A conceptual model of public sector corporate entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship has been conceptualized as a process that can occur in organizations of all sizes and types (Burgelman, Academy of Management Review, 8, 32–47, 1983; Miller, Management Science, 29, 770–791, 1983; Gartner, Academy of Management Review, 10, 696–706, 1985; Kao, Entrepreneurship, creativity and organization, 1989). This paper develops a conceptual model of public sector corporate entrepreneurship. The proposed model is intended to depict the main antecedents that relate to corporate entrepreneurship within the public sector and the impact of corporate entrepreneurship on public sector organizational performance (growth, development and productivity), as well as factors influencing its continuous performance. Following discussion of the model’s contents, the potential value for researchers and those engaging in public sector corporate entrepreneurship are described.     

Small & medium-sized enterprises and Corporate Social Responsibility: a systematic review of the literature

Most business management research to date has either failed to look at firm size as a factor or focused its attention on large companies. The fact is, however, that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are unique, making general assumptions applicable to other types of firms of little use. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is no exception. Recent decades have seen a plethora of studies which debate definitions, consider content and scope, and study causal relationships with antecedents and implications of applying CSR. Yet only a small percentage of the literature has delved into SME realities. Through a systematic review of the literature, the present study aims to analyze the state of the question and identify the theoretical framework of reference, and CSR antecedents and consequences in SME contexts in order to provide a jumping off point for future empirical studies. Hence, after consulting a cross-section of internationally renowned experts and the SSCI/JCR Index, we have reviewed articles in the foremost management journals (Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Management, Strategic Management Journal), SME management journals (Journal of Small Business Management, International Small Business Journal, Small Business Economics) and CSR-related journals (Business Ethics Quarterly, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics: an European Review and Business & Society). Our findings shed light on key themes including idiosyncrasies of CSR management, aspects such as terminology and language, the recommended theoretical framework, and antecedents, barriers and potential impact of CSR in the SME context.     

Building entrepreneurial inter-firm networks in an emerging economy: the role of cognitive legitimacy

We take an organizational legitimacy perspective and use data from a large-scale nationally representative study on the state of small business in Saudi Arabia, in order to explore the antecedents to the formation of entrepreneurial ventures’ inter-firm networks in the context of an emerging economy (n?=?331). We argue that entrepreneurial ventures need to overcome a threshold of cognitive legitimacy in order to develop inter-firm ties with a diverse set of large, established firms. Results indicate that having a written business plan and a formal organizational structure are positively associated with the diversity of the new venture’s inter-firm network, while the education level of the entrepreneur does not have a significant effect. In addition, the effect of having a formal organizational structure is stronger for younger ventures. Implications are discussed.     

Winning the tournament for named professorships in management

We apply tournament theory to explain the process within which selection of named professorships takes place and a procedural justice test to justify winning the named professorship tournament. Specifically, we estimate the probability that management professors hold one of the highest rewards for academic research productivity, a named professorship, as a function of his or her research credentials, as measured by the number of articles published in a small core of elite management journals. Alphabetically, these are Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Operations Management, Management Science, Operations Research, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. Although each of the eight journals is positively related to the probability of attaining a named professorship, the Academy of Management Review and the Academy of Management Journal emerge as the two most influential management journals.     

The role of family firm specific resources in innovation: an integrative literature review and framework

Management Review Quarterly - Family firms are the prevalent form of entrepreneurial organizations worldwide. While even long-lasting and successful family firms are said to invest less in...     

Entrepreneurial alertness and business model innovation: the role of entrepreneurial learning and risk perception

Although business model innovation has received increasing attention in recent years, there are gaps in existing literature concerning why innovation occurs. Drawing on the intentions model and knowledge-based view, this study explores the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and business model innovation, proposing a moderated mediation framework to handle the questions of why some entrepreneurs achieve business model innovation successfully while others do not. Based on a dataset of 150 firms in northwest China, this study finds that (1) entrepreneurial alertness facilitates business model innovation; (2) explorative learning and exploitative learning mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and business model innovation; and (3) risk perception moderates the mediating effects of different types of learning and then affects the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and business model innovation. Specifically, with the increase of risk perception, the mediating role through explorative learning is weakened, while the mediating effect through exploitative learning is enhanced.

     

Relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and social performance in Spanish sports clubs. The effect of the type of funding and the level of competition

The entrepreneurial orientation and social role of sports clubs have recently become topics of great interest to academics and professionals. The aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in sports clubs and their social performance (SP) and the effect that management variables such as the type of funding (public vs private) and the competition level (national vs regional) may have on this relationship. To compare the results, two complementary methodologies have been used to compare the results: linear models with moderation analysis and models based on qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The study was carried out with a sample of 407 Spanish sports clubs. The instrument used to measure EO was an adaptation of the original Covin and Slevin (1989) approach, while the instrument used to measure SP is a validated scale of our own elaboration presenting good psychometric properties. The results found show a direct effect of the EO dimensions on the SP. In all cases, clubs with major public funding showed higher levels of prediction in SP. On the other hand, as far as QCA is concerned, no necessary condition was found, while the most important condition sufficient to obtain high levels of SP would be high levels of innovation, a high level of risk-taking, and low levels of proactivity in national sports clubs. In general, models based on qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) provide higher predictive values than linear regression models and include variables not considered in linear models.

