Purpose: The study aims to explore motivators and barriers in business venture creation among potential Latina entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approach: Focus group interviews collected data using Latinas between the ages of 20-30 who expressed interest in starting their own businesses in the near future. Interview participants were primarily first-generation college students.Findings: Findings revealed major themes based around four dimensions of cultural heritage, motivators, barriers and preferred resources. Cultural heritage and gender are both enablers and obstacles for Latinas. Frequently mentioned motivators were parental business ownership, autonomy, flexible income and self-fulfillment. The barriers include fear, lack of financial management knowledge, business location selection and discrimination. The preferred resources were informal education, a checklist, a toolkit, free online resources and networking with business owners and mentors.Research limitations/implications: The findings of this study highlight pull factors (i.e. family business background and self-fulfillment) increasing entrepreneurial motivations among Latinas. The present study illustrates the nuanced but substantive interactions of gender and ethnicity in Latinas’ perceptions and attitudes toward new business formation.Originality/value: The present study contributes to the literature by exploring the motivators and barriers that affect business formation among emerging Latina entrepreneurs. Moreover, past research has not explored both motivators and barriers perceived by nascent Latina entrepreneurs. Findings from this study will assist future researchers in developing materials and programs to aid female and ethnic entrepreneurship.

This article is an empirical examination of human-environment interactions associated with deforestation. The focus is on areas adjacent to the Buffalo National River and Ozark–St. Francis National Forest. Satellite imagery and census data over a 10-year timeframe are analyzed using multivariate methods to provide insight into underlying processes impacting land cover change. Examination of the parameters in areas near public land boundaries in conjunction with distance-to-the-boundary measures indicate changes immediately adjacent to the public lands differ from those at a distance. Public lands with differing mandates (resource conservation for current and future utilization in the case of U.S. Forest Service lands and preservation of existing “wilderness” condition in the case of the Buffalo National River) function separately within the wider landscape context. Land cover change due to deforestation is driven by transportation infrastructure, slope, distance to large urban centers, and location relative to public lands.

This article describes the materials and training program that Extension created to assist current and potential Latino immigrant entrepreneurs in starting businesses in Arkansas. The content-based educational materials describe the process for starting a new business, government regulatory requirements, start-up costs and considerations, and how to organize important documents. All items were designed with the ultimate goal of providing business owners with worksheets and an organizational system that can be used to write a business plan.

This article examines interactions between land cover changes and human activity near public land boundaries. The article empirically examines multiple dimensions that may drive land cover changes, using a framework including ecological switches and biogeographical islands. Publicly owned lands become “islands” in the broader landscape within which they are embedded. As such, they may be of insufficient size or too isolated to allow the targeted ecosystems to continue to function as designed. Compounding the problems of isolation, size, and fragmentation, publicly owned parks or forests may function as human-mediated ecological switches, inducing specific land cover changes. Utilizing satellite data and a suite of sociodemographic data over a 10-year span, this research examines land cover changes surrounding public lands at regional and locally specific granularities. Results suggest policymakers and natural resource planners may be able to anticipate and incorporate local variations into future planning and policy cycles.

This article describes the materials and training program that Extension created to assist current and potential Latino immigrant entrepreneurs in starting businesses in Arkansas. The content-based educational materials describe the process for starting a new business, government regulatory requirements, start-up costs and considerations, and how to organize important documents. All items were designed with the ultimate goal of providing business owners with worksheets and an organizational system that can be used to write a business plan.