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1 – 10 of over 75000Sthitaprajnya Pattanayak and Munindra Kakati
Enterprise success is driven by enterprise actions, which, in turn, is influenced by entrepreneurial behaviours. Behaviours are guided by traits. Hence, it is highly likely that…
Abstract
Purpose
Enterprise success is driven by enterprise actions, which, in turn, is influenced by entrepreneurial behaviours. Behaviours are guided by traits. Hence, it is highly likely that personality traits of entrepreneur are critical to enterprise success. This paper aims at finding the relationship between entrepreneurial traits and enterprise success, identify underlying construct and examine how successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs differ across traits. It also attempts enterprise profiling based on these traits and test predictive validity of entrepreneurial traits on enterprise success.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, 396 micro, small and medium enterprises comprising both successful and unsuccessful ones are studied together across 11 personality traits. Data was analysed using various statistical techniques like co-relation, t-test, factor analysis, cluster analysis and regression to test hypothesis and arrive at given findings.
Findings
This study finds there is strong positive co-relations between traits and enterprise success. It establishes that successful and unsuccessful enterprises display distinct traits and significantly differ from each other. Entrepreneurial traits affect enterprise success, and the former has significant predictive value on the later (R-squared = 0.866).
Practical implications
The findings have implications to entrepreneurs in relation to enriching the existing traits and inculcating new ones. Financial institutions like banks can peruse the findings and include traits and behavioural aspects in borrower selection, credit appraisal, evaluation and credit decisioning, to make it more holistic. It also generates scope for further academic research.
Originality/value
This study contributes to existing literature and validates existing findings. It also finds that traits are contagious in nature, together of which can be grouped to build an entrepreneurs’ traits index which exerts strong influence on enterprise success.
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Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt and Erik J. Wesner
This research project aims to investigate Amish small businesses in North America to determine their success rate and the factors that explain their vitality. Amish entrepreneurs…
Abstract
Purpose
This research project aims to investigate Amish small businesses in North America to determine their success rate and the factors that explain their vitality. Amish entrepreneurs have developed some 10,000 small businesses despite taboos on motor vehicles, electricity, computers, the internet, and education. A theoretical model consisting of five types of socio‐cultural capital (human, cultural, social, religious, and symbolic) was conceptualized to explain and interpret the success of Amish enterprises. The model includes capital deficits that identify the hurdles that successful enterprises must overcome.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employed qualitative ethnographic methods that included participant observation, face‐to‐face interviews with business owners in eight states, and document analysis.
Findings
The paper finds that Amish businesses have a success rate above 90 percent, which is much higher than that of other American small businesses. Five types of socio‐cultural capital (human, cultural, social, religious, and symbolic) account for the high success rate of Amish enterprises.
Research limitations/implications
The qualitative methods do not permit quantitative analysis or tracking the performance of businesses over an extended period of time.
Practical implications
Understanding the importance of socio‐cultural capital assets and deficits for business success is critical for entrepreneurs, consultants, and scholars.
Originality/value
The five concepts of socio‐cultural capital assets and deficits are a significant expansion of traditional social capital theory. These concepts offer a rich resource for understanding small business failure and success and merit inclusion in future research. Religious and symbolic capitals are especially pertinent for understanding enterprise building in religious and ethnic communities.
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Jie Wang and Xingteng Li
Given the huge investment and complexity of information technology, it is imperative that boards of directors fully play their important role in promoting firms' IT success. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the huge investment and complexity of information technology, it is imperative that boards of directors fully play their important role in promoting firms' IT success. This study aims to investigate the effects of boards of directors' external ties on firms' IT success from the perspective of resource dependence theory.
Design/methodology/approach
According to the method of the matched sample comparison group, a total of 576 samples of listed enterprises in three periods were obtained.
Findings
Results show that both boards' political ties and boards' business ties have a positive impact on firms' IT success. Environmental uncertainty and the institutional environment play different roles in the relationships between two types of external ties and firms' IT success. Specifically, the results show that the institutional environment can regulate the influence of the political association of directors on firms' IT success negatively. In addition, environmental uncertainty regulates the influence of directors' political association on firms' IT success negatively, as well as the influence of directors' commercial association with firms' IT success.
