Public Policies Impact on Third Sector Social Enterprises in UK Regions

This chapter provides an important perspective on how public policies impact small third sector social enterprises in UK regions. There is limited research that has explored the how government policies are impacting on small regional drug and alcohol social enterprises. The research employed a multiple case study design (Stake, 2006; Yin, 2009).of eight small drug and alcohol third sector social enterprise organisations based in three UK regions (The East Midlands, The South East (including London) and Yorkshire and Humber). Semi-structured interviews were conducted Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of these organisations to ascertain how government policy framework influences their service developments. The research finding contributes to the fairly limited empirical research investigating regional variations of third sector social enterprises. It advocates for changes in government regional funding polices help small third sector social enterprises to develop and sustain appropriate effective services where they are based – at the regional level.

Business Creation Based on Entrepreneurial Potential, Students' Characteristics and Gender

The main goal of this article is the joint analysis of the dimensions of the entrepreneurial potential, students' entrepreneurial characteristics and gender of the Portuguese Polytechnic higher education students. For this purpose, we use a quantitative methodological approach, having applied a questionnaire to a sample of students enrolled in the entrepreneurship curricular unit of the School of Accounting and Administration (ISCAP), of the Polytechnic of Porto. Based on data collection from 227 undergraduate students in entrepreneurship from Portugal, the results allow us to conclude that personal desirability and students' entrepreneurial characteristics positively enhances the intention to start a business. On the other hand, perceived difficulties negatively enhances that intention. Finally, we've confirmed that the male students are more associated with intentions to start a business than female gender.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

For countries like Portugal, with limited prospects in terms of employment, one of the solutions involves emigration and the desire of part of the Portuguese people to establish enterprises in other countries, England being one of the most favoured. Taking into account these premises, and in the scope of a broader research on the Portuguese Emigrant Entrepreneurship in Andorra, London, Nice and Monaco, we carried out a questionnaire to 51 Portuguese entrepreneurs living in London, within several economic sectors, between 2013 and 2014. Our main goals were to know the profile of Portuguese immigrant entrepreneurs in London, the reasons for their emigration, the need or opportunity for entrepreneurship, the types and areas of activity of their businesses, the obstacles they had to deal with and the possibility for them to return to Portugal. The novelty of our research lies in the study of the ethnic and economic emigration of Portuguese emigrants in London, a study that was under-researched and under-analysed to this date.

An Innovation Ecosystem beyond the Triple Helix Model

In the current global scenario, the relevance and the importance of social innovation becomes critical in order to face this situation of crisis. For its close link with the local area in which it takes place, social innovation is deeply rooted in the overall system, and thus involves the action of many different actors. The aim of this chapter is to highlight the presence of a new managerial model that is more suitable to promote social innovation within an ecosystem. This analysis has been developed focusing on a new and innovative framework, the Social Innovation Pyramid, and on the Trentino's ecosystem based in North-East of Italy.

Boosting Entrepreneurism as a Product of Urban Creativity and Governance

This chapter aims to describe and reflect on the experience developed in a metropolitan territory that ambitiously wanted to articulate entrepreneurship, creativity and urban governance. In spaces marked by economic and social crisis the requirement to mobilize synergies between local actors is even more pressing. From the municipality's leadership, Almada Idea Laboratory Project sought to involve university professors and students to generate creative ideas as well as business hosting centre for the installation of projects with greater viability and the community in general that had the opportunity to assess and discuss the product of this effort. The council offered its urban space as a living laboratory. Ideas, business opportunities and, above all, the possibility of creating and strengthening links between actors, often distant, proved a very successful experience both in objective results as in the formation of useful social capital to develop new projects.

Clusters as Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs

The research question in this chapter is whether clusters are good entrepreneurial ecosystems to enhance social and responsible behavior in SMEs at regional level. We will address institutional efforts in Corporate Social Responsibility carried out in the Autonomous Region of Extremadura in Spain as case study because the regional government, with the aim of promoting business cooperation to enhance competitiveness, decided to develop a clustering policy for SMEs in the region. Additionally, since 2010 the region has developed its own plan for the promotion of responsibility at regional level. To answer the question we have carried out focus groups with representative businesses´ managers belonging to the existing and operative clusters in Extremadura at the moment.

Searching for Opportunities and Trust in International Markets

Internationalization has been adopted by many companies, regardless of size, to boost their growth. Although the Uppsala model and the network approach have been extensively used to analyze how small firms internationalize their operations, this chapter addresses how a small firm of the clean carpentry industry managed to overcome an economic slowdown of its domestic market and boosted its growth. This chapter uses a case study approach that is framed on a literature review covering internationalization of SMEs, entrepreneurship, the importance of the network approach, the search of opportunities and trust, and relationship orientation to show how a firm abandoned its passive behavior and its focus on the domestic market to proactively address the international market following an entrepreneurial perspective.

The Region-of-Origin Effect

The main objective of this chapter was to determine the variables that explain and moderate the intention to purchase regional a specific product, in particular, wine. Some of the selected variables were directly related to regional development. To achieve that goal, and based on the literature review, authors designed a structural model to study the ROO effect in the Spanish wine market. The model proposes direct and indirect effects of the following antecedent variables on the purchase intention: the region's image, the region's image as a producer in this product category, the perceived quality of the region's products, and consumer ethnocentrism. The results of this study contribute to guiding decision-making on the strategies to be implemented by regional public institutions in collaboration with the wine industry, both of them responsible of creating value for the region.

Innovation in Extremadura

The main objective of this chapter is to analyze which are the barriers perceived by Extremaduran firms and how these barriers affect their willingness to perform innovative activities or to be innovative firms. We have used data collected in 2013 from an ad hoc survey. Results show that, firstly, there are differences in the perception of the barriers especially in young and exporter firms that detect more barriers although they have a strong willingness to innovate. Secondly, even if innovation is considered an essential source of competitiveness, there is an important unwillingness to innovate in non-innovative firms. This behaviour is especially due to barriers related with high costs and financial restrictions to innovate. These barriers also reduce the likelihood of the firms to innovate. Both innovative and non-innovative firms detect the presence of barriers to innovation highlighting the perceived lack of support from government.

The Influence of Institutional Environment on Quality Practices and Its Impact on Regional Development

This chapter studied the institutional influence associated to quality practices in hotels. The aim was to interpret whether it was the normative, coercive or mimetic pressures (Institutional pressures) that influenced the three, four and five star hotels in north of Portugal. In order to accomplish these objectives the author used an investigation model that connects institutional context pressures with quality practices and quality practices with legitimacy. To study used the Institutional Theory as theoretical reference.