To Formalize or Not to Formalize: Women Entrepreneurs’ Sensemaking of Business Registration in the Context of Nepal

Journal of Business Ethics - Despite the depiction of decisions to formalize informal firms as rational and ethical, many entrepreneurs in developing countries continue to operate informally...     

Entrepreneurs: intuitive or contemplative decision-makers?

Small Business Economics - In a large survey (n =?1928), we examine whether entrepreneurs differ in their decision-making style from managers and employees. Besides two self-reported measures...     

Regional Guanxi Culture and Entrepreneurs’ Action Logic: A Multilevel Analysis

At the beginning of the reform period, though informal institutions as a substitute for formal institutions efficiently promoted the development of private enterprises, it eroded and destroyed the authority and execution efficiency of formal institutions with guanxi behaviors and implicit rules. With the progress of marketization, how to restrain and guide the evolution of informal institutions is an unavoidable obstacle for the development of private enterprises— transforming their competitive strategy from “non-market” dominance to “market” dominance. Based on survey data of 2,628 private enterprises from 31 provinces in China, we establish a regional commercial culture index to empirically investigate the different influences of guanxi behavior between entrepreneurs of different ages and regional guanxi culture. The results show that, compared with entrepreneurs who started businesses in recent years, i.e., after the 1990s, those who started businesses during the 1970s and the 1980s are more dependent on guanxi behaviors. Meanwhile, the higher the level of education, the less an entrepreneur is likely to be dependent on guanxi behaviors. However, compared with the constraint of the degree of regional marketization, regional guanxi culture promotes entrepreneurs’ guanxi behaviors. Further research indicates that the more enterprises depart from regional guanxi culture, the stronger the ability to innovation. This study can not only enrich the institutional analysis of entrepreneurs’ guanxi behaviors, but also provide a theoretical foundation for further expansion and deepening of reform.     

Entrepreneurs’ creativity and firm innovation: the moderating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy

There are several studies in entrepreneurship investigating determinants of innovation outcomes in SMEs. Although entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial creativity is often seen as a prerequisite, previous research indicates it is not an exclusive determinant of innovation. We use theoretical logics of social cognitive theory and innovation theory to develop a conceptual model of entrepreneur’s creativity, self-efficacy, and innovation outcomes. The model is then tested on a large sample of small and medium firms from two distinct economies: the United States and Slovenia. Empirical findings partially support the proposed moderation effects of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, but with the same variations between countries. The implications of these results in relation to entrepreneurship theory and practice are discussed.     

Doing Good,Feeling Good? Entrepreneurs’ Social Value Creation Beliefs and Work-Related Well-Being

Journal of Business Ethics - Entrepreneurs with social goals face various challenges; insights into how these entrepreneurs experience and appreciate their work remain a black box though. Drawing...     

Moral Pragmatism as a Bridge Between Duty,Utility, and Virtue in Managers’ Ethical Decision-Making

Journal of Business Ethics - The decline of empirical research on ethical decision-making based on ethical theories might imply a tacit consensus has been reached. However, the exclusion of virtue...     

China, Japan and ROK Entrepreneurs propose a Free-Trade Zone

Apoll done by the media of Japan,China and Korea show that Most Entrepreneurs consider it necessary to set up a free-trade zone covering China, Japan and ROK.     

Registering Ideology in the Creation of Social Entrepreneurs: Intermediary Organizations, ‘Ideal Subject’ and the Promise of Enjoyment

Few industries have been pressured to develop corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards and policies like oil and gas. This has translated into the creation of non-governmental organizations and branches of the oil and gas firms focused on CSR. However, given the intrinsic complex characteristics of this industry, its global reach, and the fact that its operations affect and involve a wide variety of stakeholders, CSR issues cannot be defined and implemented exclusively at the industry or firm levels, but require the participation of other actors affected directly or indirectly by oil and gas activities. In this paper we argue, first, that oil and gas CSR issues are collectively constructed through meta-organizations (organizations composed by other organizations), and, second, that the complexity and variety of CSR issues require companies to build industry-specific and non-industry-specific collective actions. Based on how oil and gas firms participate in this multi-level co-construction of CSR issues, we created a typology of meta-organizations as infra-sectoral, sectoral, cross-sectoral, and supra-sectoral meta-organizations.     

