Contextual and Interactional Approaches to Advancing Leadership and Entrepreneurship Research

In this introductory article for the special issue of Journal of Management Studies, entitled ‘Leading Entrepreneurial Ventures: Individual and Team-Based Perspectives’, we leverage insights in the extant literature as well as those insights developed by the authors of the four articles published in response to our call for papers. Overall, we explore multiple nuanced questions with regards to research on entrepreneurship, research on leadership, and their intersection. Our goal is to begin to help guide research on entrepreneurship and leadership, and their intersection, for the next decade.     

Does Project Management Affect Business Productivity? Evidence From Australian Small to Medium Enterprises

A fundamental assumption of project management practice and research is that using project management to achieve organizational objectives improves organizational performance. However, there is little published research that directly questions this assumption. This paper tests the hypothesis that using project management increases the productivity of small to medium enterprises, using data from two longitudinal surveys of Australian businesses with less than 200 staff members. These data were used to create models of the relationship between productivity and business skills using binary logistic regression. The models demonstrate that project management has a significant impact on small to medium enterprise productivity.     

Mechanism Connecting Environmental Friendliness to Service Loyalty: The Role of Positive Customer Emotions and Satisfaction

This research explores the mechanisms linking consumers’ perceptions of the environmental friendliness of service to customer loyalty. It investigates positive emotions evoked by perceptions of environmental friendliness and then links these emotions to customer satisfaction and loyalty as outcome variables. The data for testing a set of hypotheses was collected from a sample of over 150 consumers for three service industries, each. The results suggest that positive emotions in the form of “warm glow” feelings and sense of belonging are encouraged by environmental friendliness. The positive emotions have direct impacts on satisfaction, but show mixed impacts on loyalty.     

Why Do Consumers Stay When Things Are Bad and Leave When Things Are Good?

The study seeks to identify and classify motives for customers leaving when things are good and motives for staying when things are bad. Thus, this study identifies reasons for remaining in a business relationship when not satisfied. These motives are termed Capture Assistants. The study also identifies reasons for leaving a provider when satisfied. These motives are termed Escape Assistants. The critical incident technique was used to gain insights. A total of 219 incidents were classified. The results reveal that Capture Assistants hinder customers from leaving because they manifest themselves as fears of loss. Conversely, Escape Assistants motivate satisfied customers to leave because they promise gains. Managerial implications are outlined.     

Individual differences in implicit theories of leadership ability and self‐efficacy: Predicting responses to stereotype threat

Extending research on implicit theories to the leadership domain, we examined how individual differences in belief about the malleability of leadership ability influenced responses to stereotype threat. The study consisted of two time periods. At time 1, we assessed individual differences in implicit theories of leadership ability and self‐efficacy for leadership. At time 2, we activated a stereotype threat in a high‐stakes environment. Results revealed that women reported lower self‐evaluation after a stereotype threat when they had low self‐efficacy and believed leadership ability to be fixed (entity theory) rather than malleable (incremental theory). Results are discussed in terms of how implicit theories generate a network of allied cognitions and emotions that subsequently predict stable patterns of behavior.     

Going Down the Slippery Slope of Legitimacy Lies in Early-Stage Ventures: The Role of Moral Disengagement

Journal of Business Ethics - Aristotle’s philosophical insights into ethics, wisdom and practice have drawn the attention of scholars. In the current professional context where ethics are...     

Exploring the relation between family involvement and firms' financial performance: A meta-analysis of main and moderator effects

The present work summarizes the theoretical foundations and empirical findings regarding the relation between family involvement and firm performance. From a theory-based perspective we integrate evolutionary psychology and agency theory and describe how conflicting predictions can be made regarding the relation between family involvement and firm performance. Similarly, we describe how the empirical landscape is equally conflicted. Findings from this meta-analysis summarize the observed effects from multiple studies and provide an estimate of the relation across the entire population. Results illustrated that family involvement did not significantly impact firms' financial performance (r = .006). Based on these data, there is no relation between family involvement and a firm's financial performance. Furthermore, we examined multiple conceptual and methodologically-based potential moderating influences—none was statistically significant. Overall, these findings provide the foundation for multiple new areas of inquiry as the domain of family business studies evolves. Moving forward, we advise future research in this area to search for additional moderator effects and explore the defining characteristics, other than performance, that make family businesses distinct from non-family businesses.