In a WTO battle and the press the argument is often made that eliminating US cotton subsidies would have a large effect on the incomes and competitive position of farmers in developing countries. In Francophone West Africa cotton productivity has stagnated after rapid gains in the first two...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate website quality in rural firms in four countries, by using Gonzalez and Palacios's Web Assessment Index (WAI). There is an assertion in the literature that quality is lower amongst rural firms than urban firms, and lower amongst small firms...

Analyzing cross sectional return migration data for a specific depressed rural area is one method of evaluating the efficiency of the migration process. The employment experience of those who did not remain in the industrial area may give information about the least successful migrants. The...

Purpose: This article explores the small unit of family business – being in business with one's spouse – in Scotland and New Zealand. With reference to social network theory, the research explores if the strong married relationship enhances business or inhibits it due to a hypothesised...

Documents a study of the usefulness and quality of websites of small firms in urban and rural areas in Scotland using an adapted Web Assessment Index, originally developed by Gonzalez and Palacios. Contrary to the theoretical gap between practice quality in urban and rural small firms, website...

Purpose This chapter reports a study that investigates the link between rural small firms’ social networks and their market diversification strategies in the context of the Internet. Methodology/approach Telephone interviews were conducted with a random sample of 142 Scottish small rural and...