International Journal of Management, Economics and Social Sciences

184-194

Authors: Husheng Xu; Xiaoyan Song; Wei Song

Social entrepreneurship or enterprise is considered as an innovative form, which combines economic and social value creation to improve societal development. Theory and practice of this field are attracting more attention. In this article, we identified significant literature and journals as well as academic citation relationships for advancing scholarly research on social entrepreneurship. Then, we established a dual-approach for social entrepreneurship with China's cases: public and commercial, to illustrate the question why social entrepreneurship arises. At the end, future directions about legislation, contexts and performance were discussed.

125 – 143

Authors: Melvin J. Rivers; Tim Truitt

Union membership has declined 24.2 percent since 1945. Declining union membership leads to economic losses for labor unions. The problem is relevant to scholars and the labor movement, requiring a deeper understanding of union membership decline. In this qualitative study, experiences with declining union membership are explored with union representatives in Los Angeles County. The conceptual framework uses three models: the utility of union membership, human motivation, and collective bargaining to identify relevant elements of union membership decisions. Twenty face-to-face interviews were conducted with participants who had a minimum of 3 years experience as a full-time union representative. The data were coded, and themes developed using the modified van Kaam method and NVivo 10 software. Three primary emergent themes resulted: (a) globalism is the primarily perceived cause of declining union membership, (b) unions should be more effective in collective bargaining, and (c) communication with union members must increase. The results from this study could be used to improve internal union communication, increase operational efficiency, and develop leadership training. The implications for positive social change include new insights to support labor union leaders in efforts to identify relevant needs, increase membership, retain jobs, and improve the economic health of their members.

79 – 99

Authors: Christiana Kayinwaye Omorede

This Paper assessed the "Impact of Oil and Gas Resource Exploration on the Environment" of Delta State oil producing communities of Nigeria. It examined the problems associated with Oil exploration and its mitigation. Primary and Secondary data were used to source data for the set objectives. The theoretical framework was based on the resource curse theory and the environmental externalities theory. It was established that various problems such as oil spillage, retardation of vegetation growth, soil infertility, ill-health to members of the community, displacement of the people of the area, constant protestation of host communities, socio-economic deprivation, and perceived marginalization of the people are associated with oil resource exploration. This research concludes that the oil bearing communities have not adequately been compensated for harm done them through degradation of the ecosystem caused by several years of oil exploration. Their oil resource wealth has been turned to oil resource curse as they are disempowered, and condemned to perpetual underdevelopment. It is recommended that Federal Government should exert maximum efforts in assuring strict compliance of its legal instruments by the oil participating industries for a sustainable development in the region.

18 – 35

Authors: Elias Kodjo Kekesi; Collins Badu Agyemang

The changing nature of work these days has brought about issues of psychological well-being of employees affected by organizational change. The present study investigated the moderating effect of work values on the relationship between perceived job insecurity and psychological distress among 202 junior employees of selected public and private organizations in Ghana. Results showed that there is a positive relationship between perceived job insecurity and psychological distress whereas work values moderate this relationship. This implied that employees who value extrinsic aspects of work were highly distressed when job insecurity is also perceived to be high. Results were discussed with reference to the frameworks of psychological contract and latent deprivation theories as well as reviewed literature. The practical implication of the finding is that in times of organizational change, managers or change agents should manage negative feelings associated with the uncertainty of future continuance of one's job and invest in human resource management practices that increase extrinsic values which could ultimately lead to employee psychological well-being.