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The purpose of this paper is to adopt a collective perspective in the study of entrepreneurial decision-making processes and empirically analyse the ways in which social relationships between family members can shape their collective entrepreneurial decision-making behaviour (ED).

This paper considers the family social capital (FSC) in inducing overall conformity to the focal family member's decision to exploit an opportunity. In terms of the seminal construct of social capital, the authors propose three FSC dimensions that can be used to induce conformity: structural, relational and cognitive dimensions. Then, the authors design questionnaires to collect data pertaining to the relationships between the family members' ED and the FSC. Finally, the authors collect 152 valid questionnaires from Chinese family firms.

The data analysis consists of two parts. The first section of this paper analyses conformity by testing the discriminant validity of models. Regression analysis is then used to test the relationship between family members' ED and the FSC. Significant relationships between the cognitive dimension of FSC and the entrepreneur's decision-making are found.

The research contributes towards academic literature concerning both entrepreneurship and social capital. On the one hand, this paper is one of the rare pieces of entrepreneurial research that responds to the call for the study of entrepreneurship from a collective perspective. On the other hand, our study quantitatively tests the impact of FSC at a multidimensional level. It provides conclusions regarding the social influence of other family members and provides insights into social capital by studying entrepreneurship from a social/community perspective.

Knowledge often is the fundament for strategic competitive advantage. Thus, it is highly relevant to understand better how knowledge is transferred from one generation to the next in family businesses. The purpose of this paper is to link the competitive advantage realisation in family businesses to the success of transferring strategically valuable knowledge in different business environments to the next generation.

Building on the contingency model of family business succession (Royer et al., 2008) knowledge transfer in family businesses from different cultures is investigated in this paper. From a resource-oriented and transaction cost inspired perspective two family businesses with a similar industry background from China and Europe are compared regarding knowledge transfer in the context of family firm succession taking into account the respective transaction atmosphere.

Different successions for two long-lived family firms are illustrated in a systematic fashion: based on the theoretical elements suggested both cases are described to get insights into the usefulness of the theoretical reasoning developed. On the basis of these, the cases are compared with each other and conclusions for both cases are drawn. Implications for theory and practice as well as avenues for future research are sketched.

The focus of the current study is to gain more insight into long-lived family businesses by comparing two cases over a period of more than 200 years with regard to strategically relevant resources as well as the underlying transaction atmospheres. Implications for family firms depending on the resource types and transaction atmosphere are discussed.

Managerial practice differs from standard capital budgeting theory in a number of respects. For example, managers often take projects that have negative NPV (e.g., R & D investments) due to their flexibility, synergy strategic positioning etc. Furthermore, managers continue to use accounting‐based measures in capital budgeting even though NPV is widely accepted as the only correct valuation measure. In fact, managers and strategists probably have always attempted to intuitively attach value to a variety of “strategic” and other concerns, even when they couldn't quantify them.

Dynamic capabilities are regarded as the bedrock of businesses that survive in a dynamic environment. Building upon the social capital theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the nexus between dynamic capabilities and social capital in family businesses.

The study adopted a quantitative approach. As there is no formal business database available in China, the study followed a snowball sampling procedure. In total, 628 useful responses were gathered.

The study echoes the call of Arregle et al. (2007) for understanding family business’s internal sources of competitiveness and the role of social capital. Results show that the three dimensions of social capital, namely, structural, cognitive, and relational capital, influence dynamic capabilities of family businesses.

The lack of an official business database in China made the conventional representative sample survey used in the West difficult to replicate. Furthermore, empirical data were collected from different regions of China; regional cultures and different levels of economic development across the regions might influence the social capital-dynamic capabilities connection, but these were not examined in the current study.

The study integrates two significant but disconnected research streams, i.e. social capital and dynamic capabilities. Furthermore, the study shows how different dimensions of social capital influence dynamic capabilities. Research findings derived may contribute to the entrepreneurial debate as to why some family businesses can survive in the dynamic environment while others cannot.

The effects of thermal fatigue and printed circuit board (PCB) surface finish on the pull strength, failure modes and reliability of chip scale package (CSP) solder joints were investigated.

Mechanical pull test, metallographic examination and electrical measurement were used. Tin lead (Sn‐Pb) and lead free (Sn‐Ag‐Cu) alloys were used with Au/Ni and organic solderability preservative (OSP) surface finishes.

The experimental results showed that the pull strength of the Sn‐Ag‐Cu/(Au/Ni) solder joint did not change noticeably with an increasing number of thermal cycles. However, the pull strength of the Sn‐Pb/(Au/Ni) solder joints drastically degraded and that of the Sn‐Ag‐Cu/OSP and Sn‐Pb/OSP solder joints slightly decreased during thermal cycling. For both Sn‐Ag‐Cu and Sn‐Pb alloys, the solder joint fracture of as‐soldered samples was the main failure mode when an Au/Ni surface finish was used. For the Sn‐Ag‐Cu/(Au/Ni) and Sn‐Ag‐Cu/OSP solder joints, the proportion of component trace tearing considerably decreased, whereas that of PCB trace tearing considerably increased, during thermal cycling. The Weibull lifetimes of the solder joints were increasingly longer in the order of Sn‐Pb/(Au/Ni), Sn‐Pb/OSP, Sn‐Ag‐Cu/OSP, and Sn‐Ag‐Cu/(Au/Ni).

