Academic Entrepreneurial Behavior: Birds of more than one feather

While Entrepreneurial behavior involves starting and running a new venture (Gartner, 1988), it seems that Academic entrepreneurial behavior (AEB) is somewhat unique as it extends beyond a focus on startups to include both commercial and non-commercial activities (Abreu and Grinevichb, 2013). Additionally, AEB is influenced by both financial and non-financial rewards (Lam, 2010). Despite these differences, studies of AEB have typically focused primarily on academics who have participated (or intend to participate) in a university spinout, as if all academic entrepreneurs are birds of the same feather. Expanding the unit of analysis to also include academics not participating in commercial activities could provide insights for the development of AEB. An in-depth qualitative analysis of 30 life science academics in Australia indicates the presence of four distinctive categories of AEB: non-entrepreneurial, semi-entrepreneurial, pre-entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial. More interestingly, the same academic can exhibit different AEB in relation to different research project(s) and depending on the available support mechanisms (particularly financial). Our findings suggest that AEB is not necessarily driven by opportunity recognition, and research on the topic must consider other factors beyond the individual academic, such as the project and funding mechanisms.     

Personal relationships in the digital age: three female academics’ qualitative research

This essay deals with the theme of personal relationships on social media, linked to the theme of online identity, bringing together the research and reflections of some of the most important academics of the internet. They are three Americans from different generations: Sherry Turkle, Nancy Baym and danah boyd, who are concerned with looking into interpersonal online relationships (the body is therefore absent) demonstrating particular sensitivity to emotional aspects which are brought into play at the point where humans and technology, online and offline and public and private spheres meet. If the first stage of internet history highlighted users’ freedom of identity expression, then the era of social networks is about the ease with which people can maintain and expand a network of contacts, while raising some doubts over the quality of such relationships. It is interesting to see how the three academics place not only the quality of the relationship, but also the quality of research at the centre of their reflections, demonstrating their passion for the work which is part of their lives.     

Innovation policy in contemporary Queensland

This paper is about the how rather than the what of innovation policy in a contemporary setting. Most published research to date is concerned with the what: and the how of administrative reality appears to have been ignored by researchers.Political will (how public servants manage their commitment) to innovation policy creates a dilemma for scientists in politics. This dilemma is compounded by the bounded rationality of their training and cognitive processes, and their capacity to handle the administrative reality of innovation policy management.The significance of science-technology talk, and cognitive and occupational differentiation for appropriate management of innovation policy's “three-legged stool”—industry, government, and academia—is considered in relation to a learning rather than an administering bureaucracy.To illustrate this line of reasoning, a participant-observer approach using qualitative data from diary notes is used. Data reveal the patterning of a complex policy process. The importance in this process of carefully-constructed coalition networks and administrative reality is recognized.The most illuminating findings are that, for innovation policy, implementation is evolution through getting bits and pieces of the theme out at different places, at different times, with different people. Development of innovation policy requires multi-skilled professionals who possess varying experiential backgrounds. They have political nous, and are flexible and adaptable. They also understand that the patterning of process is beyond the reach of deliberate intervention by top-down views. In addition, mechanisms employed in attention directing, situation defining and evoking are significant for developing innovation policy.     

An upper echelons view of “Good to Great”: Principles for behavioral integration in the top management team

We examined the best‐selling management book Good to Great (GTG) through the lens of upper echelons theory. In doing so, it is demonstrated that the often cited practitioner/academic divide is not necessarily so expansive as frequently perceived. We utilized upper echelons theory and more specifically, the associated metaconstruct of behavioral integration, to identify principles from GTG that are consistent with the theoretically rooted processes of collective action. Through this theoretical lens, three key principles emerged from GTG for building a successful organization: organizationally focused leadership, a disciplined culture, and the right people. Implications for practice are discussed, including the reciprocal relationship among these principles. We conclude by appealing for more constructive dialogue between academics and practitioners of management.     

The “ugly twins”: Failed low-wage-country sourcing projects and their expensive replacements

International sourcing and sourcing from low-wage countries remain topics of high priority for firms in industrialized countries. Lower factor costs, particularly in low-wage countries, have led to high expectations of savings from both managers and academics. All too often, scientific and particularly practitioner publications present international sourcing as a conditio sine qua non for becoming a (more) successful company. However, research has shown that these extensive savings do not materialize automatically, particularly when sourcing customer-specific items, such as automotive components. This paper analyzes the operational and financial implications and real effects of cost-oriented sourcing from China, based on the specific example of a European automotive OEM. Furthermore, it sheds light on the ambivalent and often overrated savings impact of sourcing from low-wage countries. Our analysis of a comprehensive set of secondary data from a company data warehouse reveals that more than three quarters of the analyzed China-sourcing projects do not reap the expected benefits. Moreover, each failed low-wage-country sourcing project has its so-called “ugly twin”, the need to resort back to suppliers from high-wage countries at a higher cost. Implications for managerial practice include the suggestion to employ extended calculation methods, entailing influence factors other than from procurement, particularly for low-wage-country sourcing. Furthermore, we recommend creating an awareness of potentially biased decision-making among purchasing personnel who follow standard industry recipes.     

