Are entrepreneurial foreign activities of Peruvian SMNEs influenced by international certifications, corporate social responsibility and green management?

Given the crucial role of entrepreneurial foreign activity as a source of corporate profits and competitive advantage, it is of interest to investigate which factors may help promote it. This paper evaluates whether entrepreneurial foreign activities of small and medium-sized multinational enterprises (SMNEs) of Latin American developing countries are affected by international certifications, corporate social responsibility and green management. To that aim, we use a sample of 100 Peruvian exporting firms from several sectors and a methodology consisting of partial least squares structural equation modeling. Results reveal that, while acquiring and holding international certifications as well as the investments carried out in actions related to corporate social responsibility do not have positive effects on the performance of entrepreneurial foreign activities of Peruvian SMNEs, green management exerts a positive influence. Therefore, environmental management is revealed as an effective tool to help firms from developing countries compete successfully in the markets and, in turn, improve the economic situation in those regions.     

Explorers of the twenty-first century? A systematic literature review of the scholarship on international entrepreneurs from developed economies

Throughout history, expeditionists and explorers have discovered foreign countries and new worlds, markedly influencing the lives of succeeding generations. However, as multinational enterprises have come to drive globalisation, the existence of entrepreneurial individuals without the resources of large corporations is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although research on migrant entrepreneurs demonstrates the positive impact that foreign entrepreneurial activity can have on job creation and innovation, a clear perspective on entrepreneurs from developed economies venturing abroad is lacking. The study aggregates evidence from 33 articles to establish a unifying framework that describes the foreign entrepreneurial process originating in developed economies. The framework proposes categorising foreign entrepreneurial activity according to social and economic dimensions and introduces four archetypes of foreign entrepreneurs, helping us understand the dynamics of the institutional context and the motivations for venturing into foreign environments. Finally, the study discusses the implications for foreign entrepreneurs and considers future research avenues.

     

Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in family SMEs: the moderating effects of family,women, and strategic involvement in the board of directors

Entrepreneurial success in family SMEs is largely determined by the knowledge, skills, and new ideas contributed by board directors, the most important actors in the formulation of corporate strategy and decision making. The composition of family SME boards has traditionally been homogeneous, as such boards usually comprise male family members. Boards’ contributions, however, depend on their level of diversity and strategic involvement. This study analyzes the moderating effects of two main sources of board diversity in family firms, family involvement level and gender diversity, as potential means of enhancing family firms’ success when exploiting entrepreneurial initiatives. This study also explores whether these two potential moderators depend on the strategic involvement of the board directors. Based on a sample of 230 Spanish family firms, we found that the link between entrepreneurial orientation and performance is stronger in firms with lower levels of family involvement and higher levels of gender diversity in the board. Moreover, the board’s high strategic involvement may strengthen the positive impact of gender diversity and change the moderating influence of family involvement from negative to positive.     

In what sense ‘regional development?’: entrepreneurship,underdevelopment and strong tradition in the periphery

This paper explores whether entrepreneurship can help less successful regions to improve their regional economic situation, without all the benefits that entrepreneurship brings when being ‘stripped out’ to more successful regions. The paper uses the idea that peripheral regions possess qualities of tradition and underdevelopment, and that these help to anchor new firms into these regions, resistant to their concentration in core regions. The paper explores whether particular entrepreneurial events can be regarded as ‘densifying’ the regional entrepreneurial environment, thereby making a positive contribution to its economic development. The paper explores the role of these negative anchors to the entrepreneurial events and the densification process by following a sequence of high-technology spin-out firms in the North East of England. Using a realist methodology attempting to interview all the firms within the sequence which could be found, the paper discovers that quite positive advantages exist within these negative qualities.The paper then considers whether these processes, such as plant closure, might drive entrepreneurship in all regions.     