Research limitations/implications
The external ties were measured by cross-sectional data. And the current study focused on two fundamental types of external ties.
Originality/value
Boards' external ties are studied from both political and business perspectives, and the effects of these two types of external ties on firms' IT success are compared. Additionally, the moderating effects of the institutional environment (macro level) and environmental uncertainty (micro level) in these relationships are investigated.
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Sung Min Kim, Gopesh Anand, Eric C. Larson and Joseph Mahoney
Enterprise systems are commonly implemented by firms through outsourcing arrangements with software vendors. However, deriving benefits from these implementations has proved to be…
Abstract
Purpose
Enterprise systems are commonly implemented by firms through outsourcing arrangements with software vendors. However, deriving benefits from these implementations has proved to be a challenge, and a great deal of variation has been observed in the extent of value generated for client and vendor firms. This research examines the role of co-specialization as a strategy to make the most out of outsourced enterprise systems. The authors develop hypotheses relating resource co-specialization with two indicators of success for implementation of enterprise software: (1) exchange success and (2) firm growth.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses are tested using a unique panel data set of 175 firms adopting Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software, a type of enterprise system used for managing manufacturing and logistics. The authors identify organizational factors that support co-specialization and then examine how co-specialization is associated with enterprise software implementation success, controlling for the endogenous choice to co-specialize.
Findings
The empirical results suggest that resource co-specialization is positively associated with implementation success and that the two resource co-specialization pathways that are examined complement each other in providing performance benefits.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the research literature on outsourcing. The study also provides a new empirical test using a unique data set of 175 firms adopting APS Software.
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Caroline Njeri Wanyoike and Matilda Maseno
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Matthew Lee, Julie Battilana and Ting Wang
Despite the increase in empirical studies of social enterprise in management and organization research, the lack of a cohesive knowledge base in this area is concerning. In this…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the increase in empirical studies of social enterprise in management and organization research, the lack of a cohesive knowledge base in this area is concerning. In this chapter, we propose that the underdevelopment of the attendant research infrastructure is an important, but oft-overlooked, barrier to the development of this body of empirical research.
Design/methodology
We explore this proposition through a review of 55 empirical studies of social enterprises published in the last fifteen years, in which we examine the mix and trajectory of research methods used and the research infrastructure on which these studies depend.
Findings
We find that empirical research has used social enterprise largely as a context for theory development, rather than deductively testing, and thus building upon, existing theories. The latter pattern is due largely to the absence of two key dimensions of infrastructure: well-defined samples, and consistent, operational measures of social enterprise success. Finally, we identify present trends along both dimensions that contribute to changing the research infrastructure for empirical social enterprise research.
Originality/value
Our analysis highlights the critical need for research infrastructure to advance empirical research on social enterprise. From this perspective, research infrastructure-building provides an important opportunity for researchers interested in social enterprise and others interested in enabling high-quality empirical research in this setting.
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Yisca Monnickendam-Givon, Dafna Schwartz and Benjamin Gidron
The utilization of social networks is known to have an impact on micro-enterprise success. This study aims to examine the contribution of social networks in acquiring resources…
Abstract
Purpose
The utilization of social networks is known to have an impact on micro-enterprise success. This study aims to examine the contribution of social networks in acquiring resources and their role in the enterprise’s success.
Design/methodology/approach
A business’s success is influenced by its network structure and the network’s resources. The authors examine whether unique religious-cultural characteristics affect the social networks contribution to a business’s success. This model examines the network utilization of women entrepreneurs who own micro-enterprises in ultra-religious groups. The sample consists of 123 surveys completed by Jewish ultra-Orthodox women entrepreneurs in Israel. Data collection was conducted between February and June 2013. The authors used a snowball sampling approach where interviewees were asked to refer us to other entrepreneurs. In the hour-long interview, a questionnaire was used with open and closed questions.
Findings
Findings indicate that strong personal ties provide a micro-enterprise with social legitimacy, emotional support and assistance in the management and operation of daily activities. However, contrary to the existing literature, network utilization did not contribute to enterprise success. That is, in religious communities in particular, social networks enable the existence of businesses, but do not contribute to their success.
Practical implications
The practical implications of this paper are the mapping of the social network resources used by the business owner, such as financial consultations or professional assistance, as well as distinguishing between strong and weak ties, which reflect the intensity of the contact for better use of the social network by the entrepreneurs.
