Public Sector Entrepreneurship: Scientific Mapping and Research Agenda

Background and Purpose: The concept of entrepreneurship within the public sector is one of the most fiercely debated areas of entrepreneurial research. It has been studied across several academic disciplines such as in management, public administration and political economy, among others. However, while academic output has increased, we found no prior studies providing a clear mapping of the field. Therefore, this research sought to comprehensively examine all peer reviewed articles on public sector entrepreneurship. Methods: Using the Scopus scientific database, our analysis included 133 articles from 1982 to 2022. Following a thorough manual review process, we used VOSviewer to provide a mapping of the field, before identifying research gaps and suggesting directions for future research. Our scientific mapping revealed the leading and emerging thematic clusters in the field. Results: Our results revealed that the leading themes in public sector entrepreneurship include innovation, entrepreneurship, public sector, governance, reinventing government, and public organisations, while emerging trends include public health entrepreneurship, public health innovation, public choice, sustainability, and entrepreneurial orientation, among others. Conclusion: Our research provides useful insights to all researchers interested in examining entrepreneurship within the public sector or in non-profit organisations. © 2022 Michael Olumekor, published by Sciendo

Entrepreneurship in Russian Regions: A Bibliometric Analysis

This research provides the first attempt at providing a scientific mapping and performance analysis of academic research on entrepreneurship in Russian regions. We focussed on only publications in the Scopus scientific database, and analysed our data through a thorough manual process and the VOSviewer machine learning software. Our performance assessment investigated the number of publications and the leading authors/institutions on the topic. Our article provides useful insights for researchers on the topic

Support for sustainable finance and investment in Europe

Sustainable finance and investment has become an important factor in achieving environmental sustainability. Evidence also suggests it has become more prominent in the global financial system. Although academic interest has increased in recent years, most prior studies have investigated support for sustainable finance within corporate environments. Studies examining the support of individuals, or the wider public, are scarce. Consequently, using a Eurobarometer survey of 27,862 Europeans across all 27 EU countries, this study explores support for sustainable finance among people in Europe. We used a nested fixed effects model – with two levels – to examine the influence of sociodemographic factors, knowledge of sustainable finance, and a country's progress towards attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our results show that sociodemographic factors are the most influential predictors of support for sustainable finance. We found that age, gender and living in rural/urban areas all influenced people's support for sustainable finance. Meanwhile, the influence of sustainable finance knowledge and SDG progress were either negligible or negative

Effective altruism and the dark side of entrepreneurship

Purpose: Effective Altruism (EA) has become one of the most prominent socio-philosophical movements of recent years. EA is also facing intense scrutiny due to the business practices of some of its most prominent adherents. On the other hand, the dark triad traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy have been getting increasing attention in entrepreneurship research. There is growing evidence that these traits can motivate entrepreneurial intention. We therefore sought to investigate if there was a connection between the entrepreneurship discourse in EA and traits corresponding to dark triad behavior. Design/methodology/approach: Using a discursive analytic method, we investigated the discursive threads on entrepreneurship in EA over a 10-year period. Findings: While we believe EA brings a much-needed perspective to the overall debate on doing good, we found ample evidence that it might have promoted the sort of dark triad behavior which some evidence suggests can lead to financial success, but can equally lead to the type of morally bankrupt, unethical and even illegal practices of some entrepreneurs. We also discovered a somewhat temporal dimension in EA’s discourse on entrepreneurship, beginning with discourse encouraging some risk taking and entrepreneurship, before moving on to discourses on the benefits of having a smart and illicit character, and ending with a focus on aggressive risk taking. Originality: The findings contribute to the still nascent debate on dark personality traits in entrepreneurship, and enriches the theoretical advancement of the field. However, our research differs from prior studies which were almost exclusively focused on the firm. Instead, we examine this phenomenon within a highly influential belief system/philosophical movement. Copyright © 2023 Olumekor, Mohiuddin and Su.Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Minobrnauka; Ural Federal University, UrFUMO acknowledges funding from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (Ural Federal University project within the Priority-2030 program). Also, the authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive feedback of the reviewers

The Relationship between Search Engines and Entrepreneurship Development: A Granger-VECM Approach

The decision to set-up a business as a sole proprietor—also individual entrepreneur or sole trader—is a consequential one for every nascent entrepreneur. Sole proprietorship businesses have remained the most popular business structure in many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, and are vital to the sustainable development of countries and regions. In this research, we developed a model to investigate if increased online interest in sole proprietorships led to the creation of new sole proprietorship businesses in four regions of Russia. Search engine data were retrieved from Russia’s most popular search engine, Yandex, whereas data on newly registered individual entrepreneurship businesses were retrieved from Russia’s Federal Tax Service. Our model was comprised of a range of statistical methods, including the augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root test, the Johansen cointegration test, the Granger causality Wald test, and the vector error correction model. The results revealed a unidirectional causal relationship between search engine data and newly established individual entrepreneurship businesses. This means that interest in individual entrepreneurship, measured through search engine data, influenced the creation of new individual entrepreneurship businesses. This research provides a pioneering empirical investigation of the topic in post-Soviet states, and its main contribution includes introducing search engine data as a key tool for assessing entrepreneurial intention. © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Minobrnauka; Ural Federal University, UrFU; Zarqa University, ZUFunding: The authors are grateful to Zarqa University, Zarqa, Jordan for the financial support granted to cover the publication fee of this article. Additionally, author M.O. acknowledges funding from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (Ural Federal University project within the Priority-2030 program)

