The nations of Asia now make up more than half of the world's population. With increasingly affluent, educated middle classes and vigorous, innovative industries, they are more populous and powerful than ever before, and their influence on the rest of the world is only growing. Colin Mason provides a clear, readable introduction to their histories and traditions, from the Stone Age right up to the present day.

Entrepreneurship in Cities focuses on the neglected role of the home and the residential neighbourhood context for entrepreneurship and businesses within cities. The overall objective of the book is to develop a new interdisciplinary perspective that links entrepreneurship research with neighbourhood and urban studies. A key contribution is to show that entrepreneurship in cities is more than agglomeration economies and high-tech clusters. This is the first book to connect entrepreneurship with neighbourhoods and homes, recognising that business activity in the city is not confined to central...

This book synthesizes 30 years of research on business angels by charting the significant role they play in the financing of entrepreneurial businesses in both developed and emerging economies. The expert group of contributors examine business angels themselves, the evolution of the market and the role of public policy in influencing angel investment. Finally, the editors provide an agenda for future research on business angels.

Has the future a future? Are we bringing history to an end? Observing any one of several individual but critical trends suggests that, without rapid and positive action, history may have only a very short way to run. Whether it is the growth of world population, of greenhouse gas concentrations and the accelerating rate of climate change, the running down of oil and natural gas reserves, growing shortages of fresh water for agriculture, industry and domestic use, or the increasing difficulty in controlling epidemic diseases � we are facing a mounting global crisis that will peak in less...

Business angels are recognized as playing a key role in financing the start-up and early stages of new ventures. However, our knowledge of how business angels operate remains limited and highly fragmented. This Handbook provides a synthesis of research on business angels. It adopts an international perspective to reflect the spread of angel investing around the world. The increasing number of government initiatives to promote angel investing is also reflected in the book with an assessment of the most common support schemes. Adopting an international focus, the expert group of contributors...

The digitalization revolution has significantly altered conditions for financing new and small firms. Crowdfunding is at the forefront of this movement. While research in this area has increased significantly, it is heavily fragmented. Reflecting on this, the Handbook of Research on Crowdfunding reviews and synthesizes current knowledge on crowdfunding finance and provides an agenda for further research. This Handbook covers the role of crowdfunding and the platforms used, as well as discussing the characteristics of crowdfunders themselves and the businesses that seek finance from the...