The Impact of Cultural Capital on Development of Entrepreneurship in Wales

The focus of this paper is the impact of parental cultural capital on offspring’s occupational choice in relation to entrepreneurship. Despite growing interest to cultural motives for entrepreneurship on an individual level, few studies link these two domains empirically. This study follows the Culture Based Development research paradigm (CBD) developed by Tubadji and explores how culture influences occupational choices of school graduates during school-to-work transition. The main hypothesis of this paper is that sons of entrepreneurs are more likely to choose transitions into entrepreneurship after graduating school. I test three hypotheses on a unique historic dataset from Wales, UK, employing Probit analysis. I found a significant correlation between entrepreneurial background of father and son’s entrepreneurial entry. Poor socio-economic status of a father is also a predictor of entry into entrepreneurship of their son, motivated by necessity. The findings of this research contributed to the applicability of CBD to a historic dataset of earlier periods to capture a significant cultural impact on entrepreneurship development in Wales, UK.

Why Do People Stay Poor?

There are two broad views as to why people stay poor. One emphasizes differences in fundamentals, such as ability, talent, or motivation. The other, the poverty traps view, emphasizes differences in opportunities which stem from access to wealth. To test between these two views, we exploit a large-scale, randomized asset transfer and an 11-year panel of 6,000 households who begin in extreme poverty. The setting is rural Bangladesh and the assets are cows. The data supports the poverty traps view—we identify a threshold level of initial assets above which households accumulate assets, take on better occupations (from casual labor in agriculture or domestic services to running small livestock businesses), and grow out of poverty. The reverse happens for those below the threshold. Structural estimation of an occupational choice model reveals that almost all beneficiaries are misallocated in the work they do at baseline and that the gains arising from eliminating misallocation would far exceed the program costs. Our findings imply that large transfers which create better jobs for the poor are an effective means of getting people out of poverty traps and reducing global poverty.

Quantile Regression Analysis of Wage Inequality in West-African Countries

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of wage differences in West Africa while dealing with the problem of sample selection in occupational choice. Using data from Household Living Conditions Surveys from six west-African countries, namely Senegal, Mali, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2010 and 2018, we estimate Heckman's two-stage model with non-linear quantile regression to assess the effect of individual characteristics on wage rates. After correcting for the sample selection effect, we find that education, experience, marital status, and gender are the major determinants of wage in west-African countries. Subsequently, we apply the Oaxaca decomposition, and the results suggest the presence of wage inequity that is not explained by the observable characteristics between women and men. This gender difference plausibly reflects the persistence of the discrimination against women in the labor market in west-African countries.

The Role of Community in Black Identity Development and Occupational Choice

Black Americans have historically been excluded from societal associations and faced wavering instability in their households, forcing them to work together for their individual and collective well-being. In past research, more than half of Black American students enrolled in school opted to pursue social or educational careers. Findings suggest that Black Americans’ occupational development is influenced by their family and community ties. In this conceptual paper, the foundation of the development of identity in African American culture is presented, as it relates to occupational decision-making. First, we discuss the influences of general identity development on occupational decision-making. Second, we argue that Black cultural identity is multidimensional, with strong community and family factors that play a special role in occupational choice. Third, we suggest future research paradigms to link racial identity, culture, and occupational choice among Black American students. By exploring the fundamental beliefs of Black cultural identity, and how they buffer against each other, Black American students will be better able to make occupational decisions.

Experiences of the use of the iPad app ADOC for collaborative goal setting in interprofessional rehabilitation: a qualitative descriptive study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Goal setting is a key part of the rehabilitation process. The use of technology and electronic tools such as smartphone applications (apps) and websites has been suggested as a way of improving the engagement of users in meaningful goal-setting and facilitating shared decision-making between patients and health professionals. OBJECTIVE To describe experiences of health professionals and patients in the use of the English language version of the iPad app Aid for Decision-making in Occupational Choice (ADOC) to facilitate collaborative goal setting in rehabilitation. METHODS We recruited participants from three acute and post-acute care rehabilitation wards in both public and private organizations in New Zealand. Participants were registered allied health professionals including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language therapists, who engage in goal setting as part of their normal work, and their adult patients. We collected data via semi-structured interviews to gather information about the experiences of the participants in the use of ADOC for goal setting. Data were analyzed with thematic analysis. RESULTS Eight health professionals and eight patients participated in the study. Six main themes emerged from the data: a) Changing patients’ perspective on what is possible; b) Changing health professionals’ perspective on what is important; c) Facilitating shared decision-making; d) Lack of guides for users; e) Logistic and organizational barriers; and f) App related and technical issues. CONCLUSIONS Health professionals and patients found ADOC to be a valuable tool when setting shared rehabilitation goals. The use of ADOC promoted a patient-centered approach that empowered patients to engage in collaborative goal setting. The technological limitations of the app that negatively impacted experiences can be addressed in the future implementation of ADOC in rehabilitation settings. CLINICALTRIAL The trial was retrospectively registered and allocated to the Australian New Zealand Clinal Trial Registry (ACTRN) number ACTRN12620001328965.