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Are Your Habits & Culture Limiting Your Economic Prosperity?
What are the factors that prevent economic prosperity? The inspiration for these questions came from an interesting Doctoral Dissertation which you can find on this link. (See the full title at the end of the article).
Dissertation Objectives
This document may or may not help you answer the first question. However, in the dissertation, the author argues that there is truth to the idea that habits and some negative cultural norms are great contributors to why some pockets of individuals and nations experience poverty or limited prosperity.
The population that is the focus of the argument is the people who engage in what the author calls “necessity entrepreneurship.” He defines it as the micro-enterprise activities that some people engage with in order to survive. Many of these people are found in communities that he argues, are plagued with what he describes in-depth as a “culture of poverty,” and can be found all over the world, particularly in underdeveloped countries.
The author sets out to demonstrate that these challenges can be overcome with an acceptance of the premise that aspects of the culture are part of the problem; and with a curriculum that incorporates and addresses, among other things, the cultural issues that get in the way of progress.
The dissertation presents one such curriculum.
According to the author, this curriculum he referenced in his argument was implemented in focused communities in The Philippines with positive results. He suggests that it could be utilized with similar populations in Mexico.
The Curriculum
The curriculum belongs to The Academy for Creating Enterprise (ACE).
It includes five handbooks. The handbooks explain:
(1) business principles,
(2) lessons that elaborate on each the business principles,
(3 & 4) case studies, and
(5) lessons directly addressing some of the limiting cultural norms.
The business principles were each illustrated in simple terms in a short, animated video format. These are accessible via YouTube under ACE 25 Rules of Thumb. They are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Khmer.
The handbook titles can be located in Chapter V of the dissertation, and a google search for one of them returned an active product listing.
Chapter V of the dissertation is titled: The Academy for Creating Enterprise: A Cultural Solution to Poverty.
ACE appears to be an international faith-based organization based in Utah. Steve and Bette Gibson started the organization in The Philippines in 1999. The organization’s website indicates that they operate in 12 countries.
Dissertation Title
CULTURE, POVERTY, AND NECESSITY ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE ACADEMY FOR CREATING ENTERPRISE MEXICO AND THE PHILIPPINES A Dissertation by JEREMI BRAD BREWER Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2012 Major Subject: Hispanic Studies
I hope that you can take the time to view the video resource and share if you think of someone who may be able to benefit from it. This could be helpful to public health practitioners. It could also be a good resource for ESL instructors and other educators in the public and non-profit sector.
The image for this page is an element obtained from the linked video resource.
Explore this site and reach out if you have any comments or questions.