Developmental management: Theories,methods, and applications in entrepreneurship,innovation, and sensemaking

This paper summarizes the best papers of the Global Innovation and Knowledge Academy (GIKA) conference, which took place in July 2013 in Valencia, Spain. The Journal of Business Research has published a special issue entitled “Developmental management: Theories, methods, and applications in entrepreneurship, innovation, and sensemaking”. All of them went through many rounds of double-blind reviews and revisions. Theories, methods, and applications are the three pillars to solve the issues in entrepreneurship, innovation, and sensemaking. Entrepreneurship contributes to the quality and future hopes of a sector, economy or even a country. The role of the entrepreneurs is crucial in creating value. Innovation has become important as the global economy seeks to escape from a period of major recession. In organizations, sensemaking consists of cognitive strategies for interpreting reality. It is interesting to examine how these three issues interacting with each other. And these papers contribute to various perspectives of these interactions in different countries.     

Purchased,modified, created: consumer voices in experience gifts

Gift-giving behaviour is an established topic in consumer research, but little is known about the phenomenon of experiences as gifts. Experience companies are only part of the market; hospitality, tourism, leisure and entertainment providers also have the potential to offer such gifts. Using real-life consumer accounts, this research explores the behaviour associated with purchased, modified and created experience gifts. The findings show that consumers act as adaptors and competitors as well as purchasers, make specific use of information technology and use ‘donor resources’ to convey meaning in ways unappreciated by industry in this wider portrayal of the experience gift sector.     

Franchisor Insolvency in Australia: Profiles,Factors, and Impacts

Franchisor failure is enduring and important in terms of cost, nationally and internationally. This article presents research into Australian franchisor firms that went into a form of bankruptcy protection known in Australia as “voluntary administration.” The research was driven by the commonality and divergence of the interests of franchisors and franchisees. The article provides an insight into franchisor failure and its effect on franchisees. It presents the substantial literature survey that was used to frame questions for franchisor administrators to understand issues associated with franchisors in administration. The limited data demonstrate diversity in the treatment of franchisees during the franchisor's administration. In Australia, franchisees remain a captive, financially committed counterparty during insolvency and potentially deliver a great financial benefit to the franchisor's creditors. The article concludes that administration of franchisors does not take into account the distinct relationship between franchisors and their franchisees and provides policy recommendations to address this matter.     

Franchising in the Balkans: History,status, and challenges

Abstract

Since the Balkans have not been covered with regards to franchising in any comprehensive fashion in the past, this study represents a first look at the topic in this part of the world and contributes to the literature on franchising in emerging economies. This research contrasts the development of franchising in the ten Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. A comprehensive overview of the franchise industry and its history is created for each country, integrating economic and franchise infrastructure development. The study reveals severe deficiencies in the region with regards to the availability of official data and a lack of specific legislation with regards to franchising and disclosure mandates, as well as education about franchising and a reliable legal environment. Implications for researchers and policy makers conclude the study.     

John Braithwaite: Regulation,crime, freedom; Peter Cartwright: Consumer protection and the criminal law: Law,theory, and policy in the UK

Journal of Consumer Policy -     

Entrepreneurial Leadership,Patriarchy, Gender,and Identity in the Arab World: Lebanon in Focus

In this paper, we apply insights from poststructuralist feminist theory to contribute to entrepreneurial leadership. By drawing on 21 individual narratives with Lebanese women entrepreneurs, we explore how they determine their status as entrepreneurial leaders and establish their entrepreneurial identities. Although the factors of gender, sociocultural values, and agency can be counteractive, it is agency that creates space for entrepreneurship for women and provides them a means to navigate structural inequalities. The entrepreneurs in this study engage in compliance, disregard, and defiance strategies to expand the boundaries of what is socially permissible for women and to strengthen their identities. This research contributes to studies on entrepreneurial leadership and aids in the development of theory by demonstrating how Arab women construct entrepreneurial leadership, agency, and identity at the juncture of patriarchy, sociocultural values, and gender ideologies.     

