Bettina Bastian

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at American University in Bulgaria

What role do users play during innovation? Ever since it was argued that users can also be the sources of innovation, the literature on the role of users during innovation has grown tremendously. In this paper, we review this growing literature, critique it and develop some of the research questions that could be explored to contribute to this lite...

Purpose This paper aims to attempt to collate and understand the fragmented research on female entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The review assesses the literature at the macro, meso and micro analysis levels and addresses the obstacles, challenges, motivations and characteristics of female entrepreneurship in the MENA r...

Entrepreneurship is increasingly popular among policy makers worldwide to promote and achieve economic development and growth. However, entrepreneurship rates differ from one country to another, and particularly the number of women entrepreneurs is still significantly lower than the number of male entrepreneurs in many contexts. In the present pape...

The relationship between empowerment and entrepreneurship in collective societies is, in our view, insufficiently examined. Accepted definitions of empowerment and the assumptions underlying programs and research designs based on them result in outcomes that self-fulfil and, as a result, disappoint. Several issues are prevalent: the empowerment pot...

Entrepreneurship has been increasingly promoted as a means to achieve women’s empowerment in the pursuit of gender equal societies by international development organizations, NGO’s as well as national and local governments across the world. Against this, the paper explores the role and influence of multi-actor engagement on successful empowerment o...

Enviar o remitir la correspondencia a la autora Bronwyn P. Wood al correo electrónico bwood@uaeu.ac.ae Resumen Propósito-El propósito del presente estudio es desarrollar un marco conceptual basado en evidencia empírica aplicado al estudio del empoderamiento de las mujeres y de la iniciativa emprendedora dentro del contexto de las sociedades colecti...

Spanish language translation of Reformulating the Empowerment Process through Women Entrepreneurship in a Collective Context

The papers look at how student assessment in higher education has changed with an emphasis on the Arab world. It focuses on the main concepts and methods of assessment in teaching and learning. The paper identifies the main factors that have affected student assessment in the Arab world and pushed higher education institutions in the region to move...

Purpose This study examines what social ties within collectivist settings mean for women's venturing and how these ties support women in gaining empowerment through their ventures. Design/methodology/approach Thirteen in-depth semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were conducted to examine th...

We ran two focus groups with well-educated Saudi women; there were ten participants with established businesses and ten nascent entrepreneurs. Despite the Saudi Vision 2030’s centring of environmental sustainability as a key tenet of the country’s development, the women entrepreneurs we studied (both established and nascent) were not well informed...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an empirically informed framework to analyze women empowerment and entrepreneurship, contextualized within a collective society. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs located in the United Arab Emirates to understand their en...

The area of women’s empowerment has attracted increasing attention among a wide range of interest groups, from authors to researchers to feminist scholars and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This paper aims to identify the diverse understandings of women’s empowerment in the literature and to discuss empirical evidence from NGO projects in t...

In examining women’s entrepreneurship in the Middle East, this book aims to challenge Global North assumptions about the disempowering impacts of Islamic Shari’a and governance. Referring to the constraints of Islam on women’s subjectivity and agency greatly misunderstands religious identity, of both men and women, and the way in which public admin...

Conceptualizaciones acerca del empoderamiento en el emprendedorismo (entrepreneurship) y su pertinencia en culturas colectivistas Resumen: Desde nuestro punto de vista, la relación entre el empoderamiento ("empowerment") y el emprendedorismo ("entrepreneurship") en las culturas colectivistas ha sido insuficientemente examinada. Las definiciones más...

The impact of COVID-19 on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) continues to be researched. Initial signals warn of significant setbacks in achieving SDG targets by 2030. The achievement of SDGs could abet improved protection from future pandemics. This article suggests reprioritizing SDGs to facilitate a more robust global respon...

Entrepreneurship has been an important tool in policy making to promote sustainable development, economic growth, and gender equality. Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, policy makers and development agencies alike have introduced various measures to increase the entrepreneurial capacities of men and women. Previous literature s...

There a need to understand women’s experience of social and economic change beyond that of the Global North. What have women leaders in diverse roles and contexts achieved in supporting social advancement, and how are women organizing social movements to improve the livelihoods of their families and communities? How are organizations in the public/...

Women, Entrepreneurship and Development in the Middle East. In examining women’s entrepreneurship in the Middle East, this book aims to challenge Global North assumptions about the disempowering impacts of Islamic Shari’a and governance. Referring to the constraints of Islam on women’s subjectivity and agency greatly misunderstands religious iden...

As new Editor in Chief of AEBJ I am happy to announce our Call for papers for a Special Issue on "Humanistic Management". Please, share it in your network and/ or consider submission of an interesting research paper

Dear Colleagues, The 1995 Beijing Platform for Women provided the stimulus for advancing women's role in the development process. It stimulated global transnational networking, and forged alliances that led to the formation of the MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) in 2000. However, for many Global South territories the MDG framework was a disappo...

