Socio-Psychological Mechanisms of Entrepreneurial Activity in the Youth Environment

Entrepreneurship in Russia and the Chuvash Republic is undergoing new phases of development, a new generation of entrepreneurs has appeared, the one that formed under contemporary socio-economic conditions. The article examines the results of the undertaken empiric research on psychological peculiarities of young entrepreneurs, socio-psychological mechanisms of entrepreneurial activity in modern environment, economic and psychological as well as socio-psychological phenomena in modern entrepreneurship. Features of value sphere, subjective economic wealth, professional types of personality, socio-psychological setup of young entrepreneurs, engaging in entrepreneurial activity in the Chuvash Republic and Russia.

Exploring micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities for social enterprises

Purpose Social enterprises (SEs) operate with a primary goal of meeting a social purpose while creating economic wealth for the fulfillment of their primary mission. These organizations need to develop a certain set of capabilities that facilitates the successful pursuit of their dual mission goals. This paper aims at exploring the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities (DCs) that enable SEs to recognize and exploit opportunities and reconfigure their resources to pursue their dual-mission goals and adjust with the environmental dynamics. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a multiple case design and an abductive research approach to conduct an in-depth and in-due course investigation of the development of DCs in two distinct SEs selected on the basis of theoretical-purposive sampling and availability of the richness of the information about them. Findings This study finds certain generic and exclusive micro-foundations of DCs that contribute to sensing opportunities, seizing opportunities and reconfiguring resources in SEs. The exclusive micro-foundations of DCs of SEs noted in this study are sustainability of beneficiaries, involving beneficiaries in decision-making, defining unique business models and selective suppliers for critical resources. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this study lies in its dependence on retrospective data, which may perhaps influence the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the acquired data. This study, although, implemented the measures to minimize the bias, by supplementing the interview data with archival sources. Practical implications To the researchers, this study proffers an in-depth and in-due course explanation of the micro-foundations of DCs that facilitate SEs to sense opportunities, seize opportunities and reconfigure their resources with time. To practitioners working in the area of social entrepreneurship, this process study is an outline of reference that answers the how and why concerning the importance of micro-foundations of DCs for SEs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has explored the micro-foundations of DCs in the context of SEs from emerging economies. The exclusive micro-foundations of DCs for SEs found in this study are the unique and original contribution that outlines the path for future academic inquiry in this evolving research area.

Wealth of children from single-parent families: Low levels and high inequality in Germany

Families’ economic wealth is a resource that can provide children with crucial advantages early in their lives. Prior research identified substantial variation of wealth levels between different family types with children from single-parent families being most disadvantaged. The causes of this disadvantage, how much the disadvantage varies between children and how the non-resident parents’ wealth may potentially reduce the disadvantage remain unclear. To address these research gaps, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2002–17) to examine the level of and inequality in wealth for children from single-parent families using recentred influence function regression and decomposition analysis. We replicate earlier findings of a large wealth disadvantage for children in single-parent families. We find that the wealth disadvantage can be mainly explained with compositional differences in household income and employment characteristics. Beyond level differences, inequality between children from single-parent families is higher than for other family types and this inequality can only partly be explained by observed demographic and socio-economic characteristics. When considering the wealth of non-resident parents, the wealth disadvantage of children in single-parent families is reduced but remains substantial. JEL-codes: D31, D1, J1

Trauma, loss and other psychosocial drivers of excessive alcohol consumption in Karamoja, Uganda

This article investigates the trends, drivers and effects of alcohol consumption in Karamoja, a primarily pastoralist area of Uganda. Although locally brewed alcohol from sorghum and millet has an important and long-standing place in Karamojong tradition, the emerging trend of excessive consumption of hard liquor is a cause for concern among government and health officials, development practitioners and, especially, community members themselves. This article explores the varied reasons for this rise in hard liquor consumption, particularly in Karamoja’s post-disarmament period. The article is based on data collected in mid-2018, as well as information gleaned from the authors’ engagement in the region over the past decade. The peace and security ushered in by the disarmament exercises of the 2000s has, on the one hand, opened up the once isolated region politically and economically. Conversely, it has accelerated external interest in Karamoja’s economic wealth, leading to further disenfranchisement of its people due to dispossession of land. Emerging from the trauma of the disarmament exercise, the drastic loss of livestock and livelihoods and the continuing negligence of pastoralism by the state, Karamoja’s rural as well as peri-urban communities are undergoing a remarkable loss not only of their economic systems, but also of their socio-cultural identity. Acknowledging the specific trauma and loss experienced by individuals and communities provides a lens through which to better understand the excessive alcohol consumption. These psychosocial factors, along with the economic and political aspects, must be considered in efforts to address this continuing crisis in the region.

