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.

The research critically examines the positive and negative effects of hiring and not hiring non-family executives in Scandinavian family businesses. The analysis relies on a qualitative data collection method through semi-structured interviews with four participants. They can provide diverse information on the topic. It has been justified to use 2/1 ratio as one of the participants who had experience of hiring non-family executives, had not been hired it yet. It has been indicated from the current research that non-family business executives may bring healthy changes to the family business they can have greater efficiency, growth, and increased profitability.

Nevertheless, challenges occur in recruiting and retaining non-family executives because of the unique family business dynamics. The research claimed that balancing the relationship between family workers and non-family executives can be a significant challenge. It is recommended from the research findings that family businesses in Scandinavia must identify the significance of embracing talent and expertise to drive growth and innovation. They must take the necessary measures to ensure that non-family executives are on the same page. Future research must focus on discovering innovative perspectives to make necessary changes, increase sales, enhance the customer base, and ensure prolonged growth in family businesses. 

We investigate the impact of CEO divorce on firm performance and examine how this relationship depends on the CEO’s life stage and the involvement of the CEO’s family in the firm. Using data from Statistics Sweden covering the period from 2004 to 2014, we tested our hypotheses using a difference-in-difference design on a matched sample of 2,336 firms, most of which are small firms. With our results we contribute to upper echelons theory by showing that CEO divorce negatively affects firm performance, and that this relationship strongly depends on the length of the marriage, the presence of children, as well as whether the CEO’s spouse and children work in the firm. We show that under certain conditions CEO divorce can even have a positive impact on firm performance, in particular in the presence of CEO’s children in the firm.

Research Question/Issue

The role of the board chair has become increasingly complex in recent decades. Research on corporate governance has called for and has initiated the pursuit of more research for the purpose of creating a better understanding of the role of board chairs. We reviewed 234 academic articles published in 66 journals, structured the existing research according to an Input‐Process‐Outcome‐Contexts framework, and provided a future research agenda for studies on the role of the board chair.

Research Findings/Insights

Our review reveals that the number of published studies on the position of the board chair has grown over the last two decades. Although extant research is dominated by quantitative studies exploring the impact of the board chair position on financial performance, frequently drawing on agency and stewardship theory, recent work has moved beyond this focus and has added valuable insights. The Input‐Process‐Outcome‐Contexts framework used to structure the extant research reveals that future research should pursue topics related to all components of the framework and that opportunities exist to draw from a broader set of theories.

Theoretical/Academic Implications

Based on the framework, we formulate seven specific research topics that can add valuable insights into the role of the board chair and suggest theories that can help inform research pursuing these topics. Taken together, these topics have the potential to create valuable insights into how board chairs are appointed, develop competencies, and interact and work with the CEO, the top management team, the board, and other stakeholders while acknowledging the influence of contextual factors, such as ownership, diversity, the firm's development stage, and external events and trends.

Practitioner/Policy Implications

Our review shows a growing global movement toward prescribing more corporate governance regulations and separating the positions of the board chair and the CEO. We show that many aspects need to be considered when choosing a governance configuration and when appointing a board chair because this role is becoming increasingly demanding.

Abstract

Background: Marketing in the current era is more complex than before, companies need to be creative and utilize more marketing mediums in order to stand out and reach a greater audience. Many companies thus implement sponsoring activities connected to sports to reach a greater and more specific audience. Football is the world’s most popular sport, it attracts billions of people and by sponsoring a football team, companies can access the attention of these people.

Problem: Despite sponsorships popularity, there are difficulties in measuring the results and the long-term business purpose. Yet companies spend millions of dollars each year on sponsorships of elite football teams, even though the return on investment appears to be seemingly low.

Purpose: This research aims to gain further understanding of the reasons why and what makes companies decide to sponsor Swedish elite football teams. On a further note, companies’ expectations and what they value in a sponsorship will be presented. The research will also examine possible business benefits correlated to the sponsorship. Lastly, the companies’ eventual measurements of the sponsorships are examined.

Method: The research has been conducted through a qualitative approach of nine semi-structured in-depth interviews.  The interviewees hold managerial positions in corporations who sponsor Swedish elite football teams. The data was analysed and further compared to existing literature within the field.

Results: The results from this research indicates that the expectations and what companies’ value in a sponsorship often coincide. On a further note, these companies prioritize gaining access to the brand and network of the sponsored team to use within marketing as well as building relationships. Companies also see sponsorships as part of their CSR-projects to contribute to society. All the companies considered either had a local connection or heartful relation to the sponsored club. Regarding measuring the sponsorships, few companies have any sort of measurement in place but rather evaluates the sponsorship on more than just numbers.

Digitization is arguably currently the single most important force in entrepreneurship and innovation. In this special issue editorial, we shed light on the current state of digital entrepreneurship and digital innovation research to take stock of past research and identify opportunities for the future. The 11 papers in this special issue present a decisive step in extending the current research by either exploring the context of digital entrepreneurship and digital innovation, by operationalizing digital technologies as moderators or mediators, or by modeling the particularities of the role of digital technologies as independent or dependent variables. This editorial suggests paths for future research and specifically calls for more joint consideration of digital entrepreneurship and digital innovation along with specific theory building and testing that incorporates the specificities of digitization. An important aspect in that process is extending the understanding of the dark side of digitization. 

