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This study compares the performance of female majority-owned new ventures (FNV) vs. male majority-owned new ventures (MNV). It analyzes the differences in levels of variables such as education, the same industry work experience of owners, and other venture level attributes between FNVs and MNVs. More importantly, this study employs decomposition techniques to determine the individual contribution from the intergender difference of each attribute on the performance of the new venture. For example, the study finds that, on average, the owners of an MNV possessed 3.4 years more of the same industry work experience than their FNV counterparts. This difference in work experience accounted for 47% of the “explained” gap [1] in Net Profits between the FNVs and MNVs.

This paper utilizes the Kauffman Firm Survey, a longitudinal dataset of 4,928 new ventures started in the USA in 2004. It employs Blinder-Oaxaca and Fairlie decomposition techniques in conjunction with OLS and Logit regressions. Both methods provide point estimates of contributions to the performance gap due to the heterogeneity in each attribute across the groups (FNV and MNV). This approach has a significant advantage over OLS or mediation analysis, which can only provide a directional analysis of the contributions of differences in attributes to performance.

The paper finds no performance gap between MNVs and FNVs. It further investigates whether the heterogeneous characteristics of MNVs vs FNVs are related to different effects on survival and performance. It finds that characteristics such as owners’ work experience in the same industry, average hours worked by owners in the new venture, the technology level of the venture, and its incorporation status are related with a differential impact on new venture survival and performance.

All firms in the dataset belonged to a single cohort (2004) of new ventures started in the US. Future studies are encouraged to develop a dataset from multiple geographies and founding over several years so that the results may be more generalizable.

The paper provides crucial practical guidance to policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs. In general, policies that enhance the work experience of women entrepreneurs and provide access to infrastructure such as daycares, which may allow them to work more hours, would probably improve the performance of FNVs.

The paper furthers the literature on women entrepreneurship by analyzing point estimates of differential contribution of disparate variables to performance. From a methodological perspective, the study reconciles the results between regression and decomposition analyses.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the leadership decisions taken during the crisis and their influence on the goals recognized by managers as crucial for surviving.

During the survey, conducted in April 2020 (one month after the first economic lockdown in Poland), as part of a research project called Sur(VIR)val – Survival during the virus, data was collected from 178 leaders from randomly selected companies from Poland using the CAWI method. Ordered logistic regression modeling was used to examine the impact of the decisions taken by company leaders on the goals seen by leaders as most important for company survival.

The results obtained in the study show that during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, leaders made decisions that can be seen as oriented toward survival and continuity. Changing to remote working, extending payment deadlines for customers, as well as selective employment reduction turned out to have the greatest influence on strategic support for maintaining current production levels and retaining competent employees in order to survive the crisis.

This study has certain limitations. First, the list of leadership decisions and company goals used as dependent variables is not exhaustive. Second, the selection of business goals oriented toward survival may not derive directly from the lockdown situation. Third, our study did not measure the actual accomplishment of the company goals, but the managerial perceptions as to which ones are crucial for company survival during crises, and which of them should be given strategic support respectively. Fourth, the research sample was randomly constructed and covered only business organizations in Poland. Fifth, the hypotheses were formulated in a way that treated leadership decisions as one construct. Finally, we used survey, with a scale measuring managerial perceptions.

Leaders should ensure that proper IT tools are developed within the organization, and that the skill level of employees is high enough for fast shifting employees on to remote working. At the same time, it is important to maintain IT infrastructure at a high level. In terms of general recommendations for leaders, they should make quick decisions, maintain the most valuable resources of the company (human resources and cash flow) and take actions aimed at taking advantage of opportunities (R&D) during and after the crisis.

Additionally, due to the key importance of human resources for the survival of the organization, leaders should respond quickly by making flexible decisions about sending employees on leave and downtime. As human resources are the most valuable assets of the company from the point of view of its survival, decisions concerning employment reduction should be taken carefully. Leaders who acted in panic after the first lockdown and made employees redundant, later on had problems recruiting skilled employees back and strived to return to full organizational capacity.

Although scholars have investigated leadership decisions and actions taken during economic crises, little is known about how leaders behave when taken by surprise, and what decisions they make when the duration of a crisis is difficult to predict. The results of this study show which leadership decisions during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 influenced prioritizing critical company goals oriented toward survival.

This paper aims at assessing the impact of a number of behavioral interventions on the willingness of informal businesses, in the Egyptian informal sector, to join the formal sector.