Bridging the research-practice divide: Harnessing expertise collaboration in making a wider set of contributions

Understanding how we develop research contributions which go beyond conversations in the academic field is an enduring challenge. While much has been written on the importance of academic-practitioner relationships in the research process more is needed on conceptualizing how we develop a wider set of contributions. In this paper, we call for researchers to be reflective as to how different forms of expertise can be drawn on during collaborative relationships to bridge the research – practice divide. We develop a framework which combines different levels of expertise with varying forms of academic-practitioner collaboration to widen the impact of our research. Four strategies are proposed by which academics may leverage their expertise in collaborative relationships with practitioners to develop Research Impact and Contributions To Knowledge (RICK). These include: maintaining critical distance, promoting deeper engagement, developing prescience, and achieving hybrid practices. We discuss implementation approaches for each of these RICK strategies and suggest writing genres to help increase engagement by practitioners in research contributions.     

Core entrepreneurial competencies and their interdependencies: insights from a study of Irish and Iranian entrepreneurs,university students and academics

The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of core entrepreneurial competencies and their interdependencies. Developing entrepreneurial competencies is increasingly seen as important to foster entrepreneurship. Studies to date have highlighted different entrepreneurial competencies in the context of different sectors, regions and countries. However, there has been a lack of consensus in relation to the perceived relative importance of core entrepreneurial competences and their interdependencies among students, academic and entrepreneurs. Our paper focuses on two key questions: first, what are the core entrepreneurial competencies that need to be developed in educational contexts? Second, what are the interdependencies between these entrepreneurial competencies that need to be developed in educational contexts? Using a collective intelligence methodology a comparative study of Iran and Ireland was undertaken that involved three stakeholder groups of students, academics and entrepreneurs. This methodology was used to identify, rank, and structure entrepreneurial competencies considered important for university students. The results of the study indicated that productive thinking, motivation, interpersonal skills and leadership are core entrepreneurial competences that need to be developed in educational contexts. Findings also highlight critical interdependencies between entrepreneurial competencies and the relative influence of different competencies across groups and regions. We outline the implications of our findings for designing a curriculum for improving students’ entrepreneurial competencies.     

The use of management texts: Hammer's reengineering

The widespread citation of management texts in academic journals implies that they are a significant influence on the diffusion and implementation of management concepts. This article applies a neo-institutional analysis to the use of two widely cited management texts in the diffusion of a management fashion: Reengineering Work (Harv. Bus. Rev. 68 (1990) 104) and Reengineering the Corporation (Reengineering the Corporation: a Manifesto for Business Revolution, HarperCollins, New York, 1993). It is seen that these texts do not prescribe a methodology for reengineering, but instead of being a weakness this “hollow core” creates a space for actors to reinterpret the concept while drawing on its symbolic force. The texts are kept in circulation by the need of academics to cite foundational texts and the symbolic value of foundational texts to legitimise management practices. The texts of Hammer have joined those of Proust, Joyce and Shakespeare in the canon of books that are regarded as significant, but that people do not feel the need to read.     

Variable importance by partitioningR 2

One purpose of many regression studies is to compare the relative importance of the independent variables. Several different measures have been used to measure importance:t-values, standardized regression coefficients, elasticity, commonality analysis, increment inR ², correlation coefficients, hierarchical partitioning etc. Some of these measures have the common feature of partitioningR ² between the independent variables and assess their importance according to their contribution toR ². This paper is an attempt to clarify the advantages and disadvantages with these different methods and find out if any useful information can be gained by a partitioning ofR ².     

Advantage,meaning, and pleasure: Reframing the interaction between major-gift fundraisers and philanthropists

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the widening gap between the rapidly growing academic literature on fundraising and the need that practising, reflective fundraisers have for a useable explanatory framework for understanding what are the main forces and motivations shaping the interaction between major-gift fundraisers and philanthropists (major donors and potential donors), particularly in the so-called cultivation and solicitation (or Ask) meetings. The author's perspective is that of a fundraising practitioner. The paper sets out the essential characteristics needed in such a framework, contends that we do not yet have such a framework, and concludes by setting out a preliminary, simplifying framework for making sense of the interaction between fundraisers and donors. The purpose is to stimulate practitioners and researchers to rethink and reframe this interaction. It is proposed that the interaction is grounded on the reality that funders (and to some extent, fund-seekers), like individuals in almost every social interaction, are seeking to maximise advantage, meaning, and pleasure (AMP). This paper argues that the more these three overlap, the stronger their effect.     

