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It is widely acknowledged that woman’s networks and their social capital considerably differ from men’s. Given that social capital is an important resource for getting ahead in society it is important to understand these differences. Do women and men create different forms of social capital and are there differences in the benefits of social capital? Furthermore, what is the role of the neighbourhood where the business is located; what are the benefits of local social ties and of the macro-level social capital for these businesses? These questions are addressed in order to determine whether gender differences impact the way entrepreneurs run their business. Two opposing arguments are employed: firstly, given the social position of women in society – female entrepreneurs are expected to focus more on family and less on instrumental relationships than men, regardless of their education and labour market activity. The second and opposing argument is that women who design and run a business are acting beyond traditional gender roles. Data from a 2014 survey of entrepreneurs in the Netherlands (SSNE) are used for the analysis. Results show that men and women differ in their number of weaker ties. In addition, while women’s businesses benefit from a neighbourhood’s social capital, that is, macro-level social capital, men’s seem to benefit in particular from access to many diverse positions in the neighbourhood and beyond and men’s beneficial ties are located at the micro level.

This chapter explains how the inevitable trade-offs between risk and cost in occupational health and safety (OHS) regulation are managed across EU member states. While trade-offs are explicitly sanctioned in UK law with a risk-based regulatory strategy, many continental countries mandate ambitious goals of safety. This contrast in statutory goals appears to reflect cleavages identified in the risk regulation literature between European precaution and Anglo-Saxon neoliberal risk-taking, as well as in the Varieties of Capitalism literature which suggests that workers are better protected in coordinated than in liberal market economies. However, that claim is challenged through a detailed analysis of OHS regimes in the UK and France, which shows that a narrow focus on headline regulatory goals misses how each country makes cost–benefit trade-offs on safety. In particular, the chapter shows how the nature and outcome of those trade-offs substantially vary according to the degree of coupling between regulation and welfare regimes, and national traditions of common and civil law. As such, the chapter offers a novel explanation for risk regulation and governance variety that emphasizes deep institutional differences among welfare states in the organization of the political economy and their philosophies of regulation. While risk-based rationalization may count as a universal strategy to shape societal outcomes intentionally despite the limits of contemporary governance, our findings evidence stark institutional and ideational limits of such novel regulatory approaches. The empirical identification of these diffusion limits also reflects that what is and is not “shapeable”, and how it continues to differ across settings.

The chapter focuses on why customers do and do not switch. Switching is when a customer leaves a service provider for another one. The research presented looks at how customers perceive equity-related aspects, such as economic fairness, on the one hand, and more psychological determinants, such as cognitive and affective aspects, on the other hand. A review of the literature shows why customers sometimes switch and highlights the need to identify and understand how barriers and triggers affect them in this sense. By understanding barriers and triggers, switching processes are either facilitated or stifled and thus affect the likelihood of a customer adopting a new service innovation or not.

In the third chapter, McCracken-Flesher examines the reception and afterlife of the persona and works of the iconic Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. In addition to helping to shape the romantic novel genre, Scott was deeply enmeshed in Scottish national life and history. Through his work—both artistic and scholarly—Scott became what McCracken-Flesher calls a “transcendent authority” of Scottish history and identity at once engaged with and deliberately removed from the social and religious conflicts of his time.

The chapter examines different perspectives on resilience in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are often argued to be sensitive to shocks, but have likewise been suggested to be a source of economic resilience owing to their flexibility and their ability to change after a shock. The chapter argues that one must distinguish between the ability of SMEs to resist to external shocks and the ability of SMEs to recover from such shocks. These two abilities are labelled as the vulnerability and adaptability of SMEs. Both abilities can be managed through strategic and operational actions, but SMEs face several trade-offs, as they must balance concerns over short-term profits with the need for robustness and flexibility as well as innovation and learning. The chapter further includes an analysis of a sample of Danish SMEs in the period following the recession of 2009. The analysis demonstrates that, while SMEs may be vulnerable, many SMEs are also able to recover from a major shock to their economy. It is thus suggested that the vulnerability of SMEs to shocks should not be seen by policymakers as a sign of permanent decline. Recovery and renewed growth may follow at a later stage.