     

The influence of the media on the history of business success

All the main indicators related to entrepreneurship have increased since 2011 (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2018, 2019). The positive perception of this phenomenon was boosted by the socio-economic situation and by a specific agent of the entrepreneurial ecosystem: the economic specialized media. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the economic media has given their readers an excessively positive discourse, linked to success and to the lack of analysis of the entrepreneurial phenomenon. The sample is defined in terms of a linguistic corpus comprising content related to entrepreneurship drawn from the digital editions of the three most important Spanish economic newspapers for the period 2010 to 2018. A systematic standardize assignment of categories to the contents and an analysis of the relationships between those categories has been carried out (Riffe et al. 2019). These categories are ‘number of contents’, ‘information treatment’, ‘percentage of success stories’, ‘percentage of content analysis’ and ‘sources’. The results reveal a clear intention of the media to offer an overly optimistic perception of the entrepreneurial phenomenon considering the survival rate of the projects mentioned. There is evidence for a selection of information linked to success, a lack of follow-up of the stories and a poor preparation by the media, which lacks specialized journalists and, above all, replicates agency contents. This study provides empirical evidence that helps to identify the optimistic perception imposed by the media for the entrepreneurial phenomenon. This perception, together with other relevant facts, contribute to the creation of an ‘information bubble’ (Cervantes-Zacarés 2019) during the period under study.

     

Entrepreneurial Hustle: Navigating Uncertainty and Enrolling Venture Stakeholders through Urgent and Unorthodox Action

Entrepreneurs need to act under conditions of uncertainty and resource constraints to bring new, often-unrecognizable products to market and convince an unknown set of stakeholders to support their endeavours. The type of action entrepreneurs take to navigate uncertain entrepreneurial contexts is underspecified. We analysed 48 interviews with entrepreneurs to inductively identify an action-oriented construct we labelled as entrepreneurial hustle – an entrepreneur’s urgent, unorthodox actions that are intended to be useful in addressing immediate challenges and opportunities under conditions of uncertainty. In a follow-up study, we use an experimental vignette approach to assess the impact of an entrepreneur’s hustle on venture stakeholders. Findings suggest that entrepreneurial hustle positively influences stakeholder perceptions of the entrepreneur’s leadership effectiveness and a venture’s legitimacy, mediated by perceptions of the entrepreneur’s ability-based trustworthiness. We conclude that entrepreneurial hustle is a fundamental behaviour that enables entrepreneurs to enrol new venture stakeholders and lead their entrepreneurial efforts.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Review in this Article Morgan , Gareth (Ed.) Beyond Method: Strategies For Social Research. Earl , Michael J. (Ed.) Perspectives On Management - A Multidisciplinary Analysis. Karabadse , Andrew The Politics of Management. Poole , M., Brown , W., Rubery , J., Sisson , K., Tarling , R. and Wilkinson , F. Industrial Relations In the Future: Trends and Possibilities In Britain Over the Next Decade. Bradley , Keith and Gelb , Alan Worker Capitalism: the New Industrial Relations. Durcan , J. W., Mccarthy , W. E. J. and Redman , G. P. Strikes In Post-War Britain: A Study of Stoppages of Work Due to Industrial Disputes, 1946-73.     

A note on the relationship between the total factor productivity and the network of firms

In this paper we study the robustness of the results found recently by Guzzini and Palestrini (J Econ Interact Coord 11:35–55, 2016). Since the original analysis was carried out in a static setting, we perform a dynamic panel analysis by using the same dataset. The inclusion of the lagged value of the endogenous variable, missing in the original paper, could be justified for several reasons. Firstly, the statistical relationship may have itself a dynamical nature; secondly the inclusion of lagged-endogenous variable is a way to mitigate the possibility of an omitted variable problem. We find that the results are only qualitatively the same, and we discuss the quantitative differences.

     

Research in business service purchasing: current status and directions for the future

Management Review Quarterly - This paper provides a systematic literature review and a future research agenda on the topic of purchasing of business services (BuSe). BuSe purchasing has...     

The legitimacy of corporate entrepreneurship: a structured literature review

Management Review Quarterly - Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is essential for today’s firms and currently a topic of considerable interest within the business community. Although the...     

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL EMPLOYEE

The business world goes around not just because of entrepreneurs, small and large, but because of entrepreneurial employees, as well. We discuss this insight and provide some illustrations.     

Organizational agility: ill-defined and somewhat confusing? A systematic literature review and conceptualization

Management Review Quarterly - Superior business performance is a central objective of any firm in an unpredictable environment. Organizational agility (OA) constitutes one option for prospering in...     

Identifying business opportunities for sustainable development: Longitudinal and experimental evidence contributing to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship

Which factors facilitate the identification of business opportunities for sustainable development? To answer this question, we develop a process model of sustainable opportunity identification. We argue that sustainable opportunity identification is a process with transitions from problem to solution identification and from solution to sustainable opportunity identification. Moreover, the transitions are facilitated by two factors—awareness of adverse consequences and entrepreneurial attitude—providing motivation and direction in the process. We tested our model in a field study (N = 107) and two experiments (N = 53 and N = 69). Our findings show that awareness of adverse consequences and entrepreneurial attitude influence the process of sustainable opportunity identification, explaining under which conditions people are more likely to identify business opportunities for sustainable development. Our study thus contributes to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Human Resource Management. Perspectives for the New Era, Colin Fisher Social and Economic Transformation in East Central Europe: Institutions, Property Relations and Social Interests, Roderick Martin Trade Unions at the Crossroads, Guy Vernon Employment Relations and National Culture: Continuity and Change in the Age of Globalisation, Boyd Black     

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.     

Contests and unethical behavior in organizations: a review and synthesis of the empirical literature

Management Review Quarterly - Contests are widely used in business contexts because they are believed to increase the effort and performance levels of employees. One negative aspect of contests is...     

Reviewing systematic literature reviews: ten key questions and criteria for reviewers

Management Review Quarterly - Systematic literature review articles are important for synthesizing knowledge in management and business research. However, to date, we lack clear guidelines how to...