Social Accounting Research as If The World Matters

Abstract

This essay is intended as a self-reflective, auto-critique of the ‘social accounting community’. The essay is directed at the academic community of accountants concerned with social accounting. This `community' is predominantly concerned with English language accounting journals and is preoccupied with the social and environmental practices of the larger private sector organisations. The essay is motivated by a concern over our responsibilities as academics in a world in crisis and a concern that social accounting is losing its energy and revolutionary zeal. This community's social accounting endeavours have taken place in almost complete ignorance of the activities and developments in non accounting communities and, in particular, developments in the public and third sectors. The essay reaches out to the public and third sector work and literature as an illustration of one of the ways in which ‘our’ social accounting can try to prevent itself from becoming moribund.     

Corporate governance crisis down under: Post-Enron accounting education and research inertia

Abstract

Australian and New Zealand accounting academic responses to corporate governance and reporting failures is a story not simply told in the context of high profile international corporate failures such as Enron and WorldCom. This study notes a sequence of major Australian corporate failures that predate Enron and WorldCom. Through research into professional, business and research literature, profession and governmental/regulatory websites, and interviews with senior accounting academics across Australia and New Zealand, it also highlights a tale of limited response by Australian and New Zealand accounting academics and investigates the manifest and latent drivers of this inertia. The corporatisation and commercialisation of universities and related governance processes emerge as root causes of accounting academics' general failure to address recent major breakdowns in corporate governance and reporting in the business world. The paper closes by reviewing opportunities for change in an otherwise embattled environment.     

Edgeworth approximations for semiparametric instrumental variable estimators and test statistics

We establish the validity of higher order asymptotic expansions to the distribution of a version of the nonlinear semiparametric instrumental variable estimator considered in Newey (Econometrica 58 (1990) 809) as well as to the distribution of a Wald statistic derived from it. We employ local polynomial smoothing with variable bandwidth, which includes local linear, kernel, and (a version of) nearest neighbor estimates as special cases. Our expansions are valid to order n^−2ε for some 0<ε<1/2, where ε depends on the smoothness and dimensionality of the data distribution and on the order of the polynomial chosen by the practitioner. We use the expansions to define optimal bandwidth selection methods for both estimation and testing problems and apply our methods to simulated data.     

When does the manufacturing reshoring strategy create value?

Reshoring has gained a lot of attention recently by academics and practitioners alike, and is promising to become even more relevant in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on earlier research on the effects of reshoring announcements on the short-term market value of the firm, this work employs an event-study methodology and aims to understand under which circumstances the market perceives reshoring as potentially more (or less) value-creating. The analysis of a sample of 64 reshoring instances from 2005 to 2019, announced by 54 firms from eight developed economies, suggests that investors are more confident in the firm's future cash-flow potential when: a) it invests in productive activities at home, instead of overseas, i.e. ‘kept-from-offshoring’ (as opposed to actual relocations of activities, i.e. ‘back-reshoring’); b) the reshoring instance is communicated as a ‘plan’ (rather than a fixed ‘decision’); c) no state- or government-induced financial incentives are involved; d) the motivations are primarily ‘cost-efficiency seeking’ (rather than ‘customer perceived value seeking’).     

The Changing Power of 'Explanations': Directors, Academics and Their Sensemaking from 1989 to 2000

This paper is based on empirical research conducted with directors in large UK organizations, first in 1987–89, and again in 1998–2000. While the time frame has changed, the focus of the inquiry has remained constant – how do you 'run' a large organization – and data gathered reflect significant changes over time as to how the question is answered. This paper addresses one particular aspect of this complex material: the changing power of practitioner and academic explanations across the decade, highlighted by comparing and contrasting this data and its analysis over time.
The paper illustrates a surprising degree of consistency (in contrast to 1987–89 findings) in practitioners' contemporary explanations of their organizing: all talk of strategic focus, shareholder value and corporate governance, phrases previously never mentioned. This reflects a variety of changes across the decade, including an important concentration of power amongst investors. As well as the methodological implications of 'repeating' this study, the changing power of academics' explanations 'on' organization is also discussed as conceptual frameworks gain and lose their resonance with the times. The paper concludes that sensemaking (Weick, 1995) offers the most appropriate perspective by which such shifts in the power of explanations may best be appreciated.     