Juliann Sivulka,Stronger than Dirt: A Cultural History of Advertising: Personal Hygiene in America, 1875–1940, New York: Humanity Books, 2001

Abstract

In Stronger Than Dirt, Juliann Sivulka explores how concepts of personal hygiene underwent a dramatic change in the United States between 1875 and 1940 and how, during this relatively short period, Americans changed from a group of reluctant bathers—who rarely if ever used soap for personal hygiene—to a nation in love with suds and lavishly outfitted bathrooms.     

Regulation,deregulation, self-regulation: The case of engineers in Ontario

Against a wider background of rationales for deregulation within a modern economy, and as an exercise of subjecting a theory to the hard discipline of a particular case, a detailed analysis is given of a recent proposal for a form of deregulation (the industrial exemption) for engineering in Ontario. The proposal of the Staff Study of the Professional Organizations Committee set up by the Ontario Government is analyzed in terms of its Posnerian foundations, and is critized theoretically, empirically and normatively. Attention is drawn to two wider issues: the protection by self-regulating professionals of third parties against negative externalities, and the adverse effects of the proletarianization of professionals in large organizations. J. T. Stevenson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto where he teaches Ethics and Engineering and he is co-chairman of the Occupational Ethics Group. An important publication is Standards and Support Stystems for Whistle-Blowers, Engineering Dimensions, 1982.An earlier version of this paper was presented to a conference, Economics, Philosophy and Justice, at University of Waterloo, May 1983. I am indebted to Lawrence Haworth, University of Waterloo, for helpful criticisms. A shorter version was presented to a conference sponsored by the Society for Business Ethics at de Paul University, Chicago, July 1983. I thank Conrad Brunk, Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo for further helpful comments. The paper draws primarily on two documents: (a) Micheal J. Treblicock, Carolyn J. Tuohy and Alan D. Wolfson, Professional Regulation: A Staff Study of Accountancy, Architecture, Engineering and Law, prepared for The Professional Organizations Committee, Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario, 1979. (Hereafter referred to as POC Staff); (b) H. Allen Leal, J. Alex Corry, J. Stefan Dupré, The Report of the Professional Organizations Committee, Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario, 1980. (Hereafter referred to as POC Report). The first work brings together material form sixteen staff working papers, to which I have had access through the courtesy of Professor John Swan, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. I have also made use of The Professions and Public Policy ed. by Philip Slayton and Michael J. Treblicock, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978 and, for American perspectives, Regulating the Professions, ed. by Roger D. Blair and Stephen Rubin, Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1980.     

参与、孵化、培育——“社会创新”中的企业角色

与政府、NGO组织、公众以及其他社会组织相比,企业是综合能力与社会资源比较集中的组织形式,是人类生存、发展活动中的主要参与单位,其丰富的志愿者资源、专业的技术创新与运营管理能力、持续的资金支持等等,都为以创新的方式更好地解决社会问题带来了巨大的动力。企业从“重经济效益轻社会效益”发展到“经济、社会效益并重”并进而开始“通过社会效益来实现经济效益”,参与和推动社会公共领域的创新洪流逐渐成为了他们可持续发展战略中不可或缺的一部分。但是,对于更多依然观望并踌躇难进的企业来说,如何更好地理解这些企业的致力于社会创新的初衰、如何效仿与传递这些积极的理念和模式,是有效地释放“社会创新”中企业群体能量的重要路径。     

Deciphering dyads: Concepts,methods, and controversies in relational research

Data source issues in dyadic research routinely revolve around the same persistent controversies: insiders versus outsiders, subjectivity versus objectivity, self-report versus observation, one partner versus two, first-order versus second-order data analysis. Yet much of the controversy in dyadic research would be eliminated if analysts would specify a priori whether the conceptual or theoretical rationale for the research is (a) to decipher the personal, subjective, or idiographic experience of individuals in dyads (individual properties), or (b) to decipher objective, generalizable patterns of personality and lifestyle interaction that characterize dyadic relationships (relationship properties). © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

E-mail Advertising in Syria: Assessing Beliefs,Attitudes, and Behaviors

The present study aimed at assessing Syrian consumers' beliefs regarding, attitude, and behavioral responses toward e-mail advertising and investigating the relationships among those variables. A cross-sectional survey was conducted and it yielded 273 valid responses. The proposed model was analyzed and tested using a structural equation modelling approach. Our findings showed that both informativeness and entertainment beliefs positively predicted Syrian consumers' attitudes toward e-mail advertising. Additionally, attitude was found to fully mediate the relationship between beliefs regarding and behavioral responses toward e-mail advertising.     

