A round of dancing and then one more: embedding intuition in the ballet of entrepreneurial decision making

The dance metaphor allows us to figuratively depict entrepreneurial decision making processes. Being conventionally conceived of as a sequence of purposeful behaviors rooted in a rational cognition process, entrepreneurial decision making can be featured as a ‘ballet’. This interpretation puts in the background the improvisational nature of decision making, which revokes ‘lindy hop’ as a dance style. The article intends to illuminate the role of intuition, highlighting its overlap with rationality in the entrepreneurial decision making dance. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis followed by an interpretive literature review advances a comprehensive report of 66 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 1995 to 2019, constructing evidence on the nature of entrepreneurial decision making and on the interplay between intuition and rationality. Literature is categorized in five clusters, which are reciprocally intertwined. Firstly, intuition is unconsciously used as a strategy to deal with the uncertainty that inherently affects entrepreneurial ventures. Secondly, intuition is rooted in the entrepreneurs’ impulsivity, that echoes the role of emotions in decision making. Thirdly, the merge of rationality and intuition improves the entrepreneurs’ ability to keep up with the erratic rhythm of the decision making dance. Fourthly, the mix of intuition and rationality serves as a catalyst of entrepreneurs’ ability to thrive in complex and unpredictable environments. Fifthly, intuition generates drawbacks on entrepreneurs’ meta-cognitive knowledge, which should be carefully recognized. Embracing the dance metaphor, intuition turns out to be crucial to make entrepreneurs able to fill in the gap between rationality and uncertainty.

     

Examining how advocacy groups build relationships on the Internet

• In 2006, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) became American law after brief Congressional discussions despite the public outcries from animal rights organizations. The AETA made it a federal terrorist crime to harm any animal enterprise financially, which could include legal forms of protests and boycotts. Members of the “Stop AETA” coalition failed to draw attention to the legislation. The relationship management theory of public relations provides a framework to determine how well the coalition members developed relationships with like‐minded individuals and the media. Results from a content analysis of the coalition members' Web sites revealed that nonprofit organizations and citizen‐advocacy groups attempted to develop relationships through a variety of strategies, including making the visit a positive experience, being open and transparent in their advocacy efforts, and providing access to coalition leaders. The results suggest that the coalition was unable to generate much news coverage for the issue because coalition members did not sufficiently reach out to cultivate relationships with journalists. Specific suggestions are provided for future advocacy groups to use the Internet to develop and cultivate relationships with key stakeholder groups.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tropical Agriculture: Is Africa Different?

We investigate the determinants of agricultural productivity in a panel of 27 tropical developing countries from 1984 to 2005 and test whether the coefficients of the right‐hand side variables are significantly different in sub‐Sahara Africa. We find evidence that the point estimates of fertilizer usage, telephones, tractor usage, rainfall and irrigation are positively and significantly related to agricultural productivity in the tropics. We also show that sub‐Saharan Africa is different in several respects. For instance, we find no evidence that fertilizer is associated with greater agricultural productivity in the African sample. Also, while the coefficient on infrastructure is positively associated with agricultural productivity in the full sample, its quantitative effect is smaller in sub‐Saharan Africa. As a robustness test, we experiment with an alternative measure of tropicality and find that the results are broadly similar.     

Does a 'shadow workforce' of inactive nurses exist?

The entire population of inactive nurses in Vermont was surveyed to determine if a "shadow workforce" exists. The notion that large numbers of nurses are available to return to work is not supported by this study. Desirable benefits for those wishing to return are discussed.     

Talent management in English universities during the coronavirus pandemic

This article reports a longitudinal study exploring talent management, through narratives provided by a group of managers of doctoral programmes in eight UK universities during the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. These managers were also academics, researchers and doctoral supervisors and their perspectives were gathered before and during “lockdown,” and then into the subsequent confused period of semi-lockdown / second lockdown, as cases of Coronavirus increased again in late 2020. Changing socio-economic circumstances, together with the added pressures of family responsibilities, impacted on participants' perceptions of changing roles and relationships during the pandemic. Over 12 months, six semi-structured online interviews (each lasting between 50 and 120 minutes) were conducted, using available platforms, with intervening emails. The narratives showed both formal and informal “talent management methods” and emphasized the need to use both to attract and retain international students.     

Cultural influences on cross-border vacationing

This study investigates the impact of cultural variables on cross-border vacationing in the Western New York-Southern Ontario region in North America and the Hong Kong-Shenzhen area in Asia. A survey of 635 cross-border vacationers in the two regions indicates that economic, quality, and service variables and the affective pleasure of vacationing in a foreign environment exert effects on vacationers' perceptions, behavior, and satisfaction predicted on the basis of the levels of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation prevalent in those border regions.