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This paper aims to analyse the determinants of business start-ups and their impact on entrepreneurial performance. The theoretical part indicates that the importance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) considers the role of entrepreneur in the business process and provides an overview of theoretical and empirical findings in the main determinants of business start-ups.

The empirical part is based on quantitative survey results from a model of business start-up factors and relations with the entrepreneurs' performance. The data were analysed using the statistical package for data analysis SPSS for Windows. The factor analysis was performed separately for the set of variables that have measured the reasons for founding the start-up, the personality traits, environmental factors and performance. The paper used a multiple linear regression model to identify the strength, direction and impact of different factors on the start-up performance.

In general, the study identifies which indicators influence entrepreneurs' performance (personal and business) in the first years of their companies. The paper revealed the heterogeneity of the measures for performance and their different natures (from financial indicators to those related to the entrepreneur satisfaction). Consequently, one of the most significant findings of the research is that, in spite of the fact that the most commonly used indicators for the firm performance in the literature are financial, the paper should not neglect the so-called perceived performance. This is how entrepreneurs are satisfied with their success.

The study is limited to Slovenian SMEs, but can be generalised to other regions. The study offers notable contributions for research and practice (improvements in SME environmental factors).

The personal traits and appropriate business environments can have beneficial effects on the entrepreneur's perceived performance. The findings can be used to guide the government in efficient management of different dimensions of entrepreneur environment.

This study proved the existence of latent elements of the entrepreneur's perceived performance. It gives valuable information, which hopefully will help the policy makers and entrepreneurs to give greater respect to the meaning of critical personal and environmental factors.

Reputation has many positive outcomes, but little is known about how individuals manage their personal reputation at work. This study aims to investigate the relationships between job performance and political skill on personal reputation.

Ninety‐eight triads from a Midwestern manufacturer provided data. Employees rated their political skill, supervisors rated the employees' job performance, and coworkers rated the employees' personal reputation. The white‐collar respondents were mostly Caucasian, female, middle aged, and moderately tenured in their position. The data were analyzed with regression analysis.

The results illustrated positive political skill‐personal reputation and job performance ‐personal reputation relationships. Job performance was positively associated with personal reputation for politically skilled employees, but not for individuals low in political skill.

Job performance was evaluated by employees' supervisors, but less subjective, quantitative measures of job performance would be helpful.

Political skill training and/or mentoring relationships may help individuals manage their personal reputation at work.

This study focused on personal reputation in a work environment. However, the results also may be useful to individuals in a variety of organizations (e.g. schools, clubs, churches).

This is one of the first studies to investigate how individuals manage their personal reputation in a work setting. Unlike previous research that used self‐evaluations of personal reputation, this study uses peer evaluations, which is more appropriate for the construct.

Fitness service companies often promote the companies' personal training service by attributing trainers' competent characteristics, qualifications or/and service provision to their effort or talent. This promotion is called performance attribution promotion. Utilizing attribution theory and the theory's adjacent studies, this study investigated whether and why performance attribution promotion affects consumers' service purchase of personal fitness training.

The authors developed the experimental stimuli of performance attribution promotion and validated those through a pretest (N = 200). Using the validated stimuli, the authors conducted an experiment with employing a single factor between-subject design (performance attribution promotion: effort vs talent) based on random assignment (N = 200).

The analysis results revealed that attributing trainers' competent characteristics, qualifications or/and service provision to effort (vs talent) leads to a higher level of service registration intention. Moreover, this effect was mediated by the perceived teaching expertise but not by the perceived teaching trustworthiness.

These findings enrich the literature by illuminating a new mechanism and consequence of performance attribution promotion. The authors' study also extends the marketing studies related to expertise perception by presenting the attribution of visible features as one of the characteristics determining expertise perception. Finally, the authors' findings also have implications for fitness service companies and other stakeholders that seek to effectively leverage trainers' competent outcomes for consumer acquisition.

Stress damages us and our performance. It is a real part of most manager's experience and can be said to occur when significant demands exceed perceived management responsibilities and routines. Stress can be the essence of working life, and certainly need not always be damaging to us. But when it becomes excessive, it is something unwanted.

The purpose of this paper is to understand better the organizational social capital (SC) levels and their impact on organizations by focusing on personal SC and intra-organizational SC as well as their different connections to organizational gossip and employee performance.

Participants in a field study included 617 employees from five Israeli organizations in the field of aviation and shipping. Levels of personal SC, intra-organizational SC, gossip and self-evaluated performance were measured, and connections between them detected.