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/WEUNS The 1995 Beijing Platform for Women provided the stimulus for advancing women's role in the development process. It stimulated global transnational networking, and forged alliances that led to the formation of the MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) in 2000. However, for many Global S...

Leading people from diverse cultures is centrally important in organizations. This study investigates the extent to which transformational leadership behaviors are universal: by examining if leaders and followers perceive transformational leadership behaviors the same way across cultures; and by determining if the magnitude of satisfaction that fol...

The relationship between empowerment and entrepreneurship in collective societies is, in our view, insufficiently examined. Accepted definitions of empowerment and the assumptions underlying programs and research designs based on them result in outcomes that self-fulfil and, as a result, disappoint. Several issues are prevalent: the empowerment pot...

Entrepreneurship has been an important tool in policy making to promote sustainable development, economic growth, and gender equality. Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, policy makers and development agencies alike have introduced various measures to increase the entrepreneurial capacities of men and women. Previous literature s...

Entrepreneurship has been an important tool in policy making to promote sustainable development, economic growth, and gender equality. Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, policy makers and development agencies alike have introduced various measures to increase the entrepreneurial capacities of men and women. Previous literature s...

The empowerment of women is a pivotal antecedent to gender equality. Women’s entrepreneurship development is oen presented as a valuable tool to promote gender equality. It is equally important as part of a broader treatise surrounding human and economic development, and more recently, preserving and improving well being, and sustainable developmen...

Exploration of Entrepreneurship and governance in MENA

Purpose-The topic of social entrepreneurship (SE) and the role it plays in economic development have received significant scholarly attention over the past few decades. Equally in the Middle East (specifically in Lebanon) and North Africa (MENA), the concept of SE has gained some traction since it promised that social enterprises could contribute t...

This paper aims to identify and analyze the key success factors of some active Lebanese social entrepreneurs. Lebanon represents a developing context characterized by stark cultural and economic divides with weak governmental institutions. A multi-level research approach was adopted for this study that empirically draws on interpretive research met...

This chapter looks at recent developments in the level of female entrepreneurship in Lebanon, relative to both the level of male entrepreneurship in the country and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) context. In 2018 the absolute level of female entrepreneurship was substantially higher in Lebanon than elsewhere in MENA, a situation very diffe...

We contend that the standard assumption of the resource-based view of the firm (RBV)—that ownership of valuable and strategically important resources is at the basis of success and performance and can generate sustained competitive advantage—does not hold when it comes to finite natural resources.

Purpose Entrepreneurs interact with others and, through this, benefit from access to knowledge, resources and skills that enhance their own entrepreneurial and organizational capabilities. This paper aims to contribute to the literature interested in identifying and analyzing important antecedents of entrepreneurs’ choices regarding social relatio...

The number of women-owned businesses worldwide has increased significantly, a development that extends to other parts of the world, such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This region's cultural and socioeconomic idiosyncrasies offer unique perspectives on women entrepreneurship. This article provides a critical overview over the situation...

The number of women-owned businesses worldwide has increased significantly, a development that extends to other parts of the world, such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This region's cultural and socioeconomic idiosyncrasies offer unique perspectives on women entrepreneurship. This article provides a critical overview over the situation...

Purpose This study aims to investigate how educational attainment and entrepreneurial competencies affect entrepreneurial motives of women (vs men) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This study shows that education has a more positive effect on women’s entrepreneurial motives compared with men. On the other hand, there is a greater positiv...

Entrepreneurs exert much effort in pursuit of new ideas that can lead to innovations. Relevant knowledge and resources can often be found outside an entrepreneur?s immediate competencies and expertise. For this reason, entrepreneurs use social relations to get access to these resources. This paper analyzes the role of such social relations when it...

The present study explores how entrepreneurial motives, notably whether individuals enter by opportunity or by necessity, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are shaped by two important antecedents, individual educational attainment and entrepreneurial competencies. Moreover, the paper takes into consideration the moderating effects of macro...

Much effort of entrepreneurs is dedicated to the search for ideas and solutions that can lead to new products and services or their commercialization. Relevant knowledge often lies outside an entrepreneur’s or a firm’s immediate competencies and expertise. Thus entrepreneurs use social networks and contacts to gain access to this knowledge. This pa...

Research has shown that innovation, as a form of entrepreneurship, leverages social networks and enable entrepreneurs to access external resources and knowledge. This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurs' networks on innovation outcomes within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The paper analyses the role of cultural continge...

This thesis analyses innovation and technology strategy within a primary industry, notably the upstream oil and gas industry. Industries that exploit and produce finite natural resources are challenged by specific external risks that do not receive much attention from management literature otherwise, especially with regard to organizational innovat...