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The Internet of Things (IoT), a worldwide network of interconnected objects uniquely addressable, based on standard communication protocols, has become a disruptive technology, even for decision-makers who develop products based on them. It was reported in 2015 and 2018 that decision-makers associated with the Fortune 1000 firms stated that they were hesitant to use IoT-based value propositions, primarily due to privacy and security concerns. In this article, we view decision-maker willingness to develop IoT-based products through the lens of the social construction of technology (SCOT) theory. We utilize SCOT-based generational cohorts of firm decision-makers to investigate whether generational cohorts of decision-makers are relevant in a firm's decision to launch an IoT value proposition. We argue that it is pertinent to consider age-based generations as stakeholders for IoT, which currently constitutes a gap in the literature on IoT and SCOT. We employ an exploratory survey analysis that supports the relevance of generational decision-making cohorts. We focus on age to the exclusion of other potential decision-maker cohort possibilities and discuss this as a limitation in our conclusion.

International-entrepreneurship researchers use a capability-based perspective to analyze the international performance of early-internationalizing firms. More than 300 papers seem to address the role of capabilities in international performance. The purpose of this study is to structure this literature and provide an orientation for researchers. First, we develop a capability-categorization model. Second, we use this model in conjunction with our systematic literature review to identify which capabilities dominate the literature and which may have been overlooked. Third, we find that, in a significant share of the papers, “capability” is defined rather loosely, which impedes theory development at the interface of the capability-based perspective and international entrepreneurship. We conclude with a research agenda for future capabilities-based international-entrepreneurship research.

Research partnerships between university researchers and industry partners are becoming increasingly prevalent. For university researchers, maintaining autonomy is crucial. We explore how researchers strategically manage autonomy in collaborative research partnerships, using a framework to distinguish strategically planned and opportunity-driven behaviour in the process of selecting partners and executing research in partnerships. We then focus on the management of autonomy in setting research directions and managing the research process. We draw on insights from 14 management scholars engaged in collaborative Ph.D. research projects. Based on our analysis, we show that researcher autonomy has two facets: operational and scientific. Researchers are willing to compromise their operational autonomy as a price for industry collaboration. They have a strong need for scientific autonomy when deciding on research direction and research execution. Although they need funding, entering a specific relationship with industry and accepting restrictions on their operational autonomy is a choice. We conclude that researchers’ orientations towards practice and theory affects their choices in partnerships as well as modes of governance.

Recent studies have substantially enhanced our understanding of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in entrepreneurship—articulating the theoretical relevance of ADHD-type traits in entrepreneurship and confirming the positive linkages between ADHD symptoms/diagnosis and entrepreneurial intentions and behavior. However, how and why some people with ADHD symptoms run successful ventures, while other entrepreneurs fail to perform well, is still not well established. Our study builds on a Gestalt perspective that integrates person–environment fit and broaden-and-build theorizing, and proposes that strong positive emotions enable entrepreneurs with ADHD symptoms (at the subclinical level) to mitigate/reinforce the effect of ADHD’s trait-specific weaknesses/strengths to achieve entrepreneurial performance. Relying on fuzzy-set methodology, our findings indicate that for entrepreneurs with ADHD symptoms, entrepreneurial performance occurs when they simultaneously experience passion for founding and developing. This passion configuration is unique to successful ADHD-type entrepreneurs. As such, this study offers novel theoretical and empirical insights as well as implications for practitioners.Plain English SummaryDo people with ADHD perform well in entrepreneurship? Our research shows how ADHD symptoms relate to entrepreneurial performance finding that passion is important. Entrepreneurs who are highly and thereby ambidextrously passionate for growing their businesses and for founding activities while lacking intense positive feelings for coming up with new ideas can benefit from ADHD. These results are important for people with ADHD and their loved ones.

The development and management of sustainable supply chains is a practical and academic challenge. Considering that, globally, most firms are family businesses, this study explores the role that their unique familiness plays in the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability in supply chains. Family businesses emphasize a long-term perspective, social responsibility, and ecological awareness. Findings from a comparative study of twelve cases of six family and six non-family businesses demonstrate that sustainability concerns differ at the upstream, focal-firm, and downstream firm levels. These differences are explored from an institutional theory perspective and arise because of several coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. We argue that, at the upstream level, family businesses tend to accentuate social concerns.In contrast, non-family businesses pay much less attention to social concerns. Within the firm, family businesses give weight to all three sustainability dimensions. In comparison, non-family businesses downplay the social dimension in favor of the environmental dimension. Downstream, family businesses address similar sustainability dimensions as non-family businesses. Such differences are due to institutional pressures, especially the firm's culture, values, and top management involvement. There are specific practical implications concerning the role that family businesses can play in making supply chains more sustainable

