Search results

This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both collectively and knowingly. It explores how connections between processes of CI, agency and action can explain and enable the development entrepreneurial community organisations.

There is a selective literature review of prior works on the related fields of community and collective entrepreneurship; collectives and intelligence; agency and action. The review is used to propose a framework of collective entrepreneurial intelligence, agency and action. An interpretive approach is used to research four case studies of community organisations which use CI to generate entrepreneurial outcomes.

The cases are compared with themes from prior literature to develop a conceptual model of four ECI processes which enable intelligence, agency and action: collaborative processes; distributed working; intelligence representations and organisation of infrastructures. These are theorised to discuss ideas, challenges, methods and questions to enhance entrepreneurial actions, based on sharing knowledge and learning, in the context of collective agency, action and intelligence.

The four processes, both together and separately, represent a coherent framework useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities.

The four processes each represent a central area of attention, not only for development, learning, decision-making and leadership within enterprising communities but also for entrepreneurship education in terms of alternative didactics, pedagogies and learning forms.

The improved knowledge on the role of collective agency and CI within entrepreneurial processes is useful for strengthening civil activism and other fruitful forms of entrepreneurial collective processes. This may help solve complicated societal problems where traditional conceptions of entrepreneurship fail.

The conceptual contribution is to explain the dynamic relationships between ECI and action, mediated by collective agency. The role of CI in informing entrepreneurial communities is explored and four enabling processes are proposed. This coherent framework is useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities, whilst informing their learning, decision-making and leadership.

This paper aims to assess the cumulative evidence on the determinants of sustainability assurance (SA) reports and the choice of assurance provider quality. It addresses the contradictory and inconsistent findings of past studies conducted over the past two decades.

The authors undertake a meta-regression analysis that enables systematic, comparative assessment of the variables associated with the choice of SA and the type of assurance provider. The authors undertake a chronological analysis with the aim of identifying systematic differences in the empirical evidence across distinct time periods.

The results indicate that there is very little evidence to support many of the expected associations between commonly studied predictor variables (namely, measures based on agency and corporate governance conceptions) and the choice of SA and the assurance provider type. As a result, research on this topic does not make as effective a contribution as might be expected. There is, however, a time period difference. The authors find results from studies using company data prior to 2010 are significantly different from those using post-2010 data. The results indicate the decision to publish SA to be significantly associated with companies in the oil industry and utilities, and larger organisations where agency costs tend to be higher. Obtaining assurance from a higher-quality provider is found to be associated with companies in environmentally sensitive industries and in stakeholder-oriented countries.

The study shows that as yet there is not sufficient evidence to support expected results. Users of the research should be aware of this, and researchers should know that more work is needed. The authors suggest researchers take greater care in the choice and comparability of variable measurement and expand the conceptual base when selecting predictor variables.

Companies need to be more transparent and accountable to critical stakeholders such as report users and regulators, and the latter should be more aware that the organisational practice of SA and choice of service provider have changed over time and are increasingly open to agency and other cultural biases.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to apply meta-regression techniques for understanding the body of literature on SA and provider choice.

The purpose of this study is to explore the strength and value-relevance of social capital in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) provides a new perspective to explaining the configurations and interactions that shape entrepreneurial outcomes in regions. Research on the nature of interactions in EEs is still an ongoing debate. The authors draw from “organisational fields” studies to critically examine the interactions among actors in a non-transparent EE using the case of the Lagos region.

The methodology is based on a qualitative study of 40 semi-structured interviews with various ecosystem actors in the Lagos region, including financiers, government officials, universities, founders and venture capitalists. Additionally, data from the semi-structured interviews were triangulated with data obtained from a two-day focus group discussion Summit where Lagos’ EE issues were raised. This study analysed both data using thematic analysis.

This study suggests that in a non-transparent EE, four types of interactions are apparent: collaborative, stratified, clustered and unleveraged. Authors argue that in a non-transparent EE, there are blockages and distortions in the flow of resources to entrepreneurs and a higher proportion of entrepreneurs are unable to plug into the ecosystem to extract value for their businesses without a strong social capital.

The authors argue that entrepreneurs require deliberate effort to improve structural and relational social capital to plug into their ecosystem to extract value for their businesses.

The focus on interaction in a non-transparent EE is a novel approach to studying interactions within EEs. In addition, the study is an early attempt to explore entrepreneurial interactions within the Lagos region.

The purpose of this paper is to set forth a conceptual model describing the actors and roles in ecosystems created to enable productive black entrepreneurship in the USA.

This paper provides a systematic literature review of entrepreneurship ecosystems. It further leverages such literature review by using an autoethnographic approach recommended by Guyotte and Kochacka (2016), drawing on the authors’ practical experience in studying, owning, educating or consulting employer businesses owned by persons of color in the USA and abroad.

Each actor in the ecosystem has practical wisdom and assets that can be shared and leveraged through interacting with the other actors either as role model institutions or capacity development institutions, thus mitigating social inequalities and boosting economic progress by extending entrepreneurial opportunities beyond those that are greatly resourced.

Our literature review is based on selected samples of relevant articles on entrepreneurship ecosystem research and ethnic minority entrepreneurship, and thus, is not exhaustive. The selection was partly influenced by the authors’ opinion of whether a given study was relevant or not to a black entrepreneurship ecosystem. There is the possibility that some relevant studies were excluded. Thus, other actors are encouraged to revise or adapt this model to inform their distinct roles and goals.

