Dr Doaa Althalathini

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to answer the question: What stimulates artisan entrepreneurs to act as responsible leaders?

Methodology: A qualitative research method was employed and semi-structured interviews with 30 artisans working in four different artisanal activities was used to gather the data. Thematic analysis was subsequently applied to the interview transcripts.

Findings: The findings suggest that the main factors causing artisan entrepreneurs to act responsibly are as follows: autonomy (the authority artisans exercise in managing their businesses; preserving socio-cultural identity is an artisan’s main duty; proving an individual competency in implementing society-related priorities), competence (adhering to generally accepted business practices; simplicity of developing and maintaining the social agenda of artisan enterprises; meeting the clients’ desire in exercising a social awareness) and relatedness (returning social favours; necessitating involvement with different stakeholders; contributing to the common good).

Originality/ value: This paper contributes by filling a gap in the literature on artisan entrepreneurship, responsible leadership and research in tourism and hospitality in which empirical studies on the responsible practices of artisan entrepreneurs have been limited so far.

This study aims to amplify theory and practice at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface (MEI) by proposing a revision to the key concept of value creation. Advances in marketing research suggest that value is co-created by means of multiple actors, who integrate their resources within ecosystems. This study, therefore, investigates value co-creation from a MEI perspective. The study is based in Lebanon, a country encountering turbulence and disruption, providing a MENA context. In recognition of local conditions, the methodology is contextually congruent, using socially mediated interviews and panel discussions. Analysis of these data uncovers emergent practices of VCC that are captured in two dimensions of adaptive marketing and online interactions that take place within a digitally enabled but imbalanced entrepreneurial ecosystem. The study offers a revision to theory at the MEI by extending value creation to value co-creation and by showing how value co-creation may be adapted and reconfigured according to local circumstances.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate how cronyism is employed by some married female faculty to secure workplace rights and privileges.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative research design is employed and interviews were conducted with 32 female academics working at four different universities.

Findings

The narrative demonstrates the gendered use of cronyism at work – pre-COVID-19, during which female academics had to work full-time and be present on school campuses, and after COVID-19 pandemic, when academic working conditions changed due to the lockdown of university campuses and the reliance on remote online protocols to fulfil academic duties. The paper shows an increased use of cronyism as a mechanism to reduce heavy workloads. This type of cronyism is known as the expectation of mutual favour cronyism, which means that benefits are exchanged between a female academic and the chair of her department and/or the school rector, but the interests of the university they work in are not taken into consideration.

Originality/value

Virtually, no research exists on the sociocultural determinants of nepotism that undermine the professional performance of female academics at work. The authors draw on social exchange theory and the norm of negative reciprocity to identify the conditions under which social capital is undermined. The results have important implications for theory, practice and future research.

This study explores how institutional contexts and digital technologies influence women’s digital entrepreneurship and emancipation potential in the conflict-laden, Arab country-specific context of Palestine. Drawing on insights from Institutional Theory and emancipation literature, we capitalise on in-depth, semi-structured online interviews with Palestinian women entrepreneurs. Accordingly, we present empirical evidence demonstrating that while digital technologies enabled Palestinian women to launch their enterprises, the unsupportive institutional contexts confined them to home-based, feminine enterprises and subjected them to a toll of additional challenges, health issues and hostility. Our findings challenge the claim that digital entrepreneurship emancipates women by showcasing the context-specific nature of emancipation. This paper advances entrepreneurship research by demonstrating how Arab women’s digital entrepreneurship unfolds at the intersection between emancipatory enablers and unique, conflict-laden regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional pillars.  

This paper aims to explore how female academics use cronyism to cope with the lack of emancipative support resulting from their intense teaching and research duties, poor representation at senior administrative levels and their exhausting familial commitments. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 female academics working full-time at four public universities in Egypt. The findings showed that the low action resources (considering their unreasonable teaching loads, research requirements and supervision engagements), emancipative values (the unfair representation of female academics at senior administrative levels) and civic entitlement (universities not serious about promoting gender equality) are perceived by female academics as a lack of empowerment that necessitates their adoption of cronyism as their main coping strategy. Moreover, in male-dominated societies, female academics who do not have the power to shape their work-related status tend to use undesirable behaviours such as cronyism to mitigate the negative consequences of the shocks they encounter. This paper contributes by filling a gap in human resources management in which empirical studies on the relationship between cronyism, emancipation and career shocks have been limited so far.

The impact of Islam upon women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones is woefully absent from the entrepreneurship literature. This is due to the absence of published scholarship about this context rather than the absence of Muslim women’s entrepreneurship there. To address the gap in the literature, we offer a contextualized analysis and contribution by adopting an Islamic feminism lens, and explore how Islamic feminism empowers women entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial activities and behaviours in conflict zones. We argue that Islamic feminism is a process of ‘ijtihad’ shaping the business ethics of Muslim women entrepreneurs operating in conflict zones and removing the traditional, patriarchal, colonial and other cultural layers with which Islam has been veiled. The findings from the 16 Muslim women entrepreneurs operating in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine and participating in our study reveal that Islamic religiousness plays a critical role in shaping the Muslim women’s entrepreneurial behaviour and their ability to endure the hardships of living in a conflict zone. Within all three research contexts, the participants interpreted and practiced their Islamic religiousness in ways consistent with Islamic Feminism prinicples and that deviated from patriarchal Islam dominating their conflict zones. This paper contributes to the growing research areas on Islamic feminist foundations for business ethics and women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones by exploring how Islamic feminism empowers women entrepreneurs in Muslim conflict zones.

Purpose. This paper explores the extent to which women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones is an influential catalyst for liberalizing traditionally conservative gender norms.  This purpose is achieved by focusing on women entrepreneurs in Gaza and how they actively renegotiate their multiple gender roles and navigate the social order through entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach. This paper adopts the interpretivist approach where individual in-depth interviews were conducted with sixteen Palestinian women entrepreneurs operating in Gaza.
Findings. The findings demonstrate that the context of conflict itself and its impact on gender norms is a prime motivator for women to engage in entrepreneurial ventures. Some gender roles were constraining and other enabling for women to initiate and sustain their ventures in order to contribute to their families’ well-being. Despite the fact that the conflict context and entrepreneurship have contributed to enhancing the agency of women and their ability to navigate the conflict and its consequences, the gendered practices and
assumptions are still used as guidance for women to grant legitimacy.
Originality/value. This paper contributes to the gender and entrepreneurship literature by giving a greater visibility to necessity-driven women entrepreneurs in an under researched conflict context, and demonstrates how prolonged conflict instigates social and economic changes that can empower women whilst also reinforcing certain gendered norms.