Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, Volume 8, Issue 2/3.

Welcome to the double special issue of WJEMSD entitled“Globalisation and sustainable development”. This special issue is ambitious in its intent. The geographic breadth stretches across the world with contributions representing the outcome of many comprehensive research programmes undertaken in Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Americas and the Middle East. The countries represented here have populations ranging from 165,000 to 1.2 billion inhabitants. The plurality of issues interrogated reminds the reader of the complexity of the subject matter under investigation and the multifariousness of the concept globalisation itself.

Theme

The theme of this special issue has been carefully chosen to discuss issues around Globalisation and Sustainable Development. Globalisation is seen by many to be the dominant force in business today. Discussions about development of globalisation tend to focus on two key issues. First, there has been an increased internationalisation of trade, money and ideas. This has been helped in part by the removal of historic barriers. We are now living in an increasingly “borderless world”. Second, the world appears to be converging culturally. At the superficial level, we watch the same television programmes and we seek out the same designer clothes. At a more fundamental level, there is a convergence of values. We will explore all these issues in more depth in this special issue.

Content of the special issue

In the first paper in the special issue, Tidings Ndhlovu attempts to develop a theoretical framework to understand and interpret the “globalisation”phenomenon. In doing so, he uses the idea of parallax to explore, synthesise and interpret globalisation. Tidings traces the theoretical developments of globalisation and suggests a useful organising framework for analysing the globalisation phenomena.

Similar to Tidings's conceptual approach, Fernanda Dias Angelo, Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour and Simone Galina piece review the relevant literature in search of a meaning/definition of the term “Environmental innovation”. The paper argues that many researchers use the term environmental innovation but only few papers present a complete definition of concept. Moreover the authors argue that the term environmental innovation has been well-disseminated in literature but advances are needed to consolidate the term as a theoretical field of research,which requires advances in its conceptualisation. Therefore the study's main finding is proposing an environmental innovation concept.

In the third paper of the special issue, Adli Abouzeedan, Magnus Klofsten and Thomas Hedner investigate the impact on firm performance as a result of the lack of clear coupling to innovation by SME evaluation models. Instead the paper argues that the survival index value (SIV) model will have the ability to indicate and predict correctly the performance of a company. The results of the paper at all the four levels of analysis reveal a stable positive development of the firm through the lifetime of the enterprise.

Following on Adli Abouzeedan et al.'s proposal of the SIV model,José G. Vargas-Hernández's paper proposes a normative model to determine the potential of cultural tourism in the municipalities that comprise the region 6 of the State of Jalisco in Mexico. José argues that use of a normative analysis approach is a valuable framework to design tools for planning and operation of sustainable cultural and heritage tourism. Moreover José's paper claims to be the one of the first attempts contributing to increase regional economic development of southern Jalisco and provides a valuable frameworks and tools for regional economic development strategies.

The next piece by Yagoub Gangi and Rafid Abdulrazak investigate the effect of governance indicators such as political stability, control of corruption, rule of law, regularity quality, voice and accountability and government effectiveness on FDI flows to African countries. In doing so Yagoub and Rafid employed a panel regression model on data from 50 African countries for the period 1996-2010. The empirical analysis uses the fixed and random effects estimation. The key findings of the paper indicate that some of governance indicators are very important for foreign investor in their investment decision while other indicators are not. Governments are therefore must consider these indicators while trying to attract foreign investment. Moreover to improve their investment climate and increase the inflow of FDI, African countries need to improve the state of governance.

The paper by Anthony Clayton, K’adamwe K’nIfe and Andrew Spencer is based on a United Nations Environment Programme report entitled “The sugar industry in Jamaica” reports on the application of integrated assessment (IA) methods to examine the impact of policy changes on Jamaica's sugar industry, and the potential implications for the economy, employment, society, environment and biodiversity. The findings of the paper demonstrate the utility of IA methods and how governments can use IA to avoid serious, costly policy failures and increase the chances of successful outcomes.

Continuing in the Caribbean region, the next paper is an empirical investigation by Karen Anne Roopnarine and Dindial Ramrattan into some factors which influence the ability and/or desire of a woman to join the labour force in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper reveals that both economic and non-economic variables (religion and ethnicity) specific to the Trinidad and Tobago economy to investigate female participation in the labour market. Furthermore, the results of this research can serve as a useful tool for more gender-sensitive policy formulation in Trinidad and Tobago, and possibly the wider Caribbean region.

In the final paper of the special issue, Beverlee Anderson explores linkages between Confucian-based Asian cultural values and Michael Porter's model of national competitiveness. In her exploratory study, Beverlee compared the cultural values of Indian students with Asian American students’ cultural values to explore alignment with economic growth and development factors. The findings of the paper indicates that Indian students tend to exhibit greater conformity,emotional self-control and collectivism values while Asian American students tend to place greater value on family recognition through achievement. The Indian student values appear to align more with the synthesis model of business development, while Asian American student values focus on success. The paper claims to be the first study that assesses Indian student orientation toward Asian values compare with those of Asian Americans. Moreover the relationship of values and sustainable economic development is explored in the paper.

Conclusion

We hope that the outcome of this special issue will help to understand the very important phenomenon of globalisation. The concept has been defined in different ways. Despite the fundamental changes that have happen as a result of globalisation, we recognise that a number of perspectives exist, each strongly defended.

Finally, we would like to congratulate the authors for their valuable contributions and it is hoped that the ensemble of papers presented in this special issue will help to stimulate debate amongst scholars, researchers and policy makers that will ultimately lead to a more integrated and multidisciplinary approach to policy design. We are especially grateful to all reviewers for graciously offering their invaluable comments, suggestions and criticisms which greatly enhanced the quality of this issue of WJEMSD.

Finally we hope you find this special issue of the journal to be interesting and thought provoking and look forward to receiving your valuable submission and comments so we can continue to serve your needs to the very best of our ability.

Allam AhmedUniversity of Sussex, UK