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In the international arena, there is an ongoing debate over the lack of newly started businesses in general and over how to obtain sustainable growth in these businesses in particular. Policy-makers in Europe have sought to ease this problem of paucity of new firm's start-ups, which is mainly caused by a lack of financial resources for new innovative ideas as problematic (European Commission (2007–2013); Groen, Jenniskens, & van der Sijde, 2005). Consequently, during the latest decade, there has been an increase in the number of public sector financial schemes designed to promote entrepreneurship in very early-stage businesses (COM, 2005, 2006). These efforts have, however, escaped criticism. Those who promote public financing believe that with the right tools and governance this type of support is an important complement to the private sector financial market (Oakey, 2003). However, bankers and venture capitalists often state that the main issue is not the lack of available capital but the inability of entrepreneurs to convince investors of the merits of their business ideas (Mason & Harrison, 2002). There have also been arguments against the socioeconomic efficiency (Storey, 1994).

Firms have begun to introduce virtual agents (VAs) in service encounters, both in online and offline environments. Such VAs typically resemble human frontline employees in several ways (e.g. the VAs may have a gender and a name), which indicates the presence of an assumption by VA designers – and by firms that employ them – that VA humanness is a positively charged characteristic. This study aims to address this assumption by examining antecedents to perceived humanness in terms of attribution of agency, emotionality and morality, and the impact of perceived humanness on customer satisfaction.

A questionnaire was distributed online to participants who had been interacting with existing VAs, and they were asked to focus on one of them for this study. The questionnaire comprised measures of antecedents to perceived humanness of VAs, perceived humanness per se and customer satisfaction. A structural equation modeling approach was used to assess associations between the variables.

Attributions of agency, emotionality and morality to VAs contributed positively to the perceived humanness of the VAs, and perceived humanness was positively associated with customer satisfaction.

Additional humanness capabilities should be explored in further research.

Firms using VAs in service encounters should make attempts to maximize perceived VA humanness, and this study shows that it may be beneficial if such attempts comprise signals that VAs have agency, emotionality and morality.

By examining VAs in terms of a set of fundamental human capabilities, the present study contributes to existing research on human–VA service encounters, which to date has focused on more superficial VA characteristics (such as if the VA has a face and gender).

Today, the need for renewable energy is rising steadily. Various steps are being taken by nations to address the rising need. The developments occurring in proportion to the industrial structures and economic levels of the countries, these efforts, the political structure of the country, some established patterns from the past, and many other external factors affect the use of renewable energy and therefore sustainable development, which has been one of the most important agendas since the early 1990s. In this study, it is examined whether certain characteristics of the Scandinavian Welfare Model affect the background of this successful image of Finland, Denmark, and Sweden, which rank in the top three positions in both the Global Energy Innovation Index and the Sustainable Development Report. As a result, although the use of fossil fuels increases the ecological footprint in the Scandinavian countries, which are evaluated as in the rest of the world, continuing the principles of innovation, trust, equality, openness, and sustainability with determination, the Nordic approach has not departed from the welfare state principle compatible with its own codes, unlike the transformations experienced by other welfare regimes, and has become a distinctive factor.

Evasive entrepreneurs innovate by circumventing or disrupting existing formal institutional frameworks. Since such evasions rarely go unnoticed, they usually lead to responses from lawmakers and regulators. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The authors introduce a conceptual model to illustrate and map the interdependencey between evasive entrepreneurship and the regulatory response it provokes. The authors apply this framework to the case of the file sharing platform The Pirate Bay, a venture with a number of clearly innovative and evasive features.

The platform was a radical, widely applied innovation that transformed the internet landscape, yet its founders became convicted criminals because of it.

Applying the evasive entrepreneurship framework to this case improves the understanding of the relationship between policymaking and entrepreneurship in the digital age, and is a first step toward exploring best responses for regulators facing evasive entrepreneurship.

Understanding the factors behind successful enterprise policy interventions are critical in ensuring effective programme development. The aim of this paper is to analyse an academic-industry initiative in Sweden developed to support knowledge-intensive businesses in expanding their operations.

This paper describes a case study of a specific policy intervention to facilitate further business growth and development. Since 1986, 490 individuals from 194 companies have attended the Business Development Programme (BDP) organised by Linköping University. Through analysing interviews with participants on the programme, the paper examines the origins and motivations behind its creation, management and development.

