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The purpose of this paper is to examine performance change in the Irish state-owned port sector over the 2000-2016 period using a case study approach.

For analysis, qualitative sources are used to construct an explanatory account for the quantitative measures of productivity, profitability and traffic shift-share change across the major ports within the system.

The results show that overall change in performance largely follows that of the macro-economic performance of the region, characterised by pre-recession growth, decline during the recession and post-recession recovery. Across the ports, however, there was a notable divergence in performance post-recession. Identified factors affecting performance change across the period include demand-side structural change, labour rationalisation and degree of private sector participation.

This study addresses a gap in the formal evaluation of port performance in Ireland. The study further demonstrates the potential of in-depth case study analysis for uncovering insights into the drivers of performance across a number of dimensions, thus allowing for the contextualisation of results. The study of a small number of cases enables the use of rich qualitative sources to create strong narratives, which combined with quantitative measures of performance, can lead to new insights.

The aim of this paper is to review and synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation.

A systematic review of business model innovation literature was carried out by analysing 219 papers published between 2010 and 2016.

Evidence reviewed suggests that rather than taking either an evolutionary process of continuous revision, adaptation and fine-tuning of the existing business model or a revolutionary process of replacing the existing business model, firms can explore alternative business models through experimentation, open and disruptive innovations. It was also found that changing business models encompasses modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements in four areas of innovation: value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value.

Although this review highlights the different avenues to business model innovation, the mechanisms by which firms can change their business models and the external factors associated with such change remain unexplored.

The business model innovation framework can be used by practitioners as a “navigation map” to determine where and how to change their existing business models.

Because conflicting approaches exist in the literature on how firms change their business models, the review synthesises these approaches and provides a clear guidance as to the ways through which business model innovation can be undertaken.

Boards of directors often attempt to foster corporate entrepreneurship by replacing a firmʼs chief executive officer (CEO). Compelling theoretical arguments and anecdotal evidence suggest that when firm performance has suffered, a new CEO is best suited to lead the firmʼs creative endeavors. On the other hand, among firms that retain their existing CEO after a decline in performance, manipulating the CEOʼs compensation package is a common governance practice used by boards to encourage innovation. In these cases, some have argued that increasing the CEOʼs pay will encourage corporate entrepreneurship, because the CEO has been compensated for assuming additional risk. Counter to these propositions, this study develops theoretical arguments that a firmʼs existing CEO is better equipped to foster corporate entrepreneurship and that this probability increases when the CEOʼs cash compensation is decreased. Results from a sample of 100 single-product manufacturing firms suggest firms that retain their current CEO and decrease the CEOʼs cash compensation are most likely to engage in corporate entrepreneurship. Implications that this research has for corporate entrepreneurship, corporate governance, and firm performance are discussed.

The authors enrich and extend the existing institutional anomie theory (IAT) in the hope of sharpening the understanding of the joint effects of selected cultural values and social institutional changes on women's pre-entrant entrepreneurial attempts. The authors theorize that women are culturally discouraged to pursue pre-entrant entrepreneurial attempts or wealth accumulation in a specific culture. This discouragement creates an anomic strain that motivates women to deviate from cultural prescriptions by engaging in pre-entrant entrepreneurial attempts at a faster speed. Building on this premise, the authors hypothesize that changes in social institutions facilitate the means of achievement for women due to the potential opportunities inherent in such institutional changes.

Using a randomly selected sample of 1,431 registered active individual users with a minimum of 10,000 followers on a leading entertainment live-streaming platform in the People's Republic of China, the authors examined a unique mix of cultural and institutional changes and their effects on the speed of women's engagement in live-streaming platform activity.

The authors find support for the impact of the interaction between changes in social institution conditions and cultural values. Unexpectedly, the authors also find a negative impact of cultural values on women's speed of engaging in pre-entrant entrepreneurial attempts.

The authors add institutional change to the IAT framework and provide a novel account for the variation in the pre-entrant entrepreneurial attempts by women on the platform.

The theory presented suggests that underwriters are both advisors and independent agents in the issuerʼs attempt to send “signals” of quality to investors by making pre-IPO organizational changes. These pre-IPO gambits are intended to increase IPO proceeds, and preemptively address potential investor concerns that would deter them from subscribing. These organizational changes initially can financially benefit founders, early investors and underwriters. But they can also have a longterm impact that some issuers, especially founders, would prefer to avoid. Utilizing signaling and resource-based power, we find that underwriter power is significantly associated with making pre-IPO gambits and lower levels of underpricing.