This was not an exhaustive study and all of the findings are for lead free and tin lead CSP solder joints, which perhaps limits the usefulness of the results elsewhere.

A very useful source of information and impartial advice for engineers planning to conduct a switch from tin lead to lead free technology in their production lines.

This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers practical help to an engineer starting out on an engineering development.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between wealth and trustworthiness with the goal of understanding why micro‐lending institutions grant loans to poor individuals countering well‐known models of credit markets and credit rationing, such as those proposed by Stiglitz and Weiss. Micro‐credit markets appear to be based on two conjectures: the poor are trustworthy, and their willingness to pay for credit is relatively high.

The paper simulates trust‐based lending in an experimental setting to determine whether the conjecture that the poor are trustworthy is plausible. By conducting the experiments in the USA, a wealthy developed country, and China, a developing country where formal micro‐finance institutions have not established a visible presence, it is possible to test the conjecture and draw cross‐cultural comparisons.

The paper finds that while the absolute level of family income had no significant effect on repayment behavior, US borrowers that perceived themselves as having a family income that was relatively lower than other US households repaid at higher rates. Therefore, evidence was found that trustworthiness might be a function of perceived relative wealth or social status rather than the absolute level of wealth or income.

The research results may be difficult to generalize because of the experimental approach and use of students as participants.

The paper includes implications for the administration of micro‐credit loans in China and other developing nations.

This paper experimentally tests a conjecture which appears to be the foundation of micro‐credit markets.

Organic food represents the fastest growing sector in the food market, with outstanding performance in both production and sales. However, existing studies on organic food have lacked a strong theoretical foundation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among purchase intention and the properties, certification mechanisms, retail channels, and prices of organic food from multiple theoretical perspectives.

Using a rigorous sampling design, 507 valid questionnaires collected from consumers at four well-known organic food markets, and the hypotheses were tested based on a linear structural equation model.

The results of the structural equation model analysis showed the following: consumer attitudes toward organic food labeling/certification institutions had a positive impact on the trust in food labeling; channel dependence positively influenced the relational embeddedness in a channel; the effect of the nutritional value of organic food on environmental protection also had a positive impact on attitudes toward organic foods; attitudes toward trust in the organic label, relational embeddedness in a channel, and attitudes toward organic foods had a positive impact on consumer purchase intentions; and in relation to low-price scenarios, consumers required more confidence to purchase higher-priced goods, meaning that the relational embeddedness in a channel exerted more influence on purchase intentions. By contrast, compared to the high-price scenarios, consumers tended to choose lower priced goods based on personal preferences, e.g., making the purchase decision based on trust in the organic label and attitudes toward organic food.

The contributions of this study include the following: the relationships among the variables were investigated comprehensively from multiple theoretical perspectives; and the results can help the government and the organic food industry to understand their respective responsibilities in promoting organic food to reduce the waste of resources, in which the government can provide basic information on organic food, e.g., a certification mechanism and related definitions, while the organic food industry provides specific knowledge about organic foods, e.g., product features.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the recent findings of the mechanical properties of parts manufactured by fused deposition modeling (FDM). FDM has become a widely used technique for the manufacturing of thermoplastic parts. The mechanical performance of these parts under service conditions is difficult to predict due to the large number of process parameters involved. The review summarizes the current knowledge about the process-property relationships for FDM-based three-dimensional printing.

The review first discusses the effect of material selection, including pure thermoplastics and polymer-matrix composites. Second, process parameters such as nozzle temperature, raster orientation and infill ratio are discussed. Mechanisms that these parameters affect the specimen morphology are explained, and the effect of each parameter on the strength of printed parts are systematically presented.

Mechanical properties of FDM-produced parts strongly depend on process parameters and are usually lower than injection-molded counterparts. There is a need to understand the effect of each parameter and any synergistic effects involved better.

Through the optimization of process parameters, FDM has the potential to produce parts with strength values matching those produced by conventional methods. Further work in the field will make the FDM process more suitable for the manufacturing of load-bearing components.

This paper presents a critical assessment of the current knowledge about the mechanical properties of FDM-produced parts and suggests future research directions.

In today's electronic package development cycle, activities are managed by multiple participants in the supply chain, which might have different quality and reliability impacts to the end product. As a result, the reliability risk is much higher for companies who do not have insight into and/or control over the products received. The purpose of this paper is to show how design‐for‐reliability (DFR) approaches will come into play to manage the risk.

In this paper, DFR approaches for package development will be discussed from the perspective of the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). DFR practices through the package development cycle will be described based on key development modules. A case study for flip chip ball gris array package development using an advanced Cu/Low‐k silicon technology will be presented. Key measures to help control the quality and improve the reliability will be presented.

The proposed methodology significantly improves component and package reliability through the engagement in design, manufacturing, assessment and system evaluation.

The paper discusses the research results and the proposed DFR methodology will be helpful for fabless design houses, electronics manufacturing service (EMS) partners in the supply chain, and OEMs to manage the reliability of the products.