Explore the vast range of titles available.

Objective: The main aim of this paper is to examine the role and challenges of contemporary commercial diplomacy in business promotion and facilitation of international trade and investment. Research Design & Methods: The research methods include the critical review of existing literature, analysis of relevant legal and official documents and the case study of the Polish model of commercial diplomacy. Findings: The research revealed that with transformation of the world’s economy and trading system, the scope and focus of commercial diplomacy tend to change. The activity of commercial diplomats increasingly focuses on promoting national brand and strengthening the image of national companies, discovering more tailored and “hidden” information, expanding tourism and attracting FDIs. One of the main priorities of commercial diplomacy is to support small and medium companies (SMEs) in their first steps to be made in foreign market. The Polish organization model of commercial diplomacy is currently undergoing major reform in the course towards improving the government-business relationship and increasing the efficiency of trade and investment promotion activities through eliminating of tasks duplication. Contribution & Value Added: The research provides a deeper understanding of rationale of commercial diplomacy and its complex determinants, and it allows to formulate some indications for governments and businesses on how to better use diplomatic tools in achieving internationalization goals.

Objective: The main aim of this paper is to examine the role and challenges of contemporary commercial diplomacy in business promotion and facilitation of international trade and investment.Research Design & Methods: The research methods include the critical review of existing literature, analysis of relevant legal and official documents and the case study of the Polish model of commercial diplomacy.Findings: The research revealed that with transformation of the world’s economy and trading system, the scope and focus of commercial diplomacy tend to change. The activity of commercial diplomats increasingly focuses on promoting national brand andstrengthening the image of national companies, discovering more tailored and “hidden” information, expanding tourism and attracting FDIs. One of the main priorities of commercial diplomacy is to support small and medium companies (SMEs) in their first steps to be made in foreign market. The Polish organization model of commercial diplomacy is currently undergoing major reform in the course towards improving the government-business relationship and increasing the efficiency of trade and investment promotion activities through eliminating of tasks duplication.Contribution & Value Added: The research provides a deeper understanding of rationale of commercial diplomacy and its complex determinants, and it allows to formulate some indications for governments and businesses on how to better use diplomatic tools in achieving internationalization goals.

This paper examines the Indonesian government’s new microcredit programme, the Ultra Microcredit (UMi) scheme, designed to provide cheap, hassle-free loans to micro businesses (MBs) owned by the poor and vulnerable. Based on UMi’s loan disbursement, the number of participating non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), the number of borrowers and its impact on the borrowers’ business performance, this paper shows that the programme has so far been significantly promising in supporting the development of MBs. This study not only highlights the ways in which UMi has addressed various problems that MBs face, but also details the scheme’s limitations in achieving its large-scale anti-poverty objectives. The results show that UMi’s main policy challenges can be overcome by: first, shifting its distribution away from Jakarta and towards the less prosperous provinces of the country; second, improving business facilitation services; and third, complementing the scheme with other non-financial programmes.

This paper explores the processes of transforming a network of nonmandated exchange relations into a cohesive and innovative partnership. The question this paper attempts to answer is how to speed up innovation processes in such networks. The paper demonstrates that transformation of networks is a consequence of participants' ability to set the agenda and provide the justification necessary to mobilise others for shared ends. However, to utilise the individuals' interests in worthwhile directions requires facilitation able to bridge local discourses by nurturing inquiries and comparison of the differences among the present operational contexts. This calls for grammatical inquiries in which the participants examine the different ways of wording a phenomenon as a means to build a shared language from within their everyday conversation. The paper builds on a seven years research project of constructing and developing an inter-firm network among eight SMEs in the electronics industry in Norway. The paper concludes by outlining four recommendations for facilitation that aim to speed up innovation processes in networks consisting of non-mandated exchange relations. Key words: facilitation, business network, innovation, power, dialogical inquiry

This paper critically evaluates the making of the Agricultural Export Policy (AEP), 2018 in India and identifies the missing thread in the process. The analysis is based on relevant policy documents, supported by secondary literature and interaction with key stakeholders. Prima facie, the policy (AEP, 2018) seems to be an improvised version over the then existing Agricultural Export Zones (AEZ) policy but still many caveats are associated with it. The major one includes: inadequate emphasis on infrastructure required to boost agricultural exports, errors in the inclusion and exclusion of products identified under AEP and side-lining issues about trade facilitation, doing business and also capacity building and preparedness at the state level.

