Constraints and opportunities facing women entrepreneurs in developing countries: a relational perspective

Purpose: this purpose of the paper to examine the interplay of constraints and opportunities affecting female entrepreneurship in developing countries. The paper integrates salient micro- and macro-level perspectives and provides a rounded account of opportunities and constraints as part of a holistic interdependent system.Design/methodology/approach: the paper adopts an integrative multi-level research design and an interpretive research methodology, capitalizing on in-depth interviews with ten women entrepreneurs to explore their perceptions and interpretations of constraints and opportunities facing female entrepreneurship in the Lebanese context.Findings: the findings presented in this paper clearly illustrate the relevance of micro-, meso-, and macro-level factors in entrepreneurship research and the usefulness of integrating multiple lens and units of analysis to capture the complexity of the women entrepreneurship experience in any particular context.Originality/value: the value added of this research lies in adapting a framework recently popularized in the context of diversity management for use in entrepreneurship research, helping to capture in turn the dynamic interplay of multiple levels of analysis and objective/subjective factors influencing female entrepreneurshi

Adaptations of CSR in the Context of Globalization the Case of the GCC

Globalization plays a significant role in driving the evolution of the CSR discourse and practice across developed and developing countries. The differential development of CSR across contexts is pervasive but undeniably relates to internationalization, modernization, and the globalization process. In this chapter, we look specifically at how globalization plays an important role in shaping CSR conceptions and practices in developing countries and how there is invariably an important counterpart process of indigenous translation and adaptation in context. The nuanced connotations and practices of CSR in a Middle Eastern region, namely the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), are analyzed closely to draw conclusions on the implications of globalization in terms of shaping key logics for CSR in non-western contexts. A qualitative inductive approach to content analysis is used where published articles on CSR perceptions, practices, and connotations in the six GCC countries are analyzed thoroughly. Statements regarding global forces of international best practices and their diffusion into local contexts, the translated western-centric CSR logics in the context of local political and socio-economic realities are extracted to form conclusions in relation to the adaptation of CSR in the global business environment of the GCC

Administrative reforms in pluralistic societies : the case of Lebanon.

This dissertation examines the processes and dynamics of administrative reform in the Lebanese multi-confessional context. It explores whether these processes exhibit special features or characteristics and the extent to which they are conditioned by the realities of the Lebanese pluralistic environment. The orientation in this thesis is indeed consistent with recent writings in the administrative reform literature, which emphasize the contextual distinctiveness of administration and reform in each country and the need to account for embedded contextual differences. The research thus attempts to place Lebanese administrative reform in a specific historical, cultural, and political frame of reference and link it to the realities of pluralism and sectarian politics in Lebanon. Further, the research undertakes an in-depth case study examination of two adrninistrtive ectocs (tee a&3 ad &i g greater insight into post-war Lebanese reform patterns and dynamics. The research highlights the complexity of administrative reform and the fact that reform endeavors are invariably conditioned by a multitude of embedded and contingent factors, cultural, political and economic. The research also suggests the potential influence of the regional and international environments on country-specific programs of planned change. Indeed, the research suggests that the complex inter-relationships of these various factors and their specific constellations in specific periods can exert a significant influence on the course and fate of reform initiatives and help account for the specific reform trajectories observed in Lebanon before and after the wa

Corporate governance meets corporate social responsibility: Mapping the interface

© The Author(s) 2020. Despite ample research on corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is a lack of consensus on the nature of the relationship between these two concepts and on how this relationship manifests across institutional contexts. Drawing on the national business systems approach, this article systematically reviews 218 research articles published over a 27-year period to map how CG–CSR research has evolved and progressed theoretically and methodologically across different institutional contexts. To shed light on the full gamut of the CG–CSR relationship, we categorize and explore the nature of this relationship along two strands: (a) CSR as a function of CG and (b) CG as a function of CSR. Through this review, we identify key themes where CG–CSR research has lagged and account for under-explored contexts in this domain. Finally, we put forth a comprehensive agenda for progressing future research in the field

A Comparative Study of Social Enterprises: North vs. South Perspectives

Social entrepreneurship as a practice that integrates economic and social value creation has a strong global presence. This chapter capitalizes on the evolution of the concept of social enterprise in the Western literature to analyze its manifestation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Specifically, using empirical evidence from seven Arab countries, this chapter documents the understanding and application of social enterprises in the MENA region. Through the voices of social entrepreneurs who are working across the MENA countries, we document how social enterprise is displayed in practice along with both the constraints and the opportunities facing social entrepreneurs across this region. This new context-specific approach is then used to shed light on the similarities and differences of social enterprise practices across the international scene and the MENA region. The findings presented highlight the uniqueness of social enterprise in the MENA context, combining elements of both European and American approaches, in addition to some context-specific features

Energy, exergy and economic analyses of new coal-fired cogeneration hybrid plant with wind energy resource

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd A novel configuration of a coal-fired cogeneration plant is proposed in this paper. This novel system is composed of combustion chamber, Rankine cycle, absorption chiller, alkaline electrolyzer, and methanation plant. In the proposed configuration, the heat of exhaust gas from the combustion chamber can be used in a Rankine cycle to produce electricity. The heat of exhaust gas also powers the absorption chiller to provide cooling. The exhaust gas flows through a sulfur extraction unit to separate sulfur from CO2 gas. To supply electrical power, wind turbines alongside the Rankine cycle are considered. A part of the produced electricity from both the Rankine cycle and the wind turbines can be used by an alkaline electrolyzer to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The CO2 gas from sulfur unit and hydrogen gas (H2) provided by the electrolyzer can be delivered to a methanation unit to produce syngas (CH4) for different applications. The oxygen from the electrolyzer is injected into the combustion chamber to improve the combustion process. Results show that by using 80 units of 1 MW Nordic wind turbine to generate electricity, all of the CO2 in the exhaust gas is converted to syngas. The whole system energy and exergy efficiencies are equal to 16.6% and 16.2%. The highest and lowest energy efficiencies of 85% and 30.1% are related to compressor and steam power plants. The energy and exergy efficiencies of the wind turbine are 30.7% and 11.9%. The system can produce 40920.4 MWh of electricity and 180.5 MWh of cooling. As CO2 is consumed to produce syngas, the proposed system is capable of avoiding a significant amount of 2776 t CO2 emissions while producing 1009.4 t syngas annually. Based on economic analysis, the payback period of the system is 11.2 y, and internal rate of return is found to be 10%, which can prove the viability of the proposed configuration