How do private entrepreneurs transform local social capital into economic capital? Four case studies from rural Denmark

Bourdieu's (1986) General Theory of the Economy of Practices assumes that people perpetually transform tangible and intangible forms of capital according to certain ‘laws of conversion’. On this background, and combining sociology and micro-economics, we analyze specific strings of capital conversion in time and space. More specifically, we raise the question: How do private entrepreneurs transform local social capital into economic capital? We combine in-depth interviews with four private entrepreneurs in rural Denmark with Prisoner's Dilemma game theory. Thus each of our cases illustrates one of the outcomes in the PD matrix. In this way we explain why only one of the four entrepreneurs succeeds in capitalizing social capital.     

Income generation, local economic development and community development: paying the price for lacking business skills?

The introduction of the notion of developmental local governmentas entrenched in the South African constitution in 1994 hasrequired municipalities and cities to consider initiatives toenhance their local economies. At the same time, the socialwelfare paradigm has shifted from one of welfare to development.One way of ensuring the sustainability of this developmentalparadigm is to embark on income-generating projects or businesses.The Free State provincial government created various projectsto develop local economies and to establish income-generatingprojects with a view to making people more self-reliant andtheir livelihoods more sustainable. This article aims to evaluatelocal economic development and income-generating projects inthe Free State province from the perspective of business principles.     

Crowd work in STEM-related fields: A window of opportunity from a gender perspective?

After the Global Financial Crisis (2008) many people found new job opportunities on crowd platforms. The COVID-19 crisis reinforced this trend and virtual work is expected to increase. Although the working conditions of individuals engaged on these platforms is an emerging topic, of research, the existing literature tends to overlook the gendered dimension of the gig economy. Following a quantitative approach, based on the statistical analysis of 444 profiles (platform Freelancer.com in Spain and Argentina), we examine the extent to which the gig economy reproduces gender inequalities such as the underrepresentation of women in STEM-related tasks and the gender pay gap. While the findings reveal lower participation of women than men, this gap is not higher in Argentina than in Spain. Moreover, gender variations in hourly wages are not as marked as expected, and such differences disappear once STEM skill levels are controlled for. Asymmetry in individuals' STEM skill level provides a better explanation than gender of the hourly wage differences. This finding opens a window of opportunity to mitigate the classical gender discrimination that women face in technological fields in traditional labor markets. Finally, the paper identifies some issues concerning the methodological bias entailed by the use of an application programming interface in cyber-research, when analyzing gender inequalities.     

The development of education indicators for measuring quality in the English-speaking Caribbean: How far have we come?

Education evaluation has become increasingly important in the English-speaking Caribbean. This has been in response to assessing the progress of four regional initiatives aimed at improving the equity, efficiency, and quality of education. Both special interest groups and local evaluators have been responsible for assessing the progress of education and providing an overall synthesis and summary of what is taking place in the English-speaking Caribbean. This study employed content analysis to examine the indicators used in these education evaluation studies since the declaration of the Caribbean Plan of Action 2000–2015 to determine these indicators’ appropriateness to the Caribbean context in measuring education progress. Findings demonstrate that the English-speaking Caribbean has made strides in operationalizing quality input, process, and output indicators; however quality outcome indicators beyond test scores are yet to be realized in a systematic manner. This study also compared the types of collaborative partnerships in conducting evaluation studies used by special interest groups and local evaluators and pinpointed the one that appears most suitable for special interest groups in this region.     

Allocation of resources in asymmetric competitions: How do the weak maintain a chance of winning?

To maintain a chance of occasionally beating a stronger player in a competition waged over several fields, a weaker player should give up on some of the fields and concentrate resources on the remaining ones. But when do weak players actually do this? And which fields do they give up when the fields differ in their likelihood of being assessed? We report an experimental study of resource allocation in which asymmetric pairs of players compete over asymmetric fields. Symmetric players and symmetric fields are used for control. We find that players behave as follows: (1) Average wins are the same in the symmetric and asymmetric fields conditions and correspond to relative player strength. (2) The proportion of fields given up on decreases with a player’s greater relative strength, increases for asymmetric field likelihoods, and increases when competitions are framed in meaningful context; this proportion is related to wins. (3) When field likelihoods are asymmetric, players’ resource allocation is correlated with likelihood. Wins generally increase with that correlation but the relation is different for players of different strength. (4) The proportion of fields given up on and the correlation with likelihood change with experience towards the values corresponding to higher wins.     

Restaurant tipping in a field experiment: How do customers tip when they receive too much change?

Tipping behavior is analyzed in a field experiment where restaurant customers received excessive change, either 10 or 40 Shekels (about $3 versus $12). One third of the tables reported the extra change to the server and returned it. Tips were higher with the higher level of extra change. Returning the extra change was negatively correlated with tips. The interaction between the level of extra change and whether it was returned had no effect. Possible explanations that tips are higher when the excessive change is not returned due to a positive income effect or perceiving paying a tip out of excessive change as less costly because it is a forgone gain and not a loss, are not supported by the data. Subjects may have exhibited moral licensing and moral cleansing effects. These effects, however, were possibly mitigated by a self-selection effect going in the opposite direction: those who are more generous or altruistic by their nature are more likely to return the extra change and also more likely to tip generously. Receiving the larger amount of extra change may result in feelings of good mood, perceived luckiness, or individuation and unconscious fear of being observed, which increase tips. Interestingly, these feelings seem to remain even if the extra change was returned.     

The lived experiences of becoming a homeless person with addiction in Tehran: how they are withdrawn from the mainstream community?

Understanding the experiences of street addicted people can help clarify the process of engaging people with this social problem. This study aims to discover the challenges of drug-dependent street people by exploring their lived experiences. This study was conducted using content analysis of qualitative interviews with 22 street recruited from within compulsory drug treatment centers in Tehran. Participants were selected through purposive sampling and their experiences of homelessness and addiction were collected through a semi-structured interview. After analyzing the data, three categories and eight sub-categories were determined. The main categories included instability, social distrust, and economic vulnerability. Instability includes experiences such as rejection from their home, street attraction, and avoiding returning home. The social distrust theme consists of experiencing the stigma related to addiction and high-risk behaviors. The economic vulnerability encompasses gradual capital loss and weakening their work status in the context of a weak economic foundation. Dependent drug use added to those isolating experiences leads to weakened family ties, and social and economic interactions and finally results in being disconnected completely from the community mainstream.