Chinatown 2.0: the difficult flowering of an ethnically themed shopping area

Right in Amsterdam’s picturesque Canal Zone, on and around Zeedijk, Chinese entrepreneurs have carved out a presence in what seems like the local Chinatown. The businessmen have been targeting Asian and non-Asian customers by offering products that – to an extent – can be associated with Asia, China in particular. Since the early 1990s, individual entrepreneurs and their business organisations have campaigned for official acknowledgement of Zeedijk as an ethnic-only district and for governmental support of the enhancement of Chineseness. Following Hackworth and Rekers. [(2005). “Ethnic Packaging and Gentrification. The Case of Four Neighborhoods in Toronto.” Urban Affairs Review 41 (2): 211–236], we argue that this case challenges traditional understandings of ethnic commercial landscapes. In sharp contrast to the current orthodoxy, which would conceive the proliferation of such an ‘ethnic enclave’ as part of a larger process of assimilation, we have approached Amsterdam’s Chinatown first and foremost as a themed economic space: Chinese and other entrepreneurs compete for a share of the market and in doing also for the right to claim the identity of the area. What is the historical development of the Zeedijk area, how did Chinese entrepreneurs and their associations try to boost Chinatown and negotiate public Chineseness, and how did governmental and non-governmental institutional actors respond to those attempts?     

Identity work in female‐led creative businesses

This study explores the identity work carried out by three female owner‐managers in creative industry businesses, identified in Government reports as a discriminatory industrial sector for women in the UK. Through the development of narratives by the owners and other participants, observation of practice and review of online and offline materials, three cases emerged. These showed overlapping, different identities developed and performed through identity work. Each presented rational and logical persona as business leaders despite observation showing extensive use of intuition and gut feeling in both creative and entrepreneurial aspects of the business. Intuition and gut feeling were seen as inappropriate at work as they belonged to the home sphere, emotionally based and therefore automatically unreliable. While occupying male stereotypes and avoiding the female realm of emotion at work, these women expressed femininity through their emphasis on the maternal, ‘being a good mother' as a desired ideal being embedded in work as well as home practice.     

Women's entrepreneurship,neoliberalism and economic justice in the postfeminist era: A discourse analysis of policy change in Sweden

Since the early 1990s, there has been investment in women's entrepreneurship policy (WEP) in Sweden, which continued until 2015. During the same period, Sweden assumed neoliberal policies that profoundly changed the position of women within the world of work and business. The goals for WEP changed as a result, from entrepreneurship as a way to create a more equal society, to the goal of unleashing women's entrepreneurial potential so they can contribute to economic growth. To better understand this shift we approach WEP as a neoliberal governmentality which offers women ‘entrepreneurial’ or ‘postfeminist’ subject positions. The analysis is inspired by political theorist Nancy Fraser who theorized the change as the displacement of socioeconomic redistribution in favour of cultural recognition, or identity politics. We use Fraser's concepts in a discourse analysis of Swedish WEP over two decades, identifying two distinct discourses and three discursive displacements. Whilst WEP initially gave precedence to a radical feminist discourse that called for women's collective action, this was replaced by a postfeminist neoliberal discourse that encouraged individual women to assume an entrepreneurial persona, start their own business, compete in the marketplace and contribute to economic growth. The result was the continued subordination of women business owners, but it also obscured or rendered structural problems/solutions, and collective feminist action, irrelevant.     

Service Users with Experience of Poverty as Institutional Entrepreneurs in Public Services in Belgium: An Institutional Theory Perspective on Policy Implementation

In this article, we report on a qualitative and interpretative research project in which we gained in‐depth knowledge about dynamics in ten federal public policy units in Belgium where a service user with experience of poverty was employed. Starting from an institutional theory perspective, it was argued that these service users with experience of poverty can possibly feature as institutional entrepreneurs or agents of change who initiate a critical reflection in the mindset of fellow social administrators about taken‐for‐granted practices, routines and rationales. In order to fulfill this ambition, we equally stressed that service users with experience of poverty should be able to perform two other roles as well: to provide direct support to citizens, especially those living in poverty during their contacts with a public policy unit, and to formulate concrete propositions to change some of the policy units' internal procedures. Our research findings reveal that these two roles provide a necessary breeding ground for further interaction and (in)formal dialogue between service users with experience of poverty and fellow social administrators about the quality and accessibility of service delivery. However, installing this shared responsibility proves to be a valuable but also gradual process, and we argue that it is therefore undesirable when service users with experience of poverty act as so‐called ‘heroes’ in changing these taken‐for‐granted institutional practices, routines and rationales.     

