Maria Partalidou

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN THE GREEK COUNTRYSIDE: A TYPOLOGY ACCORDING TO MOTIVES AND BUSINESS CHARACTERISTICS

Differences between male and female entrepreneurs provide compelling reasons to study the latter separately. Especially in rural areas, research shows that women are a remarkable and unexplored source of the labor force. Nevertheless, few researchers have examined rural women and the issues pertaining to their entrepreneurship separately. The contribution of this study to the debate of women entrepreneurship is the closer examination of women in Greek rural areas. This research aims to examine factors that must be considered independently with recognition to the variances of rural areas with different geomorphologic and economic profiles. The characteristics of women entrepreneurship in Greek rural areas and the womens motives for the undertaking of the entrepreneurial activity are used to identify a typology of women entrepreneurs in the Greek countryside.

Women's Entrepreneurship and Rural Tourism in Greece: Private Enterprises and Cooperatives

Womens entrepreneurship in the Greek countryside has been expressed in two forms of agro-tourism business: private and cooperative. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences between these two forms with regard to the characteristics of the businesses and women entrepreneurs alike. The research was based on personal interviews with 199 women and the results of the survey confirm the existence of significant differences between the two forms of enterprises. The woman who selects the cooperatives is not very young, has relatively little education, is uncertain and hesitant, while the woman who chooses the private form of enterprise is younger, better educated and has greater self-confidence.

Mapping Perceived Happiness Alongside the Rural-Urban Continuum☆

Abstract Inconsistent circumstances, driven by global monetary crisis and counterurbanization, create without doubt a scientifically intriguing period, especially through the lens of urban or rural dwellers’ happiness. The main aim of this paper is to advocate a rural-urban continuum of happiness through modern methodological tools. The study sets out to determine the most suitab le and appropriate, on policy grounds, definition of happiness. In so doing, it acknowledges the importance of the transformations of happiness according to different socioeconomic conditions alongside the urban-rural continuum. The importance for this research stems from the current debate for a more suitable and alternative index, compared to the Gross Domestic Product, which can actually reflect the progress of a society in a more pervas ive manner. The study applies content analys is and multivariate statistics in a large scale database of empirical data, undertaken from January 2013 to March 2013 from the Prefecture of Thessaloniki; calculate statistical indicators and quantification of the spatial and inequal distribution of happiness between rural and urban areas.

WOMEN'S AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATIVES IN GREECE: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW AND SWOT ANALYSIS

Very few womens co-operatives exist in Europe today; of those that do, the vast majority are involved in non-agricultural sectors. For the past thirty years in Greece, numerous womens agricultural co-operatives have been established in rural areas and scholars have articulated several aspects of their role in both womens life and the local development. A cursory glance at the history of the womens agricultural co-operatives in Greece and a review of the literature highlights the uniqueness of this type of entrepreneurship (a rarity in Europe) and their significant role for rural society cohesion, mainly in geographically and economically isolated rural areas. In this paper we employ a SWOT analysis to elaborate on strengths and weaknesses, which vary from co-operative to co-operative. Either bottom-up or top-down created womens co-operatives are currently a social innovation. Their strengths mainly concern economic independence and social inclusion of women in rural areas, while their weaknesses are mainly associated with funding, organization, administration, know how, culture, product promotion and marketing problems. Nevertheless, they are called upon to survive in a competitive environment; although difficult, it is one that provides opportunities that most likely can outweigh threats.

The Emergence of Municipal Allotment Gardens in Greece in Times of Crisis. Governance Challenges for New Urban Gardening Practices

Urban gardening has never been a tradition in Greece. Their recent growing number is mainly linked to the economic crisis affecting particularly urban households. The deepening crisis and the increasing urban (neo)poverty began to challenge local authorities to search for alternative ways of food (fresh and affordable) provisioning. Municipal Allotment Gardens, the prominent type of institutional response, are embraced by both the local authorities and citizens as alternative spaces within city neighborhoods for ensuring livelihoods and providing a way out of the multiple effects of the recent crisis. Drawing on empirical fieldwork from three different municipal allotment gardens, this study explores the institutional and political context of their establishment and local authorities’ aspirations. In addition, through interviews and focus groups investigates motivations for applying for a municipal plot as well as lived experiences of gardeners shedding light on sustainability issues and future perspectives of these “crisis gardens”. Either driven by the economic crisis, or other motivations such as community building, psychotherapy, re-connection with nature and greening the city, these projects play an important role in the city as well as in the creation of new identities and a sense of belonging for urban dwellers. However, despite their success and their growing popularity, municipal allotment gardens are considered a short-term action of social policy rather than a long-term sustainable urban planning strategy challenging the conventional modes of land management and governance in Greek cities.

