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The purpose of this paper is to investigate, through practices and capabilities, how entrepreneurs use microfinance in a context of serious constraints.

The chosen methodology for this paper is longitudinal. A three-and-a-half-year study was conducted to be able to capture the entrepreneurial journeys of ten entrepreneurs at a micro-level in the developing economy of Ghana. This was augmented by a further 15 interviews with entrepreneurs and loan officers. This data is used to develop a theoretical model of entrepreneurial practices in this context.

The paper identifies two distinct pathways for understanding the recursive nature of entrepreneurial practices. It highlights how entrepreneurs generate capabilities through microfinance resources through convergent or divergent venturing in response to the serious constraints they face. This is identified as a generative recursive mechanism for the process, representing the “chain of actions” and how entrepreneurs engage with their “settings” and “intended relations” in practice.

The research is limited by its focus on one nation in Sub-Saharan Africa and therefore how the findings may be transferred to other contexts.

The paper contributes to a practice approach in entrepreneurship by identifying how mechanisms of practice relate to entrepreneurial action in this context. It also provides an important contribution to discussion at the intersection of entrepreneurship and the capabilities approach by using Amartya Sen's concepts of process and opportunity freedom to understand practices.

The purpose of this paper is to probe the recursive identification of piecewise affine Hammerstein models directly by using input-output data. To explain the identification process of a parametric piecewise affine nonlinear function, the authors prove that the inverse function corresponding to the given piecewise affine nonlinear function is also an equivalent piecewise affine form. Based on this equivalent property, during the detailed identification process with respect to piecewise affine function and linear dynamical system, three recursive least squares methods are proposed to identify those unknown parameters under the probabilistic description or bounded property of noise.

First, the basic recursive least squares method is used to identify those unknown parameters under the probabilistic description of noise. Second, multi-innovation recursive least squares method is proposed to improve the efficiency lacked in basic recursive least squares method. Third, to relax the strict probabilistic description on noise, the authors provide a projection algorithm with a dead zone in the presence of bounded noise and analyze its two properties.

Based on complex mathematical derivation, the inverse function of a given piecewise affine nonlinear function is also an equivalent piecewise affine form. As the least squares method is suited under one condition that the considered noise may be a zero mean random signal, a projection algorithm with a dead zone in the presence of bounded noise can enhance the robustness in the parameter update equation.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first attempt at identifying piecewise affine Hammerstein models, which combine a piecewise affine function and a linear dynamical system. In the presence of bounded noise, the modified recursive least squares methods are efficient in identifying two kinds of unknown parameters, so that the common set membership method can be replaced by the proposed methods.

This chapter draws from Structuration theory (Giddens, 1979, 1984) and Schema theory (Niesser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York, NY: Appleton-Crofts.) to examine how words reflect changing frames of reference (Orlikowski & Gash, 1994) that affect adaptation to strategic technological change. The method of recursive dialogue analysis we use provides evidence of how expectations about a new technology introduced to a sales force changed over time. Individuals had expectations based on past experiences, made initial decisions about using the new technology, juxtaposed new concepts against previous ones, interacted with team-mates, and built further concepts around previously expressed phrases. The results we exhibit here allow us to visualize complex interactions under conditions of uncertainty, contributing a detailed view of the recursive and cognitive process of developing a frame of reference about technology in an organization.

This chapter uses the concept of real-world experiments to describe ecological activity that occurs in the wider human community. The case discussed is an ecological restoration project at Montrose Point, a peninsula in Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago. In the restoration of Montrose Point, the scientific importance of ecological science is not juxtaposed with the seemingly irrational ideas of the human community, but the human community becomes a part of scientific work. Like experiments in the laboratory, real-world experiments often bring surprises. However, if ecological restoration is recognized to be inherently uncertain, surprises become opportunities to learn rather than failures. The chapter concludes with a discussion how a real-world experimental strategy can help to handle surprises via alternate phases of corroboration by recursive practice.

The paper seeks to support a better understanding of the types (or processes) of reflexivity which may be involved in the practice of organizational research, and the implications of reflexive practice for organizational researchers.

A characterization of reflexivity as a process is developed from extant research, in four steps. First, the principal dimensions of reflexivity – reflection and recursion – are identified and delineated. Second, recursion is shown to have two modes, active and passive. Third, reflection is shown to have both closed, self‐guided and open, relational modes. Fourth, through integrating the detailed characterizations of each of the dimensions, different types of reflexivity are identified and defined.

The paper shows how different types of reflexivity may be experienced sequentially, as a progressive process, by organizational researchers. Implications for research practice are derived from a consideration of this process.

