Habitual entrepreneurs: Possible cases of entrepreneurship addiction?

We examine the underlying psychological processes that may motivate habitual entrepreneurs to engage in entrepreneurship repeatedly. By drawing on the psychology literature on behavioral addictions, such as workaholism and Internet use, we develop a framework that defines the symptomatology of what we identify as a “behavioral addiction to entrepreneurship.” Through interviews with two habitual entrepreneurs, we demonstrate how these addiction symptoms manifest in the entrepreneurial context. We also demonstrate how psychological, emotional, and physiological aspects of the entrepreneurial experience reinforce a behavioral addiction to entrepreneurship. Our theorizing offers insights into the psychological origins of repeated engagement in venture creation activities and yields insights into possible “dark side” of entrepreneurship outcomes.     

Are You a Chocolate Lover? An Investigation of the Repurchase Behavior of Chocolate Consumers

This study aimed to understand the factors affecting repurchase behavior of chocolate brands and, consequently, customer retention and acquisition. The study adopted a qualitative, inductive approach using in-depth interviews with 31 Australian consumers. The factors identified in the extant literature as antecedents of customers’ repurchase intention in the chocolate industry, including brand recognition, sales promotion, product price value, variety, taste, texture, size, packaging, and customer satisfaction, were confirmed. The results also indicated that functional value, product selection value, self-gratification value, socialization value, and transactional value were also considered during the consumer decision-making process. Implications for practitioners are provided.     

Are workplaces with many women in management run differently?

Are workplaces with a high percentage of women in management run differently? This paper uses data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to analyze empirically the relationship between the percentage of female workplace managers and people-management practices. The results show that workplace management teams with a higher proportion of women monitor employee feedback and development more intensely. Such teams also tend to promote more interpersonal channels of communication and more employee participation in decision-making, although the evidence is weaker for these last two practices. Overall, the findings suggest that the concept of good workplace management practices converges on female leadership styles when the percentage of female managers increases.     

Are the self-employed really jacks-of-all-trades? Testing the assumptions and implications of Lazear’s theory of entrepreneurship with German data

Using a large representative German data set and various concepts of self-employment, this paper tests the “jack-of-all-trades” view of entrepreneurship by Lazear (Am Econ Rev 94(2): 208–211, 2004). Consistent with its theoretical assumptions we find that self-employed individuals perform more tasks and that their work requires more skills than that of paid employees. In contrast to Lazear’s assumptions, however, self-employed individuals do not just need more basic but also more expert skills than employees. Our results also provide rather limited support for the idea that human capital investment patterns differ between those who become self-employed and those ending up in paid employment.     

Are Imports and Exports Cointegrated? An International Comparison

In this paper we use the Johansen and Juselius cointegration technique to examine the long‐run convergence between imports and exports for a number of industrialized countries. The results indicate that there exists a long‐run steady‐state relationship between imports and exports for most countries in the sample. The policy implications of our findings are that the countries are not in violation of their international budget constraints and, more importantly, there is no productivity gap between the domestic economy and the rest of the world, implying a lack of permanent technological shocks to the domestic economy.     

Diana: a symbol of women entrepreneurs’ hunt for knowledge,money, and the rewards of entrepreneurship

This article discusses the questions and issues that prompted the founding of the Diana Project, a multi-university research program aimed at identifying factors that support and enable high growth in women-led ventures. Despite the fact that women business owners comprise a significant portion of the economy, women face challenges in acquiring the resources needed to expand their businesses. This article details both the myths and realities associated with women’s entrepreneurship in their quest for growth. In particular, we examine the strategies that women entrepreneurs use to position their firms for growth, especially those strategies related to growth capital. Our results show that women seeking venture capital (VC) have degrees, graduate degrees, and experience that should not preclude them from obtaining financing. We also found that even though women-led businesses are frequently clustered in industries less attractive to financiers, women seeking equity funding are in the appropriate industries. Further, women spend a considerable amount of time using both formal and informal networks in their search for capital and in seeking capital. Because of the importance of the VC industry as a provider of growth capital and its reliance on its network for investment referrals, we also examined the participation and role of women as decision-makers in industry. Women’s participation in the VC industry has not kept pace with industry growth, and women have exited the industry at a faster rate than men, thus creating a significant barrier for women entrepreneurs in that it is less likely that their networks will overlap with the financial supplier networks, despite any effort they may expend networking and seeking capital.

Are entrepreneurs' decisions more biased? An experimental investigation of the susceptibility to status quo bias

Entrepreneurship research has demonstrated that entrepreneurs are more susceptible to certain cognitive biases than are selected other individuals. We investigate whether this finding holds for the status quo bias not yet investigated in the entrepreneurship literature. The status quo bias is defined as the tendency to select a previously chosen alternative disproportionately often. We compare entrepreneurs' decisions with those of students and bankers in an experimental study. We find that entrepreneurs are as affected by the status quo as students but less affected than bankers. Accounting for differences in experience and types of decision scenarios, we have indirect evidence for a consistency of entrepreneurs' decisions with what would be expected from a stereotypical Schumpeterian entrepreneur: being more open to new options than other individuals are. However, since entrepreneurs are frequently influenced by the status quo, we discuss the pros and cons of such behavior.     

