How did you get up and running? Taking a Bourdieuan perspective towards a framework for negotiating strategic fit

This article suggests a theoretical framework for illustrating significant iterative processes that need to be strategically managed when entering a new field or changing a social position within a field. Applying a process-relational perspective, the framework theoretically underpins what propels individuals to change their behaviour conceptualized as constructing a strategic fit between personal structure and fields. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and capitals as a lens the analysis reveals how capital transformations eventually can lead to a social construction of this temporary strategic fit. The article argues that the performance of habitus expresses temporary field specific social positioning as a social materialization of macrostructures (gender, age, class, etc.). This suggested framework is applied to conceptualizing how nascent entrepreneurs successfully negotiate entrepreneurial processes. It is concerned with a small aspect: how to physically start a business (its registration and the start of trading). In this context, the article unpacks how the transformation of capitals mediates nascent entrepreneurs’ social positioning. This article contributes to the growing ‘social turn’ research situating entrepreneurial processes within social relations and context and the emerging Entrepreneurship as Practice field. It offers practical implications for business support and research directions.     

The effects of internal locus of control on entrepreneurship: the mediating mechanisms of social capital and human capital

This paper proposes the research framework that locus of control enhances entrepreneurship through the mediating mechanisms of increased social capital in interpersonal networks and improved human capital in personal development. We adopted structural equation modeling to examine the research hypothesis. The research participants comprised managers from 14 enterprises in China; a total of 1002 valid questionnaires were collected. The results revealed that social and human capital mediate the effect that internal locus of control exerts on entrepreneurship. This study provides the following research contributions: first, the findings address the gaps in previous studies regarding the effect that a single dimension (i.e. personality traits) produces on entrepreneurship. Second, by employing the social exchange and human capital theories, we integrated interpersonal and individual perspectives into the research framework to explore factors affecting entrepreneurship, identifying that social and human capital are key-mediating mechanisms through which locus of control influences entrepreneurship.     

企业调整资本结构的时机选择

资本结构是企业在筹资决策时所要首先解决的问题。合理的资本结构是企业未来健康发展的的主要因素。但是企业的资本结构在企业持续经营的过程中不可能保持一直不变,随着条件的变化而变化。但是在大多数企业并没有在最合适的时机对企业的结构作出调整,而作出了错误决策,导致企业破产。因此必须在适当时机作出资本结构调整。     

The importance of ‘fitting in’: collaboration and social value creation in response to community norms and expectations

Abstract

This article explores the effects of embeddedness in communities upon entrepreneurial practices. Based on the lived experiences of 10 craft entrepreneurs, this study reveals that within certain contexts, such as craft communities, entrepreneurs are expected to exhibit high levels of camaraderie and generosity, which leads them to create social value by supporting their peers and freely sharing their resources. Entrepreneurs achieve ‘fitting in’ not only by learning accepted norms, but also by performing strategic actions which allow them to temporarily adapt their conduct to meet the expectations of community members. Thus, this study exposes a largely concealed element of social entrepreneurial practice. This article also reveals that embeddedness in communities can lead entrepreneurs to collaborate with potential competitors. Craft entrepreneurs share their economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital in order to support and help revitalise their communities, to perpetuate their respective industries and to sustain a genuine interest in hand-crafted products. They consider such supportive behaviour a social responsibility that is shared among community members and a task that is passed from one generation to the next. Thus, this article reveals that collaboration and social value creation can be embraced in response to community norms and expectations.     

International entrepreneurship and the small business

The topic of ‘international entrepreneurship’ is becoming increasingly popular with researchers concerned with examining how international and entrepreneurial activities intersect when people in organizations engage in pro-active brokering and risk-taking behaviour in cross-border contexts. Some caution is needed in over-generalizing the meaning and significance of international entrepreneurship – especially in relation to small businesses. Not all entrepreneurial risk-taking, brokering and opportunity-seeking activities lead to internationalization (as the statistics on small business international activities indicate). This might suggest then that the only truly internationally entrepreneurial firms are those that are ‘born global’. However, their entrepreneurial activities are more ‘spatial’, concerned with what can be constructed again in relation to global markets rather than in relation to the local/regional context in which the business is located. For small firms that internationalize a few years after start-up (late starters), processes of international entrepreneurship are different. For ‘later starters’, international entrepreneurship is distinctive in that it is characterized by extending and modifying entrepreneurial understandings and practices that have been socially constructed in relation to the local and regional context in which the small firm is located.     

Career fields: a small step towards a grand career theory?

