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It is widely acknowledged that the export-oriented garment and textile industries have been playing important role on the overall economic development in developing countries. However, the performance of the developing countries in exporting garment and textiles is in fact, highly heterogeneous. While some of the developing countries such as, China, Vietnam and Bangladesh have been highly successful in exporting highly labor-intensive garment and textiles products, not all of the developing countries have been equally successful in doing so. Using cross-country panel data, an attempt has been made in this paper to ascertain the importance of infrastructure and business environment in explaining the heterogeneous performance in exporting garment and textiles by the developing countries. The paper empirically demonstrates that in addition to the availability of cheap labor, the availability of basic infrastructure, and a business friendly environment significantly affect the export of labor-intensive garment and textiles by the developing countries. The paper, thus, suggests to invest on infrastructure, and to develop a business friendly environment in developing countries to strongly link the growth potentials of labor-intensive products and economic growth.

We investigate the impact of the construction of large-scale high-speed railways (HSRs) on regional multidimensional poverty in China. We find that the opening of HSRs can reduce this poverty indicator. This association is robust to a series of checks. Regarding the mechanisms, the opening of HSRs can improve regional accessibility, enhance local tourism, increase labor mobility and promote human capital accumulation, which alleviates multidimensional poverty. Further research indicates the regional heterogeneity of the effect. This research supplements poverty alleviation theory from the perspective of public infrastructure and offers insight into how multidimensional poverty arises and how it can be alleviated.

Environmental intention is a key predictor of environmental behavior but there is little theoretical and empirical evidence on environmental intention, especially in developing countries. To address this gap, we study the environmental intention of industrial owner-managers in Tunisia. Based on Tunisia’s participation in sustainable development programs of the United Nations, it seems to be representative of developing countries. We study the environmental intention of owner-managers through a multidimensional concept rarely mobilized in the environmental field, namely, entrepreneurial orientation. We test our hypotheses in the textile-clothing industry, which is the source of significant amounts of water and air pollution and is among the priority industries designated by the Tunisian state as part of an environmental improvement program in 2014.

Based on a survey of 226 owner-managers, the results show that the three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, namely, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking, are robust to predict the environmental intention of Tunisian owner-managers.

This article studies the entrepreneurial intention of Algerian students to explain the weakness in business creation in the country. Theoretical and empirical evidence on this subject is scarce, particularly among young Algerians. By combining two dominant research trends in the field of entrepreneurship, namely an approach based on contextual factors, and one based on individual characteristics, we examined the impact of perceived entrepreneurial climate and entrepreneurial self-efficacy on Algerian students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Our study, contextualized in the student environment, aims to analyze how entrepreneurship education moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention.

Based on a sample of 302 students, our survey yielded two important results. The first was the negative effect of perceived entrepreneurial climate on entrepreneurial intention. The second was that as a moderating factor, entrepreneurship education did not reinforce the significant direct influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on the intention to start a business among Algerian students. These insights may help improve the level of entrepreneurial intention within developing countries.

Studies show that actors who are directly involved with science, technology and innovation (STI), such as scientists and managers, are more likely to participate. Therefore, policy documents, as an important guiding factor, need to emphasize the engagement of various stakeholders. On the other hand, due to the need for innovative models in public engagement, social innovation has provided new ways to promote it. Therefore, this study aims to strengthen public engagement in STI policies through social innovation in Iran.

In order to data gathering, questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and literature review were used in different stages of the research. In the first step, after interviewing experts on the dimensions and components of public engagement in STI, in the context of macro-policy documents, a model was extracted using thematic analysis and fuzzy delphi techniques. Then, in the second step, this study identified the statements related to public engagement in STI in macro-policy documents using quantitative content analysis, and thus the degree of attention to public engagement in STI macro-policy documents was determined. In the next step, this study sought to find solutions to its weaknesses in STI by examining the opinions of knowledgeable people about public engagement methods. Then, these solutions were evaluated in terms of their relevance to the Iranian context and social innovativeness, and finally, the selected solutions were ranked by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method.

Informal entrepreneurship is a persistent and extensive phenomenon in both developed and developing countries and considerable efforts have been made to understand it from an ecosystem perspective. Nevertheless, literature that analyzes networks within and among individuals in the informal economic sector has received less attention. This study presents an interesting extension of Granovetter's “strength of weak ties” hypothesis. Until now, strong ties are perceived to be constraining and less beneficial than weak ties for the entrepreneurial activity. However, this paper critically examines this assumption in the context of informal entrepreneurship to explore in detail this networking dynamic and how it affects their financial and social performance. A qualitative approach using 50 face-to-face interviews in Mexico was conducted. Our findings demonstrate that strong ties provide the resources, support and information informal entrepreneurs need to reduce their adversity and vulnerable conditions, having a positive impact on their financial and social outcomes.

