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1 – 10 of 66Jiejie Lyu, Deborah M. Shepherd and Kerry Lee
The primary purpose of this research is to explore how the cultural context, in this case, China, influences the teaching of entrepreneurship that seeks to cultivate student…
Abstract
Purpose
The primary purpose of this research is to explore how the cultural context, in this case, China, influences the teaching of entrepreneurship that seeks to cultivate student entrepreneurs during their university experience.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study approach is adopted to explore how the cultural environment affects the delivery and application of entrepreneurship education to university students in a Chinese context. Seventeen student entrepreneurs and three lecturing staff members in three Chinese universities were interviewed using a semi-structured interview approach.
Findings
The findings suggest that while Chinese universities have been importing teaching models and methods of entrepreneurship education from the United States and other countries, both students and educators are starting to recognise the need for teaching methods to be contextualised and designed based on national conditions and cultural characteristics. Findings from this study highlight cultural fusion and collision in the process of importing and implementing entrepreneurial teaching methods. For example, teaching students how to write a business plan appears to offer limited value for students' start-up activities and their venture development. The didactic teaching method centred on teachers without entrepreneurial experience works for the teaching “about” entrepreneurship but is paradoxical to the goal of teaching “for” entrepreneurship.
Originality/value
Little theoretical or empirical attention has been paid to the complexity of the cultural environment of teaching approaches to entrepreneurship education. This paper provides novel empirical insight into why the cultural environment plays a critical role in teaching approaches to entrepreneurship education and how these teaching approaches can be culturally nuanced to better meet the needs of nascent student entrepreneurs in various cultural contexts.
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Henry X. Shi, Deborah M. Shepherd and Torsten Schmidts
The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insights to understanding trust as a relational form of social capital, and its effects on entrepreneurial processes, in small…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insights to understanding trust as a relational form of social capital, and its effects on entrepreneurial processes, in small- and medium-sized family businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopts a qualitative case-study approach, with data from fieldwork interviews, observations, and secondary sources analysed by using interpretative methods.
Findings
Although multiple types of trust exist concurrently in small- and medium-sized Chinese family businesses, it is interpersonal trust on the basis of goodwill and competence that prevails, while contractual trust is weak and marginal. Three patterns of trusting relationships are identified, each of which has both positive and negative effects on entrepreneurship and innovation in family businesses. There is a potential “dark side” of trust, which incurs extra cost and commitment to small- and medium-sized family businesses in their entrepreneurial processes.
Research limitations/implications
Future research with larger sample sizes is suggested to generalise the insights, by using both qualitative and quantitative methods. More empirical work is needed to further clarify the antecedents of trust as a social capital and the potential “dark side” of trust in small- and medium-sized family businesses, particularly across generations.
Practical implications
Family business owner-managers should try to avoid relying on a single type of trust, which may incur extra costs to the entrepreneurial processes. They need to better understand why they trust certain actors in their business and social networks before assigning resources to specific business activities. Policy makers are suggested to recognise the “benefits” of the traditionally family-oriented values and that kinship-based trust is also a relational form of social capital and can produce entrepreneurial outcomes.
Originality/value
The paper critically reviews existing literature on social capital, trust, entrepreneurship, and family business at their point of intersection and identifies gaps and oversights. Drawing on case studies from China, the paper explores different patterns in which trust develops in second-generation small- and medium-sized Chinese family businesses and their varying effects on entrepreneurship.
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Paul Woodfield, Christine Woods and Deborah Shepherd
The purpose of this paper is to review family businesses as a subset of sustainable entrepreneurship. It is intended that another avenue of scholarship for the growing interest in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review family businesses as a subset of sustainable entrepreneurship. It is intended that another avenue of scholarship for the growing interest in family businesses and their continuity across generations will be outlined.
Design/methodology/approach
Relevant journal articles were selected and broadly analysed to gather an understanding of the current state of existing sustainable entrepreneurship literature. The main themes extrapolated related to sustainable entrepreneurship and potential directions for future research.
