May business mentors act as opportunity brokers and enablers among university students?

Networks are recognized as a central component of the entrepreneurial process, in particular with regard to opportunity identification and exploitation. In this study, we specifically analyze the role of mentors who are in business as opportunity brokers and enablers among university students with entrepreneurial intentions. Our investigation on 1022 students from 13 French-language universities based in Canada, France, Belgium and Algeria indicates that mentors in business, contrary to other mentors, support opportunity identification and exploitation among university students. Although student gender, entrepreneurial experience and education have a more pronounced effect, mentoring is the only element that can be controlled for through the creation of formal support programs. These results call on public authorities, and universities in particular, to implement formal mentoring programs to support students who are interested in starting their own business, and who would not otherwise have access to business mentors in their environment.     

European Universities as Complete Organizations? Understanding Identity,Hierarchy and Rationality in Public Organizations

Abstract

This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight countries was used. Specialist universities have a stronger identity, whereas the level of hierarchy and rationality is clearly associated with the intensity of modernization policies. At the same time, evidence suggests limitations for universities to become complete, as mechanisms allowing the development of some dimensions seemingly constrain the capability to develop others.     

Banking Employees’ Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility,Value-Fit Commitment,and Turnover Intentions: Ethics as Social Glue and Attachment

Evidence suggests that efforts to improve corporate ethics and social responsibility are associated with enhanced work attitudes, but the nature of these relationships is still subject to investigation. Consequently, this study determines the degree to which perceptions of corporate social responsibility are related to individuals’ value-fit commitment and turnover intentions (both employee-reported and manager-reported). Information was obtained from subjects employed in a southern regional branch of a national banking and financial services institution. Two unique self-report questionnaires were developed to collect information from managers and employees, resulting in ninety-two matched pairs of forms. Mediation analysis indicated that perceived corporate social responsibility was associated with increased value-fit commitment, and that value-fit commitment was negatively related to employee-reported and manager-reported turnover intentions. The presence of full mediation was identified in both frameworks. These findings present a number of important managerial and research implications, which are discussed in this study.     

Supervisors as good coaches: influences of coaching on employees’ in-role behaviors and proactive career behaviors

Coaching as an effective leadership initiative in organizations has gained increasing attention from scholars. This study investigates the effects of coaching on employees’ in-role behaviors (IRBs) and proactive career behaviors (PCBs), while also exploring the mediating role of psychological empowerment. Data were collected from a sample of 324 employee–supervisor pairs from 11 service companies in Taiwan. The results show that coaching was positively related to both IRBs and PCBs. Moreover, psychological empowerment fully mediated the coaching–IRB relationship and partially mediated the coaching–PCB relationship. Implications for managerial practices and future research are derived from these findings.     

Inter-organizational communication as a relational competency: Antecedents and performance outcomes in collaborative buyer–supplier relationships

Inter-organizational communication has been documented as a critical factor in promoting strategic collaboration among firms. In this paper, we seek to extend the stream of research in supply chain management by systematically investigating the antecedents and performance outcomes of inter-organizational communication. Specifically, inter-organizational communication is proposed as a relational competency that may yield strategic advantages for supply chain partners. Using structural equation modeling, we empirically test a number of hypothesized relationships based on a sample of over 200 United States firms. Our results provide strong support for the notion of inter-organizational communication as a relational competency that enhances buyers’ and suppliers’ performance. Implications for future research and practice are offered.     

Leader–member exchange as a moderator of the relationship between employee–organization exchange and affective commitment

While there is some evidence on the outcomes of employee–organization exchange relationships and leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships, less is known about their combined role as predictors of employee outcomes. Relying on a recent conceptualization of social leader–member exchange (SLMX) and economic leader–member exchange (ELMX) as two separate dimensions of LMX, the present study explored whether SLMX and ELMX moderate the associations between organizational social and economic exchange and affective commitment. The main finding was that the association between organizational economic exchange and affective commitment is attenuated by SLMX. In addition, a positive association between intrinsic motivation and affective commitment was also unveiled, suggesting that affective commitment is not only determined by the prosocial motivation emanating from social exchange relationships, but also from the intrinsic motivation inherent in the work itself.     

Co-operation and co-opetition as open innovation practices in the service sector: Which influence on innovation novelty?

This study aims to identify the influence of co-operation practices and the use of internal and external information sources on the propensity of firms to introduce new to the market innovations in the service sector. Data come from the 4th Community Innovation Survey, which covers the years 2002-2004. A logistic regression model is applied with the degree of novelty of good/service innovation as dependent variable. The analysis of the parameter estimates shows that firms provided with information from market sources and from internal sources as well as firms involved in science-based collaboration for their product innovations are more likely to introduce new to the market innovations, whereas information coming from competitors seems to have a negative influence on the degree of novelty of innovation.     