Linking entrepreneurial and market orientation to the SME’s performance growth: the moderating role of entrepreneurial experience and networks

Entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation (EO and MO, respectively) have received extensive research attention in the past several decades. Although scholars widely agree that both MO and EO are critical to firms’ performances, a better understanding is still needed about how market and entrepreneurial orientation develop over time as well as their relative impact on the growth of the SME’s performance. This study does not consider MO and EO as generic resources that always positively influence firms’ performances; instead, it tries to explore contingent elements, such as social and business networks and accumulated entrepreneurial experience. The hypotheses were tested on 191 small and medium-sized electronic firms located in an Italian geographical cluster during two periods: 2005 and 2016. This study suggests that SMEs, which develop social networks, may enjoy considerable advantages from entrepreneurial and market orientation, improving their performance benefits. Moreover, our results show that previous entrepreneurial experience, when specific, can reinforce the impact of entrepreneurial and market orientation on firms’ performance growth. This analysis makes several important contributions to the management literature on the strategic orientation of firms, the entrepreneurial experience and network development.

     

On the R&D/marketing interface in knowledge intensive entrepreneurial firms

In this paper we focus on the performance impact associated with whether R&D or marketing takes the lead in product innovations and/or product development. We examine empirically the performance of a sample of entrepreneurial firms across 10 European Union countries for which we can identify alternative regimes in which R&D, or in which marketing, is viewed as being relatively more important in creating and sustaining the firm’s competitive advantage. We find that when R&D is the dominant strategy, firms realize greater growth in sales, other factors held constant.     

Supply chain fragmentation,input–output tables and spillovers from foreign direct investment

The literature on the impact of multinationals on domestic firms' productivity points to supply chain linkages with multinational firms as the main channel for positive spillover effects. Local and multinational firms' relative positions in the supply chain are typically determined through the use of input–output tables. For a panel of Romanian firms, we show that the level of industry aggregation in these tables and the applied spillover definitions bear an important impact on estimated spillover effects. We find that the total impact of foreign presence – irrespective of the channel – is considerably larger when detailed IO-tables are used. When more aggregated tables are used, one is likely to misclassify a considerable number of supplier–client activity as within-industry competitive activity. Including within-industry supply and use in the measures of supplier–client activity results in a further increase of the spillover effect on local suppliers, whereas the within-industry spillover effect disappears.     

Outbound open innovation in bio-pharmaceutical out-licensing

Our study investigates the outbound open innovation of firms engaged in technological venturing. Leveraging insights from the sociology theory and innovation literatures, we clarify whether social status helps entrepreneurial ventures overcome market imperfection and information asymmetry in out-licensing and illustrate the importance of specific aspects of social status building in this context. We also examine the effect of failure experiences on out-licensing. We take a dynamic view of desorptive capacity by studying an entrepreneurial venture’s learning process, both internally, in terms of its own technology trajectory, and externally, through inter-organizational alliances. We apply a negative binomial model to our novel panel of 180 firms studied over an 18-year period with controls for stocks of clinical development activities, patenting and prior licensing activities. Empirical analysis enables us to observe the impact which the firms’ technological and development status, reputation and desorptive capacity exert upon out-licensing volume. Prior outbound open innovation studies do not account for the heterogeneity of technology and R&D success and failure experiences observed in our study. We also demonstrate the contingency effect of external learning from alliances during the building-up of a firm’s desorptive capacity, or the way in which the number of co-authoring partners in scientific publications negatively moderates the positive effect of the number of commercial alliances on the volume of its out-licensing deals. Our findings contribute to the understanding of external knowledge exploitation and complement important aspects of the literatures on outbound open innovation and desorptive capacity, offering empirically rich insights for bio-pharmaceutical firms into the drivers behind volumes of out-licensing deals.     

THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE ON THE UTILITY OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL TOP MANAGEMENT STYLE

This study examined the influence of organization structure on the relationship between top management's entrepreneurial orientation and financial performance. Moderated regression analysis was used to analyse data collected from 80 business organizations. the findings suggest that an entrepreneurial top management style has a positive effect on the performance of organically-structured firms and a negative effect on the performance of mechanistically-structured firms.     

