The Social-Entrepreneurship Advantage: An Experimental Study of Social Entrepreneurship and Perceptions of Nonprofit Effectiveness

A common assertion in the nonprofit literature is that nonprofit organizations can become more efficient, effective, and sustainable by embracing social entrepreneurship in their operational and strategic posture. In this article, we examine whether the mere label of social entrepreneurship results—with no actual organizational differences—in an increase in positive attributions associated with a nonprofit organization, an effect we call the social entrepreneurship bias. We experimentally test for the existence of a social entrepreneurship bias by examining how the label of social entrepreneurship alters how people judge a nonprofit’s effectiveness and decide how to allocate scarce donation funds.

     

Exploring Social and Geographical Trajectories of Latin Americans in Sweden

Close to 20 percent of the Swedish population are of immigrant origin; one in eight is foreign‐born. About 45 percent of all immigrants originate from outside Europe and most of these have entered the country as refugees or relatives of refugees. Issues connected to immigration, including the number of immigrants, settlement patterns and level of social integration of ethnic minorities, have been much discussed in Sweden in recent decades. This paper focuses on the integration of Latin American immigrants in Sweden. It compares the level of integration – measured as educational achievement, labour market participation, income and housing – experienced by first and second generation migrants. I use register information allowing me to include all 1^st and 2^nd generation Latin Americans that have lived in Sweden between 1990 and 2006 (in total 127,000 individuals). Data are longitudinal, which means that individuals can be followed over time. I make use of the longitudinal material in order to study changes in residential patterns and in attempts to explain educational and employment outcomes for second generation Latin Americans. The general conclusion of the paper is that in terms of integration, LAC immigrants have an intermediate position compared to other immigrant categories; they are often better off than people from Africa and the Middle East but clearly below the level experienced by some other migrants, especially those from Western Europe. This cannot be explained by level of education. The average level of education is high for first generation immigrants from LA countries. For many people, the level of labour market participation and income increase over time but one important result of this analysis is that second generation Latin Americans seem to do less well in Sweden compared to many other second generation migrants.     

The effect of fast and slow decisions on risk taking

We experimentally compare fast and slow decisions in a series of experiments on financial risk taking in three countries involving over 1700 subjects. To manipulate fast and slow decisions, subjects were randomly allocated to responding within 7 seconds (time pressure) or waiting for at least 7 or 20 seconds (time delay) before responding. To control for different effects of time pressure and time delay on measurement noise, we estimate separate parameters for noise and risk preferences within a random utility framework. We find that time pressure increases risk aversion for gains and risk taking for losses compared to time delay, implying that time pressure increases the reflection effect of Prospect Theory. The results for gains are weaker and less robust than the results for losses. We find no significant difference between time pressure and time delay for loss aversion (tested in only one of the experiments). Time delay also leads to less measurement noise than time pressure and unconstrained decisions, and appears to be an effective way of decreasing noise in experiments.     

Stock investors’ preference for short-term vs. long-term bonuses

Bonuses in the finance sector may be based on too short time intervals for environmental and social factors to be taken into account in investment decisions. We report two experiments to investigate whether investors prefer short-term to long-term bonuses. In Experiment 1 employing 27 undergraduates, preferences were measured for four short-term certain bonuses, evenly distributed across a time interval, and one certain long-term bonus at the end of the time interval. A majority chose the short-term bonuses, and in order for the long-term bonus to be equally preferred it had to be about 40% higher than the four added short-term bonuses. Experiment 2 employing another 36 undergraduates introduced outcome uncertainty that more accurately reflects the choices stock investors face. The participants again choose between a long-term bonus and four distributed short-term bonuses. It was shown that uncertainty made more participants prefer the long-term bonus to the added short-term bonuses than when the outcome was certain. A smaller increase of the long-term bonus of about 20% was now required to make it equally attractive as the four added short-term bonuses.     

A Comparative Study of Segregation Patterns in Belgium,Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden: Neighbourhood Concentration and Representation of Non-European Migrants

In this paper, we use geo-coded, individual-level register data on four European countries to compute comparative measures of segregation that are independent of existing geographical sub-divisions. The focus is on non-European migrants, for whom aggregates of egocentric neighbourhoods (with different population counts) are used to assess small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale segregation patterns. At the smallest scale level, corresponding to neighbourhoods with 200 persons, patterns of over- and under-representation are strikingly similar. At larger-scale levels, Belgium stands out as having relatively strong over- and under-representation. More than 55% of the Belgian population lives in large-scale neighbourhoods with moderate under- or over-representation of non-European migrants. In the other countries, the corresponding figures are between 30 and 40%. Possible explanations for the variation across countries are differences in housing policies and refugee placement policies. Sweden has the largest and Denmark the smallest non-European migrant population, in relative terms. Thus, in both migrant-dense and native-born-dense areas, Swedish neighbourhoods have a higher concentration and Denmark a lower concentration of non-European migrants than the other countries. For large-scale, migrant-dense neighbourhoods, however, levels of concentration are similar in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Thus, to the extent that such concentrations contribute to spatial inequalities, these countries are facing similar policy challenges.     

