Making Women Pay

In Making Women Pay, Smitha Radhakrishnan explores India's microfinance industry, which in the past two decades has come to saturate the everyday lives of women in the name of state-led efforts to promote financial inclusion and women's empowerment. Despite this favorable language, Radhakrishnan argues, microfinance in India does not provide a market-oriented development intervention, even though it may appear to help women borrowers. Rather, this commercial industry seeks to extract the maximum value from its customers through exploitative relationships that benefit especially class-privileged men. Through ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis, Radhakrishnan demonstrates how the unpaid and underpaid labor of marginalized women borrowers ensures both profitability and symbolic legitimacy for microfinance institutions, their employees, and their leaders. In doing so, she centralizes gender in the study of microfinance, reveals why most microfinance programs target women, and explores the exploitative implications of this targeting.

Embedding Life Design in Future Readiness Efforts to Promote Collective Impact and Economically Sustainable Communities: Conceptual Frameworks and Case Example

This is the first of two sequential papers describing the design and first-year implementation of a collaborative participatory action research effort between Sociedad Latina, a youth serving organization in Boston, Massachusetts, and Boston University. The collaboration aimed to develop and deliver a combined STEM and career development set of lessons for middle school Latinx youth. In the first paper, life design and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are described in relation to the rationale and the design of the career development intervention strategy that aims to help middle school youth discover the ways that learning advanced-STEM skills expand future decent work opportunities both within STEM and outside STEM, ultimately leading to an outcome of well-being and sustainable communities. In addition to providing evidence of career development intervention strategies, a qualitative analysis of the collaboration is described. The second paper will discuss two additional frameworks that guided the design and implementation of our work. As an example of translational research, the paper will provide larger national and regional contexts by describing system level career development interventions underway using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological and person–process–context–time frameworks.

The Effects of Ingroup Development in a Post-Merger Joint-Brand Context

<p>Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involve a complex relationship between two previously separate organisations. Social Identity Theory (SIT) has been applied to the study of M&As as a way to better understand this relationship. To date, SIT literature has focused on developing the relationship between the merging organisations, in turn relinquishing the identity of the pre-merger organisations in favour of the new organisational identity. This research examines the constructs of the pre-merger groups, focusing on the pre-merger ingroups as a significant contributor to success in the post-merger environment. In some M&As, both pre-merger brands continue to operate simultaneously in the post-merger environment, and it is in this context that the ingroup plays an important role in post-merger integration. This research looks at ingroup development within a post-merger joint-brand context in order to assess the significance of ingroup identification within the post-merger environment. Ingroup development involves generating member identification with the pre-merger ingroup, rather than building identification with the post-merger organisation as a whole. Although there is literature to support the continuation of pre-merger ingroup identity in the post-merger environment, ingroup identification has generally been seen as a hindrance to the merger integration process. A New Zealand based case study was examined to explore the significance of ingroup development in the post-merger context. The research looked into the effects of implementing an "ingroup development intervention" within the case study. The research design used forty semi-structured interviews to create a 'before' and 'after' assessment of the case study in order to gauge the effects of the ingroup development intervention. The findings of the research were analysed using thematic analysis, which was able to assess the change in participant perceptions over a period of time. The findings showed that the ingroup development intervention resulted in a perceived reduction in status differences between the pre-merger groups, as well as a reported improvement in both ingroup and intergroup relations. The findings suggest that in a specified context, ingroup development can have a positive effect on the post-merger environment. The results of the research hold implications for both theorists and practitioners. The research provides intergroup theory with a greater understanding of ingroup identification and the extent to which it is effective within the post-merger environment. For practitioners, the research exhibits the value in post-merger organisations committing to long-term identity development for staff.</p>

The Effects of Ingroup Development in a Post-Merger Joint-Brand Context

<p>Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involve a complex relationship between two previously separate organisations. Social Identity Theory (SIT) has been applied to the study of M&As as a way to better understand this relationship. To date, SIT literature has focused on developing the relationship between the merging organisations, in turn relinquishing the identity of the pre-merger organisations in favour of the new organisational identity. This research examines the constructs of the pre-merger groups, focusing on the pre-merger ingroups as a significant contributor to success in the post-merger environment. In some M&As, both pre-merger brands continue to operate simultaneously in the post-merger environment, and it is in this context that the ingroup plays an important role in post-merger integration. This research looks at ingroup development within a post-merger joint-brand context in order to assess the significance of ingroup identification within the post-merger environment. Ingroup development involves generating member identification with the pre-merger ingroup, rather than building identification with the post-merger organisation as a whole. Although there is literature to support the continuation of pre-merger ingroup identity in the post-merger environment, ingroup identification has generally been seen as a hindrance to the merger integration process. A New Zealand based case study was examined to explore the significance of ingroup development in the post-merger context. The research looked into the effects of implementing an "ingroup development intervention" within the case study. The research design used forty semi-structured interviews to create a 'before' and 'after' assessment of the case study in order to gauge the effects of the ingroup development intervention. The findings of the research were analysed using thematic analysis, which was able to assess the change in participant perceptions over a period of time. The findings showed that the ingroup development intervention resulted in a perceived reduction in status differences between the pre-merger groups, as well as a reported improvement in both ingroup and intergroup relations. The findings suggest that in a specified context, ingroup development can have a positive effect on the post-merger environment. The results of the research hold implications for both theorists and practitioners. The research provides intergroup theory with a greater understanding of ingroup identification and the extent to which it is effective within the post-merger environment. For practitioners, the research exhibits the value in post-merger organisations committing to long-term identity development for staff.</p>

Participation, Power and Practice in Development: A Case Study of Theoretical Doctrines and International Agency Practice in Tuvalu

<p>This research examines the conventions and understandings of ‘good’ development practice surrounding consultation, participation and their relationship to aid effectiveness and absorptive capacity in the context of a small island developing country, Tuvalu. The study will identify contemporary development intervention patterns in Tuvalu and will explore tensions emerging within the Tuvalu Government as it services the needs of its population as a sovereign nation while also servicing the needs of a multiplicity of development partners.</p>

Participation, Power and Practice in Development: A Case Study of Theoretical Doctrines and International Agency Practice in Tuvalu

<p>This research examines the conventions and understandings of ‘good’ development practice surrounding consultation, participation and their relationship to aid effectiveness and absorptive capacity in the context of a small island developing country, Tuvalu. The study will identify contemporary development intervention patterns in Tuvalu and will explore tensions emerging within the Tuvalu Government as it services the needs of its population as a sovereign nation while also servicing the needs of a multiplicity of development partners.</p>

Geographical Indications and their Impact on Territorial Development: Empirical Evidence for Brazilian Municipalities

The promotion of Geographical indications (GIs) as a development intervention has gained growing support. However, despite discussions related to the development resulting from GIs, studies quantifying the impact of public policies for geographical indications are still scarce. In an attempt to fill in this gap, this paper evaluated the effect of geographical indications (GIs) in the process of territorial development of Brazilian municipalities, focusing on the coffee and wine GIs. Therefore, we employed the Propensity Score Matching method. Our results demonstrated a positive mean effect for most of the variables selected, evidencing the importance of the GIs for territorial development.