Informal Economies of the Sahel

Sahelian countries, while sharing many features of other Sub-Saharan African economies, face some unique economic challenges, which merit particular scrutiny, notably: a sizable demographic bulge, being landlocked, a lower income per head, and a higher poverty incidence. The picture is further darkened by critical governance weaknesses, political instability, and radical Islamist threats, which, as discussed in other chapters in this volume, have caused serious security challenges within, and across, national borders. All these factors have contributed to a downsizing of the formal business environment and an expansion of the informal sector. This chapter assesses the relative weights of the formal and informal sectors in Sahelian national economies, its growth dynamics, as well as employment and productivity patterns. It also examines the implications of the rise of the informal sector for institutions and governance, social inclusion, and stability.

Understanding Governance Mechanisms in Small and Medium Family Firms in Latin America

Governance mechanisms help manage, direct, and control people, resources, and the interests of those involved in a firm. In family firms, understanding the use of governance mechanisms is particularly important given their rela-tionship with the sustainability of the family and the business. Even though we know a great deal about family business governance in North America and Europe, we still know very little regarding the use of governance mechanisms in small and medium (SME) family firms in Latin America, nor do we know whether the use of governance mech-anisms impacts financial performance. To address these gaps, this paper presents the results of a survey completed by 2287 representatives of family business SMEs from 24 Latin American countries. Participants indicated the like-lihood of their using different governance mechanisms and responded to questions concerning their businesses. Our results indicate that the small and medium Latin American family firms in our study were not very likely to use formal business and family governance mechanisms, however, the use of formal business governance mechanisms was related to financial performance. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

The Role of Experience and Gender in Founders' Business Planning Activities: A Meta Analysis

The question of why entrepreneurs undertake business planning activities differently, ranging from planning “in the head” to generating formal written documents, is still impenetrable. Aggregating data on 11,064 observations from 32 independent data set, this study meta-analyzed how business experience and gender influence entrepreneurs' disposition to business planning behaviors. Surprisingly, contradictory to some extant views that entrepreneurs without prior experience are more likely to make business plans, we found that both managerial experience and entrepreneurial experience positively influence entrepreneurs' subsequent business planning behaviors. Drawing insight from the effectuation and institutional perspectives, this study showed that, rather than entrepreneurial experience, managerial experience motivates entrepreneurs to generate formal business plans. For entrepreneurs who create formal business plans, both entrepreneurial experience and managerial experience enhance their business planning sophistication. In addition, we examined the moderating effects of gender on the relationship between business experience and business planning. The results suggested that female entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial experience are more likely to undertake business planning behaviors and create formal business plans than their male counterparts.

Entrepreneurial competencies and intentions among students of technical universities

The study investigates the entrepreneurial competencies and intentions of students. Their formation is a requirement of modern times. The question arises whether students of modern technical universities get entrepreneurial competencies and whether they transform these competencies into their entrepreneurial intentions. More than 3.6 thousand students from six technical universities from Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Lithuania were surveyed. Methods of summarizing and grouping data, analysis of the structure of the population and distributions of its elements, evaluation of relationships were used to analyze the results of the survey. It was found that studying at technical universities is not an obstacle to the existence of entrepreneurial intentions among students. The respondents positively assessed their ability to recognize market opportunities for new business (the sum of the shares of positive answers exceeded the sum of the shares of negative answers by 12.4%). A positive generalized assessment was determined when assessing the ability to persuade others to invest in their business, while negative – their ability to write a formal business plan. It is proved that students who highly value their entrepreneurial abilities are much more likely to show the intention to start their own business (р < 0.001). Students’ focus on starting their own business is partly explained by the fact that they connect employment in corporations with a low guarantee of job retention. High positive integrated assessments received the following advantages of own entrepreneurship: prestige (0.302), chance to be realized (0.362), and the ability to create jobs (0.597). Acknowledgment The authors wish to thank Denislava Yordanova (Sofia University, Bulgaria), Tatjana Nikitina (Riga Technical University, Latvia), and Daiva Jurevičienė (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania) for helping to collect data at respective countries.