Start-ups are an important source of novel knowledge and product ideas for incumbents. We investigate which search strategies are positively related to the successful search for start-ups. We identify search instruments and their various uses: intensive or broad; stand-alone or combinatory. Finding 11 search practices in the literature, we evaluate how these practices were used by 97 respondents from a cross-industry and cross-national sample. Our results show that searching broadly and intensively is positively related to a successful search for start-ups and to firms’ radical innovation capability. Specific tools that are positively related to search success are online contacts, desk research, external scouting partners, and start-up pitch events. Decision tree analysis provides effective combinations of search practices that innovation managers and purchasing managers can use. Employing these search practice combinations, we make incumbents aware of the routines used in distant knowledge search. These practices are dynamic capabilities that help them to remain successful in high-velocity markets. In identifying these search practices, we contribute to the literature on innovation routines and dynamic capability research.

Product adoption and diffusion dynamics observed in field studies vary with population size and structure and affect the financial future of firms of all sizes. The purpose of this study is to identify a single model that could produce this variety of dynamics. A single model was in fact identified in this study, namely replicator dynamics. To identify this single model, a case study approach based on secondary sources is utilised. Product adoption cases are selected from the base of the pyramid (BOP) because the richness and variety of that context provided a unique opportunity to study the phenomenon. It is shown that replicator dynamics could produce a variety of product adoption and diffusion dynamics that had been observed at the BOP. These findings imply that replicator dynamics, hence imitation and biased cultural transmission, may lie at the core of most product adoption and diffusion.

What makes small‐ and medium‐sized family firms (family SMEs) innovative? Some family firm dynamics promote, yet others hinder innovation. It remains unclear whether combinations of family firm dyn...

University-industry innovation networks (UIINs) are important agents of innovation, as they bring together the unique profiles of higher education and industry partners. Knowledge growth in these networks does not happen automatically. We analyze the impact of network density and heterogeneity on knowledge growth in UIINs. Knowledge grows through knowledge transfer, spillover, and knowledge innovation. Knowledge growth is a function of each agent's initial knowledge level, network density, and agent heterogeneity. To analyze these correlates of knowledge growth, we use a knowledge growth model based on multiple agents and simulate knowledge growth in a UIIN. Our results show that network density positively influences knowledge growth. Initially, this positive impact increases and then disappears with a further increase in network density. We also find that heterogeneity moderates the relationship between density and knowledge growth. Through the positive moderating effect of its impact on knowledge innovation, it promotes new knowledge generation in the entire innovation network, thus providing a basis for subsequent knowledge transfer. Our study supports and enriches the contingency view of knowledge growth in innovation networks.

Many startups use Lean Startup (LS). But is it effective? While there are emerging qualitative findings, quantitative evidence does not yet exist. To address this gap, we developed an operationalization of the degree to which startups use LS (Lean Startup Capability, LSC). We then analyzed the LSC-performance relationship. We found a strong and robust relationship. A discussion contextualizes our findings. The LSC operationalization is relevant for research as future efforts can build on and extend it. The contribution to entrepreneurial practice is that we carved out the element of LSC, and showed that LS is indeed linked to performance.

Research on entrepreneurial personality traits has done a commendable job in developing theory and providing evidence for the consistent effects of the entrepreneurial trait profile (ETP) on various entrepreneurial outcomes. While research has established the fit between the extravert, conscientious and open traits and entrepreneurial intention (EI), the view that entrepreneurship may provide an alternative career path for people outside the norm has attracted increasing interest. In this study, we explore a counterweight to the dominant ‘superhero’ personality perspective by arguing that, in entrepreneurship, highly sensitive persons (HSPs) can attend to their own needs and skills, and turn their weaknesses into strengths. Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) – a fundamental meta-personality trait – may provide the crucial piece in the personality puzzle related to opportunity recognition ability (ORA) and the intention to act entrepreneurially. We adopt a person-environment fit approach and employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). We find that combinations of either SPS or ETP and ORA are sufficient conditions for EI. This study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial traits by inviting reconsideration of the stereotypical view of extrovert and open entrepreneurs and acknowledging the strength of a ‘weak’ trait.

Although values and motivations of entrepreneurs are thought to impact key decisions and performance during business venturing, research in this field is still scarce. Organizational psychology and entrepreneurship literature has suggested that social value orientation (SVO) might affect entrepreneurial behavior. In this article, we hypothesized about the relationship between social value orientation and entrepreneurial performance in the context of entrepreneurial teams. We have developed preliminary insights through an entrepreneurial educational field experiment with students being sampled in teams based on proself and proother orientations. As hypothesized, prosocial teams performed better, yet surprisingly altruism in teams was related to worse performance. Our preliminary findings further indicate that team relationship conflict played a positive role in prosocial teams’ performance. Although preliminary, these findings may offer promising insights to the entrepreneurial team and entrepreneurship education literature.

