Search results

In developing countries, how risk management technologies influence management accounting and control (MAC) practices is under-researched. By drawing on insights from institutional studies, this study aims to examine the multiple institutional pressures surrounding an entity and influencing its risk-based management control (RBC) system – that is, how RBC appears in an emerging market attributed to institutional multiplicity.

The authors used qualitative case study research methods to collect empirical evidence from a privately owned Egyptian insurance company.

The authors observed that in the transformation to risk-based controls, especially in socio-political settings such as Egypt, changes in MAC systems were consistent with the shifts in the institutional context. Along with changes in the institutional environment, the case company sought to configure its MAC system to be more risk-based to achieve its strategic goals effectively and maintain its sustainability.

This research provides a fuller view of risk-based management controls based on the social, professional and political perspectives central to the examined institutional environment. Moreover, unlike early studies that reported resistance to RBC, this case reveals the institutional dynamics contributing to the successful implementation of RBC in an emerging market.

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women’s entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework.

The article critically examines the current state of women’s entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology.

The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance of considering the ontological dimensions of lived experiences of situatedness, intersubjectivity, intentionality and temporality in analysing women entrepreneurs’ agency within gendered institutional contexts. It also demonstrates that feminist phenomenology could broaden the current scope of IPA regarding the embodied dimension of language.

The adoption of feminist phenomenology and IPA presents new avenues for research that go beyond the traditional cognitive approach in entrepreneurship, contributing to theory and practice. The proposed conceptual framework also has some limitations that provide opportunities for future research, such as a phenomenological intersectional approach and arts-based methods.

The article contributes to a new research agenda in women’s entrepreneurship research by offering a feminist phenomenological framework that focuses on the embodied dimension of entrepreneurship through the integration of IPA and conceptual metaphor theory (CMT).

This paper explores how conflicting institutional logics shape the behaviors of macro- and micro-level actors in their use of a calculative practice. Thereby, this paper explains how quantification can undermine the intended purpose of a governance system based on a single number.

The study draws upon the literature on calculative practices and institutional logics to present the case of how a single number—specifically the conversion factor for Atlantic Cod, established by macro-level actors for the purposes of governance within the Norwegian fishing industry—is interpreted and used by micro-level actors in the industry. The study is based on documents, field observations and interviews with fishers, landing facilities, and control authorities.

The use of the conversion factor, while intended to protect fish stock and govern industry actions, does not always align with the institutional logics of micro-level actors. Especially during the winter season, these actors may seek to serve their interests, leading to potential system gaming. The reliance on a single number that overlooks seasonal nuances can motivate unintended behaviors, undermining the governance system’s intentions.

Integrating the literature on calculative practices with an institutional logics perspective, this study offers novel insights into the challenges of using quantification for the governance of complex industries. In particular, the paper reveals that when the logics of macro- and micro-level actors conflict in a single-number governance system, unintended outcomes arise due to a domination of the macro-level logics.

Collegiality is the modus operandi of universities. Collegiality is central to academic freedom and scientific quality. In this way, collegiality also contributes to the good functioning of universities’ contribution to society and democracy. In this concluding paper of the special issue on collegiality, we summarize the main findings and takeaways from our collective studies. We summarize the main challenges and contestations to collegiality and to universities, but also document lines of resistance, activation, and maintenance. We depict varieties of collegiality and conclude by emphasizing that future research needs to be based on an appreciation of this variation. We argue that it is essential to incorporate such a variation-sensitive perspective into discussions on academic freedom and scientific quality and highlight themes surfaced by the different studies that remain under-explored in extant literature: institutional trust, field-level studies of collegiality, and collegiality and communication. Finally, we offer some remarks on methodological and theoretical implications of this research and conclude by summarizing our research agenda in a list of themes.

In order to address the gender divide in technology entrepreneurship, we explore how different national contexts impact policies and policy implementation. We investigate how transnational concerns (macro level) about women’s low participation in (technology) entrepreneurship are translated and implemented amongst actors at the meso level (technology incubators) and understood at the micro level (women tech entrepreneurs).