The ineffectiveness of entrepreneurship policy: is policy formulation to blame?

Entrepreneurship policy has been criticised for its lack of effectiveness. Some scholars, such as Scott Shane in this journal, have argued that it is ‘bad’ public policy. But this simply begs the question why the legislative process should generate bad policy? To answer this question this study examines the UK’s enterprise policy process in the 2009–2010 period. It suggests that a key factor for the ineffectiveness of policy is how it is formulated. This stage in the policy process is seldom visible to those outside of government departments and has been largely ignored by prior research. The application of institutional theory provides a detailed theoretical understanding of the actors and the process by which enterprise policy is formulated. We find that by opening up the ‘black box’ of enterprise policy formulation, the process is dominated by powerful actors who govern the process with their interests.     

Are Consumers Disadvantaged or Vulnerable? An Examination of Consumer Complaints to the Better Business Bureau

Questions have emerged recently about the appropriateness of defining disadvantaged consumers based on their membership in certain demographic categories, such as income, age, education, and race. This study assessed whether these traditional classifications are useful for understanding consumer complaining behavior with the Better Business Bureau. Results of analysis of more than 24,000 consumer complaints filed with a local BBB office during a 13-year period do not provide consistent support for this disadvantaged consumer perspective. Instead, the emerging vulnerable consumer perspective may provide a more promising basis for future research.     

Just How Prepared Are You? An Application of Marketing Segmentation and Theory of Planned Behavior for Disaster Preparation

The threat of a disaster is very real for many, and preparation is vital. To identify differences in how people respond to disaster preparation, a segmentation approach may be useful. Based on a survey, cluster analysis and application of the theory of planned behavior, this study finds four segments in the population. The unprepared and uninterested segment may be encouraged by associating preparation tasks with benefits other than disaster resilience. Willing but could do more may respond to information highlighting that government support may not be enough in a disaster. For it’s just too difficult, barriers need to be addressed, lowering costs of preparation and changing perceptions of difficulty. Those in knowing, interested, and prepared could be encouraged to help spread the word of the importance of preparation. Further recommendations are made for the wider public policy context, including a call for more segmentation approaches to build understanding and resilience.     

How Financially Literate Are Women? An Overview and New Insights

We document strikingly similar gender differences in financial literacy across countries. When asked to answer questions that measure knowledge of basic financial concepts, women are less likely than men to answer correctly and more likely to indicate that they do not know the answer. Both young and old women show low levels of financial literacy. Moreover, women for whom financial knowledge is likely to be very important—for example widows or single women—also know little about concepts relevant for day‐to‐day financial decisions. The gender differences are present for very basic as well as more advanced measures of financial literacy. This is important because financial literacy has been linked to economic behavior, including retirement planning and wealth accumulation. Women live longer than men and are likely to spend time in widowhood. Thus, improving women's financial literacy is key to helping them prepare for retirement and promoting their financial security.     

Do men and women really shop differently? An exploration of gender differences in mall shopping in India

‘Men Buy and Women Shop’ proclaims a new Wharton Research on shopping habits of the American consumer (2007). There is found to be considerable difference in the way men and women shop in the West. Is this true across cultures? Indian retailing is generating considerable interest within the country and abroad. India has been rated as the fifth most attractive emerging retail market and was ranked first in a Global Retail Development Index of 30 developing countries drawn up by A T Kearney. Organized retail, best represented by the mushrooming malls, has come to play a defining role in building and supporting this veritable base of retail consumers. Therefore, it is of utmost interest to retailers and academia alike to understand the consumer dynamics behind the newly evolving consumption culture. This study explores mall‐shopping habits in India and attempts to identify and contrast possible differences between genders using a sample of 2721 mall consumers across seven cities. While the findings suggest that in India there are significant differences in shopping behaviour that can be ascribed to gender, there are fundamental questions about stereotyping of shopping as a feminine activity. To do this, discriminant analysis has been used to study whether shopping orientation and mall‐shopping attitudes can discriminate between male and female shoppers.     

Careers,marriage, and children: Are women changing their minds?

Women have not changed their minds concerning the importance of a career. Most feel that combining a career with marriage is quite possible. Though combining a career with a family is more difficult, companies can decrease costs associated with maternity.     

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.     

Are Relationally Transparent Leaders More Receptive to the Relational Transparency of Others? An Authentic Dialog Perspective

Journal of Business Ethics - Using a sample of 114 leaders (described by 516 team members), we show empirically that the association between leader relational transparency and leader receptiveness...