The interplay of corporate entrepreneurship,environmental orientation,and performance in clean‐tech firms—A double‐edged sword

Clean‐tech innovations are an important driver in solving global issues such as climate change and for the sustainable development of economies around the world. Whereas a large part of the literature focuses on clean‐tech ventures, less is known on corporate entrepreneurship, that is, entrepreneurial behavior in established firms and its relation to sustainability. This paper extends the sustainable entrepreneurship debate to corporate entrepreneurship, which represents a fruitful avenue to further developing clean technologies. We focus particularly on clean‐tech firms' organizational preparedness for corporate entrepreneurship (OPCE), that is, how well a firm's structures and processes are set for entrepreneurial activities. On the basis of contingency theory, this study investigates how the level of OPCE influences the environmental and financial performance of clean‐tech firms and whether their environmental orientation affects these relationships. Building on data from 103 firms, we find support for a positive effect of OPCE on both environmental and financial performance. Both effects are stronger the higher the external environmental orientation. In contrast, the leverage of internal environmental orientation is not equally positive. Our study reveals that the effect of OPCE on financial performance diminishes for firms that are more strongly driven by an internal than an external environmental orientation.     

The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and speed to the market: The case of incubator firms in Norway

Incubators and incubator firms work to promote the development and commercialization of technology and products. This study shows that entrepreneurial orientation can help achieve this aim. Using survey data from incubator firms, we show that entrepreneurial orientation has a statistically significant positive effect on ability to bring technology and products quickly to the market. This finding is important for managers of incubator firms and managers of incubators alike as they have a common interest in speed to the market. An implication of our study is that managers of incubators should try to enhance the entrepreneurial orientation of the incubator firms.     

Employees' entrepreneurial contributions to firms in Russia, 1995–2004

This article examines how employee self‐reported entrepreneurial contributions evolved in firms operating in Russia in 1995–2004 and whether changes can be explained by Akerlof's theory of implicit gift exchange in labour contracts. We find that these contributions were indeed influenced by wage premia and shifting work norms, declining by about a half during the period and with a particularly marked fall in contributions by manual workers. The trend was found among foreign‐owned, private Russian‐owned and state‐owned companies. Akerlof's model therefore helps explain Russian workers' changing behaviour.     

Outsourcing,delocalization and firm organization: Transaction costs versus industrial relations in a local production system of Emilia Romagna

This article investigates the firms’ decisions to outsource, taking into account the impact of their embeddedness in a specific regional context on the relative entrepreneurial decision. It focuses on the role of industrial relations, as a factor that could interfere with the entrepreneurs’ decision of resorting to market relationships in discovering and exploiting new business opportunities. We study a local production system in Emilia Romagna (Northern Italy), i.e. the province of Reggio Emilia (RE), whose firms are characterized by a district kind of environment and where entrepreneurship develops in the presence of ‘thick’ industrial relations. The empirical part of the study shows that the role of transaction costs in explaining the outsourcing is blurred, while industrial relations have a stronger explanatory power. Furthermore, it seems that RE firms generally use outsourcing and international delocalization in complementary ways; however, the correlation depends on the activity and the nature of the delocalization channel. Outsourcing strategies appear to be affected by the pattern of socio-economic development in the region where the firms are located. In particular, the entrepreneurial decision to externalize a part of the production process seems to be related to the specific participatory, formal and informal mechanisms involved in regional development.     

Entrepreneurial human capital,equity concentration and firm performance: Evidence from companies listed on China's Growth Enterprise Market

In this work, a sample of firms listed on China's Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) is employed to investigate the impact of human capital and equity concentration on firm performance. It shows that entrepreneurs' education level, industry experience and technical professional background have a positive impact on firm performance. Moreover, the higher the equity concentration, the better a firm's performance. Entrepreneurs with rich industry experience and a technical professional background tend to collect and condense equity, thereby increasing equity concentration. These findings reveal the relationship between entrepreneurial human capital and ownership concentration and enrich research on firm performance.     