This study finds that future policy interventions in enterprise development must cultivate an open style of learning, similar to the principles of open innovation, which engages directly with the participants, is based on a process of informality and flexibility, reflects the needs of the business and includes engaged programme leadership based on a successful entrepreneurial track record.

The programme has succeeded through an informal, flexible and needs-orientated approach that essentially reflects the needs of the participating businesses.

Interventions that are targeted towards supporting established businesses could help to create wealth and employment. However, understanding the factors behind such interventions is critical in ensuring that policymakers design the most relevant programmes to assist support businesses that have the potential to grow.

Total quality management has seen a tremendous rise of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. Aims to question the effectiveness, utility and use of TQM among many people – practitioners, as well as academics.

Discusses the lack of common interpretations of TQM based on literature study. The answer to the question whether TQM is a marvel or malpractice depends on several factors, for instance, in what kinds of organizations TQM is applied, what interpretation of TQM is made, and what input the theorists and practitioners have, i.e. their earlier environment, culture and values. Often respondents and opponents use the same word but mean different things.

TQM should not be rejected as a whole if one or even, many applications fail. TQM should, however, be applied with considerable consideration of the specifics of the target organization, the purpose of the organization, and the purpose of applying TQM.

The paper emphasizes the lack of common interpretations of TQM.

The purpose of this paper is to show that entrepreneurship can be fruitfully analyzed by positing that entrepreneurs are searching for rates of return exceeding the risk-adjusted market rate of return, i.e., they try to create or discover economic rents.

A conceptual paper trying to bridge the gap between neoclassical economics and the entrepreneurship field by seeing entrepreneurship as the search for and creation of (entrepreneurial) rents.

In the short to medium term the search for and creation of entrepreneurial rents give rise to supernormal profits if successful. In the longer term these rents are dissipated and accrue to society at large as cheaper and better products. Entrepreneurial rents are crucial for bringing about the innovation and continuous structural change required to generate economic growth.

The search for entrepreneurial rents is crucial for economic development. Without the possibility to earn entrepreneurial rents, no entrepreneur would be willing to exercise entrepreneurship and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Successful entrepreneurship attracts imitating firms that push back profits to normal levels and the benefits of the innovation will be diffused to consumers.

Understanding the role of entrepreneurship and its compensation is crucial for analyses of potential policy measures. High ex post compensation for successful entrepreneurship cannot be taxed harshly without affecting entrepreneurs’ willingness to supply effort.

The entrepreneurial function and its compensation are often neglected in neoclassical economics. This is a major shortcoming, as the presence of and search for entrepreneurial rents are necessary for bringing about the innovation and structural change that result in economic growth.

This study consists of an examination of productivity growth following three major technological breakthroughs: the steam power revolution, electrification and the ICT revolution. The distinction between sectors producing and sectors using the new technology is emphasized. A major finding for all breakthroughs is that there is a long lag from the time of the original invention until a substantial increase in the rate of productivity growth can be observed. There is also strong evidence of rapid price decreases for steam engines, electricity, electric motors and ICT products. However, there is no persuasive direct evidence that the steam engine producing industry and electric machinery had particularly high productivity growth rates. For the ICT revolution the highest productivity growth rates are found in the ICT-producing industries. We suggest that one explanation could be that hedonic price indexes are not used for the steam engine and the electric motor. Still, it is likely that the rate of technological development has been much more rapid during the ICT revolution compared to any of the previous breakthroughs.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a conceptual framework for the institutional preconditions for media work and how organizations establish these conditions.

The work concurs with the stream of scholars who use social theory as their starting‐point to understand and make sense of public relations as a societal phenomenon. Based on earlier empirical analysis and theoretical arguments this paper supports the notion of corporate media work as being much more complex and extensive than was earlier recognized. Vital to this is mediatization, a concept describing how media are transformed from being a mediator between institutions to becoming an institution in themselves.

The paper outlines three different ideal types of strategies of corporate media work: providing, promoting, and co‐opting, resting on different aims and functions.

Organizational media work redefines, reshapes and structures the economic, political and social positions of organizations. Therefore scholars will be helped by a more developed framework to categorize and understand corporate media work in a mediatized society.