Regional determinants of new firm formation are of interest to researchers and policymakers. In the analysis of new firm formation, most studies use econometric approaches that mask intra-unit variations, not recognizing counterbalancing and dilution effects as a result. Recent advances in spatial statistics such as Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) take local variations into account. However, these approaches operate only on a bivariate level, making it impossible to detect the homogenous parts of the area under examination with regard to a number of relationships between new firm formation and its determinants. Based on a sample of 412 German regions, we apply GWR and subsequent graph-partitioning clustering to identify multi-relationally homogeneous sub-areas. Being that the results suggest a four-cluster solution, ‘one size fits all’ policies and premature unit zoning can be called into question

Electronic Human Resource Management (e-HRM) is often assumed to increase HRM service quality. This paper empirically examines the relationship between e-HRM and HRM service quality and addresses two calls from recent e-HRM studies, namely to highlight (i) the importance of the interplay between technological and organizational aspects and (ii) the finding that improved HRM service quality is a consequence of e-HRM implementation. We argue that the key drivers of HRM service quality are the strengths both of HRM and of e-HRM. The relationship may be mediated by the frequency of e-HRM usage. In addition, building on Adaptive Structuration Theory, the degree to which mediation occurs may differ within regimes of high and low e-HRM appropriation. We use moderated mediation analysis on a sample of 140 employees of an administration unit to shed light on the drivers of HRM service quality. While we identify strong positive direct effects of HRM strength and of e-HRM strength, we fail to uncover either mediation or contingent mediation effects. The study contributes to e-HRM research by identifying the main antecedent of HRM service quality as HRM strength.

The question whether patenting impacts patenting firms' subsequent financial performance is important for technology-oriented companies. However, relevant research has led to contradictory results. We strive to overcome this impasse by introducing innovation competition and patent age as moderators of patents' performance contribution into the discourse. Based on a sample of 975 cases from diverse industries, we find strong support for our arguments. In line with our expectations, the results show that the number of patents granted, the degree of patent competition, and the timeliness of a patent contribute positively to financial performance. Moderation analysis nuances our findings by showing that the impact of patent protection on financial performance is stronger when the patent competition is stronger and the patents are younger. These findings provide insights into the conditions under which patenting leads to higher financial performance. Our findings highlight the importance of innovation competition and patent age for innovation research. The empirical results show firms that patenting pays and that, in order to tap the full potential of patents, they need to focus on emerging competing industries and reduce the time to market. Policy makers learn that patenting is a successful approach to foster innovation at limited social costs.

Academic research has shown that Entrepreneurship Education (EE) increases Entrepreneurial Intention (EI). However, this does not happen uniformly in all contexts, as specific contexts may require different EE action. In this paper the authors investigate the context-specific questions in two separate categories of students. If context is important, we should see different outcomes from similar EE classes provided to different student groups. The authors' results suggest that there is a contextual difference. The results indicate that EE modified to suit a particular target group could address the issue of subjective norms separately for business students and science and engineering students. Their principal results show that EE is generally effective for business students and science and engineering students. However, the EI of science and engineering students is actually negatively affected by subjective norms, whereas that effect is not apparent among the business student sample. The authors suggest that future research is needed on effective didactic approaches in EE for science and engineering students

Due to its growing practical relevance, sustainability entrepreneurship receives a high degree of academic attention. However, literature on how to educate sustainability entrepreneurs remains scarce. A promising didactical approach in this context is service learning. We ask if service learning is an effective way to educate sustainability entrepreneurs, and which framework conditions impact those educators. First, we draw on an established sustainable entrepreneurship capability framework and provide direct evidence from entrepreneurship educators about the effectiveness of service learning. Second, based on grounded theory, qualitative interviews with those educators reveal a framework composed of personal and institutional factors that they have to navigate when provide service learning. Our findings contribute to the interface of service learning and sustainability entrepreneurship by highlighting its effectiveness and the framework conditions for educators.

Coopetitors need to manage interorganizational knowledge flows to balance cooperative knowledge sharing and competitive knowledge protection. The question of how to balance these has received little research attention, with most studies analyzing knowledge sharing or protection separately. To address this gap, we develop a theoretical framework on coopetitive knowledge sharing and knowledge protection practices. This framework is based on a literature review of coopetitive interorganizational knowledge management. To complement and refine this initial framework, we build on insights from a qualitative study that gathered data from 11 semistructured interviews with key informants of Latin American firms. We show that a balance between knowledge sharing and knowledge protection in coopetition is facilitated when coopetitive interorganizational knowledge management helps coopetitors share general and project-specific knowledge while they withhold core knowledge about their firms and clients. To achieve this balance, firms combine formal and informal knowledge protection practices. As theoretical implications, we provide a fine-grained and synoptic understanding of the characteristics of knowledge management among coopetitors. As managerial implications, we call managers' attention to the need to find a balance between knowledge sharing and protection that will help clearly define what kind of knowledge is shared or protected when firms cooperate with rivals.

