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This paper aims to explore the role of management controls in managing heterogeneous interests during extreme situations.

Through interviews and observations, the authors analyse the Swedish Migration Agency’s management controls and study routines during the peak of the European Migrant Crisis.

Prior to the crisis, the strategy used by the employees was to mediate between two interests (labelled legal security and empathy) to create a workable compromise. During the crisis, however, the authors observed filtering in the form of the previous hierarchical ordering of interests was further strengthened as the employees increasingly relied on just a single interest (the interest which they previously had deemed to be the most important) at the expense of the other interest. The findings suggest that behavioural and social controls helped such filtering; social controls helped certain employees to filter the empathy interest as more important during extreme situations and behavioural controls helped other employees to filter the legal security interest as more important. This help us explain why the authors observe less mediation between the two heterogeneous interests and rather a stricter dominance of one of the interests. The authors also illustrate how especially behavioural controls may become unsupportive of the operations during extreme situations as it consisted of rule-based standards, built to cope with “normal” situations. The heterogeneous interests affected the probability of actors, at times, ignoring behavioural controls when such controls were unsupportive. Actors whose day-to-day operations were mainly guided by the legal security interest remained tightly coupled to behavioural controls even when they felt that these controls were no longer useful. On the other hand, actors who were mainly guided by the empathy interest ignored behavioural controls when they felt that they were unsupportive.

The authors acknowledge that bias might arise from the reliance on retrospective views of past processes and events, which the authors primarily gathered through interviews.

The authors highlight an important relationship between heterogeneous interests (i.e. legal security and empathy) and management controls during the crisis and how this relationship can lead actors to fundamentally different actions.

The two bodies of study on the role of management controls in managing heterogeneous interests and the role of management controls during the crisis have been largely unconnected and it is in this intersection that this study contributes.

Today, newly founded businesses are inevitably driven to start in a digital form from day 1. Moreover, most existing businesses conceive digitalization as an important part of their strategic orientation by developing and improving their digital assets and digitalizing their processes. By taking account of this development, this chapter investigates how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) affects a small firm’s proclivity to both digitization and internationalization and their performance that comes from it. Internationalization has been a key topic for many small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) over the past decades. As digitization is currently taking over the helm from internationalization as the most pressing topic affecting business, we carried out research among SMEs to understand the interplay of these factors influencing business performance. The focus of the research was on the precursory factors inducing firm performance as well as on their interrelationships. Using a sample of 357 SMEs, EO is found to be significantly closely associated with an SME’s degree of digitization as well as with its overall performance. In contrast, EO does not affect the SME’s level of internationalization. This result is surprising considering that proactive and risk-taking firms tend to be more inclined to enter foreign and distant markets.

Neurodiversity can be considered a cognitive disability that marginalizes people who experience and interpret the world differently. An estimated 19% of all US college students have disclosed a disability (NCES, 2021). Typical forms of neurodiversity are attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and dyslexia. There is a growing belief that entrepreneurship is well suited for neurodivergent individuals because they can specifically design and control their environments resulting in a better fit and more positive outcomes (Austin & Pisano, 2017). There is also the belief that neurodivergent people’s unique perspectives and “superpowers” lead to new innovative ways of thinking and doing business. These superpowers can allow neurodivergent people to hyper focus and outperform others (Austin & Pisano, 2017).

However, real challenges counter these positive outcomes. For example, while those with ADHD are often drawn to being entrepreneurs because they can quickly initiate, improvise, and seek novelty – their ability to engage in reflection, thoroughness, and efficiency is strained. Thus, ADHD helps and hinders entrepreneurs (Hunt & Verhuel, 2017). The same holds true for other types of neurodiversity.

Entrepreneurship education becomes more nuanced as it matures and grows. An example is the “learn by doing” method of teaching entrepreneurship. Grounded in self-determination and planned behavior theories, “learn by doing” highlights the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness when engaging in entrepreneurship endeavors. Heutagogy (self-guided learning) and andragogy (applied learning) approaches have an effective impact on this type of entrepreneurship pedagogy. However, these open-ended approaches present barriers for neurodivergent learners who need more structure with projects broken down into small steps.

This chapter presents a case study view of how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) frameworks support “learn by doing” approaches to build a neurodivergent-friendly entrepreneurship mindset on campus. It includes a combination of approaches that support executive function (EF) mastery, assessment, and self-development, including multimodal ways of teaching (visual, audio, and kinesthetic), self-regulation, and social interactions. Here, the authors demonstrate how neurodivergent students learn to anticipate, manage, and benefit from their differences using the UDL engagement–regulation–persistence Framework. The lessons shared in this chapter can help entrepreneurship educators see ways various teaching methods can benefits all learners and how the addition of various programs can be more inclusive for neurodivergent students.

In order to stay competitive most small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) need to make decisions and improve their processes in a more efficient way. To manufacturing companies this is crucial not the least within the design and production phases. This means that a deeper understanding of the concept of variation, identification of causes of variation, and handling of these causes are important factors within SMEs. This paper presents two studies of implementation of statistical methods. One is related to the use of process capability studies in Swedish industry. The other one is related to the use of design of experiments at two small enterprises within the high performance ceramic industry. From both the studies we find recommendations how to implement statistical technics in SMEs in order to increase the possibilities of success.

