Family firms are thought to pursue nonfinancial goals that provide socioemotional wealth, but socioemotional wealth is feasible only with family control of the firm. Using prospect theory, we ...hypothesize that socioemotional wealth increases with the extent of current control, duration of control, and intentions for transgenerational control, thus adding to the price at which owners would be willing to sell their firms to nonfamily buyers. Findings from two countries show that current control has no impact, and duration of control has a mixed impact. However, intention for transgenerational control has a consistently positive impact on the perceived acceptable selling price.
Extending human capital approaches to entrepreneurship, an entrepreneur's "inputs" relating to their general (i.e. education and work experience) and entrepreneurshipspecific human capital profile ...(i.e. business ownership experience, managerial capabilities, entrepreneurial capabilities and technical capabilities) are presumed to be related to entrepreneurial "outputs" in the form of business opportunity identification and pursuit. Valid and reliable independent variables were gathered from a stratified random sample of 588 owners of private firms. Ordered logit analysis was used to test several theoretically derived hypotheses. With regard to the number of business opportunities identified and pursued, entrepreneurship-specific rather than general human capital variables "explained" more of the variance. Entrepreneurs reporting higher information search intensity identified significantly more business opportunities, but they did not pursue markedly more or less opportunities. The use of publications as a source of information was positively associated with the probability of identifying more opportunities, while information emanating from personal, professional and business networks was not. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.
The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been widely investigated, but a generally accepted theoretical framework does not yet exist. This paper argues that the idiosyncrasies of ...large firms and SMEs explains the different approaches to CSR, and that the notion of social capital is a more useful way of under-standing the CSR approach of SMEs, whereas stakeholder theory more closely addresses the CSR approach of large firms. Based on the extant literature, we present a comparison of large firm and SME idiosyncrasies suggesting that both consolidated and emerging strategic orientations toward responsible behaviours exist. Idiosyncrasies of large firms and SMEs are also discussed to provide an assessment of the firm's strategic CSR orientation, suggesting the key drivers upon which CSR strategies must be based. A twofold consideration emerges. First, the CSR–SME relationship could be better explained if the notion of social capital is taken into account, but this should also be accompanied by a stakeholder view of the SME; second, social capital and stakeholder theory should be taken as alternative ways of explaining CSR in both large firms and SMEs.
National systems of entrepreneurship Acs, Zoltán J.; Audretsch, David B.; Lehmann, Erik E. ...
Small business economics,
04/2016, Volume:
46, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Research on entrepreneurship is mainly focused on the individual, and research on innovation has been mainly focused on institutions even though we know that both agency and context matter. To better ...integrate the two approaches, Acs et al. (Research Policy 43: 476-494, 2014. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2013.08.016) introduced the national systems of entrepreneurship (NSE) as a framework for a resource allocation system driven by individual-level opportunity pursuit through the creation of new ventures and its outcomes regulated by country-specific institutional characteristics. This paper draws on the NSE framework, sets it in a larger context, examines the logic of the approach and introduces the special issue by summarizing the papers.
The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone gives you new and exciting ways to make money from your interests, insights, and inventions. With the phenomenon of ?open source innovation? it?s easier than ever ...to turn your ideas and expertise into profits. This book shows how lone inventors are being supplanted by everyday experts using blogs, virtual communities, and microbusinesses to bring ideas and inventions to fruition. Whether you just want to make a few extra dollars or start a new business, this handy inventor?s guide points the way.
Do crisis times hamper or foster entrepreneurship? We analyze the relative growth performance of small and young firms within the German Mittelstand during the 2009 crisis. We find that small firms ...exhibit a relative growth advantage compared to larger firms in both stable and crisis times, and interpret this as a flexibility advantage of small size. By contrast, young firms, which show stronger growth in stable times, are disproportionately negatively affected by the crisis. A similar pattern holds for firms showing characteristics commonly associated with a more entrepreneurial attitude. Thus we conclude that crises are detrimental to entrepreneurship.
•We examine whether crisis times hamper or foster entrepreneurship.•Our analysis is based on a rich dataset covering the German Mittelstand from 2003 to 2012.•Small firms grow faster in stable and crisis times, indicating flexibility.•Younger and more entrepreneurial firms show lower growth in crisis times.•The opposite holds in normal times; hence crises are detrimental to entrepreneurship.
Long-term orientation (LTO), defined as the tendency to prioritize the long-range implications and impact of decisions and actions that come to fruition after an extended time period, is a common ...characteristic of many family businesses. Prior research is equivocal regarding whether an LTO contributes to or detracts from family firm outcomes. Of particular interest is the extent to which family business can be entrepreneurial given an LTO. Drawing on the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), propositions that relate long- and short-term management time horizons of family firms to five dimensions of EO (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk taking, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy) are developed. Specifically, we propose that an LTO will be positively associated with innovativeness, proactiveness, and autonomy but negatively associated with risk taking and competitive aggressiveness. We also address the long- and short-term implications of EO on the performance of family firms, and identify issues to consider in future research into the EO-LTO relationship.
Family business research appears to be caught in a “jungle” of competing theories in regards to familiness and performance. This study provides a further empirical examination into that relationship. ...We employ a family influence scale (the familiness–power, experience, and culture scale F–PEC) presented by Klein, Astrachan, and Smyrnios in an attempt to assess the relationship between familiness and performance in 831 family businesses. The resulting regression analysis adds to the current state of the literature by demonstrating significant and interesting results. Specifically, familiness showed associations with revenue, capital structure, growth, and perceived performance; however, the relationships were both positive and negative, thus casting doubt upon the F–PEC as a vehicle for untangling the jungle. We conclude with discussion and implications.
The entrepreneurship literature has been criticized for providing inadequate accounts of business owners' actual experiences and challenges. Work-family interface (WFI) considerations in particular ...are noticeably absent from much theorizing and research--despite the importance of such considerations to entrepreneurs themselves. We demonstrate how constructs from the WFI literature can help address an important entrepreneurship question that has not been answered satisfactorily to date: Why is there a persistent performance differential between male-headed and female-headed firms?
This paper analyzes small firm performance in relation to efficiency and flexibility strategies. Using configuration theory, the authors propose that small firms that pursue efficiency strategies or ...flexibility strategies outperform those that attempt to pursue both. Additionally, size is used as a configurational attribute to develop competing hypotheses on whether efficiency strategies or flexibility strategies are better suited for small firm performance. In two samples of 200 and 144 privately-held small firms, firms that mixed efficiency and flexibility strategies significantly underperformed. No significant performance differences were found between firms utilizing only efficiency strategies and those utilizing only flexibility strategies.
PDF