Collaboration in inter-organizational networks is a major driver of innovation. Nevertheless, methods that practitioners can rely upon for managing innovation networks are still scarce. This research fills this gap by providing an approach that increases innovation output by intensifying collaboration in networks. An action research methodology with two cycles of action was adopted. The first cycle develops a method of network assessment designed to evaluate a network’s collaboration potential. The second cycle iteratively builds on the first cycle and extends the method by a managerial approach to network management on an individual level.

Startups have become an important part of corporations' external technology sourcing portfolio. Nonetheless, startups may be reluctant to enter in a relationship with a corporation. Prior research on corporate-startup relationships has primarily focused on the benefits for corporations and neglected the perspective of startups. In a multiple case study, we analyse the collaborations of 12 startups to 30 different corporations to address this gap. The findings show that complementary assets, risks as well as relational characteristics, influence the willingness of startups to enter such collaborations. We deduct nine propositions concerning, e.g., reputation and market access, misappropriation and the commitment of corporations. Further, our analysis highlights differences and similarities according to the maturity of startups. The study contributes to external technology sourcing literature and allows corporate managers to better understand the perspective of entrepreneurs in terms of engaging in strategic partnerships.

The performance drivers of family firms have spawned considerable research interest. Almost exclusively this research has relied on independent sets of explanatory variables in linear analyses. These analyses mask the complex interdependencies that are likely to exist among key success factors, leading to faulty theory and misspecified implications for practice. As treatment, the authors propose a configuration approach to family firm performance that accounts for complex interdependencies among entrepreneurial, innovation and family influence conditions. Using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of a sample of 129 Finnish family firms, the authors identify sufficient conditions with regard to the existence or absence of antecedent conditions to family firm performance. These conditions include entrepreneurial orientation, exploration and exploitation activities that form causal paths towards family firm performance. To enrich the analysis, the authors theorize and empirically analyse how these conditions might differ in family firms with high and low levels of family influence. They deepen the current understanding of configurations that promote the performance of family firms, offer important implications for theory and practice, and set new directions for future research on the strategic management of family firms. The results are also virtually identical and insensitive to change across subjective and objective performance measures.

Public involvement in technology policy making is particularly relevant because technological development is now reaching into virtually all planetary systems. The advent of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) for human food is particularly controversial, and it also raises questions about related technological-based potential products such as cyborged organisms in general. The research question in the present study is, what are the results of a Participatory Technology Assessment of cyborged ecosystems? The method utilized is Participatory Technology Assessment, implemented through scenario planning. The result of the study was three core themes: superfluous technology, dangerous tampering, and potential public health consequences. Resonances were observed between answers by laypersons and experts, indicating that they recognized the same issues but expressed themselves using different vocabularies and with different levels or types of understanding. Criteria are needed to ensure the public is able to engage in policy decisions that involve Rosennean-complex technologies.

Contemporary entrepreneurship education (EE) is often based around a team-based challenge such as creating a new venture or solving a startup problem. A creative and professional solution to such a challenge requires individual and team efforts. At the level of the individual student, self-regulated learning (SRL) is proposed as an effective way to learn in entrepreneurial projects. At the level of a student team, team learning and psychological safety are hypothesized to contribute to group performance. Yet, there is little evidence to support these claims. I seek to add to the literature by demonstrating the effects of SRL, team learning, and psychological safety on various assessment types in the context of an entrepreneurship class. Data is collected from 194 students in 41 groups. Analysis is performed with hierarchical linear modeling. The results suggest that SRL is positively related to assessments at the individual level. Team learning and psychological safety are positively related to assessments at the group level. The results inform educators, students, and entrepreneurs about effective learning strategies

Refurbishing products, which are increasingly sold in business-to-consumer markets, is a key strategy to reduce waste. Nevertheless, research finds that consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for refurbished products is low. Strategies for a higher WTP are needed in order to grow consumer markets for refurbished products. Eco-certification of refurbished products may be a key strategy here. Drawing on the consumer WTP literature concerning “green” products, we investigate the impact of independent eco-certificates. Our analysis is based on a survey of 231 potential customers. The results suggest that, across various product categories, the WTP for products with refurbished components is significantly lower. Adding an eco-certificate tends to return the WTP toward the virgin product level. We show that consumers with proenvironmental attitudes particularly exhibit green buying behavior. Our findings indicate that eco-certification is often worthwhile because it enhances the business rationale for producing products with refurbished components

