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1 – 10 of 21Anne Kovalainen and Johanna Österberg‐Högstedt
This article aims to look first at how entrepreneurial identity fits into the picture we currently have of social and health care professionals who most often work in paid…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to look first at how entrepreneurial identity fits into the picture we currently have of social and health care professionals who most often work in paid employment in the public sector, and second, how entrepreneurial identity is constructed. We discuss whether professional identity and entrepreneurial identity can be separated, and how meaningful that question is. Is the role of entrepreneurship limited in the context of health and social care professional services, or can we see the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneurial identity with special features related to the complexity within the provision of services in social and health care?
Design/methodology/approach
The materials from two previous studies by the authors are used in the article as empirical data to investigate the questions of identity and professionalism. The methodology is based on re‐reading and re‐interpretation of both empirical studies and theoretical literature.
Findings
There are differences and different logics of work‐related identity building among the entrepreneurial groups and among professional groups. Despite this and even if part of the research tradition emphasizes this difference and the separateness of these identities, we argue that identities are fluid, changing, layered and overlapping. As identities cannot be predetermined or classified according to economic earnings logic only, but that they are malleable, evolving, interconnected, and intertwined. In addition, the paper raises the contradiction of stereotypically “masculine” entrepreneurial goals and the stereotypically “female” ideology of care existing as tension within entrepreneurship in social and health care.
Research limitations/implications
The research limitations relate to the research design of not using ethnographical data.
Practical implications
The article has no direct practical implications. The results might have relevance to education.
Social implications
The article has social implications in the ways the identities are discussed through various discourses in the societies.
Originality/value
The article has both originality in the settings and value in bringing different discussions together, as well as in its ability to widen the theoretical discussions and empirical studies on identities, paid employment and entrepreneurship.
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Jan P. Warhuus, Franziska Günzel-Jensen, Sarah Robinson and Helle Neergaard
This paper investigates the importance of team formation in entrepreneurship education, and the authors ask: how do different team formation strategies influence teamwork in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the importance of team formation in entrepreneurship education, and the authors ask: how do different team formation strategies influence teamwork in higher education experiential learning-based entrepreneurship courses?
Design/methodology/approach
Employing a multiple case study design, the authors examine 38 student teams from three different entrepreneurship courses with different team formation paths to uncover potential links between team formation and learning outcomes.
Findings
The authors find that team formation mode matters. Randomly assigned teams, while diverse, struggle with handling uncertainty and feedback from potential stakeholders. In contrast, student self-selected teams are less diverse but more robust in handling this pressure. Results suggest that in randomly assigned teams, the entrepreneurial project becomes the team's sole reference point for well-being. Seeking to protect the project, the team's ability to deal with uncertainty and external feedback is limited, stifling development. In student self-select teams, team well-being becomes a discrete reference point. This enables these teams to respond effectively to external project feedback while nurturing team well-being independently.
Originality/value
Education theories' implications about the benefit of team diversity may not apply to experiential learning-based entrepreneurship education's typical level of ambiguity and uncertainty. Therefore, educators may have to reconsider the unique dynamics of team formation strategies to ensure strong teamwork and teamwork outcomes.
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Gisela Consolmagno Pelegrini and Gustavo Hermínio Salati Marcondes de Moraes
This paper aims to enlighten existing gender differences in the linkages between university ecosystem, self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention in a developing country.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to enlighten existing gender differences in the linkages between university ecosystem, self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention in a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical exercise relies on Partial Least Squares Structural Equations Modeling based on data from a probabilistic sample of 467 Brazilian students of 70 universities across the country.
Findings
The university ecosystem positively influences self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial intention is also influenced by self-efficacy. Gender difference lies in females’ self-efficacy, which presents a higher impact on entrepreneurial intentions.
Research limitations/implications
The research used a secondary database, which offered a limited view of the constructs analyzed. Moreover, by evaluating perception conditions, students’ self-evaluation may not offer conditions to better comprehend higher education organizations conditions.
