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Building on construal level theory (CLT), this study explores mental representations of entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) with different foci (i.e. social and commercial) among university students from Generations Y and Z.

Using a sample of university students from the United States contacted through the Entrepreneurship Education Project, this study employs a configurational perspective—fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)—to identify the pathways leading to EIs and social entrepreneurial intentions (SEIs).

Results show that the configurations of conditions leading to the outcomes (EI and SEI) are not disparate but share far more similarities even when considering socially oriented antecedents, supporting the claim that students perceive both EIs with different foci as high-level construals. The results also demonstrate no differences within gender, but there are asymmetries between gender in the configurations leading to EI and SEI.

This study contributes to EI literature by providing new insights into understanding how individuals perceive EIs at an early stage of entrepreneurship and by bringing CLT to the EI literature.

These results have implications for entrepreneurship education and practice, as it recognizes that students' EIs are psychologically distant, lacking a level of detail and specificity. This would explain why students do not immediately create ventures, but that entrepreneurship has a certain incubation time to create an entrepreneurial mindset.

Exploring the configurational approaches can help to uncover the complexity and idiosyncrasies underlying EIs.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the conceptualization and measurement of entrepreneurial intentions. Significant studies anchored in the Theory of Planned Behavior use causal statistical approaches to entrepreneurial intentions. This methodological approach, leads to the conclusion that there is a single pathway for all groups of people to achieve business start-up. Even though theory suggests approaches by women entrepreneurs to start a business may be influenced by different factors from those influencing men, results are inconclusive in these analyses. The authors argue that methodological preferences for linear, causal analytical approaches limit the understanding of gender similarities and differences in the business start-up process. The authors propose that when considering diverse samples, it is unreasonable to assume there is only a single pathway leading to business start-up.

Building on fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and data set of 2,038 respondents, the authors investigate factors predicting the intentions to start a business and evaluate the alternative conjunctive paths that emerge.

The fsQCA results shows that the relationship among conditions leading to entrepreneurial intentions is complex and is best represented as multiple and conjectural causation configurations. In other words, there are multiple significant pathways (refers to equifinality) that predict intentions to start a business start-up, and there are significant differences by gender.

This study is one of the first to examine the roll of gender as a sperate condition in the analysis. This paper offers implications for theory and future research and highlights the complexity of this domain.

This study aims to explore gender performance in entrepreneurial pitching. Understanding pitching as a social practice, the authors argue that pitch content and body gestures contain gender-based norms and practices. The authors focus on early-stage ventures and the hegemonic masculinities and femininities that are performed in entrepreneurial pitches. The main research question is as follows: How is gender performed in entrepreneurial pitching?

The authors carried out the study with the post-structuralist feminist approach. The authors collected and analyzed nine online pitches with the reflexive thematic method to depict hegemonic masculinities and femininities performed at the pitch.

The authors found that heroic and breadwinner masculinities are dominant in pitching. Both male and female founders perform hegemonic masculinities. Entrepreneurs are expected to be assertive but empathetic people. Finally, there are connections between what entrepreneurs do and what investors ask, indicating the iteration of gender performance and expectations.

While the online setting helps the authors to collect data during the pandemic, it limits the observation of the place, space and interactions between the judges/investors and the entrepreneurs. As a result, the linguistic and gesture communication of the investors in the pitch was not discussed in full-length in this paper. Also, as the authors observed, people would come to the pitch knowing what they should perform and how they should interact. Therefore, the preparation of the pitch as a study context could provide rich details on how gender norms and stereotypes influence people's interactions and their entrepreneurial identity. Lastly, the study has a methodological limitation. The authors did not include aspects of space in the analysis. It is mainly due to the variety of settings that the pitching sessions that the data set had.

