Micro-multinational or not? International entrepreneurship,networking and learning effects

Micro-multinational enterprises (mMNEs) represent a new breed of smaller firms in the field of international entrepreneurship. This study investigates the effects of the three sets of variables, namely international entrepreneurship (which encompasses innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking propensity), networking and learning on the probability that a firm will become a MNE. Drawing upon a survey of the activities of 116 Chilean internationalized small- and medium-sized firms and utilizing a logistic regression analysis, this study suggests that risk-taking propensity and networking with domestic and international partners increase the likelihood that the firm will become a mMNE. Our findings confirm the predictive validity of the international entrepreneurship and networking perspectives. Because of the positive association between mMNEs and international performance, the suggestions for management of internationalized firms are to nurture a risk-taking propensity and cultivate a networking orientation.     

Intrapreneurship or entrepreneurship?

I explore the factors that determine whether new business opportunities are exploited by starting a new venture for an employer (‘nascent intrapreneurship’) or independently (‘nascent entrepreneurship’). Analysis of a nationally representative sample of American adults gathered in 2005-06 uncovers systematic differences between the drivers of nascent entrepreneurship and nascent intrapreneurship. Nascent entrepreneurs tend to leverage their general human capital and social ties to organize ventures which sell directly to customers, whereas intrapreneurs disproportionately commercialize unique new opportunities which sell to other businesses. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

How “space” and “place” influence subsidiary host country political embeddedness

As a part of multinational corporations (MNCs), subsidiaries operate in distinct host countries and have to deal with their external context. Host country political embeddedness, in particular, helps subsidiaries to obtain knowledge and understanding of the regulatory and political context, and to get access to local networks. Moreover, they get some guidance and support from their headquarters. Distance between MNC home and host countries, however, alienates subsidiaries from the MNC and influences the extent of subsidiary host country political embeddedness. We suggest that the host country political and regulatory context moderates the effect of distance on subsidiary host country political embeddedness by reducing the need and/or value of headquarters support. Using a sample of 124 European manufacturing subsidiaries, we find that distance (space) and context (place) matter jointly: the impact of distance is stronger for subsidiaries that operate in host countries with low governance quality and low political stability in place.     

Diehard or delicate? Violence and young firm performance in a developing country

Business Economics - The genesis and survival of new businesses is an important determinant of entrepreneurial dynamism. With the recent surge in security challenges, the issue of young...     

Passion for entrepreneurship or passion for the product? A conjoint analysis of angel and VC decision-making

Passion is important to venture investors, but what specifically do they want entrepreneurs to be passionate about? This study theorizes that angel investors and venture capitalists consider both entrepreneurs' passion for activities related to the product or service the venture provides (i.e., product passion) and passion for founding and developing new ventures (i.e., entrepreneurial passion). We demonstrate that both types of passion become more appealing when the investor perceives that the entrepreneur is highly open and receptive to feedback, suggesting that openness to feedback mitigates potential concerns associated with passion in its extremes. We further find that venture investors differ in their consideration of passion; angel investors and venture capitalists with more investing experience place greater emphasis on the combination of product passion and openness to feedback, whereas those with more entrepreneurial experience emphasize the combination of entrepreneurial passion and openness to feedback.     

Foreign direct investment via M&A and domestic entrepreneurship: blessing or curse?

There are conflicting predictions in the literature about the relationship between FDI and entrepreneurship. This paper explores how foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, measured by lagged cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), affect entrepreneurial entry in the host economy. We have constructed a micro-panel of more than two thousand individuals in each of seventy countries, 2000–2009, linked to FDI by matching sectors. We find the relationship between FDI inflows and domestic entrepreneurship to be negative across all economies. This negative effect is much more pronounced in developed than developing economies and is also identified within industries, notably in manufacturing. Policies to encourage FDI via M&A need to consider how to counteract the prevailing adverse effect on domestic entrepreneurship.     

Are the determinants of capital structure country or firm specific?

In this paper we investigate the capital structure determinants of Greek, French, Italian, and Portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We compare the capital structures of SMEs across countries and differences in country characteristics, asset structure, size, profitability, risk, and growth and how these may impact capital structure choices. The results show that SMEs in these countries determine their capital structure in similar ways. We attribute these similarities to the country institutional and financial characteristics and the commonality of their civil law systems. However, structural differences arise due to firm specific effects. We find that size is positively related to leverage while the relationship between leverage and asset structure, profitability and risk is negative. Growth is not a statistically significant determinant of leverage for any of the four countries. Our main conclusion is that firm-specific rather than country facts explain differences in capital structure choices of SMEs.     

“Small business enterprises and Latino entrepreneurship: An enclave or mainstream activity in South Texas?”

We surveyed 298 Latino small businesses in South Texas, a minority-majority region, in the summer of 2010. The survey focused on Latino entrepreneurship, and in this paper, we report findings associated with business start-up, immigration status of the entrepreneur, the sphere of business operations within formal or informal markets, the role of language in business operations, and the impact of the US-Mexico border in business success. We explore Latino entrepreneurship in the region as an enclave or mainstream activity developing a typology of business income chances associated with immigration documentation and business start-up rationale. Lastly, using multivariate analysis, we find gender, financial access, residence, and business language significant determinants in business orientation between necessity-driven and opportunity-driven Latino enterprises.     

