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This chapter examines key drivers of variation in adaptive capacity of project network organizations (PNOs). PNOs are defined as strategically coordinated sets of longer-term, yet project-based relationships, which provide for both stability and change in volatile project businesses. While prior research has emphasized the adaptive role of flexible structures and agency, the author focuses on the role of project variety and contextual embedding and disembedding in building adaptive capacity. Comparing two PNOs in TV movie production, the author argues that differences in adaptive capacity are a function of inter-context connectivity, that is, the level of task and team linkages among diverse project contexts, and the degree to which network ties and relational practices have “dual quality” in being valuable both within and beyond specific project contexts. Findings have important implications for project, network, and organization research.

It is still widely accepted that women managers are not catching up on their male peers with regard to seniority of position and pay. To learn more about the problem, a study was conducted into the career development of MBA graduates from one of the leading UK business schools. Of the 344 alumni who took part in the study, 96 were women. The respondents came from the UK and from many nations around the world. The career development of the graduates, their competences and their career aspirations were compared across those variables. Differences in performance based on discrimination due to gender were studied. Variables of career development of the graduates, their competences and career aspirations were compared for women and men. The findings indicate that studying for an MBA has a place as a vehicle to reduce discrimination and increase self‐confidence of the individual. Results also indicate the potential value of having an MBA in dealing with discrimination due to gender in organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth motivations of women owning and managing home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 20 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

The business growth motivations of women owning and managing HBBs were categorized in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Results show that women owning and managing HBBs are motivated to growth their businesses by intrinsic motivations including need for achievement, need for independence, proving competency and socio-cultural concerns. Also, they are motivated by some extrinsic motivations including financial issues, fame, positive feedback from others and the problems of working at home.

Given the importance of entrepreneurial growth, the findings provide additional insight into growth motivations of women entrepreneurs.

The results of this study can help policymakers to develop purposeful growth policies for women’s HBBs that are commensurate with the motivations.

Also, women owning and managing HBBs themselves could better concentrate on enhancing business growth by deepening their understanding of their business growth motivations.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the study results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs. Also, this paper contributes to theory on the motivation for entrepreneurship and to research on growth motivation.

The aim of the study is to determine the ethical concept of the companies’ statements and correlations with each other. Therefore, content analysis with quantitative methods were applied to the formal and written documents of 192 companies. In addition, corporate characteristics were determined. Consequently, statements were determined in 36 different subject areas. Among these, “high quality production” is the most frequently mentioned subject, while “supplier satisfaction” and “union relations” are the least. Also, “human resources” is the most, while “environmental issues” are the least examined subjects in the context of business functions. Companies’ ethical statements are affected by their year of establishment, the number of personnel, market values and ISO certificates.

With India becoming a strategic trading partner for France, the purpose of this paper is to identify and describe cultural differences between India and France in order to achieve three main objectives: What traits or values are salient for Indians when negotiating with French people? The second to assess the utility and appropriateness of cultural dimensions as described by Hofstede (1991, 2001) and Trompenaars (1993, 2004) to gain insight into this process, and finally to prepare a French businessman to negotiate with an Indian partner.

A qualitative approach is best to achieve the research objectives. Expert profiles were defined according to the guidelines set out by Bogner et al. (2009). Snowball sampling method was used, whereby the first French businessmen interviewed provided contacts of other negotiators. Six semi-directive interviews were conducted lasting 1 h and 30 min each. Data collection and analysis were carried out according to Gioia’s proposed methodology (Gioia et al., 2013).

This qualitative inquiry enabled a deep inductive analysis, resulting in the emergence of seven key characteristics of the negotiation process in India. Cultural dimensions as defined by Hofstede (1991, 2001) and Trompenaars (1993, 2004) are useful in explaining four of these. However, three other characteristics cannot be directly related to these cultural dimensions, and among them, the seventh characteristic, the importance of having an Indian mediator in the negotiation, emerges as an original and decisive advantage for the foreign partner.

Interviewing a larger sample of experts would strengthen the precision, validity and reliability of the findings. Furthermore, investigating buyer–seller relationships and negotiation theories would help to gain an alternative and complementary insight into this complex topic.

Cultural differences between France and India are a poorly documented and under-researched topic.

Expanding access to entrepreneurship training programs can be a method to increase female involvement in technology commercialization only if these programs adequately address the specific challenges facing female faculty and graduate students. In the context of the US National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps) program, this study examines gender differences in prior experience and attitudes towards the training in order to propose improvements to the program design.

This quantitative study uses Pearson's Chi-Square and ANOVA tests on survey data from the I-Corps national program (n = 2,195), which enrolls faculty members, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and industry experts.

