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The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on how service learning approaches are able to foster social entrepreneurship competences. The aim of the paper is to formulate a framework of key competences for social entrepreneurship and to give first insights in how service learning actually has an impact on change in students’ set of competences.

This paper uses a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative data collectionmethods of learning diaries of the students and semi-structured interviews, including 40 master’s students studying at a German university in interdisciplinary learning settings and five instructors from the same universities. Analysis was carried out by means of qualitative content analysis.

This paper provides empirical insights about the competences that are being fostered by service learning. From these, a framework for social entrepreneurship competences is being derived.

The set of competences should be further investigated, as it was derived out of a small data set. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to use the set of competences for social entrepreneurship as a basis for future research and on a longer-term perspective, which lead to substantial implications for educational practice.

This paper includes implications for new perspectives on service learning in the light of the development of a relevant framework for social entrepreneurship competence, having significant implications for educational practice in social entrepreneurship education.

With this paper, the authors fulfill the need of a framework of social entrepreneurship competences that serves as a foundation for educational practice and further research in the context of service learning and beyond.

This paper aims first to identify the patterns and governance modes of strategic alliances between microfirms and second, to show that alliances between microfirms have specific characteristics.

The research adopts a qualitative approach, based on a survey of 20 alliances. It uses semi‐directive interviews with entrepreneurs of multi‐activity sector firms and discourse analysis.

The paper proposes a typology of microfirm alliances, and highlights the importance of a coherent vision on the part of the partners: egocentered or co‐development logic. First, it explains alliance motivations, and presents the different alliance configurations: patterns, purposes, and entrepreneurs' relationships. Then, it analyses these configurations and governance modes, and shows several specificities: lack of formalisation, absence of contractual relationships, trust, and constrained trust. Finally, the paper questions the impact of strategic alliances on the development of microfirms.

The research contributes to the knowledge of microfirms' strategic behaviours by showing new results about the functioning of strategic alliances. It shows that informal relationships predominate, and it confirms the research into the role of trust for construction and success of interorganisational collaboration.

This article aims to explore how and why the creation of technological innovation during a merger can end in failure. The objective is to propose new analytical elements to improve the formulation and execution of the integration process between an SME (small and medium enterprise) and a large enterprise.

The authors develop a theoretical framework based on the main research results from several fields, including technology transfer, innovation dissemination, and management. This case study then focuses on a merger in the IT sector in real time.

This study allowed the authors to test theoretical elements, especially the choice of the integration method, which may favour the creation of technological innovation during the integration period. The authors present new reasons for the failure of co‐created innovation between an SME and a large enterprise in the IT sector. This case study allowed them to test theoretical elements such as the choice of an integration method which could favour the creation of technological innovation during the integration period while enriching scientific knowledge by proposing a dynamic approach to the integration process.

Before managers can envisage symbiosis between two merging firms, they first need to go through a period of exploration, which may entail costly mistakes. Yet this exploration period may be necessary to enable them to discover the limitations of a strictly rational approach to the integration process and to broaden their normal frame of reference. For this in‐depth study, the authors benefited from free access to a substantial amount of information that is generally unavailable for scientific research, which greatly contributed to their work. The authors' theoretical framework is not exhaustive, but they tried to incorporate the most significant research results.

The purpose of this research paper is to show to what extent psychological, cultural and behavioural factors can influence on the succession process in the particular case of family‐run businesses?

Data on 12 directors of family‐run SME were grouped together on the basis of questions derived from the research question. To do this, the authors operated using a principle guided by cross referencing responses, that is, finding the incidence of elements that make it possible to justify substantively the existence of the category and the common existence of these elements within the cases studied.

The thematic analysis performed made it possible to highlight five main motives for cultural and psychological resistance in former directors: the loss of power and influence, the risk of deconstruction, the loss of professional and social legitimacy, the loss of references and meaning, and the refusal of old age and death.

The results show that transferors search for connections in the aim of identifying common points of anchor, affinities on to which they can project themselves as an element of continuity or an extension of their personality. The paper can in particular note the importance given to cultural proximity and to previous professional relations with the transferor. These criteria, unlike personal factors, are of the interpersonal type and thus deeply imprinted on the transferor's most intimate desires and motivations, including the main desire, which is to search for all that can make possible an extension of himself within his company and thus ensure the permanence of his values and his time at the organisation.

Information security has increasingly been in the headlines as data breaches continue to occur at alarming rates. This paper aims to propose an Information Security Preparedness Model that was developed to examine how SME executives’ perceptions of security importance, implementation challenges and external influences impact their awareness and commitment to security preparedness.

Funded by the Department of Justice, a national survey of SME executives’ perceptions of information security preparedness was conducted. Using PLS-SEM, the survey responses were used to test the proposed Information Security Preparedness Model.

The results indicate that as perceptions of security importance and external influences increase, SME executives’ awareness and commitment to information security also increases. In addition, as implementation challenges increase, awareness and commitment to information security decreases. Finally, as security importance and awareness and commitment to information security increases, executives’ perception of security preparedness also increases.

Executive perceptions of information security were measured and not the actual level of security. Further research that examines the agreement between executive perceptions and the true state of information security within the organization is warranted.

Prior information security studies using Roger’s (1975, 1983) Protection Motivation Theory have produced mixed results. This paper develops and tests the Information Security Preparedness Model to more fully explain SME executive’s perceptions of information security.