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Farsan Madjdi and Badri Zolfaghari
This paper adds to the ongoing debate on judgements, opportunity evaluation and founder identity theory and shows that founders vary in their prioritisation and combination of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper adds to the ongoing debate on judgements, opportunity evaluation and founder identity theory and shows that founders vary in their prioritisation and combination of judgement criteria, linked to their respective social founder identity. It further reveals how this variation among founder identity types shapes their perception of distinct entrepreneurial opportunities and the forming of first-person opportunity beliefs.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative approach by presenting three business scenarios to a sample of 34 first-time founders. It adopts a first-person perspective on their cognitive processes during the evaluation of entrepreneurial opportunities using verbal protocol and content analysis techniques.
Findings
The theorised model highlights the use of similar categories of judgement criteria by individual founders during opportunity evaluation that followed two distinct stages, namely search and validation. Yet, founders individualised their judgement process through the prioritisation of different judgement criteria.
Originality/value
The authors provide new insights into how individuals individuate entrepreneurial opportunities through the choice of different judgement criteria that enable them to develop opportunity confidence during opportunity evaluation. The study also shows that first-time founders depict variations in their cognitive frames that are based on their social identity types as they assess opportunity-related information and elicit variations in reciprocal relationships emerging between emotion and cognition. Exposing these subjective cognitive evaluative processes provides theoretical and practical implications that are discussed as well.
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Claudia Fritz and Daan van Knippenberg
Although nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership…
Abstract
Purpose
Although nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important. A neglected perspective is the impact of organizational identification. Identification can be argued to foster leadership aspiration because the essence of leadership is the pursuit of collective interests, and identification motivates such pursuits. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey design with an n=400 fulltime employed men and women, working for various organizations was selected.
Findings
The initial prediction was that identification is more important to women’s leadership aspiration to the extent that gender is associated with communal orientation, because women tend to have stronger communal orientation with associated greater affiliation needs, and organizational identification can be expected to cater to those needs. The communal orientation by organizational identification interactive influence on leadership aspiration was supported. Also, the indirect effect of gender on leadership aspiration via this interactive influence of communal orientation and organizational identification was supported.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the selected survey approach the data are correlational and as a result no reference to matters of causality can be made. Thus (field) experimental data is needed to confirm these findings.
Practical implications
Within the paper the discussion focuses on the importance of creating an environment that is more conducive to organizational identification and as such speaks to the communal orientation – being more pronounced among women – to act in favor of the organization by aspiring leadership positions.
Originality/value
The presented results depict an important step toward understanding how organizational identification and communal orientation interact and how they interact with women’s leadership aspiration.
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