In comparison to male participants, female I-Corps participants reported less entrepreneurial experience prior to the program, poorer team relationships during the program and lower entrepreneurial intention and technology commercialization readiness at both the beginning and the end of the program. However, no gender differences were found in positive or negative perceptions of the instructional climate or perceptions of program usefulness.

This study is unique as it is based on a large-scale dataset drawn from sites across the United States. The results support potential changes to I-Corps and similar programs, including providing more explicit instructions for tasks with which female participants have less prior experience than males (e.g. in applying for patents), offering guidance for team interactions, and providing mentorship to assess whether low self-efficacy is leading women to underestimate the potential success of their projects.

Previous research shows a positive effect of job satisfaction and retention on both workers’ and organizations’ welfare, it is important to understand whether the characteristics of a job and workers’ perceptions of certain job traits can predict job satisfaction and retention in an organization. This paper explores the effect of 18 job characteristics on the likelihood that a worker is satisfied with his or her job, the chance that he or she looks for an alternative employer in the following year and the number of years employed by the same organization.

The author adds to the current state of the literature on the importance of job characteristics in several ways. First, the author utilizes a list of 18 job characteristics or perceptions, which to the best of our knowledge is one of the most extensive sets of characteristics that has been considered. This allows us to examine lots of aspects of the job, and their connection to the outcomes of interest. Second, the author uses not only basic regression methods but also ordered Logit specifications to obtain more precise estimates of the effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction and workers’ propensity to look for a new job. Third, the author considers the possibility that a combination of job characteristics, rather than a single factor, influences the level of satisfaction with the job and retention, measured by the likelihood that a worker plans to look for an alternative job in the following year and the years at the current job. The author explores the latter through principal component analysis. Fourth, the author explores gender differences in the effect of job characteristics on job satisfaction and retention. Finally, the author discusses the implications of this research to policy decision-making and managerial decisions.

The author finds that personal development opportunities and job security are positively related to job satisfaction, and negatively related to the likelihood of looking for a new job. Opportunities for personal development have a stronger effect on job satisfaction of men than women. Male workers’ job satisfaction also depends on whether they are given enough time to complete assigned tasks. The perception of security in the current job, having reliable coworkers and receiving sufficient help in a job make it less likely for women to perform a job search. Fringe benefits encourage workers of both genders to stay in an organization longer. Job security also has a positive relationship with the years in a given job for women, but not for men.

The findings have implications for managers and policy decision-makers. For managers, it is important to be aware of the value male and female workers place on different job characteristics, because a number of studies show the importance of job satisfaction on the success of companies (Porter et al. 1977; Mobley et al., 1979; Tett et al. 1993; Posner et al. 1993), and the author shows that job satisfaction depends on different characteristics for men and women. In addition, managers’ awareness of the findings related to the factors that are likely to retain workers in a company is important because of the costs of recruiting new workers, including hiring, training and opportunity costs. For policy considerations, programs that help in matching employers with potential workers are likely to find good fits for both sides of the labor market if they direct women to jobs that provide more security, opportunities for personal development, and help at work. Jobs that offer more time to complete tasks would retain and increase the chance of keeping male workers satisfied with their job.

The Reformation, as Wolfgang Schivelbusch maintains, which redefined the relationship between the individual and God as a personal one, “took pains to regulate the relationship of man to alcohol,” and in so doing laid “an essential foundation¦…¦for the development of capitalism.” In the earlier Rabelaisian world, the Church constituted the major site of popular culture. Virtually all work was seasonal in character punctuated by carnivalesque church feasts that numbered over one hundred yearly. Although generally accepted as a safe means to vent communal anxieties, drink comprised an essential element of these festivals, with drunkenness the socially acceptable outcome.¹⁶ However, as the Reformation progressed and new modes of aristocratic behavior developed, reformative efforts to separate the secular and the sacred within the church resulted in attempts to abandon the popular culture of the lower classes. A broad consensus emerged that too much drunkenness amounted to social evil, and that alehouses represented an “increasingly dangerous force in popular society.”¹⁷ As the influence of the Church declined in the early eighteenth century, Carnival resurfaced in the form of gregarious carnivalesque village and town feasts: “the grotesque body of carnival was being re-territorialized” and writers such as Swift and Pope “perpetually identif[ied] the scene of writing with the fairground and the carnival.”¹⁸ Conversely, in keeping with the symmetrical component inherent in the Carnival/Lent theme, Lent transmuted into organizations such as The Society for the Reformation of Manners, which attempted to reduce drunkenness, cursing, swearing and whoring – all tropes of carnivalesque gregariousness. So, during this period, a contradictory cultural dissonance was being enacted. On the one hand, we find a resurgence of Carnival, but on the other hand, we see “a conservative desire on the part of the upper classes to separate themselves more clearly and distinctly from these popular activities.”¹⁹