Sexual orientation and full-time monthly earnings, by public and private sector: evidence from Swedish register data

In this paper we explore annual earnings as well as full-time monthly earnings differentials resulting from sexual orientation. We observe that gay males are at an earnings disadvantage compared to male heterosexuals regardless of which earnings measure we use. This earnings disadvantage is found to be larger when we compare gay and heterosexual males who are working full-time. In addition, the disadvantage is larger in the private than in the public sector. Lesbians, however, earn more than heterosexual females. This earnings advantage is considerably smaller when we study full-time monthly rather than annual earnings but an earnings advantage for lesbians at the top of the earnings distribution is documented regardless of which earnings measure we use. In addition, lesbians are doing better than female heterosexuals in the public sector. To sum up, the results indicate that gay males face obstacles on the labor market that hinder them from reaching top-level positions and high earnings. The earnings advantage observed for lesbians is likely to stem from the fact that lesbians devote more time to market work than heterosexual females do.     

Ethnic Enclaves,Networks and Self‐Employment among Middle Eastern Immigrants in Sweden

The proportion of immigrants from countries in the Middle East living in Sweden has increased since the 1970s, and it is a well‐known fact that immigrants from the Middle East suffer from low earnings and high rates of unemployment on the Swedish labour market. There are often great hopes that self‐employment will enable immigrants to improve their labour market situation. Further, in Sweden as in many other countries, the question of whether the existence of ethnic enclaves are good or bad for immigrants’ earnings and employment opportunities has also been widely debated. This paper presents a study of the extent to which Middle Eastern ethnic enclaves and networks in Sweden enhance or hinder immigrants’ self‐employment. The results show that the presence of ethnic enclaves increases the propensity for self‐employment. Thus, immigrants in ethnic enclaves provide their co‐ethnics with goods and services that Swedish natives are not able to provide. The results also show that ethnic networks seem to be an obstacle to immigrant self‐employment. One explanation is that an increase in network size implies increased competition for customers among self‐employed immigrants. The question of whether ethnic enclaves are good or bad for the integration of immigrants into the labour market has been widely debated. The results of this paper provide us with information about the integration puzzle. Ethnic enclaves seem to enhance self‐employment propensities among Middle Eastern immigrants in Sweden.     

The motives of foster parents, their family and work circumstances

Summary In foster care research the focus is generally placed on thechildren, not on the parents who perform the foster care. Inthis article the focus is on foster parents of 10-11 year-oldchildren. They were interviewed about their motives for becomingfoster parents, which were linked to their family and work circumstances.Among the 21 foster families in the study, four different butequally frequent reasons or motives for taking care of fosterchildren from the very beginning could be distinguished: relativeswho feel responsibility for a certain child; couples who wantchildren and do not think they can have children of their own;families where the mother wants to be at home taking care ofbiological as well as foster children instead of having unskilledemployed work outside the home; and parents with grown-up childrenwho want to fill the 'empty nest' by becoming foster parents- combined with a family business at home or close to home.Changing family and work patterns in Sweden do not seem to haveinfluenced foster families as much as families in general. Theworth of acquiring more knowledge about the families involvedin foster care of children and young people in order to improvefoster care and reduce breakdowns of care is discussed.     

Transmission of self-employment across immigrant generations: the importance of ethnic background and gender

This paper studies the intergenerational transmissions of self-employment abilities among immigrants in Sweden. The results show that second-generation immigrants are over-represented in self-employment compared to natives. Male immigrants from countries neighbouring to Sweden and natives alike seem to use both mothers and fathers as role models in their self-employment decision, but the father is the stronger role model among male immigrants from more geographically distant regions. Female immigrants use both their father and their mother as role models in their self-employment decision. Furthermore, male immigrants and male natives tend to become self-employed in the same business sector as their fathers; female immigrants and female natives with self-employed parents are over-represented in self-employment but not necessarily in the same business sector as their parents.