Future business and the role of purchasing and supply management: Opportunities for ‘business-not-as-usual’ PSM research

The raison d'être for this article is simple: traditional ways of researching, theorizing, and practicing purchasing and supply management (PSM) are no longer sufficient to ‘meet the moment’. Scholars need to advance a “business-not-as-usual” footing approach to their work, if they are to make a meaningful contribution to addressing the current and future emergencies, as highlighted by recent extreme weather and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, what can this, or should this, mean for a field rooted in traditional business thinking? This article builds on the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management's (JPSM) 25th Anniversary Special Issue editorial (2019); members of the JPSM's editorial team advance their unique perspectives on what “business-not-as-usual” means for PSM. Specifically, we advocate both thinking much more widely, in scope and ambition, than we currently do, and simultaneously building our ability to comprehend supply chains in a more nuanced and granular way. We explore whether the bias toward positivist work has omitted potentially interesting findings, and viewpoints. This leads to a call to re-think how we approach our work: should the key criteria always be to focus on theory development or testing? Should academics “think bigger”? Turning to specific research themes, illustrations of how our current thinking can be challenged or broadened by addressing the circular economy, and role of purchasing and innovation. Specifically, the focus on the PSM function as an intrapreneur within the larger organization, and the role of innovation and technology in PSM work. Taken together, we hope the ideas and arguments presented here will inform and inspire ambitious and novel approaches to PSM research with significant and enduring impact on the transformation of business.     

Financial benefits and risks of dependency in triadic supply chain relationships

The economic consequences of interdependent relationships with suppliers and customers have long been of interest to supply chain managers and academics alike. Whereas previous studies have focused on the benefits or risks of embedded relationships that accrue to buying firms, this study simultaneously investigates the effects of a supplier's and a customer's embeddedness, arising from resource dependency, on a focal firm's financial performance in triadic supply chain relationships. Using 1,144 unique focal firm-years for U.S. firms from Compustat, we find that a supplier's and a customer's dependency both increase the focal firm's performance in terms of return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS) by increasing asset turnover (ATO). As levels of supplier and customer dependency on the focal firm increase, however, the economic benefits of customer dependency diminish beyond a certain point, while those of supplier dependency continue to increase above that threshold. Thus, our findings show the paradoxically differing risks of the supplier's versus the customer's dependency, while establishing the unequivocal economic benefits of supplier and customer relations for focal firms in the middle of concentrated triadic relationships.     

An integrative literature review of the CSR-HRM nexus: Learning from research-practice gaps

Evidence-based approaches to management receive support from both academics and practitioners, with momentum for this growing as research-practice gaps widen. Knowledge transmission is central to research-practice gaps with ‘knowledge lost before translation’ and ‘knowledge lost in translation’ identified as two areas of concern. To enhance communication channels between academia and practitioners, these gaps require illumination. This study analyzes research and practice literatures connected to the corporate social responsibility/sustainability (CSR/S) and human resource management (HRM) nexus. Findings show there exists broad consensus across these literatures about outcomes (e.g. its salience to employee attraction, retention, involvement with sustainability and organizational performance). However, when it comes to potential approaches to integration (e.g. mechanisms through which CSR/S and sustainable HRM impact outcomes and the role played by contextual factors), research findings are not being disseminated to the practitioner community. This and other points of disjuncture, along with their implications for research and practice, are addressed in this paper.     

Berry-Esséen rate in asymptotic normality for perturbed sample quantiles

In estimating quantiles with a sample of sizeN obtained from a distributionF, the perturbed sample quantiles based on a kernel functionk have been investigated by many authors. It is well known that their behaviour depends on the choices of “window-width”, sayw _N. Under suitable and reasonably mild assumptions onF andk, Ralescu and Sun (1993) have recently proven that lim _N→∞ N ^1/4w_N=0 is the necessary and sufficient condition for the asymptotic normality of the perturbed sample quantiles. In this paper, their rate of convergence is investigated. It turns out that the optimal Berry-Esséen rate ofO(N^?1/2) can be achieved by choosing the window-width suitably, sayw _N=O(N^?1/2). The obtained results, in addition to being explicit enough to verify the sufficient condition for the asymptotic normality, improve Ralescu's (1992) result of which the rate is of order (logN)N ^?1/2.     

Going My Way? Wending a Way Through the Stumbling Blocks Between Georgism and Catholicism

This essay surveys the issues between Georgists and Roman Catholics in three classes: issues that are not peculiarly Roman Catholic (RC) but play out across faiths and denominations, issues that are peculiarly RC, and points of similarity and agreement. Addressed in this fashion are the tensions that arise between the social gospel and individual salvation, between specifics and glittering generalities, between noblesse oblige and governmental reform, between the doctrine of original sin and tabula rasa, between the rich and the poor, between the dignity of labor and the honor of predation, between democracy and authority, between the regulatory emphasis rooted in the philosophy of Aquinas and free markets, and between plain talk and gobbledegook.