This paper uses an experimental methodology to examine the impact of behavioral interventions on the formalization of the Egyptian informal sector. Specifically, it conducts a survey experiment on a total of 240 informal businesses, operating in the Egyptian informal sector. The primary data collected from the survey experiment is then analyzed using a binary logistic regression to assess the impact of the behavioral primes on the probability of joining the formal market.

The empirical findings of the survey experiment indicate that the biggest obstacle facing informal businesses is finding a formal source of finance that could help them in penetrating the market. Providing informal businesses with information on funding opportunities offered by the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) significantly increased the probability of joining the formal sector to benefit from this opportunity.

This paper is the first to apply behavioral primes, in the form of informational cues, to the Egyptian case of informal business owners. Previous research on the use of behavioral nudges and primes has focused mainly on the western economies.

Distancing people socially as a precautionary measure against the mushrooming of COVID-19’s health and economic crisis has deleteriously affected the performance of the eatery industry to a great extent. Many food outlets failed to cope up with crisis and opted to move out, and many still vie to survive through pandemic. It becomes vital for researchers to understand what factors influence the performance and survival of eateries during the pandemic? The study makes an attempt to fabricate new factors which affect the performance and contribute significantly towards the survival of eateries in this new COVID-19-prone world.

The present study is a cross-sectional analysis with the sample of 150 eateries from the walled city of Punjab (India), i.e. Amritsar. Factor analysis is employed to scrutinise the factors which influence the performance of eateries during the pandemic, and to analyse factors which contribute significantly for the survival of eateries, logistic regression is performed.

The empirical analysis reveals that at prior psychological factor, followed by turnover factor, external factor, financial factor and marketing factor influence the performance of eateries during the pandemic. Only three factors, namely turnover factor, external factor and financial factor, turned up to be significant towards the survival rate of an eatery. The marketing factor which is a crucial contributor for survival of business in literature has turned out to be insignificant during the times of pandemic.

With the arrival of pandemic, the preference of people has changed, and the business environment in which entities operate has turned more complex. The present study is one of the pioneer attempts to evaluate whether the factors responsible for performance or survival of an eatery during normal times is relevant during the pandemic as well. The study contributes to the literature of eatery industry by adding a new variable namely psychological factor, i.e. changes witnessed in customers’ preference to visit an eatery.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often lack adequate accounting systems and may even fail because of accounting inefficiencies. Indeed, accounting can mitigate the course of a crisis and support a troubled SME’s turnaround. Its impact on reorganization success, however, has scarcely been researched so far. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the effects of several accounting parameters, namely, the quality of accounting systems, quality of early warning systems, formal planning, the standard of financial accounting and reorganization planning on the short- and long-term success of court-supervised reorganization.

The impact of accounting on reorganization success is investigated in a sample of all SME bankruptcy cases with ten or more employees (n = 117) in Upper Austria in 2012 including data for short-term survival (in 2016) and long-term survival (in 2019).

This study found evidence that the general quality of accounting systems, the quality of early warning systems and written reorganization plans positively influence the outcomes of the analyzed court-supervised reorganizations of SMEs. In particular, the existence of a reorganization plan significantly increases the short- and long-term reorganization success by ensuring the efficient and effective use of resources in the reorganization process.

This study should increase the awareness of SMEs’ owner managers, consultants, creditors and legislators for the importance of accounting in the context of reorganization. The fact that the effect of accounting on reorganization success is less pronounced in the long-term view indicates the necessity of increasing the strategic focus in SMEs’ accounting instruments.

This study provides new evidence on the impact of specific accounting parameters on the short- and long-term success of the court-supervised reorganization of SMEs. Furthermore, this study points out the high relevance of reorganization plans for SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to extend theoretical understanding on social enterprises’ growth orientation. Inspiration is drawn from the fundamentals of prospect theory and threat-rigidity theory, as the role of external threats as a source of growth orientation is largely absent from the social enterprise growth literature. According to previous studies, social enterprises grow mainly because of their social mission and social opportunities.

The qualitative research is conducted by analysing thematic interviews from seven, growth-oriented social enterprises operating in Finland.

The study provides novel insights on social enterprises’ growth orientation by drawing attention to the plurality of growth motivations and showing the importance of perceived threats as the origin of their growth pursuits. Goals of growth are defined mainly in terms of organisational and financial performance of the firm.

Social enterprise managers and boards are encouraged to cooperate in analysing the significance of external threats and opportunities for their business and to concentrate on defining measurable social goals to ensure balanced growth.

