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Senior managers play a fundamental role in organizations. They shape organizational strategy and culture, set the mission, including opportunities for new markets, and construct the business models. Their commitment to the organization is vital to organizational performance, yet research on personality traits of senior managers and their commitment to organizations is limited. Drawing on self-affirmation theory, we investigate the consequences of senior managers’ ‘Dark Triad Traits’ (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) for their organizational commitment. We use the three-component model developed by Allen and Meyer (J Occup Psychol 63:1–18, 1990) to distinguish affective, continuance, and normative commitment. Our findings from a dataset of 394 senior French managers collected between 2017 and 2018 show that narcissism positively affects continuance commitment and normative commitment. This study contributes to a neglected stream of research investigating the relationship between Dark Triad traits and organizational commitment; contributes to ‘destigmatizing’ Dark Triad traits, often considered problematic for individuals; and adds to the minimal research currently on manager personality and organizational commitment.

This article explores religion and religiosity in the field of entrepreneurship. Based on an original, international dataset of 740 students, we examine the impact of individual religious affiliation (Protestant, Catholic or Muslim) or non-affiliation (Agnostic/Atheist) on entrepreneurial intentions. We further examine the influence of individual religiosity (beyond mere religious affiliation) on entrepreneurial intentions, offering new insights as to the role religion and religiosity play in entrepreneurship. Findings support the notion that religion matters when entrepreneurial intentions are concerned. We show that having a religious affiliation – as compared to identifying as an Agnostic/Atheist – has a positive relationship with entrepreneurial intentions. More importantly, we show that religiosity – not just religious affiliation – affects intentions differently across different religions, thus pointing to the importance of taking religiosity into account, and not only religious affiliation. We also show that followers of a specific religion cannot be regarded as a uniform group when it comes to entrepreneurship and that it is important to differentiate between streams.

We explore the relationship between the characteristics of social capital, the speed of access to medical technologies and the role of gender in a private practice context. Our findings from a sample of 98 German private practitioners show that: (a) being a woman has an overall negative impact on the speed of access to medical technologies; (b) private practitioners with strong social network ties obtain quicker access to medical technologies than do those with weak ties; (c) men relying on their weak ties perform better than women who do so. In contrast, we observe that women relying on strong ties outperform their male counterparts in terms of speed of access to medical technologies., Nous explorons la relation entre les caractéristiques du capital social, la rapidité d’accès aux technologies médicales et le genre dans le contexte de cabinets médicaux privés. Les conclusions tirées à partir d’un échantillon de 98 médecins privés allemands montrent que : a) le fait d’être une femme médecin a un impact négatif global sur la rapidité d’accès aux technologies médicales; (b) les médecins privés ayant des liens sociaux forts obtiennent un accès plus rapide aux technologies médicales que ceux qui ont des liens faibles; c) les hommes qui s’appuient sur leurs liens faibles obtiennent de meilleurs résultats que les femmes. En revanche, nous observons que les femmes qui ont des liens forts ont plus rapidement accès aux technologies médicales que leurs homologues masculins., Exploramos la relación entre las características del capital social, la rapidez del acceso a tecnologías médicas y el papel del género en un contexto de práctica privada. Nuestros hallazgos en una muestra de 98 practicantes privados alemanes muestran que: (a) ser una mujer tiene un impacto negativo en general en relación con la rapidez de acceso a tecnologías médicas; (b) practicantes privados con vínculos fuertes de redes sociales obtienen acceso a tecnologías médicas más rápido que aquellos que tienen vínculos débiles; (c) hombres que dependen en sus vínculos débiles se desempeñan mejor que mujeres que hacen lo mismo. Por lo contrario, observamos que mujeres que dependen en vínculos fuertes superan a sus contrapartes varones en términos de rapidez de acceso a tecnología médica.

Objectives: The Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) capture individual differences in aversive personality to complement work on other taxonomies, such as the Big Five traits. However, the literature on the Dark Triad traits relies mostly on samples from English-speaking (i.e., Westernized) countries. We broadened the scope of this literature by sampling from a wider array of countries. Method: We drew on data from 49 countries (N = 11,723; 65.8% female; Age Mean = 21.53) to examine how an extensive net of country-level variables in economic status (e.g., Human Development Index), social relations (e.g., gender equality), political orientations (e.g., democracy), and cultural values (e.g., embeddedness) relate to country-level rates of the Dark Triad traits, as well as variance in the magnitude of sex differences in them. Results: Narcissism was especially sensitive to country-level variables. Countries with more embedded and hierarchical cultural systems were more narcissistic. Also, sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed societies: Women were less likely to be narcissistic in developed (vs. less developed) countries. Conclusions: We discuss the results based on evolutionary and social role models of personality and sex differences. That higher country-level narcissism was more common in less developed countries, whereas sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed countries, is more consistent with evolutionary than social role models.