Under U.S. federal regulation 31 CFR §312, medical interventions must report on a series of clinical trials phases before being submitted for approval for release to the U.S. market. Clinical trials are now being performed on medical interventions that were constructed through additive manufacturing. Serious adverse events (SAEs) in clinical trials would be the first indicator of problems in the application of additive manufacturing to medical interventions. Techniques for the visual display of aggregates of reports from clinical trials involving additive manufacturing will become more important as data becomes Big Data. Novel methods are needed for economically displaying clinical trials Big Data to industry watchers, investors and other interested parties. Aggregate indicators of additive manufacturing-based clinical trials SAEs would be of particular interest to industry watchers, investors and policy makers. In the present study, indexes are constructed comprising percents of interventional clinical trials reporting SAEs from 1997–2014, aggregated by the year in which the study commenced. The present research falls within the discipline of biomedical informatics.

The level of entrepreneurship between countries differs consistently. A source of this variance lies in national culture differences. Recently, the cultural dimension “tightness” has been introduced in the literature. Tightness refers to the degree to which a nation has strong norms and a low tolerance for deviant behavior. Tightness can have a direct effect on national entrepreneurial activity. It can also moderate the strength and/or direction of the relationship between other cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship. Such moderation might explain previous studies' inconclusive findings. This study analyzes tightness's impact on new business ownership, high-growth entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship, using recent secondary data from 29 countries. The results show that tightness has neither a direct nor a moderating effect on entrepreneurship. Other cultural dimensions, such as individualism and uncertainty avoidance, have an impact on new business ownership, but not on high-growth entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship. This suggests that policy makers can use formal institutions to foster high-growth entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship – even in nations whose cultural conditions do not seem to be supportive

To identify and foster potential international entrepreneurs are important goals for entrepreneurship education. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we argue that International entrepreneurial intention (IEI) is a predictor of international entrepreneurship (IE). In addition, cross-cultural competences are hypothesized as antecedents to IEI and moderators of the relationship between TPB elements and IEI. We integrate two elements of cross-cultural competences (global mindset and cultural intelligence) in a TPB-framework to identify the drivers of students’ IEI. We analyze a sample of 84 students with OLS regression and moderation analysis. OLS regression results reveal no significant direct effects from cultural intelligence and global mindset on IEI. Moderation analyses suggest a negative, significant moderating effect of cultural intelligence on the relationship between personal attitude and IEI and on subjective norms and IEI. Therefore, simply enhancing global mindset and cultural intelligence does not contribute to students’ IEI. More is required from entrepreneurship education, such as improving the perception of international entrepreneurship as a valuable career choice.

International new ventures need a variety of capabilities to tackle the liability of newness and foreignness to perform well in international markets. However, previous studies neglect the complex interactions between capabilities and leading to faulty theory and misspecified implications for practice. Our study addresses this gap by analysing the relationship between the configurations of dynamic bundle of capabilities and firm’s international performance. We use the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyse a dataset of 88 Chinese technology-based international new ventures (TBINVs). Notably, our results show that none of our three types of dynamic bundle of capabilities is necessary or sufficient on its own but rather form configurations for TBINVs to achieve high international performance. Additionally, our analysis presents two successful paths to perform well, and five paths to perform poorly in international markets for TBINVs. Accordingly, we contribute to the capability-based perspective literature and the international entrepreneurship literature. Next to that, we provide practical implications for the owners of TBINVs and research suggestions for future study.

Paul Paulus is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Arlington. Paul Paulus's research interests revolve around Group Creativity: On the one hand, creative processes are often conceptualized as individual-level phenomena. On the other hand, complex problems in innovation management often need the collaboration of various experts to create novel solutions. Interestingly, although common sense suggests that individuals are more creative in a group context, research indicates that this is oftentimes not the case. The question on how to structure creative processes in groups in such a way that groups can actually benefit from their creative potential is therefore crucial. Paul Paulus has spent much of his academic career addressing this intriguing question. He and his research team have discovered many factors that influence group creativity and have been able to demonstrate conditions under which group interaction enhances creativity. For the past eight years he has been working with a multidisciplinary team to better understand the cognitive, neural and social factors that underlie the group creative process (Paulus et al., ). They are presently funded on a three year project to investigate innovation processes in networks.

