Purpose: Analyses barriers confronted by women entrepreneurs living and running businesses in rural Oman. The study identifies numerous problems including: accessing funding for new ventures and innovative activities, a lack of skills based training and limited family support.Design/methodology/approach: Draws on 57 responses to a semi-structured questionnaire, and face to face qualitative interviews with five women entrepreneurs. Quantitative responses are evaluated and ranked in terms of their mean score, standard deviation and the intensity of each factor. Five qualitative cases are presented. Findings:Although Oman is arguably one of the more progressive Arab countries regarding gender equality and women empowerment, the findings identify socio-cultural issues that hamper women's entrepreneurial ventures and their success. The findings are discussed using three dimensions of entrepreneurship identified by Wenneker and Thurik (1999): conditions leading to entrepreneurship, characteristics of entrepreneurship and outcomes of entrepreneurship. Practical Implications:Suggests that Omani policy makers should consider how to better support women entrepreneurs so that they can diversify household income and contribute to the socio-economic development of the region and make suggestions on how this can be achieved.Originality/Value: Research on rural women entrepreneurship in the context of an Arab country is scarce. This study provides an overview of the obstacles, the opportunities and the support required for the development of the rural women entrepreneurship in this region.

While there has been a growing body of research focused on CSR practices in developing economies, few studies have examined the factors shaping the CSR agenda in these countries. Using qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews with management and stakeholders, this paper examines the drivers of the CSR agenda pursued by Paladin (Africa), a subsidiary of an Australian multinational mining company (MNC) operating in the mining industry in Malawi. The findings suggest that the CSR agenda in the mining industry in Malawi is strongly influenced by the externally generated pressures (drivers) such as civil society organisation activism and community expectations, although it is clear that other drivers such as public and private regulations and pressure from financial markets play a more supportive role in pressurising Paladin to adopt the CSR agenda.

The aim of this paper is to examine the factors which impact on the extent to which urban housing complies with residential standards in the city of Old Salt based in Jordan. The research found that the level of compliance with residential standards is quite low and can vary from one standard to another and from one house to another due to differences in the socio-economic characteristics among people. The findings of multiple regression analysis reveal that there is a good level of public awareness of residential standards, but this does not result in complete compliance with residential standards. Factors, such as household income per month, household size, finance facilities, municipal administration culture, monitoring, enforcement and the uncertainty of residential standards have a significant impact on the extent of compliance with planning standards. Suggestions for improved urban planning practices which address these issues are summarised in the paper and include reassessed current residential standards through comprehensive legal framework, linking residential standards with urban design approaches, changing planning practices, developing information systems to produce effective monitoring systems of construction processes and enforcement mechanism, the development of local staff including planners, designers and environmental engineers, supported partnerships between private and public sectors, and the use of participatory planning and citizen involvement.

Purpose-The paper aims to present case studies to uncover the reflections of key participants in a social enterprise network in West Yorkshire. It considers how they learn from failure and how they make sense of the variety of messages about, and approaches to, social enterprise. Design/methodology/approach-The approach taken is based upon sense making in organisations. The paper builds upon the concept of ambiguity as well as Sydow's framework of inter-organisational trust. Participant drawings of these ideas were used to enhance data generated from face to face interviews. Findings-The paper reviews actors' experiences of failure in projects to explore the relationships of those active in social enterprises and support agencies. From this perspective, uncertainty, ambiguity and unexpected insights into mistrust between organisations were identified as underlying themes. Research limitations/implications-The concepts of uncertainty, ambiguity, trust and mistrust offer rich ways of perceiving the problems faced by social enterprises. They provide a framework to aid discussions of social enterprise development between academics and practitioners. These concepts may go towards improving understanding in resolving problems and be beneficial in formulating policies and practices that improve service delivery within communities. Originality/value-Little research looks at lessons learnt from failure and associated issues of ambiguity and trust between social enterprises at a network level. If smaller social enterprises are going to work together in coordinated activity to deliver social projects and to offer economies of scale in contract delivery, trust will be essential. This paper suggests that further research in this area is needed to consider the quality of relationships being nurtured.

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