Online consumer behaviour: Opportunities and challenges for the elderly

Humans are living longer than ever before, and people above 65 are the fastest growing age group in the world. However, while technological progress, the proliferation of the internet and business innovation – among other factors – have inspired other age groups to increasingly adopt e-commerce, this has not been the case for elderly people, particularly those in Russia. This paper is a literature review examining the existing literature on the challenges elderly people face in buying and selling goods and services online. It connects existing data on the consumption patterns in Russia with the leading theories on consumer behaviour, and narrows it down to contemporary research on the elderly. Among other factors, this paper found that Russian elderly consumers and small entrepreneurs continue to prefer brick-and-mortar companies to e-commerce. Difficulty with verifying a product’s quality, problems with navigating complex websites, a fear of making financial transactions online, and a fear of receiving counterfeit products are some of the main factors contributing to this. Furthermore, this paper also found that companies currently fail to target elderly customers compared to other market segments, thereby failing to make their online platforms responsive to the specific needs of the elderly. However, there remains a significant gap in existing literature on the consumer behaviour of elderly people in e-commerce. And research specific to Russian elderly entrepreneurs remains limited. Moreover, leading theories on consumer behaviour are also less relevant to elderly consumers in a digital age. This presents additional opportunities for further research. The current COVID-19 pandemic which has disproportionately affected older people has placed a greater urgency on this research. Therefore, the outcome will be relevant to policy makers and political leaders worried about reducing the fatality rate of the pandemic while boosting economic growth, and for businesses trying to innovate web-platforms to increase turnover. It will also be a crucial contribution to the existing literature on elderly consumer and entrepreneurial behaviour

Обзор развития электронной торговли в России и ее последствий для малого бизнеса

Michael Olumekor, a doctoral student, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia, [email protected] Sergey N. Polbitsyn, a Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, Ural Federal Universi-ty, Yekaterinburg, Russia, [email protected] Олумекор Майкл, аспирант, Уральский федеральный университет, Екатеринбург, Россия, [email protected] Полбицын Сергей Николаевич, д.э.н., профессор, Уральский федеральный университет, Екате-ринбург, Россия, [email protected] article provides a detailed review of the literature on the development of electronic commerce in Russia from its origins in 1997. The article reveals some very important milestones in Russia’s electronic commerce adoption, including the creation of Russia’s first electronic bookstore, the invention of Russia’s first e-payment system, and the start of Russia’s first fully e-commerce store. It also provides an analysis of the initial struggles of electronic commerce in Russia, and how the market has grown to become a 2.7 trillion ruble industry in 2020, making up 21 % of overall Russian retail. The implications of all of these on small businesses was also analyzed.В этой статье представлен подробный литературный обзор на тему развития электронной торговли в России с момента ее зарождения в 1997 году. В нем освещаются важные вехи российской электронной коммерции, включая создание первого электронного книжного магазина, первой системы электронных платежей и первого полностью электронного магазина. Также представлена беспристрастная оценка первоначальных трудностей электронной коммерции в России и того, как рынок вырос до 2,7 трлн рублей в 2020 году, составив 21 % всей российской розничной торговли. Также были проанализированы последствия всего этого для малого бизнеса

Interactions between thick-film resistors and terminations: the role of bismuth

The interactions of thick-film (cermet) resstors with terminations of various metals prepared on alumina substrates has been investigated. The resistivity was studied as a function of resistor length and temperature. The point-to-point voltage drop was measured over the entire length of the resistors. SEM and EDAX were used to investigate the termination material, the termination-resistor interface and the resistor, both lengthwise over the specimen and vertically downward into the substrate. The results show that bismuth, a common component of these termination materials, is primarily responsible of these interactions because bismuth has high diffusivity and high solubility in the matrix of the resistor. Moreover, a strong interaction of bismuth with the alumina substrate was observed

COVID-19 и поведение потребителей: обзор новейшей литературы

Michael Olumekor, postgraduate student, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, [email protected]; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1764-2240 Sergey N. Polbitsyn, Professor, Doctor of Economics, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg. Олумекор Майкл, аспирант, Уральский федеральный университет (г. Екатеринбург), https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1764-2240, [email protected] Полбицын Сергей Николаевич, профессор, доктор экономических наук, кандидат технических наук, Уральский федеральный университет (г. Екатеринбург)COVID-19 has impacted all areas of our lives. It has caused an increase in the mortality and morbidity rates of countries around the world, and an increase in domestic violence and mental health issues, among others. It has also made an unprecedented – and likely lasting – impact on the economy, particularly on the behavior of consumers. This article provides an excellent review of recent data, research and literature into how COVID-19 is contributing to changing consumer habits in Russia and around the world. Among others, our research found a profound shift in the buying habits of Russian customers, who not only shopped online at historic levels, but also significantly increased their online purchases of things like food, drinks, cosmetic products, etc. This article is relevant for entrepreneurs, business leaders, policy makers and everyone seeking to understand the changing preferences of consumers. COVID-19 повлиял на все сферы нашей жизни. Это привело к росту показателей смертности и заболеваемости в странах по всему миру, а также росту насилия в семье и проблем с психическим здоровьем, среди прочего. Это также оказало беспрецедентное и, вероятно, длительное воздействие на экономику, особенно на поведение потребителей. В этой научной работе представлен отличный обзор последних данных и исследований о том, как COVID-19 способствует изменению потребительских привычек во всем мире. Среди прочего, в процессе работы над статьей мы обнаружили фундаментальный сдвиг в покупательских привычках российских потребителей, которые не только делали покупки онлайн на исторически рекордном уровне, но и значительно увеличили объем своих онлайн-покупок, в частности, продуктов питания, напитков и косметических средств. Эта статья актуальна для предпринимателей, бизнес-лидеров, политиков и всех, кто стремится понять меняющиеся предпочтения потребителей