Gender Differences in Managerial Careers: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

This longitudinal study of mid-career managers compared the career progression of men and women during the 1990's. Unlike the subjects of many earlier studies, these men and women had similar education and experience profiles. Womens income changes were less than men's and reflected the greater financial strides and greater returns from promotions for men prior to 1995. The income gaps between men and women were explained by gender differences in career determinants, such as work hours, career interruptions, and having a nonemployed spouse. There was evidence of subtle forms of workplace discrimination against women in the past but not over the most recent four-year period. Women's family situations, however, continued to present obstacles to progression. In addition, a recent decline in women's priorities for promotion, a predictor of actual promotions, signalled an impending decrease in their rate of promotion relative to men's.     

Service innovation in the hotel industry: culture,behavior, performance

The aim of this study is to focus on the service innovation culture (SIC) in the formation of frontline employees’ (FLE) innovation performance based on two fit theories. More specifically, the research evaluates and examines the mediating role of challenge-oriented citizenship behavior (COCB) and charged behavior in the aforementioned relationship. To test the hypotheses, two-step structural equation modeling with bootstrapping estimation was conducted in AMOS, using data from 215 full-time frontline hotel employees over a one-month time period. This study establishes that the development of a SIC is positively related to the innovation performance of FLE. Likewise, the results indicate that there is a partially mediating role for the COCB and expanded charged behavior (encompassing vitality and creative self-efficacy) of FLE in the relationship between SIC and innovation performance. The findings of this study highlight the need for managers to incorporate a secure and trusting work environment so FLE will eagerly participate in the service innovation process by voicing their novel ideas. Managers can also consider the significance of the employee selection procedures and take advantage of employing university graduate for frontline service jobs.     

Ownership coordination in a channel: Incentives,returns, and negotiations

In many industries firms have to make quantity decisions before knowing the exact state of demand. In such cases, channel members have to decide which firm will own the units until demand uncertainty is resolved. The decision about who should retain ownership depends on the balance of benefit and risk to each member. Ownership, after all, is costly. Whichever member owns the units accepts the risk of loss if more units are produced than can be sold. But ownership also grants firms the flexibility to respond to demand once it becomes known by adjusting price. In this study, we analyze ownership decisions in distribution channels and how those decisions are affected by demand uncertainty. We model demand based on micro-modeling of consumer utility functions and capture demand uncertainty related to market size and price sensitivity. This study shows that as long as the degree of uncertainty about market size is intermediate, the retailer and the manufacturer both benefit when the manufacturer maintains ownership of the units. But when there is substantial uncertainty about market size, the retailer and the channel are better off if the retailer takes ownership but the manufacturer still prefers to maintain ownership. Thus, there is potential for channel conflict regarding ownership under high levels of uncertainty. We show that, using product returns, the manufacturer can achieve the same outcome under retailer ownership as under manufacturer ownership. This provides an additional new rationale for the prevalence of product returns. The first-best outcome (from the perspective of total channel profit), however, is under retailer ownership without product returns when uncertainty is high (i.e., product returns reduce the total channel profit). Negotiations between the manufacturer and the retailer can lead to the first-best outcome but only under quite restrictive constraints that include direct side payments by the retailer to the manufacturer and the retailer being pessimistic about its outside option (when an agreement cannot be reached) during the negotiation.     

Minorities in Children's Television Commercials: New,Improved, and Stereotyped

Mass media is one means by which consumers learn how to behave as consumers. Consumers’ beliefs about minorities as consumers are also influenced by mass media, and the impact is likely highest among young children. A content analysis of 813 commercials in children's television programming reveals that while Caucasians continue to be the predominant models in terms of numbers and in the types of roles they play, the numerical representation of minorities, especially Blacks, has improved. However, the study found that minorities are more likely than Caucasians to have minor roles and to be portrayed in certain product categories, settings, and relationships. Societal impacts and implications for minority consumers are discussed.