This dissertation applies the theory of technology accumulation to explain the internationalisation of foreign and West German multinational enterprises (MNEs) into East Germany. This theory shifts the focus from technology transfer to the international diffusion of innovation within the MNE. It rejects the position that all MNEs offer the same technological opportunities to host economies. Yet, most of the existing empirical research on postcommunist transition economies including East Germany applies the traditional technology transfer perspective. Therefore, this dissertation provides a complementary and novel approach. We assume a dynamic interaction between existing location specific technological capabilities within the host country, MNEs' location choice, their internationalisation of R&D and innovation, and the potential for technological spillover effects from MNEs to the host economy. The dissertation exploits information from the IWH FDI micro database on the full population of MNEs that entered East German manufacturing until 2005 and corresponding survey data. Micro econometric estimation results generate a number of novel findings: We can show that existing location specific technological capabilities affect MNEs' general location choice within East Germany. They are not powerful enough to attract MNEs' technological activities. Instead, the location of MNEs' innovation requires the joint presence of technological and industry specialisation within regions, whereas foreign R&D benefits from technological specialisation in combination with a diversified industry structure. Moreover, the location of technological activity differs depending upon the underlying motive for internationalisation. Our findings suggest that the potential for technological externalities from affiliates to local firms is subject to centrally and locally driven technological heterogeneity of MNEs. Existing location specific technological capabilities do not affect the spillover potential. This hints a limited dynamic interaction of ownership and locational advantages in firms' internationalisation. We derive implications for the technology accumulation theory as well as for various fields of science and technology policy.

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This thesis explores the migratory experience mainly of Tunisian and Romanian workers in the agricultural informal economy of Sicily (Italy), based on observation and 30 semi-structured interviews. Starting from the reasons behind the decision to migrate and the expectations towards their migratory experience, this thesis argues that family’s needs are central motivational factors for the majority of the people who were part of my study and that the migratory experience tends to transform conventional gendering and parenting roles. The thesis also investigates the strategies used by Tunisian and Romanian migrants to enter the Italian territory and to be recruited in the agricultural sector. My data suggested that social capital (or the lack of it) and social networks are essential resources to enter the Italian territory and its labour market and to remain active within it. Furthermore, the thesis claims that the interaction between the widespread informal employment in Southern Europe and discriminating forms of citizenship creates a paradoxical situation where newly European Romanian workers have more opportunity to negotiate with employers within the informal economy, whereas non-European people must seek contractual work within the formal labour market to justify their immigration status, making them more vulnerable to exploitation by deceitful employers. For this reason an imaginary continuum line has been developed in the last two chapters of the thesis to highlight how discriminatory citizenship status interacts with the informal labour economy of the agricultural sector of Sicily, exacerbating unequal power relations and labour exploitation. By stretching the concept of the ‘camp’ developed by Agamben (1998), the informal economy will be considered as a dimension where people’s rights are severely undermined. The thesis nonetheless asserts that recognition of human dignity and human rights offer a form of utopian critique that might be considered positive as it stands outside the limitations of national forms of citizenship and points to more inclusive ideas of global citizenship.

This thesis explores how entrepreneurial actors make sense of the entrepreneurial process as they transition from idea to enterprise. To explore this process, the thesis analyses the sensemaking and sensegiving processes experienced by prospective student entrepreneurs in a university incubator. Through addressing the following research question: “How do early-stage entrepreneurial actors make sense of the entrepreneurial process as they transition from having an idea to deciding to exploit it?”, this study explains how entrepreneurial actors transition from idea conceptualization to entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation and delineates their transition paths. Using an interpretive multiple-case research design (Yin, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989), the sensemaking and sensegiving processes involved in the transition from idea conceptualization to opportunity exploitation is investigated by following ten early-stage entrepreneurial actors in the process of shaping and developing opportunity ideas into entrepreneurial opportunities. Methods of analysis include case studies of each venture idea, field observations, direct interviews, construction of time-lines and inductive development of theory through a combination of the sensemaking framework and stages of the entrepreneurial process. In this thesis, two important theoretical contributions are made; first, the sensemaking perspective is established as a theoretical approach for understanding how the entrepreneurial process unfolds over time and second, new insight is offered concerning the ‘black box’ that exists between idea conceptualization and opportunity exploitation. This is demonstrated through the identification and explanation of the mechanisms that enable entrepreneurial actors to make sense of opportunities as they transition from idea to exploitation. There are also practical contributions for academic managers charged with improving entrepreneurship education and those involved with the commercialization of research generated within a university setting.