This report is part of a broader effort by the World Bank Group to understand the motives and challenges of small entrepreneurs in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). The report's key finding is that, compared to entrepreneurs elsewhere, entrepreneurs in FCS have different characteristics, face significantly different challenges, and thus may be subject to different incentives and have different motives. Therefore, it is recommended that both the current analytical approach and the operational strategy of the World Bank be informed by the findings that follow. The report summarizes findings of recent World Bank Enterprise Surveys (ES) conducted across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Asia, and the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region as well as Doing Business indicators and additional World Bank Group studies and field observations. The report finds that the majority of entrepreneurs in FCS countries are small, informal, and concentrated in the trade/services sectors. According to the ES, and after controlling for the level of development (that is, GDP per capita): 1) the average FCS firm in SSA and the ECA Region produces less output than non-FCS firms; 2) the average FCS firm in ECA is by 20 percent less likely to innovate (that is, to introduce/upgrade new products and services) than its non-FCS counterpart; and 3) FCS firms start smaller and grow significantly more slowly, or even shrink (in the number of employees) over time, compared to non-FCS firms in the Regions analyzed. The report also highlights the differences in sector and business environment characteristics between FCS and non-FCS business environments.

This paper critically evaluates the making of the Agricultural Export Policy (AEP), 2018 in India and identifies the missing thread in the process. The analysis is based on relevant policy documents, supported by secondary literature and interaction with key stakeholders. Prima facie, the policy (AEP, 2018) seems to be an improvised version over the then existing Agricultural Export Zones (AEZ) policy but still many caveats are associated with it. The major one includes: inadequate emphasis on infrastructure required to boost agricultural exports, errors in the inclusion and exclusion of products identified under AEP and sidelining issues about trade facilitation, doing business and also capacity building and preparedness at the state level.

This study meta-analytically examined theoretically derived antecedents of both directions of work–family enrichment (sometimes labeled facilitation or positive spillover), namely, work–family enrichment and family–work enrichment. Contextual and personal characteristics specific to each domain were examined. Resource-providing (e.g., social support and work autonomy) and resource-depleting (e.g., role overload) contextual characteristics were considered. Domain-specific personal characteristics included the individuals' psychological involvement in each domain, the centrality of each domain, and work engagement. Results based on 767 correlations from 171 independent studies published between 1990 and 2016 indicate that several contextual and personal characteristics have significant relationships with enrichment. Although those associated with work tend to have stronger relationships with work–family enrichment and those associated with family tend to have stronger relationships with family–work enrichment, several antecedent variables have significant relationships with both directions of enrichment. Resource-providing contextual characteristics tend to have stronger relationships with enrichment than do resource-depleting characteristics. There was very little evidence of gender being a moderator of relationships between contextual characteristics and enrichment. Lastly, meta-analytic structural equation modeling provided evidence that a theoretical path model wherein work engagement mediates between several contextual characteristics and enrichment is largely generalizable across populations.

State universities are increasingly being transformed from institutions with traditional teaching and research responsibilities to have a third, societal role in sustainable regional and economic development. In doing so, universities support knowledge spillovers to improve sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems that benefit economic revitalization or further development of regions. At the same time they promote stakeholder involvement in crucial governance processes at the regional level. Based on a comparative case study design building on three cases in Germany, our research analyses these interdependencies focussing on university-linked support programmes for sustainable entrepreneurship and the effects on sustainable regional development. Our findings provide a nuanced view clarifying the different roles universities have, how knowledge spillovers are created, and what outputs, outcomes, and effects are realized at the regional level and beyond. Specifically, we demonstrate that depending on the regional context, different configurations, pathways, and intervention points of universities may equally improve sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Existing approaches to conceptual modelling (CM) in discrete-event simulation do not formally support the participation of a group of stakeholders. Simulation in healthcare can benefit from stakeholder participation as it makes possible to share multiple views and tacit knowledge from different parts of the system. We put forward a framework tailored to healthcare that supports the interaction of simulation modellers with a group of stakeholders to arrive at a common conceptual model. The framework incorporates two facilitated workshops. It consists of a package including: three key stages and sub-stages; activities and guidance; tools and prescribed outputs. The CM framework is tested in a real case study of an obesity system. The benefits of using this framework in healthcare studies and more widely in simulation are discussed. The paper also considers how the framework meets the CM requirements.