This paper examines the changes suggested by maritime stakeholders to achieve gender equality in seafaring, a male-dominated profession.

Adopting a four-stage career cycle framework, this paper analyzes changes proposed by 423 industry stakeholders to promote gender equality in seafaring. These proposed changes were posted on the Day of Seafarers 2019 virtual wall set up by the International Maritime Organization, which served as a forum for industry stakeholders from all over the world to voice their opinions and suggestions.

The data analysis shows that the suggested changes reflect many challenges and barriers women seafarers face. While stakeholders from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are more likely to call for changes to remove barriers in the retention and development stage, gender equality in seafaring in non-OECD countries is still seriously hindered by barriers in the recruitment stage. The paper also reveals that comparatively male stakeholders are less likely to appreciate the problems women seafarers face.

This paper takes a comparative approach, comparing the changes proposed by seafarers and other industry stakeholders from different parts of the world. This approach provides a nuanced understanding of issues related to gender equality in seafaring by showing that stakeholders from different backgrounds have different priorities.

This study aims to investigate the efficiency changes of 23 major Asian container ports for the period from 2000 to 2007. In addition to assess the general trend, it also attempts to decompose the overall efficiency change into technological efficiency change, technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change to help port authorities to devise operational strategies.

The Malmquist index method is used, which is derived from data envelopment analysis. In this model, technological improvement comes from using state-of-the-art technologies, technical improvement is from rationalizing of port inputs and scale efficiency is from adjustment of port operational scales.

On average, the investigated ports have improved their efficiencies by 14.3 per cent. Such efficiency gains can be attributed to a 41 per cent increase in pure technical efficiency, a 47.5 per cent increase in scale efficiency and a 30.5 per cent decrease in technological efficiency. The scale efficiency contributes the most to the overall efficiency improvement, while technical and technological effects seem to have less impact. The fact that technological efficiency has little variance seems to suggest that this source of efficiency gain may not bring substantial competitive advantage.

The sample period is 2000-2007, so the impact from the Asian financial crisis or the economic downturn was not covered. Also, the port throughputs data do not separate shipment and transhipment.

This study provides valuable suggestions to improve efficiency for container ports along the “Maritime Silk Road.”

Book review by Lori Wagner Snyder. Steyaert, Chris and Daniel Hjorth, eds. Entrepreneurship as Social Change. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006. ISBN 9781847206275

In 1983 Ted Leonsis survived a crash landing of a plane he was on.This fateful event proved to be a pivotal point in his life. One of the byproducts of that near-death experiences is Leonsisʼ list of 101 things to do before he died‐a “bucket list” before the movie of that title came out. Leonsis has managed to accomplish more than two-thirds of the things on his list including owning a sports franchise (the Washington Capitals), changing someoneʼs life via a charity, sailing the Caribbean, and being on the cover of a magazine. As impressive as these accomplishments are, they do not reveal the person underneath these accomplishments or what has driven this serial entrepreneur. In previous interviews appearing in NEJE, we have explored how a personʼs faith tradition impacts how they run and manage their businesses. In this interview Leonsis reveals how his life was shaped by both his early childhood and the transformational experience of a crash landing. This interview examines not only what drove Leonsis to success, but also why he feels failure is important. Along, the way he offers his perspective on corporate social responsibility and why it is so critical for individuals and companies to give back to society. And finally, Leonsis shares what he has learned about the secret to happiness.

This paper aims to investigate the motivations of social entrepreneurs in East Africa to create a social enterprise and their identified links to successful social entrepreneurship in East Africa.

The authors employed a qualitative method by performing thematic analysis on a set of interviews on social entrepreneurs from East Africa who are Ashoka fellows.

The findings suggest that intense personal experiences linked to past-life events as well as a high achievement orientation towards improving livelihoods and creating impact serve as key triggers for social entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurship focusses on system change at national and local levels. Their success is also seen when the social entrepreneurs have achieved their mission and are no longer needed; thus, they become irrelevant. The paper discusses the implications of these findings on the model used for sustainable social entrepreneurship in East Africa.

Based on an exploratory research on Ashoka fellows, the study adds insight to their motivations and success which can be used in a wider scale study of the same.

The authors advance the scarce empirical research on East African social entrepreneurs, link success factors of social entrepreneurship to a recent framework on motivation to engage in social entrepreneurship and stimulate further research in the area. The study contributes to the literature on social entrepreneurship by linking success factors of social entrepreneurship to a recent framework on motivation to engage in social entrepreneurship.