Cette recherche entend poursuivre les travaux d’Allouche et Amann (2000) puis de Arrègle et Mari (2010) proposant un état des recherches dans le champ de l’entreprise familiale. Nous opérons une analyse des articles exclusivement francophones publiés depuis 2000 à 2015 (79 articles) et proposons un panorama des thèmes de recherche et des perspectives futures. Cette démarche nous permet de mettre en évidence cinq avancées : des avancées théoriques même si les fondements demeurent peu diversifiés (1), un déplacement progressif du niveau d’analyse (2), un timide décloisonnement (3), des avancées méthodologiques (4), managériales (5). This research intends to continue the work undertaken by Allouche and Amann (2000) and then Arrègle and Mari (2010) proposing a state of research in the field of family business. We operate an analysis of articles published exclusively in French from 2000 to 2015 (79 articles) and provide an overview of research topics and future prospects. This approach allows us to highlight five advances: theoretical advances even though the fundamentals remain undiversified (1), a gradual shift of the level of analysis (2), a light decompartmentalization (3), methodological (4), and managerial advances (5).

International audience; In line with an intensified call for conducting business in a greener and more sustainable way, sustainability-related entrepreneurship has become an important subfield of entrepreneurship research. The variety of terms, such as “sustainable entrepreneurship”, “ecopreneurship”, “environmental entrepreneurship/enviropreneurship”, and “green entrepreneurship”, reflects the fragmented and inconsistent findings of this research field. Based on the one-pillar model of sustainable development, i.e., ecological sustainability, we present the first systematic review of the literature on ecological sustainable entrepreneurship. This analysis of 114 scientific articles reveals a strong focus on the drivers of engagement in ecological sustainable entrepreneurship, the drivers of conducting business in an ecological sustainable way, the strategic actions taken by ecological sustainable enterprises, and the outcomes, enabling factors and challenges of ecological sustainable entrepreneurship. Based on this thematic clustering, we develop an integrative framework for ecological sustainable entrepreneurship and a coherent agenda for future research. This work may help researchers to take stock of the existing literature and advance this research field.

While the direct influence of innovation on growth has been examined in the entrepreneurship literature, the underlying channels of influence have remained largely unexplored. This article draws upon behavioral reasoning theory to examine whether growth intention is the pathway through which product, process and organizational innovations influence venture growth. Results from the analysis of a dataset of 20,472 French new ventures reveal that: (1) product, process and organizational innovations have a positive impact on sales revenues growth; (2) growth intention has a positive impact on sales revenues growth; and (3) growth intention mediates the effects of innovations on sales revenues growth. These findings have implications for a more balanced and nuanced view on how innovations impact new venture growth.

International audience; Being vulnerable to environmental forces, small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seek to supplement their insufficient resources by adopting coopetition strategies in order to reduce uncertainty. This longitudinal study of the union of wine producers in Pic Saint-Loup relies on 45 interviews conducted during multiple data collection moments and provides an understanding of how competing SMEs can develop cooperative strategies. In doing so, we present the development stages of coopetition strategies as well as the role of stakeholders in this development. Next, we accentuate the tertius strategies SME managers prefer to implement.

Research on management with regard to religion became a growing field of interest in the last decades. Nevertheless, the impact of religion on actor’s economic behavior is also an old research topic, as the writings of Max Weber (The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Allen and Unwin, London, 1930) underline. The purpose of this contribution is to highlight the developments of this topic and to guide scholars to identify possible gaps. The structuring and investigation on this topic will help us to advance and better understand past research, while leading to some further reflections. We conduct a citation analysis of 215 articles and 7,968 cited references to examine the citation structure and make out the most-influential publications that have shaped research most so far. On the basis of the analysis it is to be assumed that three research streams affect progress: Best practices regarding performance issues, religion at work as well as religion, and personal ethics. Finally, the publications that each topic-clusters contains are reflected and discussed to achieve a structural overview of the state of the art of research.