转型经济下民营企业家个体特质、情境对公司创业的驱动机制——基于QCA的探索性研究

在中国经济转型的大市场环境下,企业如何将公司创业的意愿成功付诸于创业行动,是学术界广泛讨论的话题。文章利用全国私营企业调查问卷表数据,以102家私营企业作为案例样本,通过模糊集定性比较分析(QCA)方法将企业家个体特质与情境两个层面整合,同时从这两个层面进一步细分,去探讨组态效应对公司创业的多重并发影响机制。经过数据分析可以获知,企业家的社群式身份是高公司创业活跃度的必要条件,且导致高公司创业活跃度有四条组态(路径)；导致非高公司创业活跃度的有一条组态(路径),两者之间存在非对称关系。     

“中国梦”研究综述

“中国梦”研究从改革开放到现在大致可以分为四个阶段：初始萌芽、破土成长、发展壮大以及研究高潮阶段。从期刊文献可以看出，各阶段随着时代发展表现出相应的研究特点。整体上，“中国梦”内涵不断丰富，而文献数量整体呈增长态势，特别在近两年研究呈爆发态势。研究也表明，“中国梦”研究在与外国梦文化对比、外国人对“中国梦”的认同、对少年和儿童“中国梦”的培养、“中国梦”在社会各个层面上的关系与构建这些方面有待加深。     

得失参半的创新之作——《剑桥中国文学史》评议

《剑桥中国文学史》旨在打破以往文学史写作中的习惯性范畴,开创新的文学史范式。其中最引人注目的是它特殊的"文学文化史"的书写姿态,立足于在文化史的背景下考察中国文学的发展进程。这种书写策略为我们认识文学史提供了新的视角与方法,但并没有在全书中得到全面的贯彻。《剑桥中国文学史》的文学史分期方式也引人注目,某些基于文学文化史立场的分期方式显得新颖别致。全书的文学史分期方式并没有统一的标准,也存在着按世纪、朝代为文学史分期的现象。由于全书的编者热衷于探求"过去的文学"原貌,在实践中往往对某些重要作家作品叙述较少,而对次要的文学现象评价过高。这种迥异于时流的评价可新人耳目,但有些评价是出于臆测,并没有坚实的依据。     

残疾人创业的信任环境重构——基于团队特征的视角

推动残疾人成功创业已成为各国促进残疾人就业率提升的一个有效手段,但创业成功并非易事,残疾人创业所面临的信息沟通不畅、信任环境缺失等问题直接影响创业的成功率。本文通过构建相关变量的有调节效应的回归模型,深入探讨了影响残疾人创业的情景因素,研究结果显示,残疾人创业团队的外部信任环境重构和创业团队自信心的建立对创业成功有显著的正向影响。     

关于就业创业课程开发及学习资源库建设的几点体会

总结了关于创业教育课程开发和就业创业学习资源库项目建设的意义、目标和主要任务、实施过程、取得的主要成果、重要贡献及项目进一步建设和推广的几点建议。     

基于学科竞赛的创新创业教育体系的构建

在简要概述学科竞赛对培养创新创业人才的重要作用的基础上，从建立学科竞赛体系、竞赛团队、课程体系、工程实训体系、组织管理体系、考核评价体系等六个方面，阐述了我校基于学科竞赛构建创新创业教育体系的一些具体方法和措施。通过把学科竞赛纳入正常教学计划，形成较为完整的创新创业教育体系和良好的教育教学秩序，为创新创业人才培养提供了有力保障。