The study demonstrates that the behavioural theories offer a beneficial departure point for studying social venture growth. By clarifying the role of the perceptions of the firm’s internal actors and showing that growth is sometimes seen as a response to external threats, the study increases theoretical understanding on social enterprises’ growth orientation.

By drawing on current reports, this paper positions that Homo sapiens could in the near future be faced with an increasingly uninhabitable planet. It emphasises the importance of adventure tourism and its associated activities as a means of supporting individuals to develop more outdoor survival skills.

This study applies a scenario narrative approach in exploring and presenting potential future ideas. The significance of narratives lies at the essential examination of current trends and drivers that could be shaping future scenarios. This paper, through the exploration of past and current trends supports the researcher in presenting future views. The scenario narratives in this research are established via desk-based research and inspection of academic journals, industry reports, ideas and knowledge.

If society is pushed to the brink of extinction due to a catastrophic event(s), people will require survival skills, similar to those shared by our hunter-gather nomad ancestor. Thus, this paper highlights the value and importance of the industry in encouraging soft and hard outdoor adventure in the coming years. It recognises how different adventure travel activities can support people in rekindling with our more basic instincts and ultimately, surviving in different natural environments.

This paper offers original theoretical knowledge within the adventure tourism literature. Offering original consideration to the value of exploring the past as a method of understanding the future, the paper presents an original spectrum of soft and hard skills-based adventure tourism activities.

The purpose of this study is, first, to determine which developments have shaped official hotel classification systems over recent years (including the impact of guest-review platforms) and second to establish the future of those systems through the eyes of the people who are actually in charge of operating them.

Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the most suitable method for approaching hotel classification system administrators. This method is in line with previous research on approaching key informants in their respective fields. Sixteen people representing 12 different official national hotel classification systems from across the world as well as one commercial hotel star rating system participated in the online interviews.

The first main conclusion is that hotel classification systems – especially voluntary ones – would not have survived the enormous impact of guest-review platforms without quickly adjusting to the ever-changing hotel industry landscape. The frequent review of classification criteria and procedures has become the main survival strategy of classification systems. The second conclusion is that system operators are strongly optimistic about the future outlook of hotel classification based on their proven flexibility to swiftly adapt to new market conditions.

Research about hotel classification systems is usually based on the views of the systems' users, i.e. hotels or hotel guests, whereas the present paper reflects the perspective of the systems' operators, an angle rarely analyzed in the literature.

The purpose of the present study was the development of a methodology for translating predicted rates of decompression sickness (DCS), following tower escape from a sunken submarine, into predicted probability of survival, a more useful statistic for making operational decisions.

Predictions were made, using existing models, for the probabilities of a range of DCS symptoms following submarine tower escape. Subject matter expert estimates of the effect of these symptoms on a submariner’s ability to survive in benign weather conditions on the sea surface until rescued were combined with the likelihoods of the different symptoms occurring using standard probability theory. Plots were generated showing the dependence of predicted probability of survival following escape on the escape depth and the pressure within the stricken submarine.

Current advice on whether to attempt tower escape is based on avoiding rates of DCS above approximately 5%–10%. Consideration of predicted survival rates, based on subject matter expert opinion, suggests that the current advice might be considered as conservative in the distressed submarine scenario, as DCS rates of 10% are not anticipated to markedly affect survival rates.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to quantify the effect of different DCS symptoms on the probability of survival in submarine tower escape.

The unique dynamics of family firms (FFs) shape the management of financial crises. Religious and secular reasons, as a defining characteristic of this type of firm, provide a reference system for key management decisions. This paper aims to explore the under-researched topic of differences in FFs' crisis management between religious and secular family decision-makers (FDMs), considering secularization in developed countries.

The paper draws on a qualitative-empirical study of 14 large FFs from the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), through both a media analysis and semi-structured interviews with FDMs who have significant influence on key management decisions.

Despite secularization, religion continues to influence managerial decisions such as crisis management in the DACH region. The findings show that crisis management differs across religious and secular FDMs, demonstrating the substantial impact of religious and secular reasons on operational and financial measures. Thus, religious and secular reasons may partially explain the complex and ambivalent crisis management of FFs. This indicates that religion shapes FF's key management decisions in the increasingly secularized DACH region. Religious FDMs are accountable to both the firm and to God, which fosters their own personal and financial resources during crisis management.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring the impact of religion and secularization within developed countries. Further, it offers deeper insights into FF's crisis management and is one of the first studies to assess the impact of religion and secularization on operational and financial measures. This research derives five propositions for further research and discusses a broad range of original implications for theory and practice.