Growth aspirations and social capital: Young firms in a post-conflict environnment

We explore the social determinants of growth aspirations of young firms’ owners and managers in a post-conflict economy. We focus on social capital, which we treat as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, studying not only the effect of owners’ and managers’ personal networks on growth aspirations, but also other facets that facilitate cooperation such as trust in institutions and generalised trust in people. We posit that that the generalised trust amplifies the beneficial effects of personal business networks, explaining how this conclusion diverges from earlier literature. We argue that in a post-conflict country, preservation of ethnic diversity is indicative of tolerance and low communication barriers and social capital appropriable for entrepreneurship. Our empirical counterpart and hypotheses testing rely on survey of young businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A reply from a ‘pracademic’: It is not all mischief, and there is scope to educate budding authors

Abstract : Problemification: Some academics joined the profession from private sector late in their career. They are sometimes referred to fondly as practical academics or ‘pracademics’ because they still work in private sector and also act as a visiting professor in academia. I sit on eight boards and chair nearly half of them, and serve on audit committees and HR Remuneration committees. I am an example of a ‘pracademic’, and my induction into academia was one sentence – publish or perish. In the private sector, induction can take up to a week. I had one minute. Implications: The implication is that I had to find out what a peer-reviewed journal was and trip into the fact that some peer-reviewed journals are scams and others A rated. Telling the difference in my initial years took its toll. I continually had to ask colleagues – is this journal real? Eventually I realised the DHET list was a good starting point and I started submitting articles. I got more rejections than acceptances at first, with very little explanation. So I learnt nothing and did not know what to do to improve. I had to waste another thousand reviewer hours of time to learn what the requirement was. Research writing is guided by a personal philosophy, and it is about what types of research issues one is inclined towards. For instance, some people are naturally inclined towards basic research and others towards applied research. Others are more oriented towards theory building and testing types for the purpose of creating knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Some others are pragmatic types or realist types and believe real-world problems do not come neatly packaged and are somewhat untidily in presentation calling for discretion or judgement on what to prioritise for research and how to carry out the research. Some are scientist practitioners (evidence informed researchers) and others are practitioner-scientist (practice-led science). Perhaps this kind of orientation to research is what early career researchers need initially; then, they can worry about reproducibility of research findings down the line after grounding themselves into the research space they perceive to belong to and where they feel invested. Purpose: The purpose of this opinion article is to share my journey and sow some doubt in reply to the opinion piece circulated by Efendic and Van Zyl. Whilst I do agree with everything that is said in their article, I believe that there is additional information that needs to be considered. Context is important. Not all academics that submit articles have been in academia for many years. We need to do more to support budding authors. Recommendations: We need to be much more helpful to budding authors than just publishing a page or two called author submission guidelines. These are mostly cosmetic style guides. If we want a higher quality submission and plenty of them – then I believe we need to educate our budding authors of the requirements. Perhaps we need a detailed guide, similar in content and depth as the article of Efendic and Van Zyl (2019). We could consider a podcast setting out the technical guidelines and statistical requirements. Running courses on article publishing by the reviewers is important because that is from the horse’s mouth. Trust me; it is not just a case of sticking to the style guide. You need to really understand some of the under currents of article publishing, for example, quoting as many authors from that particular journal’s list of articles as possible

The rules of the game in transition: how informal institutions work in South East Europe

This chapter reviews the literature on the interaction of formal and informal institutions and undertakes empirical tests for the validity of claims about the substitutive role of informal institutions. We address two questions: ‘what works when the formal institutions do not?’ and ‘to what extent do formal institutions constitute real constraints in South East European societies, characterised by strong hold of personalised trust and reliance on personal connections.’ To answer these questions, we analyse survey data from eight countries of South East Europe (SEE). When formal rules fail to be effective, social norms of reliance on ‘trusted people and connections’ predominate as a default option, alongside the complexity of factors surrounding the workings of informal networks that channel and enable such interactions

The effect of ethnic diversity on income – an empirical investigation using survey data from a post-conflict environment

This empirical study is based on nationally representative cross-sectional survey data gathered to investigate the effect of ethnic diversity on personal and family incomes in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a post-conflict society. The 1992–1995 conflict was harmful for ethnic diversity. Yet, two decades later, where it still exists, ethnic diversity gives rise to positive economic consequences. After controlling for other influences, the authors find lower probabilities of respondents in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods being in the lowest income categories but higher probabilities of being in medium and higher income categories. The largest effects are the reduced probabilities of respondents reporting no income, and are thus particularly relevant to poverty reduction. At the limit, their estimates imply an income gap of more than 20 per cent between a counter-factual completely heterogenous environment and a counter-factual completely homogenous environment. Policy makers in this post-conflict country, and in similar environments elsewhere, should take into consideration the economic costs of policies supporting ethnic homogeneity over diversity

