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Book review by Joseph R. Bell. Patzelt, Holger and Thomas Brenner, eds. Handbook of Bioentrepreneurship. New York: Springer, 2008. ISBN 9780387483436

The Handbook of Bioentrepreneurship represents volume 4 in the International Handbook Series on Entrepreneurship.This book is a collection of articles covering the rapidly evolving biotechnology industry.

The purpose of this paper is to study the development of the biotechnology industry at the industry and firm level when the financing environment becomes hostile and assess the reasons for this development.

An organizational evolution perspective to analyze the case of the German biotech sector was applied and its response to the hostile financing environment in the years 2002‐2004, which followed the burst of the high‐tech bubble at the stock markets. Population ecology and data from biotech reports to investigate the pattern of external adaptation processes at the industry level were used. The evolutionary economics perspective, multiple case studies of bioventures, and biotech reports to study internal adaptation processes at the firm level was employed.

The assumption of both external and internal adaptation processes was found in parallel is necessary to explain the evolution of the biotech industry in a hostile financing environment. Although external adaptation takes place to some extent through insolvencies and a reduced rate of new firm foundations, many bioventures adapt internally by downsizing, changing their business models, and entering into strategic alliances and M&As. This results in surprisingly weak consolidation at the industry level.

This paper provides an explanation why the consolidation of the German biotech industry in 2002‐2004 was much weaker than expected by experts. Moreover, the paper shows that application of population ecology and evolutionary economics in parallel well describes industry evolution and organizational change. Finally, the paper demonstrates how bioventures can adapt their financing strategies to hostile environments.

The purpose of this study is to critically examine and review the extant research on corporate entrepreneurship champions in the broader area of corporate entrepreneurship and to uncover the avenues for advancement of the scholarship with the purpose of engaging CE champions towards the upliftment of organisations in particular, and younger workforce in general.

In this study, authors employ bibliometric analysis through a review of 274 papers fetched from Web of Science and Scopus databases.

The authors set the agenda for future research and policy by elucidating research themes and potential research questions by bringing out twelve themes classified into five basic themes, three niche themes, three motor themes, and one key theme, while also providing the methodological inputs for carrying out this agenda.

This study adopts a unique lens of investigation in contextualising the role of self-efficacy, employee engagement, and career choice for the younger workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurs’ investment decisions under uncertainty in continued investments where the authors test the role of emotions to continue or discontinue the investment.

A conjoint analysis is carried out on 101 entrepreneurs’ 3,232 investment decisions. The entrepreneurs were provided with a scenario of an investment where the dependent variable was the entrepreneur's propensity to allocate further resources to the described investment. They assessed their willingness to allocate further resources to the investment on a seven-point Likert-type scale. The independent variables in the experiment were the experienced emotions of the entrepreneur each of which was described by the two levels of high and low.

It was found that self-confidence, challenge, and hope increase the propensity to continue investments as do increased level of uncertainty. Embarrassment and strain do not increase this propensity, however, high uncertainty decreases the propensity to continue investments. In contrast to the escalation of commitment theory, embarrassment does not make entrepreneurs more prone to invest under uncertainty. Frustration does not yield significant results, which runs contrary to the theory and the hypothesis finds no support.

The paper focussed on a limited number of emotions, and also on one specific moderating factor that impacts the effect of these emotions on the investment decision.

To understand the role of their emotions in investment decisions under different levels of uncertainty may help entrepreneurs to improve the quality of their decision making.

This study is an experiment where practitioner entrepreneurs participate which increases the ecological validity of the study. Emotions can explain, partly, why entrepreneurs persist with some underperforming projects, but not others. Uncertainty is a powerful moderating variable in the decision-making process. The results enhance existing knowledge about the emotive side of entrepreneurs’ propensity to make investment decisions under uncertainty. The results also supplement and refine existing theories on self-justification.

While previous studies have proved the significance of family firm innovativeness (FFI), the question of how the emotion-regulation capabilities of family business managers affect FFI still remains open. This paper aims to examine the impact of the emotion-regulation capabilities of family business managers on FFI moderated by the family involvement in business management.

The present study is based on a quantitative research design. Data were collected with the help of a telephone survey. Overall, 192 family firms were surveyed, and the results were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings indicate that managers' emotion-regulation capabilities (independent variable) positively impact FFI (dependent variable). The research results also indicate that having more family members involved in the business (moderating variable) can lead to better innovation outcomes, assuming these family managers have sufficient emotion-regulating capabilities.

The research context could be broadened by differentiating between the industries in which family firms operate. This could aid a better understanding of the challenges, opportunities and market trends in different sectors. Future research might also include more diverse countries with deep family business traditions, strengthening the robustness of the findings across more varied contexts.

Using a multi-level perspective, this study contributes to the dynamic managerial capabilities and family business literature by showing that, in an environment where familial relationships can affect working relationships, the ability of managers to control their emotions and others' emotions can be a critical managerial resource that impacts FFI.