Practical implications
This paper provided an evaluation of entrepreneurship in universities and gender differences, also presenting an analysis tool for university ecosystems. The assessment of the university ecosystem in two dimensions helps to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of university ecosystems and also the impact they can have on the entrepreneurial ecosystems in which they are inserted.
Originality/value
This study added in-depth information on the dynamics of entrepreneurial universities and gender differences in the context of a developing country, with a probabilistic sample. Both the comprehensive analysis of the model and the assessment at the variable level bring new evidence that can guide entrepreneurship-oriented initiatives in universities.
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Mahwish Jamil, Simon Stephens and Ahmad Firdause Md Fadzil
Family business sustainability is a critical issue. This study considers if adopting a strategic entrepreneurship orientation can support the sustainability of a family business.
Abstract
Purpose
Family business sustainability is a critical issue. This study considers if adopting a strategic entrepreneurship orientation can support the sustainability of a family business.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach is used, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve family business owners. Data collected during the interviews provides insights into understanding, practices, motivations, behaviours and attitudes relating to sustainability.
Findings
Although awareness of sustainability processes and procedures is found to be low, sustainability is important to the family business. However, sustainability is not managed or implemented systematically.
Originality/value
The paper presents a new model to describe the sustainability practices of family businesses. Adoption of strategic entrepreneurship is advocated as mechanism for improving sustainability. Practical and policy implications are suggested to enhance the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives in family business settings.
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Spinder Dhaliwal and Peter Kangis
Asian immigrant entrepreneurs in the UK have been used as examples of what can be done through free enterprise. Academic interest is developing in the changes taking place as…
Abstract
Purpose
Asian immigrant entrepreneurs in the UK have been used as examples of what can be done through free enterprise. Academic interest is developing in the changes taking place as newer generations emerge. Seeks to address these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A small‐scale qualitative study was undertaken with interviews of five men and five women entrepreneurs of the second generation. The issues explored included their background, the factors that have influenced, facilitated or inhibited their decision to become self‐employed, their experiences of entrepreneurship and the particular issues that confronted them. Female entrepreneurs in the sample were older and felt inhibited and more constrained than their male counterparts in their freedom to act.
Findings
Both males and females of second generation entered business through attraction for the opportunities rather than as their only option in an unknown environment. Notwithstanding expectations, later generations did not enter activities adding much greater value than those of the first generation, even though they were better integrated with their environment. Boundary stresses between first and second generation are likely to lead to further studies of succession planning and of the influence of culture and gender on attitudes to enterprise.
Originality/value
Methodologically the study is novel in so far as the researcher (an Asian female from a typical family business background) has taken care to observe the cultural proprieties often noted within this particular group. Hence, the data are arguably more authentic than previous studies undertaken by distant researchers.
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Margarida Rodrigues and Mário Franco
The change in couples' personal ambitions concerning their careers, how they look after their family and how they deal with the work–family balance has revolutionized their…
Abstract
Purpose
The change in couples' personal ambitions concerning their careers, how they look after their family and how they deal with the work–family balance has revolutionized their position in the business world, specifically in family businesses. When couples embark on a joint business, the authors have copreneurial couples or copreneurs, the concept having existed for decades. This study provides mapping and a broad, holistic bibliometric analysis of copreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
The study presented here followed the literature review for scientific mapping of the topic under discussion.
Findings
The results obtained show that the vast literature on copreneurs refers to other social sciences rather than business and management. Furthermore, final refining of the initial research made indicates that the literature in these areas is still minimal, justifying the need for this study. Also shown is the need to continue to study copreneurs, as fundamental economic actors in the business sector.
Practical implications
One of the study's main contributions lies in building a theoretical framework to explore empirically the success or failure of this business typology. The topics identified in this analysis highlighted copreneurial teams, copreneurial business and copreneurs' success factors.
Originality/value
The review presented here is wide-ranging and holistic, showing there is a shortage of research on the link between family business and copreneurs, whose conceptual difference lies in the construct of business succession since most researchers have studied psychological aspects, these couples' marital relationships and the factors contributing to conflict between work and domestic responsibilities.