In this research article, we investigate how structural power inequality within entrepreneurial teams influences firm performance. We argue that very high and very low levels of structural power inequality undermine cooperation and communication within the team and therefore inhibit the efficient deployment of entrepreneurial team members’ resources. We find evidence for an inverted U-shaped relationship between structural power inequality and firm performance. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of social ties and find that the inverted U-relationship becomes stronger in the presence of co-worker ties and weaker in the presence of family ties. These results provide important contributions for research on power in organizations and entrepreneurship.

From introduction: The purpose of this essay is to provide an insight into why family businesses are imbued with emotions where interactions among family members make them especially »high« on emotions.

Extending earlier critiques, I suggest that continued use of Shanian discovery and Alvarez-Barnean creation views and their respective standpoints on “opportunities” would constrain future entrepreneurship research. Instead, I suggest venture creation be recognized as the field’s true core, with or without the opportunity concept. Within a big tent of venture creation research, researchers with different knowledge interests and varying convictions regarding the roles of agency and structure in venture creation can partake in our most valuable contribution to the broader domain of economic and organizational studies: insights into the journey from non-existence to existence of new ventures.

To address challenges constraining prior research on evaluation of entrepreneurial projects, we develop the concept of Venture Idea Assessment (VIA) and validate an instrument to capture it. VIA concerns the assessment of Venture Ideas (VI) unbundled from assessment of any agents with whom they may be associated. The assessment can be performed by anybody at any stage of the venture development process, not just by potential founders at its outset. We develop and validate a parsimonious VIA measure across six empirical studies using a broad set of assessors and VIs using interviews, experiments and surveys following real-world start-up processes and decisions. In a research agenda we outline how the VIA platform—the concept and its operationalization—can be employed in novel research across various streams of entrepreneurship research. 

For decades, entrepreneurship and strategy research has been dominated by agent-centric and inward-looking theoretical perspectives. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the limits of this stance, as its influence on business has been both enormous and palpable. For the most part, the effects of the pandemic are no doubt negative. Business research—and presumably business practice—typically address such influence in terms of failure, resilience, and crisis management among existing businesses. Contrasting this prevalent discourse, we focus instead on positive influence of the pandemic for some emerging and new ventures. We analyze the many possible positive effects on entrepreneurship practice and highlight also positive effects on entrepreneurship research. We illustrate both positives by applying the External Enabler framework.

Earth system science (ESS) has identified worrying trends in the human impact on fundamental planetary systems. In this conceptual article, we discuss the implications of this research for business schools and management education (ME). We argue that ESS findings raise significant concerns about the relationship between business and nature and, consequently, a radical reframing is required to embed economic and social activity within the global sustainability of natural systems. This has transformative implications for ME. To illustrate this reframing, we apply the ESS lenses of social-ecological interdependence, multiscalar relations, environmental governance, and environmental values to the ME functional domains of institutional purpose, social context and engagement, pedagogical practice, curricular design, and research focus. Our work contributes to the literature on business education for sustainability and the business-society-nature nexus. We explore and apply key ESS findings and concepts, discuss normative implications of these ideas, and offer guidance on transformational pathways for business schools and ME.

Purpose

This article explores the various stakeholders' perceptions of the ways digital work is organised within the sharing economy and the social implications of the transformation of work.

Design/methodology/approach

Applying social media analytics (SMA) concerning the sharing economy platform Foodora, a total of 3,251 user-generated content was collected and organised throughout the social media landscape in Sweden over 12 months, and 18 stakeholder groups were identified, discussing digital work within seven thematic categories.

Findings

The results show that the stakeholder groups in the Swedish context primarily expressed negative views of Foodora's way of organising digital work. The social media posts outlined the distributive and procedural justice related to the working conditions, boycott and protests and critical incidents, as well as the collective bargaining of Foodora.

Originality/value

By utilising a novel SMA method, this study contributes to the extant literature on the sharing economy by providing a systematic assessment concerning the impact of the sharing economy platform on the transformation of work and the associated social consequences.

Consider an interorganizational open innovation project, in which different organizations cooperate to generate value for clients or to solve a technological problem. In this setting, both the focal firm and the partners face uncertainties over time (e.g., technological uncertainties, market uncertainties) and, therefore, the performance of the focal firm and the overall interorganizational project depend on that firm's ability to assess potential uncertainties. The process of diffusion of a particular uncertainty throughout an inter-organizational project can be defined as uncertainty propagation. Assessment of uncertainty propagation can be employed to mitigate its detrimental impact. This paper connects previous studies of open innovation, uncertainty management and project management by providing a comprehensive, but structured, framework to assess uncertainty propagation. First, we propose the underlying causes of uncertainty propagation. Then, we present the three different approaches to its assessment, based on causes, effects and protection.