Managers’ Moral Decision-Making Patterns Over Time: A Multidimensional Approach

Taking multidimensional ethics scale approach, this article describes an empirical survey of top managers’ moral decision-making patterns and their change from 1994 to 2004 during morally problematic situations in the Finnish context. The survey questionnaire consisted of four moral dilemmas and a multidimensional scale with six ethical dimensions: justice, deontology, relativism, utilitarianism, egoism and female ethics. The managers evaluated their decision-making in the problems using the multidimensional ethics scale. Altogether 880 questionnaires were analysed statistically. It is concluded that relying on the utilitarian principles is a core ethical evaluation criterion amongst top business managers in Finland. This study proves that managers’ moral decision-making patterns change over time. According to the results of this research, managers’ moral decision-making became more multidimensional during the study period. The change is explained by (1) the inclusion of female ethics items in the scale which allows managers to show more diversity in their decision- making, (2) the change in the Finnish economic context from depression to economic prosperity and growth during the study period, which is conducive to the spread of post materialist values, such as the importance of social relations and (3) the increasing public discussion of the importance ethical issues in business.     

The Contingent Value of Entrepreneurs’ Political Capital: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

Who benefit from a transitioning economy, entrepreneurs who are politically connected or disconnected? Market transition theory and power conversion theory offer two divergent answers. Our study seeks to contribute to this debate by examining the contingent value of entrepreneurs’ political capital. We draw from social network theories and investigate whether and how entrepreneurs’ social networks influence the relationship between their political capital and social mobility. Using the data on Chinese entrepreneurs, we find that the impact of political capital on entrepreneurs’ social mobility is contingent on their network centrality. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

On the Unethical Use of Privileged Information in Strategic Decision-Making: The Effects of Peers’ Ethicality,Perceived Cohesion,and Team Performance

In order to make strategic decisions and improve their firm’s performance, top management teams must have information on the competitive context in general, and the firm’s competitors in particular. During the decision-making process, top managers can have access to “privileged information”—i.e., information of a confidential and potentially strategic nature that could ultimately confer a decisional advantage over competing parties. However, obtaining and using privileged information in a business context is often illegal—and if not, is usually deemed unethical or “against the rules.” Using a quasi-experimental design, this study explores the reasons why an individual might engage in such unethical behavior. We assess the extent to which managers use privileged information with respect to perceived team cohesion and peers’ ethicality. More specifically, our results show that the use of privileged information is predicted by the decision-maker’s perceptions of their team cohesion and their peers’ ethicality. Moreover, we find that team performance, as a group-level nonself-reported factor (measured by the firm’s share price in our simulation), moderates the relationship between cohesion and the use of privileged information. The relationship between cohesion, ethical behavior, and team performance is also discussed. We draw on these findings to make some practical suggestions on how to incorporate practices that could better prevent the unethical use of privileged information in strategic decision-making processes.     

Dine-in or take-out: Modeling millennials’ cooking motivation and choice

Students, in general, get into undesirable eating habits, partly due to the decrease in consumption of unhealthy, prepared food items (e.g., take-out). This research applies a multi-method approach to modeling the motivations behind cooking behavior for this cohort of young-adult consumers. Focus groups are conducted and findings are incorporated into an integrative framework to develop and estimate three quantitative choice models for predicting millennials’ cooking behavior. Data for this analysis are collected from surveys of millennial college students in two large metropolises in the US. Extending previous research, self-fulfillment (i.e., sense of achievement from consuming an activity) is found to positively predict cooking behavior. Cooking skill also has a positive association with the incidence of cooking and eating at home. Furthermore, the adverse effect of time needed to cook diminishes with greater cooking skill. Not conforming to previous literature, social motivation (i.e., motivation to socialize with others) has mixed support, and hedonic motivation (i.e., feeling of pleasure from cooking) is a negative predictor of cooking behavior. We offer first-hand implications for research on cooking as a consumed activity, and develop practical interventions.     

