Business, Dhillon School of

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Browsing Business, Dhillon School of by Subject "Alberta"

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    Barriers to local food initiatives in Southern Alberta : an intensive case study of the Cottonwood Co-op
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Management, 2017) Jafri, Komal; University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Management; Usher, John
    Although there are many local food initiatives budding across the globe to support localization of the food system, they face major barriers operating in the mainstream food system. There is an existing literature highlighting barriers with suggested policies to overcome them. However there is little literature on unique barriers in Southern Alberta. This thesis explores characteristics of Southern Alberta that might inhibit operations of local food initiatives in this region through an intensive case study of a local food cooperative operating in Fort Macleod, Alberta. A comparison is then made with barriers in different cities of Alberta, Canada, and USA as discussed in literature. Policy implications, actionable by governments and local food initiatives’ management, are drawn from the findings.
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    The Role of philanthropy in small and medium-sized enterprises: a comparative study of Alberta, Canada and Kenya
    (Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dhillon School of Business, 2018-08-23) Muhumed, Hassan Abdullahi; University of Lethbridge. Dhillon School of Business; Usher, John
    There is overwhelming agreement among scholars and practitioners alike on the socio-economic importance of Small-and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), both in developed and developing countries. However, there is also substantial research to suggest that differences exist with respect to CSR practices around the world, some of which has been attributed to a rough North / South divide in context but also to the matter of scale between MNEs and SMEs with particular emphasis on the larger role of community philanthropy in the latter. Nonetheless, to date there is a dearth of research on the nature of and motivating influences behind philanthropic activities on the part of SMEs, and more specifically, no comparative study has been done on the nexus between SMEs and philanthropy in a North / South context. This research, therefore, aims to investigate the role of philanthropy in SMEs in Alberta, Canada and Kenya. This research is grounded in interpretive (or constructive) research paradigm and hence a qualitative research design was adopted. Twenty semi-structured in-depth interviews consisting of owner-managers and employees were conducted. Given the cross-national perspective, one might expect the role philanthropy is playing in SMEs in Alberta, Canada to be sharply different from that in Kenya. Surprisingly, the results of this empirical study indicate that SMEs in both Alberta, Canada and Kenya tend to have ad hoc philanthropic programs that are altruistically driven and focus on addressing issues pertaining to local community. These results can be illuminated by what I will call the SME factor, which is grounded in the principles of satisfactory profits and community embeddedness, where views of community incorporate both social capital and relative levels of civil foundations between contexts.