Staying Home or Moving Away? Restructuring Efforts within Multinational Enterprises

This paper analyses the impact of geographic dispersion on employment changes within multinationals. Building on earlier work of Landier et al. (2009, Review of Financial Studies 22, 3: 1119), we investigate whether corporate decision‐making within a multinational is affected by the distance between an affiliate and its headquarter. Our findings suggest a detrimental impact of distance on employees, by either an increased likelihood of observing a downsizing event, or by witnessing a larger decrease in the number of employees at distant locations during downsizing events. In addition, our results seem to relate the higher likelihood of observing a downsizing event to the role of social factors on decision making. The more visible a manager is in his community, the less likely he is to downsize proximate divisions.     

Is green the new gold? Venture capital and green entrepreneurship

Small Business Economics - We test whether born-to-be-green represents a signal toward potential venture capital (VC) investors on a sample of Italian, independent, unlisted, high-tech...     

Identity and entrepreneurship: do school peers shape entrepreneurial intentions?

We incorporate the concept of social identity into entrepreneurship and analyze the determinants of having entrepreneurial intentions. We argue that an entrepreneurial identity results from an individual’s socialization. This could be parental influence but, as argued in this paper, also peer influence. Based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006 data in which students report their entrepreneurial intentions at the age of 15, we find that having an entrepreneurial peer group has a positive effect on an individual’s entrepreneurial intentions. We find that the strength of the peer effect in a country is moderated by prevailing values, namely individualism.     

Hospital catering: for profit or not for profit?

When hospitals today hold budget meetings, the typical foodservice operation contributes more than the coffee and doughnuts. Many have found new dollars as well as positive public relations by offering catering programs. Southwest General Hospital, Cleveland, is one example.     

Loyalty or lethargy? Keeping sellers committed,not entrenched

While business sellers frequently enjoy long-term relationships with their buyers, not every extended association is based on a genuine sense of customer loyalty. Many organizations remain in relationships with providers for too long; while the seller has stopped providing value, the buyer sticks to the routine. Building from empirical research and theory on buyer-seller relationships, this research extends our understanding of customer complacency and seller entrenchment and introduces the concept of customer lethargy. Synthesizing theory from multiple domains with exploratory interviews conducted with business customers, this article offers insight into the functioning of organizational buying centers, the evolution of business exchanges over time, and how some exchanges can be undermined by various forms of relational dysfunction. I define customer lethargy, explore its root causes and offer business buyers a strategy which aims to help them self-audit their loyalty, avoid complacency and lethargy, and keep sellers committed, not entrenched.     

To agree or not to agree? A meta-analytical review of strategic consensus and organizational performance

The premise underlying most of the research on strategic consensus is that a higher degree of consensus has a positive impact on organizational performance. Empirical studies, however, have produced inconsistent results for the strength and direction of this relationship, as well as for the role of potential moderators. With this meta-analysis, we provide empirical support for a positive effect of strategic consensus on organizational performance, and offer evidence for the existence of several moderators of the aforementioned relationship, which we then discuss as fruitful avenues for future research. This study enhances our understanding of this important strategy process construct and benefits managerial practice by discussing means for improving the realization and implementation of strategies.     

Like it or not? How the economic and institutional environment shapes individual attitudes towards multinational enterprises

This paper analyses the determinants of people's attitudes towards foreign direct investment (FDI) using a survey‐based data set that covers a wide range of rich and poor countries. We find that both individual socioeconomic characteristics and macroeconomic and institutional factors shape agents’ attitudes towards multinational firms. Moreover, we find that the influence of an individual's characteristics—such as education and the status as an entrepreneur—on her/his perspective on multinationals depends on the respective country's per‐capita income. Our results confirm the conjecture that relative individual attitudes towards multinationals reflect distributional interests as suggested by economic theory.     

Foreign direct investment and entrepreneurship: Does the role of institutions matter?

Development economics, international business, and entrepreneurship literature suggest that foreign direct investment (FDI) has significant positive spillover effects for entrepreneurial activities of host economies. However, the findings of past research are mixed, and they do not always confirm this suggestion. We argue that the reason for conflicting findings may be because of an incomplete understanding of the factors that influence the FDI-entrepreneurship nexus in different contexts. Previous studies have carried out only limited exploration of the contingencies in the FDI and domestic entrepreneurship relationship that may depend on the host country’s institutional capacity. We argue that not all countries can reap the rewards from FDI equally. Rather, we hypothesize that countries need to have a sufficient degree of institutional capacity relevant to specific conditions and appropriate threshold levels to successfully capture the positive spillover effects of FDI on domestic entrepreneurship. Utilizing panel data from 2006 to 2016 for 97 emerging markets, developing and developed countries (at different income levels), and a System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) estimator that controls for instrument proliferation in dealing with endogeneity problems, we test this hypothesis. We find that FDI has a negative (crowding-out) effect on domestic entrepreneurship at below-threshold levels of institutional capacity, and a positive (crowding-in) effect at above-threshold levels of institutional capacity. The crowding-out effect diminishes as the institutional capacity changes or improves to meet mutating economic environment conditions. Our findings are robust across a wide range of aggregate and disaggregate measures of different types of institutions and alternative empirical strategies.     

Who is doing “transnational diaspora entrepreneurship”? Understanding formal identity and status

This paper addresses transnational diaspora entrepreneurship (TDE), its superdiversity and respective formal identity and status. As migration increases, formal identity becomes a panacea for migrants’ economic participation and global entrepreneurial policies. Our review of TDE literature identified a lack of specification of TDE types and criteria. We develop a taxonomy and discuss TDE problems addressing formal identity, generation, mixed-origin, multi-location, diversity of migratory patterns and cross-border entrepreneurial business activities. Since policymaking employs formal status for impeding or facilitating cross-border venturing, it is crucial to reduce the ambiguity of terms and categories and facilitate more nuanced and accurate theorizing and policymaking.