Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs become venture philanthropists

• Non‐traditional charitable sources of revenue may be categorised as follows:
  • Venture philanthropy: Human resources and funding invested as donation in the charity by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, trusts and corporations in search of a social return on their investment. It involves high engagement over many years with fixed milestones and tangible returns and exit achieved by developing alternative, sustainable income.
  • Commercial ventures: They seek a financial return on investment by creating a social enterprise operated by charities and their trading/holding companies alone or in partnership with the corporate sector, venture capitalists or investors to provide funding. Venture philanthropists may also ‘invest’ without establishing an equity position in the commercial enterprise. Any profits are re‐directed to mission‐related activity, although the business activity may or may not be mission related.
  • Social venture capital: It funds commercial ventures (as above) but may not seek a complete return on investment; instead the investor may off set some or all of the investment against social outcomes.
• Within the context of venture philanthropy, this paper demonstrates how charities, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs may work together in strategic alliances. It explores venture philanthropy from the perspective of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, giving examples. Charities are shown how to prepare themselves to take advantage of these entrepreneurial opportunities.
• Although the emphasis in this paper is on venture philanthropy, the processes outlined may be used to help a charity take advantage of opportunities within the broader social entrepreneurial context. Successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have demonstrated the ability to turn outline business ideas into big results, frequently in highly competitive business environments.
• A common characteristic that appears to unite these individuals when they divert their interest toward social ventures is a desire to apply their business‐like approach, which includes planning processes, milestones and outcome measurement to their social venture activity.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The knowledge brokers: venture capitalists,tacit knowledge and regional development

This article reviews the role of knowledge in economic development and the actors through which it is created and transferred. Unpacking the often oversimplified dichotomy between tacit and explicit knowledge, the contribution of firms, communities of practice and regions to the creation of knowledge is considered. While acknowledging the importance of global knowledge flows, it is argued that regional processes of Marshallian interaction and observation retain their relevance even within the decidedly global financial and internet industries. This argument is supported empirically through an analysis of the spatial structure of the knowledge used by venture capitalists during the development of the internet industry. The ability to create and access knowledge proves key for venture capitalists throughout their work, but particularly in (1) selecting promising industries, (2) finding and evaluating firms, and (3) assisting portfolio companies. Cet article étudie le rôle du savoir dans l'expansion économique, ainsi que les acteurs qui permettent de le créer et le transmettre. En démêlant la dichotomie souvent simplifiée à outrance entre savoirs tacite et explicite, il examine l'apport des entreprises, communautés de pratiques et régions dans la création du savoir. Tout en reconnaissant l'importance des flux internationaux de connaissances, il soutient que les processus régionaux d'observation et d'interaction marshallienne restent pertinents même pour les secteurs de l'Internet et de la finance résolument planétaires. Cet argument est étayé empiriquement par l'analyse de la structure spatiale du savoir utilisé par les spéculateurs capitalistes pendant l'essor des activités de l'Internet. L'aptitude à créer du savoir et à y accéder est essentielle pour eux quel que soit leur travail, mais surtout pour repérer les secteurs prometteurs, trouver et évaluer des entreprises, et aider les sociétés de capital‐risque.     

Industry-specific or generic skills? Conflicting interests of firms and workers

Firms and workers may have conflicting interests with respect to the content of training programmes. On the basis of a model for the investment decision in industry-specific and generic training, I will show that, in the case of imperfect competition for industry-specific skills, workers want more generic training than is socially optimal because the level of generic training puts a lower bound on the wages workers will earn after completing the training, irrespective of whether they stay in the industry or move. Firms, on the other hand, want the generic component of the training to be as low as possible because it decreases their expected returns to industry-specific training.     

以“查”促“管”与企业利益

税收中的“查”和“管”两者似乎没有关系,但实际上两者是紧密相联的,企业十分希望一个公平、公正的市场环境,包括税收执法环境,如果每一个企业都能依法纳税,企业之间的竞争是公平合理的。但总有一些企业靠偷税来提高效益。这对其他依法纳税企业来说不太公平。因此,必须通过税务部门加强税收日常征管和加大税     

Corporate plant location under uncertainty: Divergence between the interests of ownership and management

This paper expands current knowledge of location decision-making under uncertainty by analyzing instances where the corporate goal of profit maximization diverges from the managerial decision-maker's goal of maximizing personal profit. With illustrations based on alternative decision-making criteria, the paper demonstrates that a corporate manager acting in his own self interest may select a plant site that does not maximize corporate profits. The trend for US corporations to select suburban locations, despite the cost advantages of older urban areas, is illustrative of this divergence between the objectives of ownership and management.     