This thesis addresses how social entrepreneurship (SE) is being enacted in a developing economy as a means to promote poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Researching SE in developing economies is relevant considering the need to identify sustainable and innovative models for private sector engagement and civil society capacity building in contexts marked by resource constraints, institutional voids, and aid-dependency. SE blends financial, societal and environmental benefits. It is expected to empower local communities and treat the root cause of problems, putting society ahead of the individual. A SE movement led by international elites is gaining momentum in contemporary market economies. It demands a wider ethical and socially inclusive type of capitalism. This has caused research into SE to export normative western institutional meanings across countries. However, since meanings are mediated by context, research is required to understand how SE is interpreted in ‘non-western’ contexts. In addition, there is a lack of empirical studies situating SE in developing economies. Therefore, little is known about whether SE practices in developing economies are given the same meaning. These limitations reflect the de-contextualised approach that has dominated entrepreneurship theory. There is the need to reflexively examine the boundaries of extant theories of SE by inquiring how SE is enacted in less-known contexts. This study utilises the institutional logics perspective to examine the dynamic and recursive meanings people draw upon to undertake and legitimise SE activities in Mozambique; a country over-reliant on foreign investment and donor funding. Complex institutional environments provide an opportunity to examine how local and globalised institutional logics affect what is to be considered legitimate and who has the authority to do it. In order to shed light on the above, the following research question was devised: How is social entrepreneurship enacted and legitimised in a developing economy through local and globalised institutional logics? In order to address this question, the thesis adopts a practice perspective of SE. It shifts the focus of analysis from the individual entrepreneur towards entrepreneuring or the activities that people engage in to access and utilise resources in meaningful ways. Practices are useful to examine how actors understand and mobilise multiple institutional logics through everyday actions. The research was conducted using a reflexive ethnographic methodology to observe how diverse actors mobilise multiple logics to achieve intentional outcomes. Ethnography provided a means of entering ‘natural’ social sites and the everyday activities of those being studied. Materials were collected over three fieldtrips to Maputo (including living in the country for three consecutive months) making use of: field notes; photographs; video recordings; participant observation; semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with a breath of participants ranging from the elite to the urban poor. Documents such as reports, leaflets and newspaper articles were also analysed, accounting for wider societal discourses. The utilisation of multiple methods and several data sources conferred credibility, consistency and empirical validity to the research findings. The research suggests that different social groups draw upon contradictory logics, which mirror the institutionalised meanings they value. The mobilisation of particular logics plays a role in determining which organisational forms serve as models and how institutional expectations are conveyed in order to get legitimacy. Also, diverse interpretations of SE activities were found to result from different degrees of embeddedness in the local context. The thesis points to three main practices of SE: exogenous, endogenous and trans-cultural. Exogenous SE practices tend to reproduce western models, routines, expectations and normative assumptions. These are directed at creating a new environment. Endogenous SE practices conform to logics traditionally associated with non-western societies. These are directed at rearranging the local environment. Trans-cultural SE practices use a dual legitimacy, local and international, to transform the environment by combining and translating multiple logics. This study furthers our understanding on how potentially conflicting logics from western and non-western cultures interplay, within the field of SE. This provides a more nuanced comprehension of the diversity of logics mobilised to give meaning to SE practices in developing economies. The research makes four further theoretical contributions. It problematises existing SE hegemonic assumptions and discourses that narrow our understanding of the SE phenomenon by emphasising western logics over others. It brings to the fore overlooked necessity-driven practices of SE undertaken informally at the grassroots. These are easily ignored for being undertaken by people who make do with what is at hand to tackle enduring poverty in contexts of subsistence. The thesis yields insights into the transformative potential of trans-cultural practices for legitimising SE. Finally, it explains the mediating effects of a ‘hybrid context’ on the enactment and legitimisation of SE in a developing economy. By examining how SE is legitimised in the research setting, this thesis sheds light on the diverse practices through which different types of resources are mobilised to bring about change. This may assist both development policies and resourceful SE promoters to better support and convey legitimacy to change-oriented local endeavours and communities engaged in SE. The thesis contributes to practice by emphasising self-sufficiency and real empowerment. It also urges social entrepreneurs to better adapt and translate their ventures to suit the local needs of the poor. Researching how SE is enacted and legitimised in a developing economy opens up opportunities for more inclusive and pluralistic approaches to poverty alleviation and the globalisation of SE. This thesis therefore aims to contribute by engaging debate about how SE can be further contextualised and translated across borders to benefit communities across the world.