Openings and Closings in Workplace Emails

Languages vary when it comes to linguistic manifestations of formal politeness, but what particularly marks professional email communication is the flexibility of the genre compared to traditional, formal business letters. This poses the question of how individual email writers navigate without clear standards and clearly prescribed formulae. This study focuses on the individual email writer and, specifically, opening salutations and closing valedictions in 927Norwegian workplace emails, followed by metapragmatic interviews with their senders. In an egalitarian society with few explicit linguistic manifestations of formal politeness, individual choices of formulations provide a rich source of data. Linguistic content analysis reveals a significant degree of consistency in each person’s individual use, which indicates that when there are no commonly held norms, people make their own rules. The interviewees are aware ofwhich openings and closings they prefer, but often not why. Further analysis of the data reveals that hierarchical social distance is not a motivational factor, but the intentions to be either personally close or professionally distant are. Both are regarded as viable options in formal workplace emails by their users. However, the informants’ perception of which linguistic items represent these motivations depends on individual preferences rather than on any establishedor institutionalised practises. The latter is not a uniquely Norwegian problem, but concerns email correspondents in general because of the flexibility innate to the email genre.

Linguistic peculiarities of the genre of recruitment ads: functional aspect

The subject of this research is the linguistic peculiarities of the genre of recruitment ads as one of the key genres of written communication in the Russian-language discourse. The verbal realization of the genre of advertisement in recruitment sphere is of particular value as a subject of sociolinguistic and communicative analysis. The examination of linguistic characteristics of the discourse on employment is necessary in order for the actors of communication to use most effective verbal means of application of the mechanisms of social adaptation in the corresponding communicative situation, which can contribute to the effective interaction of all participants of the discourse, as well as considerably contribute to the solution of employment question. The goal of this work consists in determination of verbal characteristics of an advertisement within the discourse on employment. In the course of the research, it was establishment that recruitment ads use the linguistic means formal business and publicistic styles. The acquired results can be implemented in the development of courses for preparation of human resource specialists. The texts of such advertisements can be used in the process of teaching professional communication, including in teaching Russian language to foreign students. The novelty is consists in determination and substantiation of the linguistic peculiarities of such genre of written communication as recruitment ads in the Internet environment. The author notes a new trend in functionality of language in the institutional discourse– a unique combination of the characteristics of two styles on the lexical, grammatical and syntactic levels. The conclusion is made that genre of recruitment ads is a “borderline” genre at the intersection of formal business and publicistic styles.

Challenges in Transformation of Informal Business Sector towards Formal Business Sector in Nepal: Evidence from Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

This study seeks to contribute to the empirical understanding to the transformation of informal business towards formal business in Nepal on the basis of cross-sectional data. This paper examines the preferences socio-economic and other social capital related to informal business. Various indicators were identified to understand and analyze readiness of various informal sectors from literature review of different theories. People with high level of education less prefer informal sector however, prime working age labor force were involved massively in informal sector. More than two-third respondents argued that situation is not manageable which means the informal economy is not transitional to formal economy. Majority of respondents believes that there are some administrative problems that could hinder the entrepreneurial potential and their creativity to flourish.

Granting Business License to Fuel Traders “Pertamini” As a Form of Legal Protection

Oil and Gas plays an important role in the fulfillment of fuel needs from both the industrial and transportation sectors. This regulation on Oil and Gas has provided a legal basis in its implementation. The presence of retail fuel businesses "Pertamini" is causing legal problems, this is because the existence of these businesses do not have a formal business license at all.This paper analyzes the sale of fuel under the brand "Pertamini" which does not have a business license. This research uses normative legal research method with statute approach and conseptual approach.The results showed that, with the increasing number of "Pertamini" fuel traders without a license, it will certainly have implications for the law and uncontrolled management of Oil and Gas. Therefore, the government and related agencies can issue permits to "Pertamini" fuel traders. Because by obtaining a legal business license, in terms of its management can be carried out optimal supervision to prevent the occurrence of fuel misuse. This also includes efforts to provide certainty and legal protection to "Pertamini" Fuel Traders.