<p>This dissertation consists of two related essays on the economics of immigration. The first chapter presents new evidence on whether the earnings of foreign-born workers grow faster than that of similarly educated natives. We compare cross-sectional and panel analyses of assimilation in the U.S. context. The panel data allow us to control for fixed unobserved heterogeneity in earnings. As others have found for earlier entry cohorts, we find that immigrants with less than a college education start at an earnings disadvantage but converge toward native earnings with time in the U.S. in the cross-section. Lower earning immigrants selectively leave on-the-books jobs. We also find substantial selection among low earnings natives who also tend to work less and leave the labor force earlier. Both groups display selection and the net result is that controlling for fixed unobserved heterogeneity has little effect on the relative earnings growth of low-skilled immigrants.</p><p>We find very different results for high-skilled workers. In the cross-sectional analysis, immigrants whose highest level of education is a bachelor's degree exhibit a decline in relative earnings with time in the U.S. However, for these immigrants, the inclusion of an individual fixed effect reveals faster earnings growth relative to natives. Among both immigrants and natives, lower earners selectively leave the covered sector. However, because low earning immigrants who remain in the sample become more likely to work with time in the U.S., the net result is that the average earnings of immigrants diminish. These results indicate that controlling for individual heterogeneity is important in estimating the economic assimilation of immigrants.</p><p>The second chapter examines the role of the workplace in earnings assimilation. Using an earnings panel much like in the first chapter, we consider whether job characteristics such as firm size, industry, and firm specific tenure can account for earnings differences between native and foreign-born workers. We focus on workers with less than a college education and find that the job characteristics considered account for almost all of the faster earnings growth of high school dropouts and half of the faster earnings growth of high school graduate immigrants. Rising relative job tenure of immigrants is the most important factor.</p> / Dissertation

This study is in two parts, separate and distinctive, yet interconnected. It is concerned with black young people, bom in Croydon, whose parents and grandparents were born in the Caribbean or who were socialised as Caribbeans. It seeks to generate a theory of how being black and bom in Britain creates intergenerational tensions which transcend those of "normal" adolescent relationships and how this affects their membership of 'main-stream' society. Part A, is an Institution Focused Study which examines the efficacy of the grounded theory approach as a suitable methodology for an ethnographic study of British-born black young people, necessitating in-depth interviewing both of the young people themselves and adults of their parents' and grandparents' generations. The Institution Focused Study explains the background to the research including the interest of the researcher in this topic. It charts the conditions which black young people face in a white-dominated and inherently racist society and highlights the paucity of research on this issue. It examines the grounded theory approach, suggesting that its suitability arises from its similarity to the youth work practitioner's style of operation and devises an appropriate research design to ensure that sufficient subjects are recruited and interviewed to provide information-rich data to be collected and analysed. It concludes that this method, when applied with scientific rigour, will produce sufficient data to enable both substantive theories and a more formal theory of British-born black young people to be generated. Part B constitutes the main study. After a brief introduction a discussion on Adolescence is provided to contextualise the study in view of the varying and rapid changes occurring in this period of human development. The study returns to the question of the research design and considers how information-rich data is to be gathered, and how subjects will be recruited and interviewed for which It provides an interviewer prompt sheet. An analysis of the data is then offered, grouped into the categories which have emerged and been developed as the study unfurled. Discussion then centres around the subjects 'own stories' together with other theories and research. The findings are summarised leading to a number of substantive theories which then are synthesised into a formal theory of British-born black young people. This suggests that they suffer a sense of cultural anomie denying them a necessary, new and distinctive identity as emerging black British citizens. The study raises the implications of this for the future work of the Croydon Youth Development Trust before offering a foot-note on methodology; a reflection on the grounded theory approach and its suitability to this type of ethnographic research.

Författarna till detta examensarbete har intresserat sig över hur innovationer kan sprida sig till olika nationer genom exempelvis små innovativa verksamheter. I denna forskningsstudie undersöker författarna hur innovationer sprider sig till andra nationer och om innovationsspridningen kan relateras till en internationaliseringsmodell, delforskningsfrågan grundar sig i Rothwells femte generationens innovationsprocess. Författarna har valt att använda sig av en kvalitativ metod, med en deduktiv ansats där undersökningen har sin utgångspunkt från teorin. Den teoretiska referensramen innefattar modeller som beskriver organisationsprocesser vid en internationalisering, samt teorier riktade mot innovation, internationalisering samt internationell marknadsföring. Därefter har författarna i empirin, redogjort för hur de olika fallföretagen författarna har arbetat med, i praktiken har hanterat dessa fenomen i sina internationaliseringar. Analysen i denna forskningsstudie är uppdelad utefter tre fokusområden, innovation, internationell marknadsföring och internationalisering där författarna analyserar företagens upplevelser från fokusområdena och företagen analyseras i följd. Utifrån den information författarna har fått från de tre semistrukturerade intervjuer och en observation kommer författarna att belysa svar på forskningsfrågorna i de tre slutsatserna nedan; Digitalkommunikation är väsentligt för innovationsspridning hos små innovativa företag. Internationaliseringsmodeller kan ses mer som stöd istället för strategi Innovationsspridning sker i ett tidigt i en innovationsprocess Med tanke på att denna forskningsstudie är genomförd på endast tre företag och en organisation som utgångspunkt kan författarnas slutsatser inte antas att gälla som en generell beskrivning av innovationsspridning till andra nationer.