Modelling the costs of informal networking: Evidence from the Western Balkans region

This is the first study to explore costs of informal networking in the Western Balkans. In a comparative survey, we find that informal networking, or use of personal contacts for getting things done, is common in the region while the economic cost of informal networking is substantial (100 euros against average monthly income of 250 Euros). In the structure of networking costs, the estimated costs of invested time, a proxy for sociability, dominate over money. Higher costs are associated with larger networks built on strong ties. Respondents who perceive networking as important tend to invest more time and money. The informal networking costs are also higher for those with more education and income, and for entrepreneurs. Individuals bear the high costs of informal networking not only for social and culturally determined reasons, but also with an instrumental purpose. Our evidence suggests that both sociability and instrumentality drive informal networking

Internal displacement and external migration in a post-conflict economy: Perceptions of institutions among migrant entrepreneurs

This article examines the trust of institutions among internal and external migrant entrepreneurs in the post-conflict economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Drawing on survey data and in-depth interviews, we find that external migrant entrepreneurs with international experience have lower trust in institutions than internal migrants. This is explained by the comparison of institutions in the country of origin with more stable institutional environments they experienced while being abroad. Consistent with this conclusion, a more complex institutional setup within the country is associated with lower trust in institutions. We also show that personal network diversity has a differential impact on trust, with individuals in more ethnically diverse areas and networks reporting lower trust, reflecting the possibility that institutions are not ethnically neutral and inclusive enough

Institutional effects on economic performance in post-socialist transition: A dynamic panel analysis

This article uses dynamic panel analysis to investigate the relationship between institutional improvement and economic performance in 29 transition countries. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we find that per capita GDP is determined by the entire history of institutional reform under transition and that, conditional on this history, per capita GDP adjusts to recent institutional changes. Moreover, we find that the time-horizon over which we measure institutional change matters, with five-year changes showing the clearest effects on current levels of per capita GDP. Secondly, we address the pronounced methodological heterogeneity of this literature. To compensate for incomplete theoretical guidance from the institutional literature, we draw upon an institutional meta-regression analysis to inform our model specification. Our analysis covers the period 1992–2007

Evaluating the relationship between marginalization and participation in undeclared work: lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina

This paper tests competing hypotheses on the relationship between marginalization and participation in undeclared work. The ‘marginalization’ thesis views undeclared work as conducted primarily by marginalized populations among which young, unemployed and economically fragile people dominate. A competing ‘reinforcement’ thesis argues that undeclared work is conducted disproportionately by those in declared jobs and thus that the undeclared economy reinforces, rather than reduces, the inequalities produced by the declared economy. To evaluate who engages in undeclared work and to test these competing theses, data is reported from a 2015 survey of 6,021 randomly selected adult respondents in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reporting the marginal effects of a Probit regression analysis, the finding is that marginalized groups (the unemployed, younger age groups, those with fewer years in formal education, lower-income households, rural populations and those from poorer regions) are all significantly more likely to participate in undeclared work. The implications for theory and policy are discussed, along with the limitations of the study and future research required

Chromogranin A in the olfactory system of the rat

The olfactory bulb of the rat contains chromogranin A at a similar level as the adrenal gland or the hypophysis as revealed by immunoblots. Olfactory chromogranin A also displays the same size as chromogranin A of endocrine cells. In the hippocampus and other brain regions, we could not detect chromogranin A by immunoblotting. In contrast, chromogranin A messenger ribonucleic acid (using S1 nuclease protection assays) was observed in all brain regions examined, including the olfactory bulb. By in situ hybridization histochemistry with a complementary ribonucleic acid probe (280 nucleotides), and by immunocytochemistry, chromogranin A synthesis could be localized to cell bodies of the mitral cell layer, of the external plexiform layer and of the periglomerular region of the olfactory bulb. Immunocytochemically, chromogranin A was also detected in the central projection areas of mitral and tufted cells in the primary olfactory cortex and the anterior amygdaloid area but not in the olfactory glomeruli, where the incoming olfactory nerve fibers of the primary olfactory neurons establish synaptic contacts. Taken together the data show that chromogranin A, following biosynthesis in the perikarya of the mitral and tufted cells, is specifically transported into their axonal terminals but not into their primary dendrites. We propose that the rat olfactory system could serve as a model for the study of chromogranin A regulation and function in neurons