Findings
Although sustainable entrepreneurship has been traditionally concentrated in the environmental and social responsibility literature, there are emerging paths where family businesses can be considered alongside community-based enterprise.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that future research into sustaining family businesses across generations could be situated under sustainable entrepreneurship scholarship.
Originality/value
This paper presents a novel review and summary of recent literature at the juncture of family business and sustainable entrepreneurship. It is useful for directing scholars towards an avenue which has not traditionally had attention from family business researchers.
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Deborah Jones, Judith Pringle and Deborah Shepherd
Argues that the discourse of “managing diversity”, emerging from the US management literature, cannot be simply mapped on to organisations in other cultural contexts. It uses the…
Abstract
Argues that the discourse of “managing diversity”, emerging from the US management literature, cannot be simply mapped on to organisations in other cultural contexts. It uses the example of Aotearoa/New Zealand to show that a “diversity” based on the demographics and dominant cultural assumptions of the USA fails to address – and may in fact obscure – key local “diversity” issues. It argues that the dominant discourse of “managing diversity” has embedded in it cultural assumptions that are specific to the US management literature. It calls for a genuinely multi‐voiced “diversity” discourse that would focus attention on the local demographics, cultural and political differences that make the difference for specific organisations.
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Paul J. Woodfield, Deborah Shepherd and Christine Woods
This paper aims to investigate how family winegrowing businesses can be sustained across generations.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how family winegrowing businesses can be sustained across generations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors engaged a multi-level case study approach. In total, 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted with three winegrowing firms in New Zealand. All family members (both senior and next generation) employed in each business were interviewed alongside non-family employees.
Findings
Three key dimensions – knowledge sharing, entrepreneurial characteristics and leadership attributes – were identified that can support successful successions in family winegrowing businesses.
Originality/value
The authors have generated a theory that enables academicians and practitioners to understand how family winegrowing businesses can be successfully sustained across generations. The authors argue that knowledge is a central feature in family firms where previous research combines knowledge with entrepreneurial orientation or the resources and capabilities of a firm.
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Deborah Shepherd and Christine Woods
Interest in academic entrepreneurship is gaining attention as pressure on academic institutions to be more entrepreneurial increases. To date, emphasis has been on the transfer…
Abstract
Interest in academic entrepreneurship is gaining attention as pressure on academic institutions to be more entrepreneurial increases. To date, emphasis has been on the transfer and commercialisation of research with little discussion focused on the entrepreneurial potential of university teaching. Drawing on Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship, in particular the combining and recombining of resources and the concept of resistance, we provide an illustrative case study of one entrepreneurial academic venture that emerged from the teaching activities of a university. We examine how this venture, the ICEHOUSE, has evolved and been sustained despite pressure from competing logics from its partnering institutions. We argue that multiple and competing logics by various stakeholder groups led to ‘resistive tension’ which has supported the growth of the organisation.
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Jamie Newth, Deborah Shepherd and Christine Woods
World Vision exists to eradicate extreme poverty. The primary fundraising mechanism that has fuelled its growth into one of the largest international non-governmental…
Abstract
World Vision exists to eradicate extreme poverty. The primary fundraising mechanism that has fuelled its growth into one of the largest international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) has been Child Sponsorship, which connects over 10 million individual donors with vulnerable children around the world. However, shifts in the market, geopolitical landscape, and institutional logics have seen this once innovative product come under increasing pressure. Using World Vision New Zealand (WVNZ) as a case study, we explore the challenges of implementing social entrepreneurship strategies, including the institutional constraints of developing new business models, through hybridization. Hybridity has gained increasing attention in the field of entrepreneurship and has been offered as a sense-making frame for business model innovation within social entrepreneurship. The use of institutional logics to understand the challenges of hybrid organizing in social entrepreneurship has been invaluable. However, as with any theoretical perspective, this approach has limitations. We suggest that nuanced challenges and sources of resistance to social entrepreneurship in established sectors and organizations might usefully be explored through concepts drawn from complexity theory. Specifically, we propose the use of the concept of structural attractors, which enables the explication of convergent, unifying, and generative dynamics. Our case study findings suggest that, paradoxically, the very essence of historical success may constrain future success. To wit, when faced with changes to institutional and market conditions, WVNZ was constrained by the very construct that enabled its initial growth. The challenge that this case demonstrates is that despite ostensibly hybrid shifts occurring in the management, governance, and espoused innovation strategy of the organization, the governing structural attractor of Child Sponsorship has constrained innovation and change.