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Berit Björnsson and Desalegn Abraha
To examine how customers, both men and women entrepreneurs, perceive service quality of the latest counselling encounters with their banks, and to find out if men and women differ…
Abstract
Purpose
To examine how customers, both men and women entrepreneurs, perceive service quality of the latest counselling encounters with their banks, and to find out if men and women differ in their satisfaction for two or more counselling encounters.
Design/methodology/approach
A combination of research methods is used. First, data have been collected through focus‐groups interviews in a pilot‐study; second, data have been collected through a survey study. The focus is on perceived service quality and customer satisfaction and further business, personal and situational factors are included. A total of 215 women and 487 men participated in the survey.
Findings
There are few gender‐related significant differences among women and men in their perceptions of service quality, and no signs which indicate that women perceive the service quality as less good. One group of women, in retail services, has perceived the service quality as being significantly different and positive compared with a group of men. Further, there are no gender‐related significant differences between women and men regarding customer satisfaction. Another result is that significant differences are observed between one group of women and one group of men depending on the place where the parties met. The encounters took place more often in the women customers' office or somewhere else outside the bank.
Originality/value
This paper shows that the belief that women as business owners, in general, are discriminated against by financial institutions is a myth rather than a reality.
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The purpose of this paper is to understand the motivations and dynamics of Polish small business owners who are living and working in the United Kingdom several years after…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the motivations and dynamics of Polish small business owners who are living and working in the United Kingdom several years after Poland’s enlargement to the European Union.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 39 Polish migrants, residing in the Cardiff area, in 2008 and 2011. During the 2008 data collection period, 20 interviews were completed, and during the 2011 data collection period, 19 interviews were completed.
Findings
The findings highlight that migrants become entrepreneurs for a variety of reasons, blurring the lines between cultural and economic entrepreneurship as well as between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship. The findings also highlight the changing motivations of the ethnic entrepreneurs over time, particularly when the demand for their product is unsustainable.
Research limitations/implications
The generalisabilty of the research is limited because of the small sample size. In addition, the lack of Polish language skills of the interviewer may have influenced the sampling of the Polish community.
Practical implications
The findings from this article will have an impact on the wider ethnic entrepreneurship literature, migration-based policy and the cultural integration of migrants in the long-term.
Originality/value
This article contributes to the wider literature on ethnic entrepreneurship through considering the migrants’ motivations throughout their entire entrepreneurial period and how these motivations may evolve over time.
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David Rae and Per Blenker
This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both collectively and knowingly. It explores how connections between processes of CI, agency and action can explain and enable the development entrepreneurial community organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
There is a selective literature review of prior works on the related fields of community and collective entrepreneurship; collectives and intelligence; agency and action. The review is used to propose a framework of collective entrepreneurial intelligence, agency and action. An interpretive approach is used to research four case studies of community organisations which use CI to generate entrepreneurial outcomes.
Findings
The cases are compared with themes from prior literature to develop a conceptual model of four ECI processes which enable intelligence, agency and action: collaborative processes; distributed working; intelligence representations and organisation of infrastructures. These are theorised to discuss ideas, challenges, methods and questions to enhance entrepreneurial actions, based on sharing knowledge and learning, in the context of collective agency, action and intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
The four processes, both together and separately, represent a coherent framework useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities.
Practical implications
The four processes each represent a central area of attention, not only for development, learning, decision-making and leadership within enterprising communities but also for entrepreneurship education in terms of alternative didactics, pedagogies and learning forms.
Social implications
The improved knowledge on the role of collective agency and CI within entrepreneurial processes is useful for strengthening civil activism and other fruitful forms of entrepreneurial collective processes. This may help solve complicated societal problems where traditional conceptions of entrepreneurship fail.
Originality/value
The conceptual contribution is to explain the dynamic relationships between ECI and action, mediated by collective agency. The role of CI in informing entrepreneurial communities is explored and four enabling processes are proposed. This coherent framework is useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities, whilst informing their learning, decision-making and leadership.
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Rosa Lombardi, Paola Paoloni, Zhanna Belyaeva and S. M. Riad Shams