Crisis and Social Capital in Greece: A Comparative Study Between Rural and Urban Communities

Greece is facing a severe economic crisis that has also been perceived as a crisis of human values, ideology and on parallel a crisis of trust in people and institutions. The role of trust (both individual and institutional) has been highlighted within the social capital literature as a factor of growth and prosperity of societies; especially in terms of adaptability to volatile conditions where the need for cooperation in order to achieve common goals is of great importance. At the same time, much has been written about the existence of higher levels of social capital in closed societies such as rural ones when compared to urban. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the relation of trust and solidarity, between urban and rural areas in Northern Greece, using empirical research to a large sample of 503 residents. Research results lead to the segmentation need of the population into three distinct clusters with respect to different levels of social capital within different rural–urban context. The main policy implication would be whether the increase in social capital could be a tool for “survival” in the current economic crisis in Greece and at the European level.

Identification of the strategic factors for the development of a new ICT-based biomass tool: the case of the BIOMAS platform

The biomass integrated online marketplace system or shortly BIOMAS is the outcome of the respective EU-funded project that aims to exploit the benefits of ICT in order to boost the biomass market. This study presents a SWOT analysis from an ICT perspective in an attempt to highlight the great potential of the BIOMAS and identify the economic impacts from the development of such a biomass trading system. The architecture of BIOMAS is based on a web-based platform that consists of a biomass supply chain management component and a marketplace component combined with an auctioning mechanism for biomass products. The main novelty behind BIOMAS is the creation of an integrated, online system that will: 1) facilitate the interactions and establishing of agreements between stakeholders in the biomass and agricultural sector; 2) support biomass service and product integration into new forms; 3) facilitate the cooperation between different biomass stakeholders to provide advanced services.

The Real Rural Influentials: Behavioural Dimensions of Perceived Leadership which Influence Rural People☆

Abstract Opinion leaders are influencing other people and often are enjoying a special response and respect. Especially in rural areas opinion leaders are held in high esteem by those who accept their opinions. However, usually is very difficult to identify them and even more difficult to explore the behavioural dimensions of their leadership. In this paper an attempt has been made to segment farmers in distinguishable clusters with similar traits according to the degree of their leadership ability. Besides, this paper aims a) to recognize the real rural «influentials», b) to determine their importance and role in rural communities and c) to explore their socio-economic characteristics insofar those affecting their leadership. For this reason a survey was employed in a large sample of 450 farmers in a typical rural region in northern Greece. Using Two-Step Cluster analysis and other multivariate statistical techniques the sample was stratified in five general distinct clusters according to the generalizations of the related theories. In particular, it was found that the majority of participants are «opinion laggards» or «farmers who consider themselves as opinion leaders although they really are not» while a smaller percentage are the «farmers who believe that they have only some leadership traits» and few of them are the real «opinion leaders» or «influentials». This segmentation is very important in offering the knowledge to apply specialized policies based on the particular characteristics of each cluster. Moreover, considering that the application of individualized policy is easier and less costly we can use this methodology as a guide of identification of the “opinion leaders”, so that they can be potentially used as “intermediates” of agricultural policies and as “tools” of influence over the rest of the farmers and mainly over the “opinion laggards”.

Food Miles and Future Scenario for Local Food Systems: An Exploratory Study in Greece

A global mix of challenges has stimulated the development of alternative food production and distribution systems in an attempt to achieve food sovereignty and minimize the distance (geographical, social and economic) between rural and urban regions and between producers/farmers and consumers/urban dwellers. This paper questions how far our food comes and how well the city is connected to local producers. Using participant observations at five retail venues, the author calculates the food miles for several types of fruit and vegetables and identifies the peri-urban farmers that serve the city. Using a three-stage Delphi technique, she focuses on the most likely future conditions for agro-food production and local food systems. To overcome the effects of the economic crisis and change the dominant role of the agro-food system, farmers believe they can survive without middlemen.