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My thesis contributes to research on the consequences of labour market institutions for employment using an original Greek dataset I have constructed, the TERS. This survey gives a representative sample of micro-enterprises as well as small and medium enterprises. I investigate whether firms use temporary (and family) employment as "escape" routes from mandated wage floors (corporate collective wage agreements) and working conditions floors (employment protection legislation (EPL) monitored by the Labour Inspectorate). My basic hypothesis is thus that temporary and family work are forms of insurance for the poorer firms which cannot cope with EPL coupled with wage floors. I find significant wage floor effects, in particular, where firms have many workers at the minimum (or below it - in the case of "grey" market firms), they are more likely to employ temporary workers. The implication is that where firms have many workers on the minimum they are likely to worry about the possibility of a rise in the minimum, and hence will employ on a more temporary basis. Wage floors thus matter. I also find significant EPL effects. In particular, firms whose managers believe that temps have low EPL are more likely to employ temps, ceteris paribus. My result thus shows that an advantage of employing temps is quite simply their low EPL. My findings for family worker employment are similarly confirmatory. Workplaces in the "grey" category, paying low wages probably below nationally agreed rates, are much more likely to employ a high percentage of family workers, other things equal-they are easy to layoff, and less likely to complain about low wages. The policy implication of my research is therefore that Greece's wages and working conditions floors indeed appear both to promote precarious temporary employment, and also small-scale family business, which is not the way to grow and prosper.

Urbanization has taken a major toll on the water quality of Lake Tarpon. In response, there have been management strategies and legislation put in place to help improve water quality. Our objective was to identify what management strategies and other environmental factors were driving changes in Lake Tarpons water quality from 1970 - 2010. Trends in water quality were analyzed against precipitation, land use and water quality management strategies to achieve this. Results found that two water quality management strategies, the creation of the Lake Tarpon Outfall Canal and the closing of the Lake Tarpon Sink, improved water quality the most. Other management strategies that undoubtedly helped improve water quality but were not able to be quantified were regulations that have made growth more sustainable (FAC 62 - 25, FAC 10D-6) and management strategies such as converting septic to sewer and lake level fluctuation.

