on the period after independence. It examines the economic and political theories that have influenced financial regulatory trends in Nigeria. It considers these theories in their political and legal context. The thesis does not embrace any theory in particular. Instead, its approach is pragmatic and comparative focusing on the interaction between legal, political and institutional factors that have influenced financial regulation in Nigeria. The study shows that the pre-liberalisation regulatory norms were repressive and inefficient. It argues that banking deregulation was introduced as an economic revolution devoid of necessary corresponding political and legal changes. The core destabilising factors are identified as inadequate regulatory powers, political corruption, political instability, legal instability, policy distortions, and incongruous laws. The complicity of the IMF and World Bank in this process is also discussed. Financial deregulation was prompted by predatory politics characteristic of the Nigerian state; yet, deregulation has aggravated the country's political instability and exacerbated prebendalism. The thesis discusses policy options to break this vicious circle.

The purpose of this study was to examine how charter school authorizers conceptualize and navigate policy implementation as intermediary organizations. Through a phenomenological multi-site case study design, fifteen Ohio charter school authorizing staff across three organizations shared the ways in which they operate, navigate policy, access resources, and respond to the use of incentives and penalties in policy. With Honig’s (2004) theory of intermediary organizations as a conceptual framework, I explore the role of charter school authorizers as mediating actors of state-level policy. Three major findings are shared: 1) while charter school authorizers largely conceptualize their roles to be innovators and gatekeepers, the demands of policy requires them to be more; 2) authorizers rely heavily on the state-issued performance rubric in determining their organizational priorities; and 3) authorizers access a variety of organizational processes and resources in navigating policy implementation. Additionally, findings indicate that authorizers are generally unresponsive to the promises of incentives but do modify behavior to prevent the receipt of penalties. The dissertation concludes with a discussion on the isomorphic pressures of policy on organizational structure, implications for stakeholders, and recommendations for future research.