La recherche germanophone (en entrepreneuriat et PME) est pratiquement inconnue des chercheurs francophones. Cela est en partie dû au fait que la langue anglaise s’est imposée dans les milieux scientifiques et des affaires. Cette ignorance de la recherche germanophone est regrettable pour au moins deux raisons : 1) les chercheurs germanophones ont souvent été des pionniers dans le domaine des PME et de l’entrepreneuriat et 2) les PME occupent une place prépondérante dans l’économie et la politique économique des trois pays germanophones (Autriche, Allemagne et Suisse).L’objectif de cet article est de combler ce manque de connaissance en proposant de faire un état de lieux sur la recherche germanophone en entrepreneuriat et PME au cours des dix dernières années, soit de 1997 à 2006. Pour cela, les auteurs, au travers d’une étude descriptive, s’intéressent aux articles parus dans les trois revues scientifiques germanophones principales en entrepreneuriat et PME : Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung – ZfbF ; Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft – ZfB ; et Zeitschrift für Klein- und Mittelunternehmen – ZfKE.L’article, composé de trois parties, donne un aperçu des origines de la recherche en entrepreneuriat et PME, définit la méthode utilisée pour cette étude et détaille les résultats selon les auteurs, les types de publications et les disciplines abordées., The German-speaking research in entrepreneurship and small business is unknown in France. This is due to the fact that English has become the most used language for scientific works and in the international economic context. The ignorance of the German speaking research is at last regrettable for two reasons : 1) German-speaking researchers have been pioneers in the fields of entrepreneuship and SMEs ; 2) SMEs represent a large part of the economy in the three biggest German-speaking countries (Austria, Germany and Switzerland).The purpose of this, mainly descriptive, contribution is to make an inventory of research on SMEs and entrepreneurship in the last ten years (1997-2006). We will present a record of the main German-speaking journals in the fields of SMEs and entrepreneurship : Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung – ZfbF ; Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft – ZfB ; and Zeitschrift für Klein- und Mittelunternehmen – ZfKE. We will try to present the origins of these fields, the used methodologies, the types of publications and the topics., La investigación de habla alemana sobre la pequeña y mediana empresa, así como sobre el empresariado es prácticamente desconocida en el medio de habla francesa. La barrera lingüistica, el reconocimiento del inglés como lingua franca en la investigación y en la economía internacional parecen ser la causa de esta falta de visibilidad. Esta ignorancia de la investigación de habla alemana es lamentable por al menos por dos razones : primero, porque investigadores de habla alemana han sido pioneros en los campos de pequeña y mediana empresa así como en el empresariado y secundo, porque la pequeña y mediana empresa ejerce un papel principal en los países de lengua alemana tales como Austria, Alemania y Suiza.La meta de este trabajo, mayoriatariamente descriptivo, es presentar la investigación de habla alemana de los últimos 10 años (1996-2006) sobre la pequeña y mediana empresa así como sobre el empresariado. Presentaremos un inventario de publicaciones específicas de habla alemana (Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung – ZfbF, Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft – ZfB y Zeitschrift für Klein- und Mittelunternehmen – ZfKE), e intentaremos ilustrar así los orígenes de la investigación sobre la pequeña y mediana empresa así como sobre el empresariado, los métodos de investigación, los tipos de publicaciones y las especializaciones., Die deutschsprachige Entrepreneurship- und KMU-Forschung ist fast völlig unbekannt im französischen Sprachraum. Die sprachliche Hürde, die Annerkennung der englischen Sprache als lingua franca für wissenschaftliche Arbeiten und im internationalen Wirtschaftstreiben scheinen die Hauptgründe dieser fehlenden Visibilität zu sein. Diese Ignoranz an deutschsprachiger Forschung ist einerseits deshalb schon bedauerlich, da die deutschsprachigen Wissenschafter oft Pioniere in der Entrepreneurship- und KMU-Forschung waren. Andererseits, nehmen die Klein- und Mittelunternehmen in den drei größten deutschsprachigen Ländern (Österreich, Deutschland und der Schweiz) den Grossteil des Wirtschaftslebens ein und stehen deshalb auch im Mittelpunkt der Wirtschaftspolitik.Dieser Beitrag legt eine Bestandsaufnahme der deutschsprachigen Entrepreneurship- und KMU-Forschung der letzten zehn Jahre (1997-2006) vor. Dieser Beitrag ist daher hauptsächlich deskriptiv angelegt, und basiert auf einer Analyse von Beiträgen aus drei deutschsprachigen Fachzeitschriften (Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung – ZfbF ; Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft – ZfB ; und Zeitschrift für Klein- und Mittelunternehmen – ZfKE). Dieser Beitrag ist dreiteilig aufgebaut : in einem ersten Teil geben wir einen Überblick über den Ursprung der Entrepreneurship- und KMU-Forschung im deutschsprachigem Raum. Anschließend präsentieren wir die verwendete Methode, mit welcher wir die Beiträge analysiert haben. Im dritten Teil zeigen wir die Resultate unserer Analyse auf.