Background: In recent studies a lot of attention is drawn to the connection between networking and entrepreneurship. Many scholars consider successful business and networking inseparable. Taking into consideration the topicality of the two notions discussed above the authors of this thesis decided to conduct the research dedicated to these phenomena in the field that interests them most – in the field of Swedish fashion. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to gain a deeper insight into entrepreneur’s experiences to point out the role of entrepreneurial networking in the process of internationalization of a micro-sized Swedish fashion company and to contribute to the research in this field by telling its unique story. Method: To achieve the purpose of the research a narrative ethnographic research was conducted. This research strategy was chosen because it suits the purpose best by giving an opportunity to get fresh insights into the field of entrepreneurial networking from the point of view of the entrepreneur. The data collected has a narrative nature therefore narrative analysis is used to present it. The methods of gathering the data are face-to-face interview and documents. Conclusion: we can define the most important role of entrepreneurial networking on the internationalization process of Odeur as an effective accelerator and a tool to fulfil the knowledge and expertise gaps in certain areas through other actors in the network.

No description available.

Academic success is clearly linked to one's ability to write well. Given this close link between the two and the poor academic record of Pacific Island students within mainstream education in New Zealand, it is surprising that very little research has been undertaken to examine the academic writing problems of Pacific Island students. This emancipatory, critical study focused on tertiary students who identified as New Zealand-born Samoan. Since Samoans constitute half the Pacific Island population in New Zealand, New Zealand-born Samoan participants were chosen as being representative of this larger group. They were also chosen because they represented a group of New Zealanders identified as disadvantaged in terms of their largely low socio-economic status and poor academic achievement levels.The theoretical framework for this study is grounded in Bernstein's critical theories on communicative and teaching practices in mainstream education which disadvantage minority students from working class communities. These theories are discussed in conjunction with a general review of relevant literature in Chapter 2. The Samoan researcher in this study has added an inter-generational commentary to some of the views and experiences of school and Samoan homelife in New Zealand of participants, firstly from the perspective of her own first-hand experiences of school and Samoan homelife in the 50s and 60s and secondly from the perspective of an experienced English language teacher in New Zealand tertiary institutions.This study used a triangulation approach to enhance reliability and validity of quantitative and qualitative data collected. Three data collecting instruments were used: a written questionnaire, face-to-face interviews, and students' actual essay assignments. A written questionnaire was completed by 14 students who identified as NewZealand-born Samoan. A case study approach was then used with a sub-group of five students, representative of the original 14, who were interviewed more closely in the following areas of interest which emerged through the questionnaire: students' perceived and actual academic writing skills, communicative and teaching practices of high school and tertiary teachers, students' learning strategies, the role and effectiveness of Pacific Island support staff and programmes and the impact of the cultural and communicative practices of Samoan parents in traditional, bilingual Samoan homes on students' academic performance and success in the formal learning environment. The impact of factors such as poor self-motivation and time-management skills, inadequate reading skills and a lack of understanding of and exposure to the academic discourses of the formal learning environment, on the academic writing problems of the participants in this study, were also examined.Teaching methods which perpetuated rote learning practices amongst students were reported by participants in this study from both low and middle-decile high schools. The communicative and teaching practices of Pacific Island teaching staff were also examined in this study. Relevant data from the one-to-one teaching sessions with participants were also included as part of this study. The face-to-face interviews and one-to-one teaching sessions were tape-recorded.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Janet Swaffar. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Switzerland has, despite being a rather small country, a big start-up scene which develops rapidly and puts forth many entrepreneurs. Currently, it is certain that any opportunity for competitive advantage must be exploited and emerging markets like India prove to be full of them. This research aims to investigate the cultural and institutional problems Swiss start-ups faced and how they overcame them when internationalising to India, using a qualitative research approach. Relevant theories regarding the topic were gathered and collated in a deductive manner with the empirical findings of five interviews conducted with Swiss Born Global start-ups, which internationalised either down- or upstream activities of their value chain to India. The findings show that institutional problems are largely dependent on the industry a company is working in. Cultural problems on the other hand occur in a more general manner and entrepreneurs internationalising to this market should be aware of the cultural differences to facilitate their internationalisation process. Further findings display the importance of an own network in the country and the indispensability of partners that help the companies navigate the Indian space.

This thesis project examined underemployment at the state and national levels. Underemployment is the inability of highly skilled migrants with degrees from their home countries to enter the workforce in the receiving country. Pending and enacted legislation was analyzed at the state level to determine in which ways the state of Oregon can implement similar policies to effectively incorporate underemployed immigrants into the state workforce. This project utilized primary data sources at the state and federal level, migrant interviews were used as illustrations of the barriers that exist for underemployed migrants, and secondary data sources from the fields of economics, social sciences, political sciences, and population studies were utilized to provide an understanding of how underemployment is addressed at the national level. Overall, my research found underemployed professional migrants are greatly underutilized, which translates into missed economic opportunities for individual migrants and for the United States as a whole.