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Aristotle's metaphor for economic relations was the household. Although the household is engaged in the material activities of internal production, consumption and exchange which are economic, its fundamental connections are social. Social dynamics, including care, respect, authority, loyalty, charity and self-restraint are the motivations within the household. These are all virtues in Aristotelian terms and can be grouped under the more general social virtue of solidarity which is the intention to act in support and draw closer to the other in relationship in such a way as to become more perfectly human. An economics based on this family metaphor will be socially grounded, it is social economics. A key identifier of social economics is its capacity to realise the common good. This thesis is an examination of the contribution of property in land to the common good leading to the identification of the location of land within social economics. An Aristotelian methodology has been adopted for this thesis, following an examination of its component parts and comparison with alternative methodologies. While the defense of the methodology is not exhaustive, it is sufficient to provide reasonable justification of Aristotelian realism and point out some of the shortcomings of competing approaches. Aristotelian realism is accepted as employing an acceptance of essences, the validity of abstraction, and the importance of observation. Contrasted to positivism, Aristotelian realism accepts knowledge that is not simply observation-based, especially the possibility of the knowledge of essences. Property theory has been reviewed. This includes ancient positions on property as well as modern. Islamic property theory has been included in the review in order to broaden the cultural base. Ancient Western property theories have been been shown to be divided between simple acceptance of the fact of private ownership, especially evident in Roman law and early modern practice, and a more complex theory of ownership first articulated by Aristotle. Aristotle's theory of ownership was a dual principle of private ownership but common use. The Aristotelian position was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Medieval period. St. Thomas recognised that property in external property was naturally for common use but privately owned by convention. John Locke attempted a labour based theory of absolute private property and Adam Smith returned to the positive fact of possession. The Islamic position straddled the Lockean and Thomistic. Modern property theory is a development of the Smithian identification property as a fact of society. Apart from the institution of individual private property in land, several other economic institutions mark modern Western economics. The most important of these is the free market. The theoretical foundations of the free market have been examined and have been found to be based on moral foundations. The components of market theory have been reviewed and significant shortcomings have been revealed. The theory of supply has been found to contradict practice and the commonly portrayed market functions that are asserted to depict market behaviour in efficient circumstances have been shown be in error. Capitalisation has also been reviewed and its dependence on the risk-free real rate of return on money loans has been explored. The moral problem of usury has been introduced and linked to capitalisation, but not taken beyond recognition and defense of the fact that it is a social artifact rather than a product of economic forces. The critical factor in the operation of the market was shown to be its inclusion of demand in the development of prices. In the absence of theoretical support, the acceptability of the market was tested empirically by surveying attitudes to demand based pricing. Three hundred and forty Sydney home-owners were asked ten questions regarding situations where prices and profits were linked to demand or price. The data was analysed and found to lend support to the hypothesis that demand-based pricing did not have community support. A general theory of property was constructed from human nature and the nature of land. It was then used to develop an ethical structure for the pricing of wages, land and products. It was argued that property rights in labour were fundamentally different to property rights in land, the former being natural and the latter being conventional. It was also evident that the market was an inappropriate instrument for the determination of wages, but appropriate for the determination of commodity prices. Land was recognised to be the gap between wage price and commodity price. Ricardo's rent theory was reviewed as a mechanism for pricing land income. Various aspects and implications were considered and it was recognised that in a closed land market the returns to land competed with the return to labour in a manner that was better explained in political terms than economic. Despite its importance in social economy, the operation of Ricardian rent theory is obscured other mediating factors. It has also been used as the central theory in a protracted political debate over the taxation of land. Both of these issues have contributed to the the marginalisation of interest in rent theory and a degree of suspicion as to its validity. A behavioural experiment was run to examine the validity of Ricardian rent theory within the confines of its own assumptions, which are basically those of an efficient market and the recognition that land has varying productivity. The results of the experiment lent strong support to the theory but highlighted the conventional nature of the return to labour. One of the shortcomings of Ricardian rent theory is its assertions regarding subsistence wages, and there was evidence in the experiment that did not support this aspect of the theory. The significance and construction of subsistence wages were specifically reviewed and also other sources of economic rents. An analysis of non-land economic rents revealed that they were either land-like, transient or politically maintained. A theory of supply was developed from a rent base that was argued to be causally accurate and returned a monotonic upward curve consistent with practical observation. The implications of the political economy of the findings were reviewed. Some major traditions in economics interpreted in terms of the ethical issues revealed. The thesis concluded that many cultural resolutions of the property problem are possible, however they must conform to ethical fundamentals that may be paraphrased in the notion of solidarity. Suggestions for possible corrections or improvements to specific existing practices and policies were developed.