International dimensions of management: The trans-national efficacy of a venture development model

Entrepreneurship is commonly held to be a vital force in the US and other economies. Yet, little is known regarding the efficacy of entrepreneurial efforts developed in one country but attempted elsewhere. In response to calls for testable theoretical models, scholars have begun to investigate empirically the attendant phenomena associated with the venture development process. This article describes efforts to test in another nation a nine-stage entrepreneurial process model of venture development derived and validated in the USA. While some development stages appear to exist similarly across borders, others may not be present. Further, the sequence of stages in the US-derived model may differ when compared internationally.     

The first twenty-five years of the European Accounting Association: an American view

Since its emergence at the beginning of the 1990s, numerous companies have adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). This paper tackles two research questions: (1) whether the BSC adds value to companies and (2) if so, how does it contribute to organisational performance. In contrast to previous literature that does not separate these two questions, we rely on an established methodology (Foster and Swenson, 1997) to separate and quantify both the BSC contribution to performance and the way that the contribution is achieved, by applying a unique cause-and-effect scheme to the BSC. Our empirical results are based on survey data collected from 76 business units. They indicate first that the Balanced Scorecard has a positive impact on organisational performance. More specifically, the BSC improves the integration of the management processes and empowers people. Using the Strategy-Focused-Organisation (SFO) model (Kaplan and Norton, 2001), we empirically find that the sources of performance derived from the BSC are primarily of three types: (1) a better translation of the strategy into operational terms, (2) the fact that strategising becomes a continuous process, and (3) the greater alignment of various processes, services, competencies and units of an organisation.     

管理技巧和能力、管理满意度与工作绩效的关系研究

文章运用Logit模型对管理技巧和能力、管理满意度与工作绩效的关系展开了实证研究,得出了相应的结论和建议。     

A cybernetic view of environmental management: the implications for business organizations

Current environmental management practice is judged to be mechanistic and based on previous experience with health and safety and with quality management systems. In support of the claim that systems approaches to management are required, the question is asked: what is the systemic nature of environmental management and will it lead an organization towards some concept of sustainable business practice? To try and answer this question the Viable System Model (VSM) developed by Stafford Beer was used to analyse current environmental management practice from a systems perspective in seven manufacturing organizations. The findings suggest that significant structural changes in organizations will be necessary as well as changes in management practices (core competencies) and attitudes if organizations are to become viable. Tomorrow's business strategy is likely to be driven much more by cooperation rather than by competition. Some possible implications for business are: (1) Corporate portfolios will be organized around the supply chain (or flows of energy and materials) instead of products and markets. (2) Strategy will not only continue to be made at the corporate and business unit levels but also at the industry level. (3) Such developments will require much higher degrees of integration and cooperation than is currently practised between companies. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Attention-based view on achieving ambidexterity in purchasing and supply management

The focus of purchasing and supply management (PSM) is no longer just on short-term cost savings, but is also on long-term goals such as innovation and renewal. Because of this new dual role PSM needs to balance the short-term goals referred to as exploitation, and the long-term strategic goals referred to as exploration. However, developing in-depth knowledge of the supply markets in order to achieve PSM ambidexterity is challenging, as it requires much managerial attention that is limited in nature. This research draws on the attention-based view (ABV) to study the antecedents of ambidexterity in PSM. Based on a survey of 154 Finnish manufacturing firms, a set of hypotheses was tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that bottom-up supply market attention has a stronger association than top-down supply market attention with all three PSM goals: exploitation, exploration and ambidexterity. PSM status is positively associated with both bottom-up and top-down supply market attention. Top management should support activities aimed at capturing supply market opportunities by ensuring that the PSM staff is not overburdened and have enough time to focus on supply market intelligence gathering and analyses. This research is among the first to study the role and enablers of attentional mechanisms that underpin ambidexterity in PSM. A contribution to the ABV theory is made by suggesting operationalizations of managerial attention constructs.     

Comparing Chinese and American Managers on Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing involves present or former organization members reporting illegal, unethical or illegitimate activities under the control of organization leaders to parties who are willing and able to take action to correct the wrongdoing. A major shortcoming of prior whistleblowing research concerns the fact that there has been a tendency to examine whistleblowing from a culturally-bound perspective without looking at cultural and international differences. The present paper attempts to extend whistleblowing research into the international arena. This study will consider the differences in culture and societal structures between a United States sample of managers and a Chinese sample of managers with respect to differences in individual, organizational, and moral perception whistleblowing tendencies.     