Foreigners vs. Migrants

In recent years, Colombia, has witnessed a transformation in terms of human mobility. In a contradictory scenario where economic wealth, growth and opulence overlap with hunger, unemployment, conflict and poverty, Colombia experienced two main forms of human mobilization: internal displacement from rural areas to cities as a result of the armed conflict, and emigration looking for new opportunities abroad. However, recently Colombia has become a key point for human mobility—due primarily to the international human mobility from Venezuela. As a result, it is today an immigration, emigration and transit hot spot. The Covid-19 pandemic and an increase of human mobility in Colombia have emphasized the contrast between two groups: those who arrive by foot and those who can afford aerial transport. We will argue that during the Covid-19 pandemic, national authorities in the main cities have adopted differing treatments towards low- income migrants, as opposed to foreign tourists/investors. To do this, we will focus our analysis on the restrictions imposed to enter the country, as a policy has been structured to exclude migrants crossing by foot trying to reach a main city, while appealing to foreign tourists/investors. This paper aims to show how the authorities’ narratives separate the terms “migrants” and “foreigners” as starkly different, giving them a distinctive treatment when entering the country. “Migration” usually refers to the poorer individuals from Latin America (predominantly Venezuelan), while the concept of “foreigner” typically refers to the wealthy people from the global north. In this sense, the way in which a person enters the country determines how they will be treated by authorities and communities. This is a consequence of a normalized aporophobia, as Cortina defined, that undervalues migrants and favors foreigners.

Qualifying human capital in the context of socialization of the economic system of the area

Subject. This article discusses the role of the employee as an object and subject of the flow of work. Objectives. The article aims to analyze the modifications of human capital and identify the main determinants and factors of these modifications. Methods. For the study, I used logical, functional, comparative, systemic, statistical, and sociological methods. Results. The article identifies determinants and factors of modification of human capital in the conditions of social engagement of the economic system and determines the main characteristics and sources of its development. Conclusions. Qualitative renewal of human capital is determined primarily by changes in the nature and conditions of work, the type and characteristics of the employee, the employee’s role in the creation and accumulation of economic wealth. The human factor becomes the main source and impetus of economic and social development.

A Spatial Analysis of COVID-19 in African Countries: Evaluating the Effects of Socio-Economic Vulnerabilities and Neighbouring

The ongoing highly contagious coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which started in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, has now become a global public health problem. Using publicly available data from the COVID-19 data repository of Our World in Data, we aimed to investigate the influences of spatial socio-economic vulnerabilities and neighbourliness on the COVID-19 burden in African countries. We analyzed the first wave (January–September 2020) and second wave (October 2020 to May 2021) of the COVID-19 pandemic using spatial statistics regression models. As of 31 May 2021, there was a total of 4,748,948 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with an average, median, and range per country of 101,041, 26,963, and 2191 to 1,665,617, respectively. We found that COVID-19 prevalence in an Africa country was highly dependent on those of neighbouring Africa countries as well as its economic wealth, transparency, and proportion of the population aged 65 or older (p-value < 0.05). Our finding regarding the high COVID-19 burden in countries with better transparency and higher economic wealth is surprising and counterintuitive. We believe this is a reflection on the differences in COVID-19 testing capacity, which is mostly higher in more developed countries, or data modification by less transparent governments. Country-wide integrated COVID suppression strategies such as limiting human mobility from more urbanized to less urbanized countries, as well as an understanding of a county’s social-economic characteristics, could prepare a country to promptly and effectively respond to future outbreaks of highly contagious viral infections such as COVID-19.

Altruism as an Explanation for Human Consanguinity

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Human inbreeding is a sociobiological puzzle. Despite widespread knowledge of its potential for genetic disorders, human consanguinity remains surprisingly common. The current reasons explaining its continued persistence in today’s modern world have major shortcomings. <b><i>Summary:</i></b> We propose that the Neolithic Agrarian revolution modified the structure of populations. It increased competition for the limited resources in which a larger group had better chances of survival. As a result, small, drifting, socially open bands of hunter-gatherers were transformed into bigger, less mobile, and more powerful kinship groups (tribes). In this transformation, a central role was played by human trust – an aspect of human altruism which is a universal sociobiological principle of behavior. Altruism (and trust) is an essential premise of social contracts such as economic cooperation, marriage arrangement, and creation of alliances between people. In kinship groups, human trust is limited to kin, so tribes remain small, economically poor, and consanguineous due to lack of nonkin mates. The expanding of trust from kin to that of nonbiological relatives increases the size of human groups, fosters economic wealth, and decreases the rate of consanguinity. <b><i>Key Messages:</i></b> The lack of nonkin altruism leads to: (a) poverty (due to poor economic cooperation with nonkin), (b) maintaining small group size, and (c) inbreeding.

The Impact of Civic and Religious Social Capital on the Antisocial Attitudes of the Youth: A Multi-Level Cross-National Study

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether some dimensions of civic and religious social capital are connected to antisocial attitudes of the youth. Based on the social capital theory and previous research, the author assumed that membership of voluntary associations as a dimension of civic social capital and attendance at religious services as a dimension of religious social capital, will be negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes of the youth. The integrated dataset of the last European Values Study and the World Values Survey waves were used as the sources of the research data. The dataset was comprised of 11,411 respondents who were younger than 25 years old from 79 countries. As hypothesized, at the individual level, attendance at religious services was negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes, whereas membership of voluntary associations was positively correlated with antisocial attitudes. At the country level, none of the hypothesized correlations were confirmed. A cross-level interaction between GDP and associational membership was found. The author explains the findings by evoking the special characteristics of religious social capital and its strength in building moral obligations and by suggesting possible differences in incentives for joining voluntary associations in the countries with different levels of economic wealth.