External search for knowledge and foresight have become strategically important activities for firms in an increasingly uncertain and complex business environment. Novel methods to monitor development are therefore essential for both firms and scholars. This article illustrates how firms can apply one such novel method called Social Media Analytics, a multiplatform approach incorporating multiple external sources drawn from Web 2.0, that enable external search for knowledge but simultaneously avoid information overload. To illustrate the potential of the method, this article draws upon a dataset spanning 36 months from August 2016 to August 2019 and 100 283 publicly posted user-generated contents concerning Tesla to analyze their autopilot and the controversies surrounding autonomous driving. The results show that indications of the regulatory scrutiny Tesla's driverless technology faced in 2019 could be seen in the data across several platforms at an early point and that these signals became stronger over time, especially on blogs and Facebook which exhibited strong indications of future regulatory scrutiny in contrast to Twitter and Instagram. Our results underscore the potential of the Social Media Analytics for external search for knowledge and open foresight that enable firms to tune in to weak signals and scan the periphery.

This paper investigates technology strategy in subsidiaries of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) in emerging markets and suggests implications for subsidiary upgrading in Global Value Chains (GVCs). Technology strategy is delineated by the MNE subsidiary's manufacturing orientation (local or global) and knowledge transfer type (uni-directional or multi-directional). Drawing upon a multiple case study of seven of the largest Brazilian subsidiaries of Swedish MNEs, the study identifies four different MNE technology strategy types: 1) technical; 2) improvement; 3) development; and 4) creation. The findings suggest that technology strategy influences subsidiary upgrading through development of operational and dynamic capabilities.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to develop knowledge on the implementation of Hoshin Kanri (HK) in small manufacturing companies. Two research questions are addressed: (1) what factors influence the implementation of HK in small manufacturing companies? (2) How do the factors influence the implementation of HK in small manufacturing companies? Design/methodology/approach: The research presented in this paper is based on an extensive literature review and data from the implementation process in five small manufacturing companies. In the literature review, factors influencing the implementation of HK, lean production and total quality management (TQM) in small manufacturing firms are identified. Thereafter, five implementation cases are analyzed. Findings from the cases are then contrasted with the factors identified in the literature and further theorized. Findings: Seven factors were found to either enable or hamper HK implementation in small manufacturing companies. Management involvement was identified as a critical factor. Management involvement can be typologized as collaborative or demanding, and the types of involvement is decisive in implementation processes within the small manufacturing company context. Originality/value: In this paper, the authors focus on small manufacturing companies as the starting point and relate theoretical and practical results to the implementation processes in this defined target group. Conceptualizing implementation as a learning process, this research contributes to this emerging perspective on small firm development.

Background – Digitalization has enabled multiple opportunities, where one opportunity is working remotely. Remote work is a concept used to describe working conditions performed outside of the traditional office walls. It has been used for many years to enable flexibility in terms of work, and thus allow workers to do their job while, for example, traveling or caring for their sick child. COVID-19 virus impacted the world in many different ways. Organizations faced forced lockdown as a recommendation, and the employees had to shift their daily routine to working primarily from home. The shift to remote work meant a decrease in physical, social interactions and less networking amongst employees. Organizational culture is a concept used to describe the fundamental values, artifacts, and internal language of an organization and one key pillar in organizational culture is the people and the social interactions within a workplace. The shift to remote work has thus created multiple gaps in research, where there is a need to understand the impact on organizations and their organizational culture.

Purpose – This thesis aims to understand the impact on organizational culture as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and shift to remote work.

Method – Empirical data was collected from a single-case interview study with employees from Jönköping International Business School. The interviewees have experienced the shift from office to remote work from home the past year, and hence contributed with valuable insights that were then used to understand the impact on the organizations’ culture. The data was analyzed using the Gioia method and hence allowed for categorization of the data.

Findings – The findings of this thesis showed that the employees experienced a digital and virtual fatigue from working virtually and remotely at home. The fatigue is based on not being able to catch smaller breaks which are engraved in the foundational culture at Jönköping International Business School, in combination with an unclear communication strategy. Furthermore, with the removal of physical presence and interactions in the employee’s daily activities, the internal relationships within Jönköping International Business School has started to fade away, and the attitude on nurturing them has also been impacted. Many attempts by the organization have been made to keep together the employees and the culture, although what is evident in the findings is that by duplicating all activities from the physical office activities to the virtual world, the experience does not give the same response virtually. In fact, it can be even more damaging to the attitude of the organization and the internal network.

By measuring the possibilities of enterprises linking location-based services (LBS) to regional and local content of interest, research found a tremendous lack of knowledge, how media enterprises–as well as content providers–in- and outside legacy media can use innovative LBS. One could presume that the absence of fulfiling market-information about current LBS proves to be a decisive factor causing a poor implementation of LBS in content-related services especially for media outlets. This contribution aims to fill this gap by providing an innovative, new kind of market exploration method for creating a general overview of current applications and, with that, the entire market for LBS, based on specific mentions of LBS in tech-related newsletters. The resulting category system (focusing on providers, areas of application, functions and technologies) enables the identification of success factors concerning which services are well established, and how this is linked to the type of application, technology, business models and other characteristics. The findings reveal the application of location analytics to enhance the user experience to be a particularly promising opportunity for current LBS implementation. With its completely new method, the study provides a much-needed new framework for further market explorations in this field.