This editorial reviews current research about media entrepreneurship and introduces the four papers published in this special issue. These papers move the emerging academic field of media entrepreneurship forward by outlining the relevance of context for enhancing our understanding of entrepreneurial phenomena, by introducing the theoretical concept of ‘entrepreneuring as emancipation’, by analyzing the institutionalization of media entrepreneurship education, and by categorizing different investment types in corporate entrepreneurship. The editorial concludes by calling for continuing efforts to theory-building to further develop the field.
Reviews the book "Organisationslernen--institutionelle und kulturelle Dimensionen (WZB-Jahrbuch)," edited by Horst Albach, Meinolf Dierkes, Ariane Berthoin Antal and Kristina Vaillant.
SMEs in high-technology industries, such as life sciences, face a fundamental challenge. On the one hand, i.a. high product development costs push firms to early-stage internationalization to speed up the amortization of those investments. On the other hand, a number of factors constitute hinders to internationalization, such as insufficient endowments with financial resources and the need to adapt to local regulations, which differ between countries. To date, little is known about how SMEs in practice master this challenge. Based on a longitudinal, in-depth case study of a young company from a high-technology sector, this paper aims at providing a better understanding of early internationalization processes of startups in these industries. This paper is closely linked to practice, while at the same time is contributing to the literature on international entrepreneurship.
This book series publishes monographs and edited volumes devoted to studies on entrepreneurship, innovation, as well as business development and managementrelated issues in Africa. Volumes cover in-depth analyses of individual countries, regions, cases, and comparative studies. They include both a specific and a general focus on the latest advances of the various aspects of entrepreneurship, innovation, business development, management and the policies that set the business environment. It provides a platform for researchers globally to carry out rigorous analyses, to promote, share, and discuss issues, findings and perspectives in various areas of business development, management, finance, human resources, technology, and the implementation of policies and strategies of the African continent. Frontiers in African Business Research allows for a deeper appreciation of the various issues around African business development with high quality and peer reviewed contributions. Volumes published in the series are important reading for academicians, consultants, business professionals, entrepreneurs, managers, as well as policy makers, interested in the private sector development of the African continent.
This chapter provides an introduction to this edited volume and its main themes Context, Challenges, and Cases. It briefly introduces the different chapters included in each of these themes.
This introductory chapter addresses manangement challenges across different types of African organizations. Based on a literature review of how management challenges in Africa have been studied to date, it introduces this volume´s three parts - Practices, Processes and Performance. It also gives a brief insight of the chapters that discuss these challenges in detail.
This book focuses on management challenges in different types of companies, ranging from small to large, from private to public and from service to manufacturing in the African context. With empirical data from countries as diverse as Rwanda, Kenya and Ethiopia, it discusses the increasing economic importance of the African continent, covering relevant topics on sustainability and environmental issues, exports, logistics, HR issues, innovation and financial reporting. Through different conceptual insights and empirical case studies, the research presented serves as a useful resource for academics, students, and policy-makers interested in in-depth studies on management challenges in Africa.
Current research commonly investigates two different growth strategies, organic growth and growth by acquisitions. Studies on acquisition-based growth typically draw on cross-sectional quantitative studies of large US-based firms, treating all types of acquisitions as one mode. Our study takes a different approach, and explores different growth strategies of a smaller sample of medium-sized companies drawing on a longitudinal, qualitative design. This research design allows us to identify eight different growth modes. Thereby, we illustrate that dynamic growth processes in medium-sized firms are much more diverse and complex than commonly assumed.
Current research commonly investigates two different growth modes, organic growth and growth by acquisitions. Studies on acquisition-based growth typically draw on cross-sectional quantitative studies of large firms that treat all acquisitions the same. Our study takes a different approach, and explores different growth modes of a smaller sample of medium-sized companies drawing on a longitudinal, qualitative case-study design. This research design allows us to identify eight different growth modes that companies combine in unique ways over time. Thereby, we illustrate that patterns of dynamic growth in medium-sized firms are much more diverse and complex than commonly assumed.
In this chapter, we argue that well-conducted qualitative research can play an important role in advancing the field of media management through theory building. We outline and compare different perspectives to qualitative research and how these can be used in terms of sampling, data collection and analysis. We also introduce relevant criteria to assess the quality of qualitative research and present some ethical considerations.
As a concept stemming from practice, business development has received scarce academic attention. In this paper, we explore core business development activities of micro-firms and the challenges they perceive in conducting them. Based on interviews with 30 micro-firms, we identify three core business development activities that leverage the firm's resource base, complemented by three support activities that secure and organize the firm's resources. We find the business development activities to be tightly related to the three practices of leveraging, securing and organizing resources. We also identify three important contextual influences on business development in micro-firms: industry, age and if the firm is in an incubator. Our findings contribute to developing a conceptualization and theorization of business development for micro-firms, which is relevant as the vast majority of companies worldwide are micro-firms, but many never embark on a growth path. Based on our results, we outline practical implications, for example, how companies could overcome their perceived lack of time and an agenda for future research encouraging further studies comprising micro-firms with different qualities.
