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Nowadays, creation and discovery theories are the two main theoretical approaches supporting the studies on the emergence of enterprises and some scholars analyze these theories in isolation. In addition, studies that investigate the emergence of social enterprises based on these theories together are scarce. This paper aims to analyze if and how discovery and creation theories can coexist in the formation process of social enterprises.

A multi-case study based on semi-structured interviews with the founders of eight Brazilian social enterprises was conducted.

From the results, it is identified that there is a continuous process between discoveries and creations that lead to the maturation of the initial idea and, consequently, to the formation of a social enterprise. Therefore, a continuous process model between discovery and creation of opportunities in the formation of a social enterprise (i.e. a mixed theoretical approach) is proposed, going beyond a theoretical duality between creation or discovery.

This study helps to overcome limitations inherent in both discovery and creation theories, proposing a mixed theoretical approach. This new theoretical approach praises the existence of new paths to understand the emergence of social enterprises, by overcoming the theoretical duality between creation or discovery of opportunities, i.e. a new understanding of an integrating process rather than a dichotomous one.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an underexplored aspect of outsourcing involving a mixed strategy in which parallel production is continued in-house at the same time as outsourcing occurs.

The study applied a multiple case study approach and drew on qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with wood product manufacturing companies.

The paper posits that there should be a variety of mixed strategies between the two governance forms of “make” or “buy.” In order to address how companies should consider the extent to which they outsource, the analysis was structured around two ends of a continuum: in-house dominance or outsourcing dominance. With an in-house-dominant strategy, outsourcing complements an organization's own production to optimize capacity utilization and outsource less cost-efficient production, or is used as a tool to learn how to outsource. With an outsourcing-dominant strategy, in-house production helps maintain complementary competencies and avoids lock-in risk.

This paper takes initial steps toward an exploration of different mixed strategies. Additional research is required to understand the costs of different mixed strategies compared with insourcing and outsourcing, and to study parallel production from a supplier viewpoint.

This paper suggests that managers should think twice before rushing to a “me too” outsourcing strategy in which in-house capacities are completely closed. It is important to take a dynamic view of outsourcing that maintains a mixed strategy as an option, particularly in situations that involve an underdeveloped supplier market and/or as a way to develop resources over the long term.

The concept of combining both “make” and “buy” is not new. However, little if any research has focussed explicitly on exploring the variety of different types of mixed strategies that exist on the continuum between insourcing and outsourcing.

This paper presents a review of research methodologies used in addressing problems in the financial management of property and construction journals from 2005 to 2020.

Content analysis of 258 research papers published in the Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction was carried out, enabling the exploration of research approaches, epistemology, strategies, data collection and data analysis methods used in addressing problems researched in the area of financial management of property and construction

The findings show that quantitative approaches and methods dominate, whereas qualitative and mixed methods were prominent in-depth understanding of a topics were needed. Interestingly, almost a third of the publications did not adopt quantitative approaches. In some journal issues, there was relatively high use of qualitative and multi-method approaches and up to 12% of the articles published over the past 16 years could be described as based on pragmatism.

An important implication of this paper is that a conventionally number-based area of research does not preclude the use of qualitative and mixed approaches. The findings are only generalisable to the Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction.

Financial management researchers could benefit greatly by considering pluralistic approaches more in the design of their studies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is an original synthesis of the articles published between 2005 and 2020. It provides new insight into the use of research methodologies by authors and how they have been combined to address their research problems. It further investigates an old issue or question about methodological choice-making using new evidence and original empirical work.

The purpose of this paper is to assess ways in which informality can be understood and reviews an emerging area of management scholarship. The origins and nature of informality are discussed with the aid of two different theoretical tools: “workplace sociology” (WS) and “mixed embeddedness” (ME).

The analysis is grounded in empirical material reflecting different aspects of informality mainly within the ethnic economy, such as a study on the implementation of the National Minimum Wage regulations (Ram et al., 2007; Jones et al., 2004, 2006).

The authors argue that the combination of WS and ME provides a valuable means of content and character of informality. It can also help to explaining variations and patterns within the informal economy, as well as understanding new forms of informality in the ethnic economy and beyond in “superdiverse” contexts.

This paper bridges two different theoretical approaches to explain the interactions between the firm and state regulations, as well as the workplace relations between employer and employees.

Principals' well-being worldwide is under increasing threat due to the challenging and complex nature of their work and growing demands. This paper aimed at developing and validating a multidimensional Principal Well-being Inventory (PWI) and examining the state and consequences of principal well-being.

This paper involves four independent samples of principals working in schools from Hong Kong and Mainland China. The research design consisted of four phases with four sequential empirical studies. Phase 1 was to establish the content validity (literature review and Study 1); Phase 2 was to test the construct validity (Study 2 and Study 3); Phase 3 was to build the criterion validity (re-use the data from Study 3) and Phase 4 was to test the cross-validity of the PWI (Study 4).

Based on published literature and four successive empirical studies, a 24-item PWI was created via a theoretical-empirical approach of test construction. Validity was confirmed through construct-, content-, criterion- and cross-validity testing. The PWI covers the six important well-being dimensions – physical, cognitive, emotional, psychological, social and spiritual – to present a general picture of principals' occupational well-being associated with job nature, well-being literacy, leadership and context.

The inventory will aid efforts to promote principal well-being as an essential component of schoolwide well-being, quality education and a wellness society.

During the post-COVID-19 period, this project is deemed both critical and timely so that quality education will not be sacrificed due to factors affecting principal well-being.