Social Entrepreneurs as Responsible Leaders: ‘Fundación Paraguaya’ and the Case of Martin Burt

A country known for its longstanding struggle with corruption and dubious governments may not be the obvious venue for a socio-economic revolution that is expected to play an important role in the elimination of global poverty. However, Paraguay, an ??island without shores??, as the writer Augusto Roa Bastos once described it, is home to one of the world??s most innovative social enterprises??the Fundación Paraguaya. While its achievements and success are the result of a team effort, its remarkable development can be largely attributed to Martín Burt, the founder and chief executive. We study the case of Fundación Paraguaya??the first and longest-running non-governmental organisation in Paraguay??with two primary research objectives: (1) to analyse the organisation??s pioneering way of solving social problems under difficult socioeconomic circumstances and its increasingly global outreach to eradicate poverty; (2) and to analyse the responsible leadership of Martín Burt.     

Broadening the concept of international entrepreneurship: ‘Consumers as International Entrepreneurs’

We integrate theories from international business, entrepreneurship, innovation, marketing and network economics to develop a four-part typology of ‘consumers as international entrepreneurs’. This broadens the concept of international entrepreneurship and complements the firm-level focus customary in research on international new ventures and entrepreneurs within those ventures. We develop our arguments in the context of the new economy and discuss areas for investigation in this emerging area of inquiry.     

America’s online ‘jobs’: conceptualizations,measurements, and influencing factors

The paper examines the size and distribution of online income positions (OIPs) from internet platforms in the United States. While researchers have developed traditional internet sector employment estimates (e.g., engineers), this secondary OIP market remains largely unmeasured due to shortcomings in industrial codes, conceptualizations, and methods. The estimates that do exist vary greatly. The paper addresses these shortcomings through original survey data collected directly from internet sector companies, allowing it to develop the first comprehensive look at the market for online income opportunities. The paper provides national and state-level estimates, finding approximately 23.9 million OIPs exist currently in 2017. The paper finds that these OIPs are present across all 50 states and the District of Columbia and that their distribution is less tied to population levels than traditional employment. The paper also develops a model for OIP levels with a surprisingly strong fit, which demonstrates that OIPs are driven by relative cost to income factors, exposure to the ‘tech’ sector, and internet access, but not by unemployment. To the extent of the paper’s knowledge, this is the only research that has drawn on actual internet firm data to estimate the size of the OIP market.     

Satisfying Individual Desires or Moral Standards? Preferential Treatment and Group Members’ Self-Worth, Affect, and Behavior

We investigate how social comparison processes in leader treatment quality impact group members’ self-worth, affect, and behavior. Evidences from the field and the laboratory suggest that employees who are treated kinder and more considerate than their fellow group members experience more self-worth and positive affect. Moreover, the greater positive self-implications of preferentially treated group members motivate them more strongly to comply with norms and to engage in tasks that benefit the group. These findings suggest that leaders face an ethical trade-off between satisfying the moral standard of treating everybody equally well and satisfying individual group members’ desire to be treated better than others.     

Buy,Lie, or Die: An Investigation of Chinese ST Firms’ Voluntary Interim Audit Motive and Auditor Independence

In the Chinese stock market, special treatment (ST) firms are the firms listed as facing imminent danger of delisting, unless they return to profitability after reporting two consecutive annual losses. Some ST firms voluntarily pay substantial fees to their external auditors to conduct interim audits, which are not required by regulations. In this study, we investigate and find that ST firms that pay for voluntary interim audits report greater discretionary accrued earnings, higher non-operating earnings, and higher returns on assets in ensuing annual reports. As a result, these firms are more likely to return to profitability and reduce their delisting risk. Our results, which contribute to the current debate on auditor independence, appear to be consistent with the possibility that ST firms “buy” external auditors’ cooperation to manipulate earnings when faced with the threat of delisting.