Reference points for measuring social performance: Case study of a social business venture

We present a longitudinal qualitative case study to elaborate on how a social venture forms reference points for social performance. Although organizations increasingly use various social performance targets to direct their operations, the scholarly knowledge on social performance reference points remains limited. We make use of the prior accounting literature and draw on the idea of compromising accounts to discuss how provisional and performative metrics can have a significant role in how organizations develop new ways to evaluate their social performance. Given that the social performance reference point criteria are ambiguous and the corresponding referents malleable, performative accounts are helpful as they can intervene in the organizational life by making particular things visible, providing space for interpretations, and facilitating discussion, thus creating temporary settlements and enabling opportunities for productive compromises between different organizational groups and evaluative principles. The recursive feedback loops between reference point referents, criteria and accounting artefacts help the organization to make sense of its own social performance and interpret the associated performance feedback, and thereby provide ground for organizational decisions on further action. Moreover, we discuss how imperfect accounts can be useful for social businesses in their pursuit of developing their activities and achieving social impact.     

Feeling capable and valued: A prosocial perspective on the link between empathy and social entrepreneurial intentions

Empathy is a key trait distinguishing social entrepreneurs from traditional entrepreneurs, and an important antecedent of social entrepreneurial (SE) intentions. Yet, little research explains the mechanisms through which empathy motivates SE intentions. We argue that studying the link between the prosocial trait of empathy and the prosocial outcome of SE intentions requires a prosocial lens that traditional entrepreneurial intent theories cannot offer. Building on prosocial motives research, we propose that empathy explains SE intentions through two complementary mechanisms: self-efficacy (an agentic mechanism), and social worth (a communal mechanism). We find support for our hypotheses in a study of 281 university students.     

The appeal of sustainability in luxury hospitality: An investigation on the role of perceived integrity

This research investigates the effect of a luxury hotel's marketing communication strategy on consumers' willingness to book a room. In particular, the article compares two types of communication message: one that mainly highlights the hotel's attention to environmental sustainability and the other that focuses on customer service. The paper tests the hypothesis that a sustainability-focused communication leads to a higher willingness to book a room (compared to the customer service-focused strategy) because it increases consumers' perceptions about the hotel's integrity. Moreover, the study proposes that consumers' dispositional environmental concern magnifies this effect. One online and one realistic field experiment provide empirical evidence for the research hypotheses. This article contributes to the literature on sustainable luxury tourism and hospitality by proposing a novel theoretical framework, grounded in perceived hotel integrity, to explain why consumers might react positively when learning that a luxury hotel is committed to sustainability.     

A political ideology lens on social entrepreneurship motivations

ABSTRACT

The traditional literature regarding social entrepreneurship does not question the political dimension. On the contrary, it tends to de-politicize societal issues. A growing number of researchers underline how this perspective cannot address the complexity and the dialogical nature of social entrepreneurship. However, while there may be a case for incorporating a political perspective, there is currently no conceptual framework to systematically inform an empirical exploration of the role played by the political vision of entrepreneurs. In this paper, we use the concept of political ideology to offer a solid framework to show how politics can shape social entrepreneurs’ motivations. More precisely we identify three political profiles – anti-statist, reformist and neoliberal – which shape the motives to engage in social entrepreneurship. We take an embedded case study approach of 17 social entrepreneurs involved in a social innovation boot camp and reveal the existence of both, left and right-wing approaches in social entrepreneurship.     

Determinants of students’ entrepreneurial intention to compete in a fast-pitch competition

Despite the heightened popularity of entrepreneurship education, there remain open questions regarding best practices in co-curricular programs. Using the theory of planned behavior, the authors examine how students’ intention is shaped to increase the likelihood of participation in entrepreneurship co-curricular programs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relation between entrepreneurial identity and entrepreneurial intention theory. They find the popular personality trait, openness, is related to ambition, which reveals the interaction between personal elements (personality/identity) and contextual elements (aspirations to success/intention), a novel finding in the literature. This further illustrates the interconnectedness between the theory of planned behavior and the entrepreneurial event model     

The Infusion of Relational Market Obligations into the Austrian Agenda—Some Lessons Learned from Economic Sociology

Given its dictum of market equilibrium, economics in general obviously does poorly in shouldering market dynamics. Pervading obligatory traits of the market (other than mere dyadic contracting) is yet another area where not much attention is devoted. Whereas the Austrian agenda fills the first of these voids in a most sophisticated manner, its current discourse appears as oblivious concerning the manner in which market exchange transforms into relational interconnected obligations. That is to say, exchange is hardly understood as an indispensable facet of durable market obligations such as relationships 'constituting the market', but exclusively as immediate entrepreneurial arbitrage. Apart from an outright peculiar failure to recognize some of its own roots in this regard this omission unnecessarily delimits the manner in which Austrians can proceed and deepen their market analysis. The principal idea of this paper is to scrutinize the manner in which relational market obligations can be introduced into Austrian reasoning by drawing on ideas from within economic sociology. Max Weber's dictum on market openness takes on a particular role in this regard. An adjacent contribution strived for is to let this scrutiny foreshadow the manner in which such a partial reconciliation of market ideas from within economic sociology and Austrian economics could proceed.     

The Small Business Capital Market Behavior in Athens Stock Exchange

Financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially business investments and growth, is a composite and particular complicated affair in the Greek entrepreneurial reality. This paper examines the significance of secondary capital markets, as an alternative source of financing small-medium enterprises’ new entrepreneurial plans. Cointegration technique is applied to test the relationship between the secondary capital market and the dominant sectors in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Causality tests are also used to provide evidence on the existence of interdependence between the cointegrated series. The results indicate that there is significant uni-directional causality between primary and secondary capital market in Greece, enhancing us to suggest valuable policy implications.      

Political Entrepreneurship and the Democratic Allocation of Economic Resources

Political entrepreneurship occurs when an individual acts on a political profit opportunity. These profit opportunities can be divided into two categories: productive, and predatory. Productive opportunities enable entrepreneurs to profit from enhancing the efficiency of government, while predatory opportunities enable entrepreneurs to profit from forcibly transferring resources from some to others. This analysis shows that political institutions tend to favor predatory over productive political entrepreneurship, and shows that what is sometimes referred to as political exchange does not have the same efficiency characteristics as voluntary exchange in private markets.