PurposeTwenty first century problems are increasingly being addressed by multi technology solutions developed by regional entrepreneurial and intreprepreneurial innovators. However, they require an expensive new type of fabrication facility. Multiple technology production facilities (MTPF) have become the essential incubators for these innovations. This paper aims to focus on the issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors address the lack of managerial understanding of how to express the value and operationally manage MTPF centers through the use of investigative case study methods for multiple firms in the study.FindingsOwing to the MTPF centers' novelty and outward similarity to high volume semiconductor fabrication (HVF) facilities, they are laden with ineffective operation and strategic management practices. Metrics are the standard for both operational and strategic management of HVF facilities, yet their application to this new type of center is proving ineffectual.Research limitations/implicationsThese new types of regional economic resources may be at risk. A new approach is needed.Practical implicationsThe authors develop an operational and strategic metrics management approach for MTPFs that are based on these facilities' unique nature and leverages both the HVF and R&D metrics knowledge base.Social implicationsInnovations at the interface of micro technology, nanotechnology and semiconductor micro fabrication are poised to solve many of these problems and become a basis for job creation and prosperity. If a new management technique is not developed, then these harbingers of regional economic development will be closed.Originality/valueWhile there is an abundance of research on metrics for HVF, this is the first attempt to develop metrics for MTPFs.

The governance of nanotechnology seeks to limit its risks, without constraining opportunities. The literature on the effectiveness of approaches to governance has neglected approaches that impact directly on the behavior of a researcher. We analyze the effectiveness of legal regulations versus regulation via self-commitment. Then, we refine this model by analyzing competition andautonomy as key contingency factors. In the first step, qualitative interviews with nanotechnology researchers are conducted to reflect this model. In the second step, its empirical relevance is tested using a survey of 90 nanotech researchers. The results indicate that legal regulations, as well as self-commitment to an informal CoC reduce the scope of behavior. Finally, that competition and autonomy affect the relative strength of these governance factors.

The selection of the entry mode in an international market is of key importance for the venture. A process-based perspective on entry mode selection can add to the International Business and International Entrepreneurship literature. Framing the international market entry as an entrepreneurial process, this paper analyzes the antecedents and consequences of causation and effectuation in the entry mode selection. For the analysis, regression-based techniques were used on a sample of 65 gazelles. The results indicate that experienced entrepreneurs tend to apply effectuation rather than causation, while uncertainty does not have a systematic influence. Entrepreneurs using causation-based international new venture creation processes tend to engage in export-type entry modes, while effectuation-based international new venture creation processes do not predetermine the entry mode.

Soil CO 2 efflux at a field site is often computed as the average of successive chamber measurements at several points to overcome the effects of spatial variability and microclimatic disturbances. As a consequence, the resulting data set has a coarser resolution in space (one average per site) and time than the raw data set. The deviations between raw measurements and the field average may provide additional insights, however, if they can be decomposed into a time-stable part, characterizing the spatial pattern of emission strengths, and a dynamic part, characterizing rapid changes in soil CO 2 efflux. We evaluated data from several measurement campaigns in an agricultural landscape. First, we determined the persistence of spatial CO 2 efflux patterns and found that ≥50% of spatial variance was stable for at least 1 d in all examined crop and field types. For fields where vegetation and gradients in soil properties determined the spatial variation in CO 2 efflux, some correlation was still found after 10 d. In a next step, we removed the time-stable patterns from the raw time series. The resulting estimate of instantaneous area-average soil respiration closely resembled the conventional spatiotemporal field average on days without rapid changes in meteorologic conditions. On days with fluctuations of radiation and temperature, in contrast, soil respiration reacted on a time scale from instantaneous to about 1 h. Based on a discussion of potential mechanisms underlying these reactions for a wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) and a sugarbeet ( Beta vulgaris L. ssp. vulgaris ) stand, we suggest that the proposed downscaling methodology, in combination with existing decomposition techniques, may help to examine the short-term dependence of heterotrophic and root respiration on radiation, temperature, and rain.

The study of how capability relates to international startup’s international performance has become a relevant topic of research in international entrepreneurship in recent years. Unfortunately, such rapid developments have led to theoretical inconsistencies and empirical gaps that could result in an incomplete understanding of the relationship between capabilities and international startups’ international performance. To address these issues and motivate future work, we first introduced capability categorization models, and second conducted a systematic review of 25 articles that link capabilities to the international performance of international startups. The results show that: (1) research has focused on substantive capabilities that related to international market and venture internal operations, while paid little attention to capabilities that related to international market and venture internal administrations; (2) research has focused more on dynamic capabilities that related to international market observation & evaluation and venture resource reconfiguration, while paid less attention to venture resource renewal and international market resource acquisition; (3) unbalanced attention has been paid to international market oriented substantive and dynamic capabilities. Building on these analyses, we proposed a research agenda that investigating the relationship between capability configurations and international startups’ international performance.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to voluntary actions of firms to address the needs of societal stakeholders. Small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) are important agents of CSR, and information about the antecedents to their engagement in CSR activities is needed to inform practitioners, researchers and policy makers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relative impact of personal, firm-based and environmental factors on the monetary and temporal engagement in CSR activities of these firms. Based on a quantitative analysis of 62 rapidly growing owner-managed small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany, we found that the personal involvement of the entrepreneur and slack resources contribute about equally to the monetary and temporal engagement in CSR, while market-based factors only seem to have a small influence. Also, we find that monetary spending is related to firm profits, while the time spent on CSR is related to its number of employees.