The results indicate that intra-organizational SC is positively connected to employee performance, while personal SC is positively linked to gossip. Personal SC also leads to performance with the mediation of intra-organizational SC, although gossip was not found to be connected to performance.

The contributions of this study are both conceptual and practical. The distinction between organizational SC levels is refined, improving organizational research accuracy and facilitating a better grasp of the connections between SC and other variables. The scant research on organizational gossip has been expanded. From a practical perspective, clarification of the link between organizational SC and performance can be beneficial to employees and organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of work engagement in the relationship between job and personal resources and performance results.

Two samples from public (n=250) and private sector (n=475) organizations were surveyed. The hypotheses were tested through AMOS using structural equation modeling.

The results of the study confirmed the assumptions of the Job Demands-Resources Model. Specifically, job resources and personal resources predicted performance results via work engagement in both samples. Moreover, in alignment with previous studies (e.g. Bakker et al., 2004), work engagement was moderately related to job performance.

The present study expands previous research by investigating how job and personal resources facilitate engagement and performance expressed in terms of annual performance appraisal results.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of motivation, personal values and managerial skills of managers on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa.

Data were collected through the use of self-administered questionnaire in a survey. Data analysis included factor analysis, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and regression analysis.

The findings revealed significant positive relationships between motivations, personal values and managerial skills of SME owners on performance.

Access to external finance (debt or equity) is one of the factors that can impact on the performance of growing SMEs. The non-accessibility of debt finance from commercial banks and trade creditors is seen as one of the major contributing factors to the failure of SMEs in South Africa. This study did not link access to finance to performance.

The failure rate of SMEs is very high in South Africa. The study suggests that SME owners should incorporate values and improve management skills. In addition, SMEs that are motivated by opportunity have a better chance of survival.

To reduce unemployment and poverty in South Africa.

This study adds to the understanding of the relationship between of personal values, motivations and management skills of managers and the performance of SMEs from a developing country perspective.

A new blueprint for creating a learning organization is needed in which personal and organizational performance and learning mutually reinforce each other on a sustainable basis. Traditional business management concepts are insufficiently committed to learning and rarely take the specific personal ambitions of employees into account. In consequence there are many superficial improvements, marked by temporary and cosmetic changes, which are coupled with failing projects that lack sufficient buy‐in by personnel and, in some cases, even have an adverse effect. Sets out to examine this situation.

Building insight from experience.

This paper introduces a new business management concept, called total performance scorecard (TPS). It stresses the importance of and need for developing an organizational structure and philosophy that combine the goals and aspirations of the individual with those of the company. It is a melding process, which results in a corporate culture that is both individually and organizationally driven.

The concepts embodied in this management concept provide solutions to preserving and utilizing individual rights and capabilities while adjusting the organizational structure and philosophy to this new environment. This has been done by expanding and integrating concepts such as the balanced scorecard, total quality management, performance management and competence management into one overall framework.

The resulting framework, TPS, creates a framework and philosophy that combine the goals and aspirations of the individual with those of the organisation. It is a melding process, which results in a corporate culture that is both individually and organizationally driven.

Proposes an alternative approach to understanding personal selling performance based on personal construct psychology, a cognitively based personality paradigm, originally formulated in clinical psychology by George Kelly. Explains how personal construct psychology theory (PCT), which reflects a constructivist epistemology, provides a conceptual framework for understanding and predicting sales performance. Demonstrates how PCT can be integrated with existing theoretical models of sales performance by suggesting a series of research propositions which can be tested using a number of different research methodologies. Considers research and practical implications.

When critically reviewing the empirical research on the relationships between personal characteristics and successful foreign assignments it is revealed that the extant empirical research suffers from several limitations. The aim of this article is to shed additional light into the relationship between expatriate personal characteristics and job performance, circumventing the identified limitations of cross‐sectional design, use of self‐evaluations and inappropriate measures of success.

The empirical study is based on longitudinal data. Trained psychologists carried out a psychological assessment of the expatriate prior to the assignment. Performance data were provided by both the expatriate and the expatriate's superior.

The obtained results support the importance of communicational ability for expatriate success, whereas stress tolerance and relational ability were not found to be significantly related to success.

The study was conducted in only one multinational company and the country of origin of all studied expatriates was Finland. Another limitation of this study is the relatively limited number of personal characteristics studied and the use of only one superior performance evaluation per expatriate.

Based on the results it is recommended that companies systematically assess the personal characteristics of candidates before deciding on an expatriation, especially the communicational ability. Minimising the use of self‐evaluations in research is strongly advised.

This article contributes to the literature by providing a longitudinal study on the relationship between expatriate personal characteristics and performance.