For decades, organizational research has primarily considered instrumental technology perceptions (ITP) – emphasizing how technology impacts the personal interests of end users themselves – to understand technology acceptance. The authors offer a complementary paradigm by introducing deontic technology perceptions (DTP), defined as the degree to which individuals believe that the technology they use is beneficial to other individuals beyond themselves (e.g. beneficial to customers).

The authors collected quantitative survey-based data from three different hospitals located in the United States. On the basis of conservation of resources theory, the authors investigated whether both DTP and ITP were associated with improved work-related well-being.

Two pilot studies (n = 161 and n = 311 nurses) substantiated our DTP conceptualization. Our primary study (n = 346 nurses) found support for the association between DTP and improved work-related well-being. Evidence for the relationship between ITP and work-related well-being was mixed and the authors did not find a statistically significant interaction between DTP and ITP.

The authors build on decades of research on technology acceptance by complementing it with our deontic perspective. Our work demonstrates that technology users pay attention and react meaningfully to how their use of technology impacts not only themselves but also external parties like patients, customers and members of the general public.

The study explored the mediating role of potential and realized absorptive capacities in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation performance among manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Empirical analysis was based on 357 manufacturing SMEs in Ghana. Various validity and reliability checks were conducted before the presentation of the actual analysis, which was conducted using ordinary least squares approach, run using SPSS (v. 20).

Findings revealed that potential and realized absorptive capacities significantly mediated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation performance among manufacturing SMEs. Further, it was identified that ambidexterity in absorptive capacity also had a greater effect on radical innovation performance among manufacturing SMEs.

Since the data used were cross-sectional, the relationships measured represent only a snapshot of time. Longitudinal studies could therefore be adopted in the future to complement the cross-sectional conducted.

While managers of manufacturing SMEs seek to achieve higher radical innovation performance through entrepreneurial orientation, it should also be noted that both potential and realized absorptive capacities have a significant role to play in this relationship. Managers must therefore also seek to invest time to build both potential and realized absorptive capacities, as they define greater innovation success.

Some past studies have considered absorptive capacity as composite variable, therefore added both potential and realized absorptive capacities to form a single variable. Others also presented potential and realized absorptive capacities individually. This current study extends the body of knowledge by presenting an ambidexterity position between potential and realized absorptive capacities.

This paper aims to analyse various failures that Indian innovative start-ups (ISs) are exposed to and proposes interventions from management accounting tools (MATs) that can tackle their failure-causing risks. This paper justifies the applicability of contingency theory (CT) for applying MATs for failure prevention and risk management.

This paper uses multimethod research while undertaking two sequential studies. The methods include a Survey via semi-structured interviews of 51 specialists and media reports and the Delphi method.

Reasons for the failures of Indian ISs have been identified and grouped based on eight broad underlying risk factors. Appropriate MATs relevant to ISs have been identified and examined by relating them with the risk factors underlying failure. Applicability of CT is shown while using the MATs for failure prevention and risk management of ISs.

This study is limited to the Indian context. Empirical validation of the applicability of MATs for each type of failure along the lifecycle stages of ISs needs to be undertaken.

Founders/owners of ISs can use this conceptual framework to tackle the risks underlying the failure of their firms. Policymakers can introduce appropriate policies to enhance the survival of ISs. Researchers can further explore the application of CT for failure prevention and risk management of ISs.

A conceptual framework has been developed relating failure-causing risk factors relevant to ISs and appropriate MATs, which justifies the applicability of CT.

Digitalization is considered an emerging phenomenon that enables businesses to develop new markets and business models. It helps firms expand the scope of their activities and enables organizations to become more efficient. It is now a reality for firms and contributes to their value creation. Thus, the aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between digitalization and firm performance through the mediating role of business model innovation (BMI) and to do so, a self-administered questionnaire with a sample of 70 Tunisian firms was conducted for this purpose. The main result of the analysis, confirms that digitalization is positively related to business performance, with BMI mediating this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between housing markets and new firm formation in six different industries in all 284 municipalities in Sweden.

The authors have used data from Statistics Sweden and The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth to develop a model to analyze the relationship between house prices and industry-specific new firm formation, with the interaction effect of financial infrastructure.

In the data, stable high house prices have no effect on entrepreneurship. However, a market with rising house prices has a positive effect on new firm formation, in retail, construction, business-to-business services and miscellaneous sectors, but produced no effect in either mining, agriculture and fishing or in manufacturing. The interaction between rising house prices and financial infrastructure does not change the positive effect on retail, business-to-business services and miscellaneous sectors, but within the construction industry, the positive effect on new firm formation disappears. In manufacturing, the authors observe the opposite – a positive effect, instead of no effect previously.

The contribution of this study is to provide evidence of how house prices are associated with entrepreneurship in different industries, as well as analyzing how the interaction between house prices and financial infrastructure is associated with entrepreneurship. By separating observations in time, endogeneity is controlled and a causal relationship where higher house prices is postulated, which leads to an increase in entrepreneurial activity in different industries. By using a spatial Durbin model, the authors control for spatial dependency.

We conjecture that there are five stages to academic entrepreneurship: motivation, governance, selection, competition, and performance. The process of academic entrepreneurship originates with the motivation of faculty, universities, industry, and government to commercialize knowledge that originates within the university setting. The model conceptualizes that the governance and competitiveness of the commercialized knowledge moderate the mode selection and ultimately the performance of academic entrepreneurship. The conceptual and empirical support for the model are derived from a theory-driven synthesis of articles related to academic entrepreneurship.