We adopt gender institutionalism as a theoretical lens to understand what happens in the implementation of gender equality goals in technology entrepreneurship policy. We apply Gains and Lowndes’ (2014) conceptual framework to investigate the gendered character and effects of institutional formation. Four countries represent different levels of gender equality: high (Norway and Sweden), medium (Ireland) and low (Israel). An initial policy document analysis provides the macro level understanding (Heilbrunn et al., 2020). At the meso level, managers of technology business incubators (n = 3–5) in each country were interviewed. At the micro level, 10 female technology entrepreneurs in each country were interviewed. We use an inductive research approach, combined with thematic analysis.

Policies differ across the four countries, ranging from women-centred approaches to gender mainstreaming. Macro level policies are interpreted and implemented in different ways amongst actors at the meso level, who tend to act in line with given national policies. Actors at the micro level often understand gender equality in ways that reflect their national policies. However, women in all four countries share similar struggles with work-life balance and gendered expectations in relation to family responsibilities.

The contribution of our paper is to (1) entrepreneurship theory by applying gendered institutionalism theory to (tech) entrepreneurship, and (2) our findings clearly show that the gendered context matters for policy implementation.

This study aimed to investigate the role of the country's institutional quality on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of its companies.

Over a four-year period (2016–2019), the study examined the ESG performance of 412 organizations situated in 19 countries. ESG performance was the dependent variable, and the independent variables were rule of law, economic freedom, education index and international trade freedom. These factors described the institutional quality of countries in the authors’ study.

The findings reveal that institutional quality has a major impact on ESG performance. Companies engage in more ESG practices when they operate in countries with greater economic freedom and international trade freedom. The authors corroborated the core assumption of institutional theory (IT), which argues that organizational behavior is determined by the country's institutional setting.

The findings, like all research, should be interpreted with caution. The authors’ research focused solely on large energy corporations. As a result, the conclusions cannot be applied to small companies or other industries. ESG performance can also be measured using different datasets.

If managers want their companies to perform better in terms of ESG, the authors recommend that they form a CSR committee and sign the Global Compact. This study may be valuable to international policymakers because they can underline that greater economic freedom, better education and greater international trade freedom all promote higher ESG performance.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, nearly all of research explores the relationship between ESG and financial performance. As a result, this study built on past research by investigating how national aspects affect corporate ESG performance.

The purpose of this study is to make an exploratory analysis of the impact of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) as defined by Acs et al. (2014) on opportunity-driven senior entrepreneurial activity in Latin America.

The research uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute of five Latin America countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico), providing a total of 15,019 observations of people that are 50+ years old, between the years 2013 and 2017. A multi-level logistic regression model was used to estimate the relation between the total entrepreneurial activity by opportunity of seniors and some EE indicators. A total of three equations were estimated on the data set described.

This research confirms the relevance of some elements of EE on senior entrepreneurship in Latin America. Entrepreneurial attitudes have a positive relationship with senior entrepreneurs, generating higher levels of entrepreneurial ventures. The combination of institutions that support these attitudes on the EE enhances senior entrepreneurial activity. It also demonstrates that a higher level of entrepreneurial education at postschool stages is relevant to increasing senior entrepreneurial activity.

This research makes some interesting contributions in the field of measuring the impact of EE on senior entrepreneurship by opportunity in developing countries, filling a literature gap. It allows us to glimpse some measures that policymakers could take to improve the entrepreneurial activity of this segment in the region, such as implementing programs that facilitate networking opportunities and mentorship, along with providing training in business and financial literacy.

The role of procurement managers is crucial for diffusing sustainability throughout the supply chain. Whether or not they are willing to pay for sustainability is an important and not yet fully understood question. The authors examine antecedents and consequences of their willingness to pay (WTP) for sustainability.

The authors develop a multi-level framework to examine the WTP for sustainability in a B2B context. The authors test this multi-level framework with 372 procurement managers from multiple sectors and countries using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The authors find that individual values of procurement managers and institutional pressures directly, while ethical organizational culture indirectly influence WTP for sustainability. Functional and cognitive competencies of procurement managers improve the sustainability of procurement, but not WTP for sustainability. Importantly, WTP for sustainability directly influences the performance of the procurement function which in turn is positively associated with increased organizational performance.

The study, examining the interplay between individual, organizational and contextual factors, provides empirical evidence on the pivotal role of procurement managers in diffusing sustainability throughout the supply chain. The findings of the study, on the one hand, contribute to the literature on operations management and sustainability, and on the other hand, guide policy and managerial actions.