Little theory development has been done that accounts for the changes in the forms, actors and contexts of careers that we currently can see. Looking at careers from a ‘grand’ and unified theoretical perspective has a number of advantages. In particular, grand social theories allow the link between a well-elaborated and differentiated framework for social phenomena and for careers. Moreover, looking at careers from a unified perspective allows discussion of the great variety of aspects to careers in a single theoretical language. Based on the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper focuses on social fields as one major element of an effort towards a more comprehensive theoretical framework for professional and managerial careers. In particular, it discusses the constituting characteristics of career fields as social fields and the application of this concept to work-related careers. Rather than adopting or adapting a specific theory in order to illuminate a specific national context, this paper, by using Bourdieu's concepts, proposes a framework to illuminate particular aspects sometimes not sufficiently stressed by recent – and more especially Anglo-Saxon – career research. Avoiding a choice between objective or subjective career and macro- or micro-perspective, it allows the strengthening or re-introduction of themes like multi-level analysis, simultaneous actionstructure view, combining ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ perspectives, power distribution, social hierarchy and thus social inequalities into career research.     

To the Rescue!? Brokering a Rapid,Scaled and Customized Compassionate Response to Suffering after Disaster

Suffering comes in many forms that significantly impact organizations’ operations and performance. As a result, recent research on compassion organizing seeks to explain how efforts to notice, feel, and respond to suffering create organizational (and societal) benefits. Widespread suffering can be generated by natural disasters, which in turn can trigger compassionate organizational responses. In this paper, we build on social capital theory to theorize about how compassionate ventures leverage network relationships to identify and mobilize resources. We also explore how differences in these approaches influence the magnitude, speed, and customization of the response, all of which are theorized indicators of the effectiveness of compassion organizing in alleviating suffering. We use structural equation modelling to test our model and find that compassionate ventures with stronger ties to the local community are more likely to bundle (i.e., stretch) resources, which facilitates a speedy, customized, and large magnitude response. In contrast, those with stronger ties outside the local community are more likely to pursue (i.e., chase) new resources, which results in a large magnitude response, but one that is not associated with speed or customization. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations for future research.     

创业者能力和机会对产品差异化优势的影响

本研究针对相关产业成长期创业的差异化阶段进行探索性研究。研究问题：哪些知识和机会概念的构成因素产生产品属性与竞争优势？经过对方太公司案例的探索,得出以下结论：低相关产业成长期创业的产业特殊知识门槛低,创业团队的学习创新能力强,创业决策时存在创业机会,才能使产品差异化成功。创业机会是一个潜藏着利润的特殊产业结构,本研究命名为创业机会结构,它由以下项目构成：（1）下游存在市场需求并成长;（2）忽视产品问题的竞争者数量多;（3）创业者有异质理念知识。差异化成功将产生上市新产品的三个产品竞争属性,即产品需求强度、产品有价值的差异程度、产品稀少性。这三个产品竞争属性正向影响产品竞争优势程度,进一步影响后续的利润。     

电子商务有益于农村居民创业吗？——基于社会资本的视角

本文通过匹配城乡居民收入分配与生活状况调查（CHIPS2013）、县域电子商务发展指数（a-EDI2013）和《中国县域经济统计年鉴（2014）》数据,研究县域电子商务水平对农村居民创业选择的影响。研究结果表明,电子商务显著地促进了农村居民的创业选择及其创业投资和雇佣规模。考虑内生性问题后,这一结论仍成立。进一步地,电子商务改善农村居民异质且广泛的社会网络,降低农村居民对亲缘信任关系的依赖,部分地破除传统社会资本对农村居民创业的限制,从而促进了农村居民创业。     

企业家精神、产业政策与企业绩效——来自沪深A股制造业上市公司的证据

选取2001—2017年沪深A股制造业上市公司数据,采用主成分分析法构建企业家精神与企业绩效的衡量指标,考察产业政策嵌入对企业家精神作用于企业绩效传导路径的影响,同时运用投资机会敏感性模型进一步考察产业政策对企业资本配置效率的影响。结果表明：企业家精神能够从创新精神与创业精神两方面显著提升企业绩效,企业家的创新创业精神越高,企业博弈能力越强;在产业政策的调节作用下,企业家精神对企业绩效的正向作用更加明显;产业政策对企业绩效的外部冲击性影响存在地区异质性,非省会城市的企业受产业政策影响后绩效提升效果更佳,企业所在地的政府干预程度越弱,产业政策对企业绩效的提升作用越明显;产业政策对企业投资效率的正向影响逐年减弱。