Virginie Vial

NEW ESTIMATES OF TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN INDONESIAN MANUFACTURING

This paper estimates new elasticities of value added with respect to labour and capital in Indonesian manufacturing, controlling for the simultaneity problem that potentially exists between the choice of input levels and a productivity shock (such as an increase in productivity due to new production processes), for plant exit, and for quasi-constant unobservable plant characteristics. It does so by applying the Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) production function estimator to plant-level value added, fixed assets, labour, and electricity consumption data over the period 1988–95. This methodology allows us to revisit the previously used growth accounting based elasticities, and thereby improves total factor productivity (TFP) estimates. The results show that, in the period under study, aggregate TFP growth in Indonesian manufacturing was higher than had previously been estimated.

Micro-entrepreneurship in a hostile environment: evidence from Indonesia

Abstract The contribution of micro-entrepreneurship to development has featured prominently in recent economic and policy debates. Using panel data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey over a long period (1993–2007) marked by an important economic crisis in 1997, this paper investigates the impact of financial, human and social capital on households’ participation in micro-entrepreneurship, while accounting for corruption as well as institutional and infrastructure quality. Larger urban households that have greater financial and social capital, and/or whose members have an elementary or secondary education, are more likely to participate. Corruption at the local parliament and local government levels reduces the number of participants, while higher-quality formal institutions and infrastructure boost entrepreneurship. The period is marked by a rise in participation in 2000, but communities that experienced a loss in well-being due to the crisis were less likely to participate in micro-entrepreneurship.

Mumpreneurship: a new concept for an old phenomenon?

While mumpreneurship – entrepreneurship by mothers, is not a new phenomenon, it represents a new concept that is still in its infancy in need of a theoretical definition backed up by empirical validation. We review the emerging mumpreneurship literature, frame it with literature on women entrepreneurship, and define mumpreneurship as the creation of a new business venture by a woman who identifies as both a mother and a business woman, is motivated primarily by achieving work-life balance, and picks an opportunity linked to the particular experience of having children. By way of a quantitative study, we first validate that mother entrepreneurs present characteristics that are significantly different, and therefore constitute a sub-group of entrepreneurs. Additionally, in-depth interviews of mumpreneurs support the definition in terms of identity, motivation and opportunity recognition. We conclude that mumpreneurship constitutes a strong affirmative action in terms of her identity and dual role in society.

The sustained incremental multi-actor multi-action building of South Korean soft power in Indonesia

ABSTRACT Since the end of the East–West divide in the 1990s, the world has slowly lost its US-based unipolarity to globalisation, and a shift towards East Asia. This phenomenon has given more space to middle powers and furthered the embeddedness of the political, economic, and cultural spheres into the dynamics of social structures. It is highly visible when observed from the digital communication standpoint, which has become pervasive. In this context, the study of international power has moved towards the concept of soft power, which remains a fuzzy concept concerning ‘who’ and ‘what’. We define power as a continuum, in which various types of public and private actors carry out different types of coercive to cooptive actions in various but embedded spheres. We propose an empirically tractable conceptual framework that we use as a tool to analyse soft power within a hard-to-soft power spectrum, in which the articulation, dynamics and incremental nature of soft power become observable. We illustrate our point with the case study of South Korean power in Indonesia in the twenty-first century and draw conceptual as well as practical conclusions.

Exploring Post-Financial Crisis CSR Digital Communications by MNEs in Mexico

The 2008 global financial crisis triggered negative economic, social, and, potentially, environmental impacts; cut available resources; and increased the need for widespread positive corporate social responsibility (CSR) action and communication. Companies should thus profit from the wide coverage and relative low cost of social media communication. In this chapter, we explore current CSR communication trends through an analysis of CSR digital communication patterns from the 50 largest Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in Mexico. Although the use of digital, yet conventional, proprietary CSR communication channels—from corporate websites to annual reports—has become standard practice, we find that a significantly low percentage of companies exploit social media. We explore and discuss the potential reasons for such a failure and draw theoretical as well as practical implications.

Women entrepreneurs in France

Despite supposedly supportive institutions and quasi-gender equality in employment rate, only 30% of French entrepreneurs are women. Using the 5Ms framework, we illustrate and explain the entrepreneurship gender gap in the French institutional context. To this end, we worked with a quantitative study using the large SINE database, which contains information on 48,251 new entrepreneurs. Although women are still mostly confined to traditionally gendered sectors and start smaller projects despite seemingly unconstrained access to finance, they outperform men in terms of management but fail to get outside support. However, mothers conversely struggle to get finance but innovate in sales, products and service. Our results call for a redefinition of classical concepts and measurements in entrepreneurship.