This research article analyses the influence of micro-enterprise (ME) managers’ perception of their relationship to their environment on the nature of their ethics. We carried out a survey with the head managers of 125 French MEs, providing a large set of primary data. Two types of variables were defined: (1) variables related to the nature and intensity of the relationships between ME managers and their social environment, and (2) variables related to the ethical framework that the managers used. The results of univariate and bivariate analyses show significant statistical relationships between the variables that indicated perceived embeddedness in the community and ethical variables. This result underlines the idea that “communities of ethics” may have an important influence in MEs.

International audience; (Full paper, but we work on enriched versions for journals) This study presents an empirical investigation of factors affecting SMB CEOs decision to improve or not their company's information security (ISS). We developed a research model by adopting the protection motivation theory (PMT) to investigate the effect of threat and coping appraisal on protective actions. We conducted a questionnaire-based survey with SMB CEOs. Prior studies using PMT have never been focused on SMB CEOs behavior, and we postulate that in SMBs where there is no CIO or even IT people, CEOs actions are of utmost importance for achieving a satisfying ISS.

International audience; Change has always fascinated scholars across disciplines and numerous theories and models of organizational change and development have been published (Weick 1979; Van de Ven and Poole 1995). In management science, change has long been conceptualized as the opposite of stability (Adler et al. 2009; March 1991; Nelson and Winter 1982; March and Simon 1958). Only recently management theory conceptually overcame this dualism and established an understanding of duality of change and stability. In this thinking it is the interplay of change and stability that fosters critical developments in firms such as innovation, internationalization and strategic renewal (Moshe 2010).Understanding stability and change as the two sides of the same coin opens the door for a more contextualized investigation of change in firms (Cohen 2007). This allows for research into the complex and sometimes paradoxical relation between stability and change (Sutherland and Smith 2011; Van Gestel and Hillebrand 2011). ...

While the direct influence of growth intention on small business growth has been examined in entrepreneurship literature, little research distinguishes the different forms of growth and how they are interrelated. This article draws upon growth intention to examine whether firm size growth is the channel through which growth intention influences sales growth. Results from the analysis of a dataset of 20,472 French new ventures reveal that: 1) growth intention has a positive impact on sales growth; 2) firm size growth has a positive impact on sales growth; 3) firm size growth mediates the effect of growth intention on sales growth. These findings show that firm size growth is a means to achieve sales growth and not only a finality per se.

International audience; Over the past two decades, coopetition received growing attention by practitioners and scholars worldwide with a wide range of subjects explored within the current body of literature. Despite the constantly growing number of scientific publications, the current literature lacks a comprehensive and critical overview of past and present research accomplishments. Based on the first citation analysis in this field, we present three topical clusters which help us to indicate the evolution path of coopetition research. Additionally, the current literature state is studied by means of a systematic literature review reflecting the major research avenues. By combining and comparing the results of these two analyses, the paper concludes by proposing possible future research directions. To advance our current understanding of coopetition, we suggest that forthcoming research explores coopetition in the contexts of startups and family firms and extends our knowledge on the protection mechanisms which are necessary for coopeting successfully.

International audience; Although it is argued that competitiveness and successful performance in the long term is facilitated if ventures engage in innovations in diverse domains (e.g., product, process, production, administration, etc.), the development of diversified innovation has been rarely analysed. As the entrepreneurs’ initial motivations to startup are likely to influence their subsequent entrepreneurial behaviour, this study aims to explore whether and how entrepreneurial motivations affect diversified innovation behaviour in startups. Using data on over 48,000 French startups, we present novel insights into the consequences of entrepreneurial motivation for innovation behaviour. In fact, we find that distinct startup motivations can have different effects on the development of diverse innovations. As such, our findings contribute to extant research on innovation development of startups and advance the present understanding of the determinants of startups’ innovative behaviour.

Legitimacy is crucial for entrepreneurs. It is the cornerstone for creating relationships with stakeholders and mitigating resource constraints. But, other-referent legitimacy is also related to the cognitive image of individual legitimacy. Drawing on the identity-based model of legitimacy, we argue that personality traits (big five) and social capital (strong ties) of entrepreneurs impact self-perceived legitimacy of entrepreneurs. Based on survey data of 98 German private physicians, this paper examines antecedents of self-perceived legitimacy towards two main stakeholders: patients and peers. We find that high levels of agreeableness stimulate self-perceived legitimacy towards patients and peers, whereas openness to experience solely influences physicians' self-perceived legitimacy towards patients. In addition, our results highlight the contingent effect of personality traits by underlining the role of strong ties as a moderator of the relationship between personality traits and self-perceived legitimacy. By identifying these configurations we contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship with a refined perspective of antecedents of self-perceived legitimacy. Moreover, we give recommendations on how private physicians can benefit from two personality traits - agreeableness and openness to experience - and how they can manage weak and strong ties in order to diffuse their reputation.