Old flames never die – the role of binding social ties for corporate entrepreneurship in family firms

This paper investigates the role of social ties and family embeddedness for corporate entrepreneurship in family firms. Family firms are mostly characterized by close and often inseparable ties between the dominant family coalition and the firm and offer specific resources within a context of both rational as well as non-rational factors that influence entrepreneurial strategies. We empirically test (n =?181) the relationship between binding social ties and innovation, strategic renewal, and corporate venturing. Our findings indicate a strong significance for networks and close and stable relationships both to inside the firm and the outside in decision making for corporate venturing and innovation. In contrast, the results for strategic renewal show no relevance of strong social ties. We link up with the debate on the role of owners as an important stakeholder group.

     

Interpartner legitimacy in regional strategic networks

Our aim is to add to the knowledge on a network level, focusing on if, and how, interpartner legitimacy affects the success or failure of network formation and development processes. Existing network theories and research tend to focus on resource exchange rather than on how actors perceive each other in terms of being legitimate or not. The purpose of the article is to analyze the interpartner legitimacy's influence on the formation and development processes of regional strategic networks (RSNs) from a network level. Two Swedish cases are discussed in terms of pragmatic, moral and cognitive interpartner legitimacy. The cases and the following discussion illuminate that interpartner legitimacy is important to incorporate into the analytical model if we wish to understand the processes of negotiations on the rules and norms which set the possibilities for survival of multi-actor interactions.     

Processes in collaborative entrepreneurship: a longitudinal case study of how multiple actors exploit a radically new opportunity

In this longitudinal case study, the authors integrate the theory on social movement with the entrepreneurship literature on opportunity discovery, evaluation, and exploitation. They construct a model on collaborative entrepreneurial processes in which multiple partners are involved in identifying, forming, and exploiting an opportunity. Three interdependent subprocesses are identified: (1) the opportunity conceptualization dialogue, (2) resource mobilization and, (3) legitimacy building, which significantly contribute to our understanding of how individuals across different organizations become engaged in collaborative entrepreneurial processes. The model of collaborative entrepreneurial processes complements traditional models of the entrepreneurial process, which place the individual entrepreneur at the center of the process and does not consider group mobilization processes in which the actors aim to be creative and innovative in collaborating with actors from other organizations or firms.     

Addressing international mobility confusion – developing definitions and differentiations for self-initiated and assigned expatriates as well as migrants

The literature on international human resource management indicates a growing array of different forms of international work experiences such as assigned and self-initiated expatriation. However, the criteria for demarcation of these different forms and the term ‘migrant’ are often unclear which leads to an unfortunate lack of comparability of research and a potential confusion for readers. Based on the sociological, psychological and economics literature, this article reviews and synthesizes the existing definitions of the three terms in the current research. A qualitative content analysis and the Rubicon model [Heckhausen, H., and Gollwitzer, P.M. (1987), ‘Thought Contents and Cognitive Functioning in Motivational Versus Volitional States of Mind’, Motivation and Emotion, 1, 101–120.] are used as a theoretical base to structure the findings. The paper creates a criteria-based definition and differentiation of terms and then develops a typology of four different types of expatriates: assigned expatriates, inter-self-initiated expatriates, intra-self-initiated expatriates and drawn expatriates. Implications for management as well as for future research are outlined.     

The prevalence and co-occurrence of psychiatric conditions among entrepreneurs and their families

Small Business Economics - Psychiatric conditions and sub-threshold psychiatric temperaments may influence entrepreneurs’ affect, cognition, energy, motivation, circadian rhythms, activity...     

Marketing Organic and Conventional Potatoes in Germany

We apply a bivariate probit model and cluster analysis to German household survey data to evaluate factors influencing consumption of conventional and organic potatoes. Results show there is a positive but insignificant correlation between the consumption of conventional and organic potatoes and consumers associate organic potatoes with healthy ingredients, trusted origin, and food safety. Furthermore, consumers' sociodemographics such as education and children in households affect their choice of potatoes. Cluster analysis results group potato consumers into the market segments “Industry trusting,” “Healthy diet oriented,” and “Price oriented.” These results suggest an adoption of different marketing strategies to promote fresh potatoes to the different market segments.     

Social comparisons of wage increases and job satisfaction

We combine status quo and social comparison considerations and investigate whether relative wage increases in the sense of differences between individual wage increases and wage increases of comparable employees are related to managers’ job satisfaction. Using a panel data set of managers in the German chemical industry, we indeed find first evidence. The relation between relative wage increases and job satisfaction is relevant for managers with lower absolute wage levels in particular.     

Structural change and foreign direct investment: globalization and regional economic integration

This paper investigates flows of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and FDI-to-GDP ratios in a sample of 62 countries over a 30 year time span. Using several endogenous structural break procedures (allowing for one and two break points), we find that: (1) the great majority of the series have structural breaks in the last 15 years, (2) post-break FDI and FDI/GDP ratios are substantially higher than the pre-break values, and (3) most breaks seem to be related to globalization, regional economic integration, economic growth, or political instability. Static and dynamic panel-data analyses accounting for and/or addressing endogeneity, simultaneity, nonstationarity, heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence show that FDI is negatively related to exchange rate volatility and GDP per capita, but positively related to some regional integration agreements, trade openness, GDP, and GDP growth. Most notably, the European Union is the only regional economic integration unit found to consistently have significant and positive effects on FDI.     

Still feeling employable with growing age? Exploring the moderating effects of developmental HR practices and country-level unemployment rates in the age – employability relationship

Abstract

A compelling issue for organizations and societies at large is to ensure external employability of the workforce across workers’ entire work-life span. Using the frameworks of age norms, stereotyping and age meta-stereotypes, we investigate whether (a) age is negatively related to perceived external employability; and (b) the age-employability link is moderated by HR developmental practices (HRDPs) and unemployment rate. We argue that being aware of stereotypes and age norms in organizations, and holding also meta-stereotypes about their group, older workers perceive themselves as less externally employable. However, the context –HRDPs that one has experienced, and the country unemployment rate – would act as buffers. Using data from a large-scale survey from over 9000 individuals in 30 institutionally diverse countries, we found that the negative relationship between age and perceived external employability was significant across all countries. In addition, at the individual level, we found that HRDPs acted as a buffer for this negative relationship, such that the effect was less pronounced for individuals who have experienced more HRDPs during their working life. At the country level, the hypothesized moderating effect of unemployment rate was not observed. Limitations, future research directions, as well as practical implications of the study are discussed.