Does the opening of high-speed rail enhance urban entrepreneurial activity? Evidence from China

Entrepreneurship plays a critical role in contributing to the realization of full employment in all countries around the world. By improving the efficiency of the flow of production factors, high-speed rail (HSR) has an important impact on regional economic development. However, little is known about whether HSR has improved urban entrepreneurial activity. This paper takes the opening of HSR as a quasi-natural experiment and constructs a difference-in-differences (DID) model, using panel data on 284 prefecture-level cities in China for the period from 2005 to 2019, to systematically evaluate the impact of HSR openings on urban entrepreneurial activity. We find that the opening of HSR has increased the urban entrepreneurial activity, and that this effect is more obvious in cities at high administrative levels, with locational advantages, and highly developed economies, including service industries. HSR can enhance urban entrepreneurial activity by improving the level of talent aggregation and venture capital. These findings provide fresh perspectives on the connection between HSR and urban entrepreneurial activity.     

Exploring the role of FDI in enhancing the entrepreneurial activity in Europe: a panel data analysis

This paper explores the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the entrepreneurial activity in 16 European countries. By using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data, which enables the distinction necessity-driven vs. opportunity-driven entrepreneurs, we assess the influence of both inward and outward FDI on the entrepreneurial activity during the time span 2005–2012. We resort to a static, as well as to a dynamic panel data analysis. Our findings highlight the fact that the FDI has no clear influence on the total entrepreneurial activity, or on the established business ownership rate. Nevertheless, our results clearly state that both inward and outward FDI positively influences the necessity-driven entrepreneurs, while having a negative impact on the opportunity-driven entrepreneurs. The results prove to be robust regarding the use of a fixed and random effects panel model, two stages least square (2SLS) model, as well as the use of a system-Generalized Method of Moments (system-GMM) approach.     

The impact of US GAAP reconciliation requirements on choice of foreign stock exchange for firms from common law and code law countries

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the impact of the SEC's Form 20-F reconciliation requirements on non-US firms' choices of foreign stock exchanges was different for firms from common law and code law countries, that is, for firms with different accounting, legal and financial systems. We examined attributes of 253 cross-listed firms from the UK, Australia, France, Germany and Japan in the 1999 financial year. We found the ability to raise further capital in the home market was relevant for firms from both groups. In addition, firms from code law countries listing on the NYSE or NASDAQ were more likely to have greater foreign revenue and lower leverage. We expected differences in accounting requirements to be a greater barrier to listing on the NYSE or NASDAQ for code law firms. However, we found firms from code law countries were more likely to select a Form 20-F exchange than firms from common law countries, providing support for suggestions that a NYSE/NASDAQ cross-listing has a bonding role for code law firms.     

Explaining nation-wide differences in entrepreneurial activity: a legitimacy perspective

The present study applies the lens of Institutional Theory to analyze the impact of a country’s entrepreneurial legitimacy on its entrepreneurial activity as well as on entrepreneurs’ access to financing. By creating a structural equation model of entrepreneurship in innovation-driven countries, the authors show that countries with greater entrepreneurial legitimacy have more entrepreneurial activity. The model was tested over a 5-year period, from 2009 to 2013. Results suggest that innovation-driven countries with more entrepreneurial legitimacy obtain greater rates of entrepreneurial activity. Further distinguishing among legitimacy types, cognitive legitimacy is shown to exert a stronger influence than regulative or normative legitimacy. The model also confirms a positive relationship between a country’s entrepreneurial legitimacy and access to financing. This occurs principally through regulative legitimacy. This study enlarges our knowledge of the existing differences in entrepreneurial activity among countries. It contributes to the literature on the country-level determinants of entrepreneurship, such as institutional conditions or financial access.     

Privatisation,corporate control and employment growth: Evidence from a panel of large Polish firms, 1996–2002

Using data on Polish firms this paper examines the relationship between corporate control structures, sales growth and the determinants of employment change. Privatised and de novo firms are the main drivers of employment growth; in the case of de novo firms, it is foreign ownership which underpins the result. Being privatised has a positive impact on employment but this is concentrated within a range of 3–6 years after privatisation. There are no systematic differences in employment response to negative sales growth across the ownership categories. Employment in state firms is less responsive to positive sales growth. From these results we infer that the behaviour of state firms is affected by both insider rent sharing and binding budget constraints.