The proposed model can help actors involved in the operation or support of a black-owned business make optimal business decisions, enabling each actor to be instrumental in another’s understanding of how to facilitate the success of black American entrepreneurs and business owners and thus, deploy marketing campaigns to boost the visibility and role of each actor. These campaigns play a role in their entrepreneurial marketing efforts.

Responding to Gines and Sampson’s (2020) call, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explicitly provide a comprehensive black entrepreneurship ecosystem model that identifies the actors, roles and activities that can help black Americans address social inequalities that limit their ability to become a successful employer business. The proposed model may aid in deepening the theoretical discussion on entrepreneurial ecosystems and be of inspiration for the future works of scholars and practitioners interested in the entrepreneurship and marketing interface.

Industrialisation has contributed to global environmental problems, especially in developed countries, but increasingly so in developing ones as well. The rising public concern for the natural environment is compelling business entities to revise their business models towards green lean (GL) management. Most manufacturing firms have realised that GL implementation is a critical factor that drives their success. Therefore, keeping in view the above said aspects, the purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the complementary impact of GL practices on environmental performance.

Data from a sample of 124 Indian manufacturing industries are analysed using a structural equation modelling technique.

Evidence suggests that GL practices such as top management commitment, government support, human resource management, health and safety of employees and public pressure and legislature have significantly positive effect on environmental performance of manufacturing industries.

The sample is limited to Indian manufacturing industries situated in northern region, with a low response rate.

Successful implementations of GL practices can lead to improved environmental performance. Manufacturing industries within emerging economies like India can improve on their GL practices by incorporating these findings into their business models, while research could be guided to focus their inquiries on this and related genres of scholarly work.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to empirically assess the complementary impact of GL practices on environmental performance within the Indian context.

Business graduates’ enterprising capability augments their work readiness, transforming them into professionals capable of driving successful outcomes. At the core lie self-confidence and negotiating competence. However, embedding enterprise education and developing assessments to evidence learning is challenging. This study aims to offer a blueprint for establishing enterprise learning in the classroom and investigating the effectiveness of cultivating negotiating competence and self-confidence.

Modelled on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, students engage in in-class and real-life negotiations, assessing self-confidence using a scale founded in Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. Open-ended reflections are also submitted. Quantitative data is analysed through multiple linear regression, while quantitative and qualitative data triangulation substantiates enterprise learning in negotiating competence and self-confidence.

Students’ reflections show that low self-confidence poses an initial barrier in negotiations, overcome with successive engagements. Quantitative analysis uncovers response-shift biases, with female and male students overestimating initial self-confidence levels. The gender and difference score type interaction reveals a more pronounced bias among female students starting from a lower baseline than male students, implying a more substantial self-confidence improvement for female students. These findings challenge traditional assumptions about gender differences in negotiations and emphasize the need for nuanced perspectives.

Enterprising capability is pivotal for business professionals. This study highlights the advancement of negotiating competence and self-confidence. It contributes uniquely to the development of enterprise education pedagogy. Focusing on nuanced gender differences challenges prevailing assumptions, providing a perspective to the discourse on negotiating competence and self-confidence in management training.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the evolving perceptions and human resource (HR) responses of owners and HR managers of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) towards local labour markets in the context of the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This study adopts a two-stage longitudinal qualitative approach involving 52 interviews with owners and HR managers of Chinese SMEs in the pre- and post-pandemic time periods.

The findings reveal a shift from the perceptions of a general labour shortage to perceptions of specialised talent shortages and increasing geographical disparities in local labour markets. They further reveal that SMEs are increasingly likely to adopt efficiency-oriented, flexibility-enhancing HR practices in the face of high uncertainty.

The findings provide insights into the nature of the constraints of SMEs' sustainable development that need to be addressed by policymakers, SME owners and HR managers when they devise and implement policies relating to structure optimisation, labour market integration and mobility enhancement.

In contrast to extant literature that has examined the labour market at the national level, this study explores the views of SMEs (the demand side) by taking a localised perspective on how SMEs have responded to change through their HR practices.

In the big data era, image compression is of significant importance in today’s world. Importantly, compression of large sized images is required for everyday tasks; including electronic data communications and internet transactions. However, two important measures should be considered for any compression algorithm: the compression factor and the quality of the decompressed image. In this paper, we use Frei-Chen bases technique and the Modified Run Length Encoding (RLE) to compress images. The Frei-Chen bases technique is applied at the first stage in which the average subspace is applied to each 3 × 3 block. Those blocks with the highest energy are replaced by a single value that represents the average value of the pixels in the corresponding block. Even though Frei-Chen bases technique provides lossy compression, it maintains the main characteristics of the image. Additionally, the Frei-Chen bases technique enhances the compression factor, making it advantageous to use. In the second stage, RLE is applied to further increase the compression factor. The goal of using RLE is to enhance the compression factor without adding any distortion to the resultant decompressed image. Integrating RLE with Frei-Chen bases technique, as described in the proposed algorithm, ensures high quality decompressed images and high compression rate. The results of the proposed algorithms are shown to be comparable in quality and performance with other existing methods.