This theoretically and empirically validated inventory serves as a robust tool for comprehensively understanding principal well-being and a fuller exploration of their well-being literacy, drivers and outcomes.

Entrepreneurial trait and behaviour approaches are used to identify differing entrepreneurial profiles. Specifically, this study aims to determine which entrepreneurial competencies (ECs) can predict entrepreneurial action (EA) for distinct profiles, such as male versus female, start-up versus established and for entrepreneurs within different age groups and educational levels.

The research was conducted using a survey method on a large sample of 1,150 South African entrepreneurs. Chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) algorithms were used to build decision trees to illustrate distinct entrepreneurial profiles.

Each profile has a different set of ECs that predict EA, with a growth mindset being the most significant predictor of action. Therefore, this study confirms that a “one-size-fits-all” approach cannot be applied when profiling entrepreneurs.

From a pedagogical standpoint, different combinations of these ECs for each profile provide priority information for identification of appropriate candidates (e.g. the highest potential for success) and training initiatives, effective pedagogies and programme design (e.g. which individual ECs should be trained and how should they be trained).

Previous work has mostly focused on demographic variables and included a single sample to profile entrepreneurs. This study maintains much wider applicability in terms of examining profiles in a systematic way. The large sample size supports quantitative analysis of the comparisons between different entrepreneurial profiles using unconventional analyses. Furthermore, as far as can be determined, this represents the first CHAID conducted in a developing country context, especially South Africa, focusing on individual ECs predicting EA.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the new service development (NSD) research field. It addresses its scientific production, social and intellectual structures, and maturity.

This study uses a bibliometric-based literature review. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are performed on a sample of 277 NSD articles (published from 1984 to 2014). These articles are organized into four periods to improve the analyses from an evolutionary perspective: Early Writings (1984-1995), Advancing of Literature (1996-2001), Progressive Literature (2002-2008), and Recent Works (2009-2014).

The scientific production in the NSD field has grown significantly over these four periods, and the entry of new authors has extended the social structure. However, collaboration networks seem disconnected from one another. Nonetheless, the intellectual structure has shown great progress, making NSD an independent area of research and discovery from the new product development domain, with its own foundations and expansions into new topics. Although the NSD research field has not yet reached maturity, it is consistently moving toward it.

This study delivers a multiperspective view of research on NSD using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. It provides new insights into the discussion of the field’s maturity and can be used as a roadmap for academics and practitioners who would like to understand the state of existing knowledge and are looking for research opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a selection of papers within the issue that discuss the work‐family interface.

The themes of the papers in the issue are outlined

The papers address the following: conflict, facilitation and individual coping styles across the work and family domains; generational differences in work‐family conflict and work‐family synergy for Generation X, baby boomers and matures; the development and transmission of work‐related attitudes; a cross cultural comparison of female managers attitudes, experiences and career choices; the impact of individual and organisational characteristics on work‐family conflict and career outcomes, and the variation of work life integration experiences of mid‐career professional women.

The paper introduces the special issue which provides a varied mix of theoretical approaches and multi‐level perspectives to scope out and explain the links between work and family life.

As more companies choose to disclose corporate social responsibility (CSR) information, it is important to gain an understanding of the quality of disclosures and factors that influence quality. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of culture as a determinant of the quality of voluntary carbon emission disclosures.

This study uses regression analysis to test the influence of culture on the quality of carbon disclosures. The sample of this study comes from companies who voluntarily report to the carbon disclosure project. The authors operationalize the quality of disclosure using the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index. The authors operationalize cultural values using both Hofstede’s metrics (Hofstede, 1980) and Project GLOBE (House et al., 2004).

This study predicts and finds a negative relationship between quality of disclosure and high individualism scores. This study also finds that the quality of disclosure is lower for companies located in countries with high power distance scores. The authors find that the quality of disclosure is higher for companies located in countries with gender/assertiveness scores that indicate a higher value on the environment than on the importance of economic growth. While quality is marginally related to uncertainty avoidance using Hofstede's measure, quality is not related to uncertainty avoidance using the Project GLOBE metric. The authors did not find a hypothesized negative significant relationship between quality and long-term orientation.

Quality is a measure of importance to users and regulators of disclosures.

National culture is an important determinant of CSR disclosure quality.

This study extends the previous research by using a metric for quality based on an independent evaluation of disclosures and by the role of culture in a multi-country study.

In order to develop transdisciplinary working across the disciplines, clear epistemological foundations are required. The purpose of this paper is to show that sociocybernetics to provides the required unifying metadisciplinary epistemological foundations and transdisciplinary frameworks.

The authors note that second‐order cybernetics provides a metadisciplinary framework for discerning the causes and cures for the schisms within the natural and cognitive sciences. The particular contributions of sociocybernetics are to extend the second‐order understandings to unify the social sciences and, by incorporating extant sociological theory back into the transdisciplinary pursuits of cybernetics and systems theory, to enlighten and enrich those pursuits.

In order to highlight the power and fruitfulness of these contributions from sociocybernetics, the authors problematise, deconstruct and reconstruct key concepts concerned with human communication. To do this, they take as central the question, “What is a symbol?” and present a sociocybernetic, transdisciplinary solution. In doing so they make clear the epistemological poverty of approaches in cognitive science that are based on the thesis that brains and computers are both “physical‐symbol systems”.

The paper contributes to the metadisciplinary and transdisciplinary aims of cybernetics and, in particular, uses a sociocybernetic analysis to enlighten foundational issues in cognitive science.