Rhetoric and reality of corporate greening: a view from the supply chain management function

The increasingly important economic role of supply chain management provides the backcloth against which this article examines what contribution the function can make to environmental protection. Theoretical perspectives on greener supply are developed and then tested against a sample of manufacturing companies. Environmental policy documents published by the sample companies seem to offer surface evidence for a proactive supply chain management role in environmental protection. Yet a more detailed examination of the three elements that constitute supply chain management – the management of the transformation of materials, the management of information flows and the management of supply chain relationships – finds a suboptimal situation for all three areas. In part this gap can be explained by limits in the technical capabilities of the supply chain. More important, however, are structural constraints that prevent the supply chain manager from actively searching for environmentally friendlier alternatives. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Entrepreneurship: venture creation subprocesses,subdomains, and interfaces

While research interest in entrepreneurship continues to develop, considerable debate transpires on what exactly constitutes entrepreneurship and how to define the field appropriately. Thus, we sought to sort through a wide variety of entrepreneurship research in order to make sense of how various topics examined by scholars syndicate to comprise the field. First, we examine some of the numerous definitions that have been presented in literature thus far and offer our own definition based on a reasonable conclusion encompassing the parallels of thought. We then further comprehend the boundaries of entrepreneurship by examining subprocesses, subdomains, and interfaces. This integrative approach to understanding the field of entrepreneurship will be useful for current and future scholars interested in studying issues related to entrepreneurial phenomena by helping them recognize the multitude of factors that compose entrepreneurship, and thereby improve the quality of empirical and theoretical work in the field. We will conclude with a discussion of implications for entrepreneurial research, practice, and academic career development.     

A resource-based view of human resource management and organizational capabilities development

The aim of this research work was to analyse the role of human resource management in the development of organizational capabilities and its influence on the firm's performance from a resource-based view. Our results, from empirical research on a nation-wide sample of Spanish savings banks, suggest that human resource decisions, integrated in a human resource system, have an important influence on the development of organizational capabilities and on the firm's performance.     

Occupationally-specific skills: Using skills to define and understand jobs and their requirements

Recent work in Human Resources (HR) has highlighted the importance of understanding and identifying occupationally-specific skills. The purpose of this article is to describe the need to identify occupationally-specific skills and outline a methodology used to create occupationally-specific skills. Evidence of the validity of the methodology used is presented. The article concludes by identifying possible uses for occupationally-specific skills and providing information about actual implementation and use of systems based on occupationally-specific skills.     

Talent management and dynamic view of talent in small and medium enterprises

Talent Management (TM) has become one of the key strategic issues for leaders in global organizations and the majority of research on TM focuses on the large multinational enterprise (MNE) context. Despite the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), research in the area of talent management in this context is scarce, particularly conceptual research. This paper tries to address this gap by a) providing a theoretical rationale for the difference between large and SME firms in their talent management and human resource practices; b) exploring the applicability of the notion of talent management conceptualised in large firms to the SME context. c) Proposing a framework that helps identify the characteristics of talent in SMEs. We are critical of the best practices approach and we argue that the notion of talent management is likely to be different in SMEs compared with large firms mainly due to distinct institutional and structural factors.     

Guest Editorial: A purchasing and supply management view of supply resilience for better crisis response

Purchasing and supply management (PSM) has been under great pressure since the COVID-19 pandemic first shook the world. Companies and public organizations faced new kinds of supply disruptions, and at a scale never seen before. New response abilities were required from PSM to address these challenges and disruptions. This Editorial introduces four articles in the Special Issue on “PSM learning from the pandemic: transforming for better crisis management.” These empirical contributions show how companies could build resilience to survive and be competitive during the COVID-19 pandemic. This Editorial discusses how supply resilience should be conceptualized in post-pandemic supply chains adopting a PSM perspective. We suggest that supply resilience practices should be developed and planned according to whether they strengthen existing supply chain relationships (bridging) or establish new ones (buffering) and whether they are short-term (temporary) or long-term (permanent) orientated. Furthermore, three supply resilience capabilities, absorbing, responding and capitalizing, should be prioritized in supply chains for responding to and recovering from global crises and disruptions. Supply resilience is key to crisis response and recovery, and PSM has an essential role in building and sustaining that resilience.