For social practices and policies, the results indicate barriers to finance for women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs are rewarded when they perform entrepreneurial hegemonic masculinities with a touch of emphasized femininities. Eventually, if women entrepreneurs do not perform correctly as investors expect them to, they will face barriers to acquiring finance. It is important to acknowledge how certain gendered biases might be (re)constructed and (re)produced through entrepreneurial activities, in which pitching is one of them.

Practitioners could utilize research findings to understand how gender stereotypes exist not only on the pitch stage but also before and after the pitch, such as the choice of business idea and pitch training. In other words, it is necessary to create a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, such as customizing the accelerator program so that all business ideas receive relevant support from experts. On a macro level, the study has shown that seemingly gender-equal societies do not practically translate into higher participation of women in entrepreneurship.

For theoretical contributions, the study enhances the discussion that entrepreneurship is gendered; women and men entrepreneurs need to perform certain hegemonic traits to be legitimated as founders. The authors also address various pitching practices that shape pitch performance by including both textual and semiotic data in the study. This study provides social implications on the awareness of gendered norms and the design of entrepreneurial pitching.

This paper describes a modelling process the objective of which was to make the highly abstract concept of core competence practical. The aim is to identify competences through the use of a service-process model by analyzing what they reflect – the service quality. Core competence is defined, and a conceptual model is presented. Competences are classified on three levels in a corporate setting and the connections drawn to service quality. Empirical evidence is provided by a case in the health-care sector in which competences are identified through the use of the service-process model in high-performance, professional services. The service-process model in surgical medical services is presented. Critical elements in the service-quality experience are identified and core competences are identified based on service quality as a reflection of them and their management.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the family business succession process using Nonaka's theory of knowledge creation and conceptualisation of a knowledge‐creating place, Ba to enhance one's understanding of critical managerial challenges in family business succession.

Based on literature review, Nonaka's theory of knowledge creation and knowledge‐creating space is applied to the family business succession process.

Through literature review and synthesis thereof the paper concludes that Nonaka's theory of knowledge creation is a highly valid framework for analyzing and supporting the family business succession process. The paper proposes that Ba is a perception of a place – the family firm – and a shared purpose among family members in that firm. It is posited that the absence of Ba can be a significant barrier to a family firm adopting a successful succession process. Creating a Ba is essential for family firms to survive.

Only propositions are presented, but they serve as valid research questions for future research.

Previous research of knowledge management processes and applications in family business context is scarce. Moreover, research on succession in family firms has not been considered as a knowledge creating and sharing process. This paper applies a valid and widely used model to the context of family firms and adopts the view that a succession process in essence is a knowledge creating and sharing process.

In their paper “Fractals, stories, and the development of coherence in strategic logic,” Janice Black, Frances Fabian, and Kim Hinrichs explore key communication dynamics that drive the emergence of a coherent strategic logic in an organization. Using a longitudinal study of a non-profit organization in the health and caring industry, the authors use “fractals” as a metaphor for organizational processes that help to crystallize a clear, coherent, and well understood statement of an organization’s strategic logic. Their study also suggests how the mathematical rules that govern the iterative generation of fractals in nature can be applied to develop a “mathematics of social systems.” The authors’ analysis of strategy processes in the subject organization shows how the use of storytelling through internal organizational publications can contribute substantially to the emergence of a coherent strategic logic and supporting value system within an organization.

If we are to better understand what it means to think “sustainably,” the entrepreneurship literature suggests that entrepreneurial cognition offers us two powerful tools. Human cognition operates with two nearly parallel systems for information processing, intentional and automatic. Entrepreneurial cognition has long focused on how entrepreneurial thinking and action are inherently intentional. Thus, intentions-based approaches are needed to understand how to encourage the identification of actionable sustainable opportunities. But first, however, we need to address key elements of our automatic processing, anchored on deep assumptions and beliefs. In short, if sustainable entrepreneurship is about addressing sustainable opportunities, then before we can take advantage of research into entrepreneurial intentions, we need a better understanding of how we enact our deep mental models of constructs such as “sustainable.”