Network or Independent Business? Entrepreneurs' Human,Social and Financial Capital as Determinants of Mode of Entry

When establishing a new business, entrepreneurs can decide to join a network of independent business partners rather than choose the alternative of independent business ownership. In this study, we use a probit model on a large database to study the human, social, and financial capital of French entrepreneurs who join franchising and comparable forms of networks. Results confirm that initial levels of human and social capital are significant determinants of network membership. We also show that an increase in the proportion of the project financed by debt increases the probability of joining a network. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Organizational work–family support as universal remedy? A cross-cultural comparison of China,India and the USA

In both industrialized and emerging countries, organizations increasingly seek to support employees’ efforts to maintain a healthy work–family balance. Research has identified two types of organizational support in this context: formal work–family programs and informal work–family cultures. This study examines the relative effects of work–family programs versus work–family culture on employees’ job satisfaction and performance in various cultural environments. Drawing on the individualism–collectivism cultural dimension introduced by Hofstede, it is argued that employees’ cultural background may affect family models, which in turn determine employees’ need for formal organizational work–family support, but are not related to employees’ need for informal support. In line with this notion, the results from comparisons of an industrialized country (the USA) with two emerging countries (China and India) show that work–family culture has positive effects in all three contexts. However, formal work–family programs positively affect job satisfaction and job performance only in India and the USA, whereas they exhibit no significant effect in the more collectivist setting of China.     

`Green’ certification as a managerial technology

This paper analyses the role of the `green’ standard BS 7750 in 11 Danish firms and discusses why firms seek certification according to this standard, which is voluntary. In addition to possible greening effects, the paper identifies four other types of effects that are more orientated towards the management of the firm. It is possible for managers to draw on the goodwill associated with such a green standard to transform the firm making it more efficient, creating a better marketing platform, defusing public political interests, or creating an interorganisational network of competence-sharing. The `green’ standard is thus mobilised not only to protect the environment but also to act as a managerial technology, mobilising interests of the firm rather than just those of the environment.     

“People First—Always”: Euphemism and Rhetoric as Troublesome Influences on Organizational Sense-Making—A Downsizing Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of euphemism and rhetoric in influencing organizational members' constructions of reality and sense-making abilities. The discussion opens with a return to the role of the sociology of knowledge, before exploring the purpose and outcomes of euphemism and rhetoric. Heideggerian phenomenology was used to collect this particularly poignant story from Adrian (a pseudonym), who was made redundant from his workplace after heart bypass surgery. Weick's theoretical exposition of sense-making in organizations is used to examine Adrian's story, with the purpose of demonstrating that sense-making is highly influenced by the use of rhetoric and euphemism (K. E. Weick, 1995, Sense-making in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). When the truth finally comes out, the outcome is seen to be serious—even life threatening.     

Empirical study on the financial repression of rural households＇ debit and credit and the effects on their welfare in less developed regions --Take Suqian city of Jiangsu province as an example

This paper carries out empirical analysis of the ration behavior of rural credit cooperatives in less developed regions in providing loan services to rural households. It also inspects the interaction between rural households＇ demand for credit and the loan supply from rural credit cooperatives with simultaneous discrete model. The performance of supporting agriculture through a new round reform of rural credit cooperatives is doubtable in this sample region.     

Lean management as a countermeasure for “Normal” disruptions

The academic and practitioner literature offer numerous examples of firms that have achieved significant performance improvement as a result of implementing lean management. Lean firms consistently apply well-defined tools and the relationship between implementation of these tools and improved performance is well-established in the literature. Many lean practices, such as standardized work and visual cues, reduce variability, increase productivity, and make problems more visible which can create a culture where disruptions occur less often. Although there is evidence that lean implementation leads to reduced disruptions, a question that remains unresolved is why these lean management tools lead to fewer disruptions and whether conditions such as the level of complexity and inventory in the system predict the successful application of these lean practices. Because many of the firms that adopt lean management can be characterized as complex work systems, we draw insights from literature on complex organizations operating in environments that are inherently perilous. Two constructs that are addressed in this literature are fundamental to the concept of lean management – interactive complexity and tight coupling or organizational slack. We argue that theory that applies to complex organizations provides a lens for viewing how lean management firms avoid disruptions and conclude that the theoretical basis for lean management lies in understanding how to overcome the complexity inherent in these systems to achieve disruption-free performance.     

Franchisee Associations as Sources of Bargaining Power? Some Evidence

The empirical literature in economics and strategy on contract structure, including on franchise contract structure, has been largely based on agency and transaction cost theories. The effects of bargaining power have been much less studied. This paper considers the role of independent franchisee associations in franchising relationships as a means to test for the presence of bargaining power effects. We find that the presence or absence of a franchisee association is significantly related to each of three key contractual and relationship characteristics: contract duration, noncompete stringency, and terminations/nonrenewals. This suggests that bargaining power should be accounted for in studies of contract structure and relationship outcomes.     

Private equity, ‘union recognition’ and value extraction at the Automobile Association: The GMB as an emergency service?

This article evaluates union recognition and ‘value extraction’ in a private equity buy‐out. The article reviews private equity, investor value and ownership interests, details union recognition at the Automobile Association (AA) before and after its acquisition by private equity, and reviews the GMB's wider campaign of opposition to private equity ownership.