Social responsibility (SR) has been widely studied within formal organizations, especially in large companies in developed countries. However, studies about SR in the informal sector is still insufficient. Addressing this gap is relevant for developing countries where informality is becoming extensive and is growing faster than the formal economy. This research has two main objectives: (1) determine whether in an informal economy context, entrepreneurs could perform SR and (2) if it is possible to have SR, to examine critically the way informal entrepreneurs perform it. To achieve these objectives, this study conducted 50 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with informal entrepreneurs (IEs) in Mexico City. The outcome of this research shows evidence that IEs can perform SR in an implicit form, despite their adverse and vulnerable conditions.

The aim of this paper is to explore regional variation in the implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment follow-up in India and to identify causes of such variations. In doing so, forty-three semi-structured interviews were carried out across the Indian mining and environment sector. The findings from the interviews confirm that regional variation in follow-up implementation is a result of social, environmental, economical and political factors. To further explore these factors, three case studies of open cast coal mining were conducted. The findings of the case studies offer insight as to how the factors identified during the interviews influence follow-up outcomes. Furthermore, it reflects how the nature of such variation is not always true to what is perceived about them. Subsequently, the findings from the interviews and case studies help in contributing to the existing best practice of EIA follow-up and developing recommendations for achieving better follow-up outcomes in India.

This chapter aims to explore the factors that motivate or demotivate women entrepreneurs to continue their businesses amid COVID-19 in the context of the Indian environment and the leadership style approached by women entrepreneurs amid COVID-19. The study has employed qualitative research methods (thematic analysis) for the data collection and data analysis. The authors conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with the participants to collect the required data for the study. The study highlighted various motivating and demotivating factors for women entrepreneurs in small businesses to continue their business in India during the pandemic period. The factors that motivated women entrepreneurs amid COVID-19 to continue their business are support from family and society for enhanced homely responsibilities, favourable nature of business in which women are operating, considering adversity as an opportunity and self-assessment of their skills because of the unprecedented situation of COVID-19. But the lack of family support, the unfavourable nature of business and having a high risk of infection from COVID-19 demotivated them from continuing their business. The study will help the government and other policy-makers devise strategies and policy frameworks to enhance the motivation level of women entrepreneurs to continue their business. The study will also help gain deeper insights into the problems associated with women’s entrepreneurship.

Despite widespread efforts to expand health insurance in developing countries, there is scant evidence as to whether doing so actually improves people’s health. This paper aims to fill this gap by evaluating the impact of Rural Mutual Health Care (RMHC), a community-based health insurance scheme, on enrollees’ health outcomes. RMHC is a social experiment that was conducted in one of China’s western provinces from 2003 to 2006. The RMHC experiment adopted a pre–post treatment-control study design. This study used panel data collected in 2002, 1 year prior to the intervention, and followed up in 2005, 2 years after the intervention, both in the intervention and control sites. We measured health status using both a 5-point Categorical Rating Scale and the EQ-5D instruments. The estimation method used here is difference-in-difference combined propensity score matching. The results show that RMHC has a positive effect on the health status of participants. Among the five dimensions of EQ-5D, RMHC significantly reduces pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression for the general population, and has a positive impact on mobility and usual activity for those over 55-years old. Our study provides useful policy information on the development of health insurance in developing countries, and also identifies areas where further research is needed.

World Investment Report 2005 from UNCTAD reveals that “a new trend … is the emergence and fast growth of foreign R&D activities by TNCs (Transnational Corporations) from developing countries”. Numbers of studies have examined several issues of foreign direct R&D investments. Unfortunately, literature in this area has mainly contributed to the knowledge of R&D internationalization of the developed countries. There are only a few studies that have investigated R&D internationalization from the developing countries. Moreover, discussions on paths and technology strategies of overseas R&D establishments over time are still less emphasized.

We examine how Taiwanese firms establish their overseas R&D centers and connect with the global innovation networks over time by conducting both surveys and in-depth interviews. We find four patterns of technology strategy of R&D internationalization for Taiwanese firms, including the technology-seeking strategy, the technology-exploiting strategy, the technology-harvesting strategy, and the technology-transforming strategy. Most firms present a technology-exploiting strategy, and few belong to a technology-transforming strategy. Moreover, evidence indicates that the most attractive destinations for overseas R&D centers have been shifting from the triad economies into the emerging economies (China, India and Russia).