The paper develops a novel conceptualization of reflexivity as a process with individual and relational aspects. This conceptualization supports important insights for the conduct and legitimation of reflexive research.

Field emergence poses an intriguing problem for institutional theorists. New issue fields often arise at the intersection of different sectors, amidst extant structures of meanings and actors. Such nascent fields are fragmented and lack clear guides for action; making it unclear how they ever coalesce. The authors propose that provisional social structures provide actors with macrosocial presuppositions that shape ongoing field-configuration; bootstrapping the field. The authors explore this empirically in the context of social impact investing in the UK, 2000–2013, a period in which this field moved from clear fragmentation to relative alignment. The authors combine different computational text analysis methods, and data from an extensive field-level study, to uncover meaningful patterns of interaction and structuration. Our results show that across various periods, different types of actors were linked together in discourse through “actor–meaning couplets.” These emergent couplings of actors and meanings provided actors with social cues, or macrofoundations, which guided their local activities. The authors thus theorize a recursive, co-constitutive process: as punctuated moments of interaction generate provisional structures of actor–meaning couplets, which then cue actors as they navigate and constitute the emerging field. Our model re-energizes the core tenets of new structuralism and contributes to current debates about institutional emergence and change.

The purpose of this paper is to apply experimentalist framework to understand self-optimizing efforts within German manufacturing multinationals. Benefits and characteristic obstacles to diffusion are discussed. Mechanisms for combatting obstacles are outlined.

Qualitative case studies, interview-based research, processual and reflexive action theory are applied to the governance of manufacturing-based multinational enterprises.

Uncertainty is an ineradicable element in multinational companies (MNC) FDI operations. Self-optimizing systems, many with an experimentalist character, are a pervasive form of response to this uncertainty. Obstacles to the diffusion and effective operation of self-optimization are chronic and, indeed, endogenously generated. But as a result, so are superordinate efforts to undercut the continuous emergence of obstacles. MNC development is, thus, characterized by continuous self-recomposition.

Implication is that managers and management theorists should focus as much on the management of dynamic process and learning that results in the recomposition of institutional rules as they do on the constraining and enabling effects of those rules.

Superordinate mechanisms for the disruption of incipient insulation and exclusion are crucial for the implementation of successful experimentalist (learning) systems.

Transparency, stakeholder involvement in MNC governance processes has positive implications for learning, innovation and competitiveness.

This paper presents the application of experimentalist learning theory to MNC global governance.

The purpose of this article is to extend effectuation theory at the front end by building cognitive foundations for the effectual design process.

We adopt an integrative conceptual approach drawing on design cognition theory to explain entrepreneurial cognition.

We find a significant gap in the entrepreneurial cognition literature with respect to effectuation processes. We thus integrate the Situated Function–Behavior–Structure framework from design theory to elaborate on the cognitive processes of effectuation, specifically with regard to the opportunity development process. This framework describes the cognitive subprocesses by which entrepreneurs means and ends are cyclically (re)formulated over time until a viable “opportunity” emerges, and the venture is formalized, or else, the entrepreneur abandons the venture and exits.”

Unravelling this entrepreneurial design process may facilitate more appropriate and effective design work by entrepreneurs, leading to more successful product designs. It also should facilitate the development of better design techniques and instruction.

This research contributes to new cognitive foundations for effectuation theory and entrepreneurial process research. It better explains how means are transformed into valuable goods over time through an iterative reconsideration of means-ends frameworks. This theoretical elaboration will expectedly facilitate additional research into the iterative cognitive processes of design and enable more formulaic design thinking.

This paper aims to introduce a new approach to the framing of e-government projects. It discusses e-government as a continuing process of interaction and change. The paper uses general concepts borrowed from actor–network theory (ANT) to highlight the on-going negotiation that is an endogenous characteristic of every e-government projects.

The research builds on the findings of a case study. The case of the Akshaya e-government project in Kerala, India, is presented to offer an instance of the negotiation that occurs among the different actors involved and the consequent changes the project itself experiences.

The paper shows that e-government initiatives are unstable and change over time, as they are cast in the dynamic interaction that occurs between the actors involved in the e-government project. It also suggests that the ANT is a valuable framework to study these dynamics.

Main contribution of the paper is the evidence that e-government projects should be studied in their making and not as a result of planned action and sequential evolutionary phases.

The paper offers new insights for the planning, design and most importantly management of e-government projects.

The paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the importance of the dynamic interactions that shape the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on government policies. The proposed framework is a basis for further theorisation with regards to the complexity underpinning the deployment of ICTs in the public sector.