Originality/value
This study examined social networks’ contribution to the acquisition of resources, as well as the part they play in the success of ultra-orthodox women micro-entrepreneurs and perhaps other religious and minorities groups.
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Chiayu Tu, Shiuh-Nan Hwang and Jehn-Yih Wong
This research investigates how micro-enterprises cooperate with external parties in order to promote innovation and entrepreneurial success. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
This research investigates how micro-enterprises cooperate with external parties in order to promote innovation and entrepreneurial success. The purpose of this paper is to describe supplier and consumer cooperation and analyzes how these two behavioral modes influence the product and service innovations of micro-enterprises. Based on the resource-based view of the firm, the authors show that micro-enterprises help the source of innovation by tapping into the resources and abilities of suppliers.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used a questionnaire to randomly sample micro-entrepreneurs that run stalls at night markets. Before distributing the final questionnaire, the authors in-depth interviewed ten micro-entrepreneurs and asked them to openly describe their entrepreneurial processes and success stories.
Findings
The results of this study show that cooperation with consumers does not improve product and service innovations. By contrast, the cooperation of micro-enterprises with suppliers was found to increase the generation of product and service innovations in the present study. And the findings show that the effect of innovation approaches on entrepreneurial success indicates that product innovation positively improves firm performance. Last, from the perspective of cooperation behavior, product innovation mediates entrepreneurial success through cooperation with suppliers.
Research limitations/implications
Because of respondents were night market vendors and thus the results are not necessarily generalizable to other types of micro-enterprises. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test multiple types of micro-enterprises. Second, this research aimed to differentiate the relationships between innovation approaches and entrepreneurial success by focussing exclusively on product and service innovations. Therefore, other variables should be included in future studies.
Practical implications
As for practical implications in the field of cooperation behavior, the authors have shown that it is crucial to maintain long-term cooperative relations with trusted suppliers.
Social implications
As for practical implications in the field of cooperation behavior, the authors have shown that it is crucial to maintain long-term cooperative relations with trusted suppliers.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills an identified need to study how innovation in micro-enterprises.
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Managerial practices are essential in the success of information technology (IT) projects of digital transformation (DT). However, the literature has not yet specified all these…
Abstract
Purpose
Managerial practices are essential in the success of information technology (IT) projects of digital transformation (DT). However, the literature has not yet specified all these managerial practices. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the influence of change management on the success of IT projects of DT. Additionally, the author examines the consequences on SMEs in the economic context of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Design/methodology/approach
This study draws on a research model that elucidates aspects of the resource-based view (RBV) framework, notably the transformation of human resources based on change management. This model demonstrates the relationship between change management, DT and IT project success, which facilitates the performance and resilience of SMEs. To empirically validate and test the developed research model, we gathered 299 responses from SME managers in the DRC through cross-sectional data collection using a structured questionnaire. The author performed statistical analyses using variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the help of SmartPLS 3.0.
Findings
This paper reveals how SME managers can succeed in DT projects with the change management of human resources. Furthermore, it establishes that the success of IT projects of DT is an essential for enhancing the performance and resilience of SMEs in the DRC.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the information systems (IS) literature on developing countries by highlighting the DRC context. Little research deals with the success factors of DT projects and their organizational impact on SMEs in developing countries. This study thus enriches the IS literature by filling this void.
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Kerry Lee, Ghada Hebaishi and John Hope
The New Zealand Ministry of Education identified that teachers need to be confident they have the support of their school management team before they embrace twenty-first century…
Abstract
Purpose
The New Zealand Ministry of Education identified that teachers need to be confident they have the support of their school management team before they embrace twenty-first century teaching and learning in enterprise education (Ministry of Education, 2013b). The purpose of this paper is to outline an interpretive case study which investigated the views held by the management of a New Zealand secondary school, well known for enterprise education.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used semi-structured interviews to investigate what aspects were deemed important by senior management and whether they saw themselves as pivotal in the success of enterprise education.
Findings
The management team believed their role to be pivotal and that nine aspects were necessary for a successful enterprise programme.
Originality/value
It is anticipated that the results from this interpretive case study will assist others in their planning, development and success of future quality enterprise education programmes.
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