La recherche en entrepreneuriat continue à évoluer. Ce champ de recherche qui va de l’interprétation de la nature du champ à la signification accordée à chaque thématique est soumis à des changements. Tenter de brosser un portrait de l’évolution de la recherche en entrepreneuriat en Allemagne s’avère intéressant, dans la mesure où cela permettrait de sélectionner des sujets prometteurs. Cette contribution vise à relever ce défi. À cet effet, nous avons interrogé les membres du « groupe de recherche sur la création d’entreprises », nous leur avons demandé d’apprécier l’importance de points centraux et de domaines thématiques particuliers. Ainsi, le financement et la recherche scientifique sur les facteurs de succès se révèlent être à l’heure actuelle les sujets auxquels on accorde la plus grande importance. À l’avenir, ce domaine de recherche pourrait continuer à évoluer et devenir une discipline autonome, prenant en compte les exigences nationales et internationales de la recherche., Entrepreneurship research is constantly evolving. Changes occur in basic strategies of the field and in the relevance that is ascribed to particular topics. Trying to sketch the outlines of potential future developments in German-speaking entrepreneurship research is of particular relevance to scholars that attempt to work on promising issues. The goal of this contribution is to provide such an outline. We surveyed the members of the work group on entrepreneurship research of the FGF, the German Association of Entrepreneurship Scholar, and asked them to address the current and future relevance of key approaches and particular topics in entrepreneurship research. As a result, the dominant themes today seem to be finance and research on success factors. In the future, the field may develop towards a distinctive domain, influenced by nation-specific research issues and international research requirements., La investigación académica del espíritu emprendedor – Entrepreneurship – se desarrolla continuamente. Tanto los conceptos básicos del Entrepreneurship como la importancia prestada a cada uno de los campos de la investigación cambian constantemente. Con este estudio intentamos esbozar el futuro desarrollo de la investigación académica de lengua alemana porque esto parece ser interesante para todos los que busquen temas de análisis prometedores. Por eso hemos consultado a los miembros del círculo de trabajo « Investigación del emprenderismo » (FGF) para averiguar qué opinan sobre los modelos centrales y otros temas parciales. Actualmente, la financiación y la investigación en el campo de los factores de éxito son los aspectos más importantes en la discusión académica. En el futuro, este campo – influido por temas nacionales y por requisitos internacionales – podría seguir desarrollándose para luego convertirse en una disciplina propia., Die Entrepreneurshipforschung entwickelt sich laufend weiter. Von grundlegenden Auffassungen über die Natur des Forschungsfeldes bis hin zur Bedeutung, die den einzelnen Themenfeldern eingeräumt wird, ist das Feld Veränderungen unterworfen. Ein Versuch, die zukünftige Entwicklung der deutschsprachigen Entrepreneurshipforschung zu skizzieren, ist vor allem für die Auswahl von Erfolg versprechender Themen interessant. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, einen solchen Versuch zu unternehmen. Zu diesem Zweck wurden die Mitglieder des Arbeitskreises Gründungsforschung des FGF hinsichtlich ihrer Einschätzung der Bedeutung zentraler Ansätze und einzelner Themenbereiche befragt. Zum heutigen Zeitpunkt wird dabei der Finanzierung und der Erfolgsfaktorenforschung die höchste Relevanz eingeräumt. In Zukunft könnte sich das Feld weiter in Richtung einer eigenständigen Disziplin, im Spannungsfeld zwischen nationalspezifischen Problemen und internationalen Forschungsanforderungen, entwickeln.

Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM) will dem schwindenden Einfluss klassischer Medien entgegentreten. Bei den Konsumenten soll ein glaubwürdiges, anschlussfähiges Produktimage ankommen. So baut EM auf unkonventionelle Maßnahmen zur Erzeugung von Aufmerksamkeit (Buzz Marketing), die exponentielle Diffusion von Kommunikationsinhalten (Viral Marketing), die Nutzung von Communities (Community Marketing) oder die (Aus-)Nutzung der Marketingmaßnahmen der Konkurrenz (Ambush Marketing), und versucht, mit geringem Mitteleinsatz hohe Wirkungen zu erzielen (Guerilla Marketing).