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Jiejie Lyu, Deborah Shepherd and Kerry Lee
Student entrepreneurs account for a considerable number of start-up ventures derived from university settings. Nevertheless, there is little research that demonstrates how…
Abstract
Student entrepreneurs account for a considerable number of start-up ventures derived from university settings. Nevertheless, there is little research that demonstrates how university entrepreneurship education (EE) directly influences students’ start-up activities. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of various types of university entrepreneurship activities (incorporate entrepreneurial courses, extra-curricular initiatives, and start-up support) on student start-up behavior. This quantitative research utilized questionnaire data collected from university students (n = 1,820) in southeast China and was analyzed with hierarchical Poisson regression in STATA procedures. Research results indicate that engaging in any type of university entrepreneurship activities positively predicts students’ start-up activities, yet this positive effect is contingent on students’ prior start-up experience and the overall university entrepreneurial climate. These findings advance our understanding of crucial elements within university entrepreneurial ecosystems and how various entrepreneurship activities within these ecosystems potentially impact students’ venture creation.
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Di Wang, Deborah Richards, Ayse Aysin Bilgin and Chuanfu Chen
The rising volume of open government data (OGD) contrasts with the limited acceptance and utilization of OGD among citizens. This study investigates the reasons for citizens’ not…
Abstract
Purpose
The rising volume of open government data (OGD) contrasts with the limited acceptance and utilization of OGD among citizens. This study investigates the reasons for citizens’ not using available OGD by comparing citizens’ attitudes towards OGD with the development of OGD portals. The comparison includes four OGD utilization processes derived from the literature, namely OGD awareness, needs, access and consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study in China has been carried out. A sociological questionnaire was designed to collect data from Chinese citizens (demand), and personal visits were carried out to collect data from OGD portals (supply).
Findings
Results show that Chinese citizens have low awareness of OGD and OGD portals. Significant differences were recognized between citizens’ expectations and OGD portals development in OGD categories and features, data access services and support functions. Correlations were found between citizens’ OGD awareness, needs, access and consumption.
Originality/value
By linking the supply of OGD from the governments with each process of citizens’ OGD utilization, this paper proposes a framework for citizens’ OGD utilization lifecycle and provides a new tool to investigate reasons for citizens’ not making use of OGD.
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Torsten Schmidts and Deborah Shepherd
The purpose of this paper is to use social identity theory to explore factors that contribute to the development of family social capital. Effects are investigated both for the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use social identity theory to explore factors that contribute to the development of family social capital. Effects are investigated both for the family and the business.
Design/methodology/approach
A single in-depth case study focussing on the family unit was coducted within a fourth-generation family business involved in the arts retailing.
Findings
The findings suggest that social identity theory is a useful lens to explore the development of family social capital. The six themes identified highlight that there is a normative and an affective dimension, leading to family members’ desire to uphold the status of the business. Evidence suggests that the normative factors may be both positively and negatively related to the development of family social capital, due to their potentially restrictive nature.
Originality/value
The paper’s findings imply that social identity can contribute to understanding family dynamics. Evidence highlights various factors for family members that are not involved in the family business to uphold its status. This is attributed to the emotional significance of the business to the family’s identity. Furthermore, this paper suggests that the strong focus on norms and values, which developed gradually, may have adverse effects on the identification with the business and the willingness to uphold its status. Propositions are offered to provide guidance for future research to investigate this controversial evidence regarding the impact of value orientation on family social capital.
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