The interface of the organization and its industry constitutes a vital space for development. Conducting a systematic literature review, we confirm that management research has paid rather little attention to exploring the relationship between the industry context and family business management to date (see also Le Breton Miller & Miller, 2015). Despite this lack of research, many scholars and practitioners alike could name numerous family businesses that hold world class in their niches. Given the pace of environmental changes, there is a clear need to better understand the interface of family business and industry over time. Building on our findings from a longitudinal, in-depth case study of a 4th generation family business and its niche of high-quality Scandinavian Design furniture, we propose a multi-level model of co-evolution that comprises not only the micro- and macro-levels of family business and its industry, but also the meso-level of inter-actor cooperation in its market niche.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore individual career management by family members in the context of their family firms.
Design/methodology/approach: The interpretative interview study of family members active in family businesses explores how this context affects the choice, planning, goals and development of family members' careers in their family business.
Findings: The authors find that career management in the family business setting focuses on fulfilling the family business goals rather than the personal goals of family members. Career management is rather reactive and less self-directed than current literature on career development recommends. Based on the results, the authors develop a process model for individual career management in the family business context.
Originality/value: Little is known about individual career management of family members in a family business context, as research on careers in family firms has so far focused mainly on transgenerational succession. The authors explore how in family firms, the trend towards self-directed, individual career planning is in tension with a commitment to the family business and its legacy.
Millions of people around the world live in other countries than their countries of origin. In many developing countries, remittances sent home by migrants are a vital part of the economy. Transnational entrepreneurial activities by migrant entrepreneurs, also called diaspora entrepreneurs, involving resources from both the home and the host countries, can contribute to socio-economic value creation of both countries. ICT solutions can play an important role in facilitating and supporting such entrepreneurial activities. This chapter outlines the relevant context of migration, remittances, transnational diaspora entrepreneurship, and innovation systems, and discusses prerequisites and challenges of such ICT solutions.
The purpose of this study is to follow up on the ‘comply-or-explain’ principle more than two decades after the Cadbury Report was published. We investigate the rate of compliance and quality of explanations provided in case of non-compliance in the context of Sweden. This country has been pointed out as a role model for corporate-governance practices. The empirical study comprises the 241 companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm in 2014. We analyze the quality of the explanations in the light of the Swedish Corporate Governance Code. Our findings confirm that the comply-or-explain principle in Sweden is effective. Around half of the companies use the possibility to deviate from the Code. A clear majority of the explanations, 71.8%, are informative. This study provides insights for academic scholars and policy-makers alike how the comply-or-explain principle works in a country that is viewed as a role model for how corporate governance should be implemented. In addition, the high-quality explanations provided by listed companies on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm can serve as an inspiration for other listed companies in European countries, thereby outlining a contribution to business practice.
Nowadays, an increasing number of education institutions, including many universities and colleges, are offering entrepreneurship education. This development is driven by the hope that more entrepreneurs could be ‘created’ through such efforts, and that these entrepreneurs through their newly founded ventures will contribute to economic growth and job creation. At higher education institutions, the majority of entrepreneurship courses rely on writing business plans as a main pedagogical tool for enhancing the students’ entrepreneurial capabilities. In this chapter, we argue instead for the need for a pedagogy which focuses on supporting students in crafting an entrepreneurial mindset as the basis for venturing activities. We discuss the potential role of games in such entrepreneurship education, and present the example of an entrepreneurship game from the Swedish context, which was developed by a group of young female entrepreneurs. We describe the game and discuss our experiences of playing it with a group of novice entrepreneurship and management students at the master’s level, and we review the effectiveness of the game in terms of how it supports students in crafting an entrepreneurial mindset. We conclude the chapter by outlining how entrepreneurship games could be integrated into a university curriculum and suggest some directions for future research.
Departing from the standpoint that internationalisation needs to become a more explicit part of assessing the quality of academic activity (i.e., education, research, and (business) community interaction), we elaborate upon how the intercultural composition of a student cohort could be leveraged as a road to the advancement of entrepreneurship education at the graduate level. We argue that the very heterogeneity of the students with respect to their socio-cultural background and personal experiences offers a rich potential for mutual social learning that reinforces formal education activities. Creating awareness of this collective resource opens up for self-organising processes among the students as they craft an entrepreneurial identity which guides them in their learning throughout the master programme.
Entrepreneurship education has witnessed a shift from teaching about entrepreneurship in different forms towards encouraging the action and activity-based training of students for entrepreneuring through business plan writing on fictitious or concrete ventures to enacting these ideas in real life. For example, Ollila and Williams-Middleton (2011) describe ways in which a venture creation approach allows students to “test the waters” while reflecting on real-life situations and while exploring entrepreneurial behaviours (see also Williams-Middleton & Donnellon, 2014). Though there has been a growing focus on simulating or experiencing entrepreneurial behaviours through entrepreneurship education, little space has been given to students’ reflexivity in positioning themselves as learning subjects beyond educational settings. Yet very often questions posed by our students in the classroom, for example when listening to entrepreneurs telling them about their venture journeys, start with a “why” statement, clearly expressing their desire to engage with reflexivity. Reflexivity is then not only understood as a kind of generalized self-awareness (Swan, 2008, p. 393) but also as a concern for the world at large (Swan, 2008, p. 394).