The aim of this paper is to discuss the configuration approach as applied in the context of new ventures. A key topic in entrepreneurship research is the analysis of new venture performance (NVP) and change. Taking into account variations in the population of new ventures and considering the complex nature of NVP and development, the configuration approach may be helpful for these analyses. The configuration approach seeks to identify firm types and explicitly considers interrelations between personal, structural, strategic, and environmental factors pertaining to new ventures. In doing this, refined modelling of NVP and an integration of theoretical approaches in entrepreneurship research may be achieved. However, the configuration approach may not be applied without a prior discussion of its suitability to the research context of new ventures. Any time a research approach is applied in a (new) research context, key aspects of this approach may be violated, which could lead to questionable results. We di...

Self-commitment is the willingness of individuals to commit to cooperation with a partner without the safety net of controls or sanction mechanisms. This article shows the unique performance contribution of self-commitment in the context of cooperative internationalization of SMEs in several ways: First, we use a multiparadigmatic approach to cooperation theory to argue why self-commitment as a coordination mechanism is particularly relevant in the context of cooperative internationalization. Second, we develop a new operationalization of self-commitment which takes the context of international cooperations into account. Third, we show empirically that self-commitment is particularly important in international cooperations by applying a PLS analysis to a sample of 146 Austrian, Czech, and Slovenian cooperating SMEs.

In small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the leadership style of the top management can have a strong impact on the innovativeness and the performance of the firm. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of a particular leadership style, transformational leadership, on innovations, growth, and profitability. Drawing on a sample of 300 innovative SMEs from Carinthia (Austria), we analyzed a structural equation model (SEM), in which these constructs are linked (n=97). The results indicate that transformational leadership has a positive direct impact on innovation, growth and profitability. In addition to that, innovation positively impacts on growth and profitability. Our results indicate that transformational leadership might be an appropriate approach for the management of SMEs.

Since being globalized by inclusion in the 1980’s and 1990’s through several U.N. declarations and treaties, the Precautionary Principle has become a flashpoint internationally among scholars working in the fields of risk, international environmental law, European Union law and even U.S. federal law. The controversy surrounding the Precautionary Principle apparently arose and persists because the Principle is undertheorized. We revisit three fundamental questions: what is the Precautionary Principle, where did it come from, and how should we use it. Because the Precautionary Principle is a legal tool that is used internationally to manage technology, a comprehensive discussion of it is organically international and interdisciplinary. We argue that the Precautionary Principle is an index of formative measures of risk and fear; that its origins should be investigated specifically in relation to the particular legal instrument in question; and that it should be utilized only as an indicator of public perception and not as a prescriptive risk management tool. Because the Precautionary Principle is currently utilized internationally as a prescriptive tool, our recommendation is both controversial and non-trivial.

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen strategischer Planung und Wachstum in jungen KMU. Eine Literaturanalyse zeigt, dass die strategische Planung bislang haufig eindimensional oder unprazise operationalisiert wird, was Aussagekraft bestehender Studien in Bezug auf die Analyse der Erfolgswirkung von strategischer Planung in KMU einschrankt. Basierend auf einem aus der Literatur des strategischen Managements abgeleiteten Verstandnis von strategischer Planung, welches den Formalisierungsgrad, den Zeithorizont und die Verwendung von Planungsinstrumenten beinhaltet, wird die Erfolgswirkung von strategischer Planung reevaluiert. Als Grundlage dient dabei eine branchenubergreifende Stichprobe von 323 jungen KMU aus Osterreich. Die Ergebnisse belegen, dass der Formalisierungsgrad der strategischen Planung einen signifikant positiven Einfluss auf das Wachstum junger KMU hat, nicht jedoch die Zeitdauer und der Einsatz von Planungsinstrumenten.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a structured overview of the application of the configuration approach in the context of new and small ventures.Design/methodology/approachThe paper surveys the empirical literature in the leading entrepreneurship journals from 1994 to 2006.FindingsThere are a small, but significant number of studies that deal with the empirical identification and examination of new venture types. However, researchers are just beginning to tap the potential of the configuration approach. More specifically, configuration analyses are still rather heterogeneous, and no study deals with the identification of development configuration in the context of new ventures yet.Research limitations/implicationsSince the configuration approach has already delivered interesting results in research on new ventures, we might see additional studies based on this approach in the future. However, there are practical and theoretical considerations to be taken into account.Practical implicationsAn awareness of the existence of different types of start‐ups can lead to more informed decisions in new venture management.Originality/valueThis literature review identifies and structures empirical configuration research in the context of new and small ventures. Also, awareness for future research opportunities is raised.