Dag Balkmar, Marta Lindvert and Elisabet Carine Ljunggren
Both entrepreneurship and technology are significantly gendered, and when combined in technology entrepreneurship, they make up a fundamentally masculine field. This article…
Abstract
Purpose
Both entrepreneurship and technology are significantly gendered, and when combined in technology entrepreneurship, they make up a fundamentally masculine field. This article investigates men tech entrepreneurs' negotiations of gender and gender (in)equality. The purpose is to gain knowledge on masculinity in tech entrepreneurship and to explore what role this might play in any change towards more gender-equal entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Swedish and Norwegian male tech entrepreneurs in tech incubators. The interviews dealt with gender (in)equality and masculinity in tech entrepreneurship. The data were coded in NVivo and inductively analysed using thematic analysis. We apply a social constructivist understanding of gender.
Findings
We categorise the male entrepreneurs' views of gender equality along “privileged”, “paradoxical” and “potential” articulations of gender (in)equality. Building on these articulations, we discuss the potential entrepreneurial men and masculinities could have for changing gender inequality in the Scandinavian tech entrepreneurship context. The findings are applicable to several entrepreneurial contexts.
Originality/value
The study contributes to further the theoretical understanding of tech entrepreneurship as a gendered phenomenon, its dynamics and its potential for change, particularly in promoting gender equality in tech entrepreneurship. Empirically, it investigates the perceptions about gender (in)equality and gender as negotiated concepts amongst male tech entrepreneurs.
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Natalia Andreassen, Rune Elvegård, Rune Villanger and Bjørn Helge Johnsen
Evaluating emergency preparedness exercises is crucial for assessing enhanced knowledge, facilitating learning and implementing knowledge in organizations. The cognitive process…
Abstract
Purpose
Evaluating emergency preparedness exercises is crucial for assessing enhanced knowledge, facilitating learning and implementing knowledge in organizations. The cognitive process of motivation for action is a precursor for action, coping behavior and individual learning. This study aims to focus on how guided evaluation of emergency preparedness exercises can enhance cognitive motivation and influence the mental readiness of exercise participants.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper with a model approach design. The main conceptual contribution is suggesting a model for guided evaluation in emergency preparedness exercises. We present a theoretical background for understanding the increase in motivation based on social cognitive learning theory. In particular, this study discusses how different evaluation steps contribute to enhanced motivation and learning for exercise participants.
Findings
Increased motivation and enhanced personal performance standards could be achieved through using processes that lead to self-efficacy in guided exercise evaluation. Specifically, sources of enhanced motivation, such as repeated coping experiences, self-regulation processes, mastery motivation and performance motivation, would proliferate the readiness of individual crisis managers and teams.
Practical implications
This article suggests an evaluation model for use in emergency preparedness exercises. This approach combines bottom-up and top-down processes for debriefing, reflection and feedback, both individually and in teams. This approach aims to enhance exercise participants’ motivation and utilize exercise evaluation for organizational learning.
Originality/value
The conceptual discussion leads to developing implications for evaluation practice, suggesting how to structure evaluation and why. This study is novel for its explanation of how to use evaluation in the learning process.
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Giorgia Mattei, Giuseppe Grossi and James Guthrie A.M.
Public sector auditing research has changed rapidly over the past four decades. This paper aims to reveal how the field has developed and identify avenues for future research.
Abstract
Purpose
Public sector auditing research has changed rapidly over the past four decades. This paper aims to reveal how the field has developed and identify avenues for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a structured literature review following Massaro et al. The sample comprises papers on public sector auditing published in accounting and public sector management journals between 1991 and 2020.
Findings
The present analysis highlights that academic research interest in public sector auditing has grown and become more diverse. The authors argue this may reflect a transformation of the public sector in recent decades, owing to the developing institutional logics of public sector reforms, from traditional public administration to new public management and now new public governance.
Originality value
This paper offers a comprehensive review of the public sector auditing literature, discussing different perspectives over time. It also outlines the various public sector reforms introduced over the period of the study. In reviewing the existing literature, the authors highlight the themes for future research and policy settings.
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Nikoletta Theodorou, Sarah Johnsen, Beth Watts and Adam Burley
This study aims to examine the emotional and cognitive responses of frontline homelessness service support staff to the highly insecure attachment styles (AS) exhibited by people…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the emotional and cognitive responses of frontline homelessness service support staff to the highly insecure attachment styles (AS) exhibited by people experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH), that is, a combination of homelessness and other forms of deep social exclusion.
Design/methodology/approach
Focus groups were conducted with frontline staff (N = 19) in four homelessness support services in Scotland. Hypothetical case vignettes depicting four insecure AS (enmeshed, fearful, withdrawn and angry-dismissive) were used to facilitate discussions. Data is analysed thematically.
Findings
Service users with AS characterised by high anxiety (enmeshed or fearful) often evoked feelings of compassion in staff. Their openness to accepting help led to more effective interactions between staff and service users. However, the high ambivalence and at times overdependence associated with these AS placed staff at risk of study-related stress and exhaustion. Avoidant service users (withdrawn or angry-dismissive) evoked feelings of frustration in staff. Their high need for self-reliance and defensive attitudes were experienced as hostile and dismissing. This often led to job dissatisfaction and acted as a barrier to staff engagement, leaving this group more likely to “fall through the net” of support.
Originality/value
Existing literature describes challenges that support staff encounter when attempting to engage with people experiencing MEH, but provides little insight into the causes or consequences of “difficult” interactions. This study suggests that an attachment-informed approach to care can promote more constructive engagement between staff and service users in the homelessness sector.
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With the rise of the gig economy, management positions are increasingly staffed with flexible labor, so-called interim managers. They plunge into organizations for a limited…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rise of the gig economy, management positions are increasingly staffed with flexible labor, so-called interim managers. They plunge into organizations for a limited period, operating in a liminal position as partly insider, partly outsider. Although several contributions to their client organizations are acknowledged, it is unknown how the interim manager’s knowledge from previous assignments is made useful in the new context under these particular working conditions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how the interim manager’s knowledge is transferred to the client organization while operating from a liminal position.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents an interview-based multiple case study of six interim assignments where knowledge transfer is considered a social and context-dependent process.
Findings
The findings unveil the multifaceted nature of the liminal position, which consists of task orientation, time limitation, political detachment and cultural distance. These facets contribute to knowledge transfer in terms of new shared understandings and joint interests, which in turn might create new practices that augment continuous knowledge-sharing patterns.
Originality/value
The results contribute to the research on flexible work arrangements by shedding light on how the liminal position, predominantly depicted as an obstacle for the individual, might facilitate knowledge transfer. Through the process of knowledge generation, it is shown how a short-term engagement might enable the organization to increase its knowledge over time.
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Anni Rajala and Annika Tidström
The purpose of this study is to increase understanding about vertical coopetition from the perspective of interrelated conflict episodes on multiple levels.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to increase understanding about vertical coopetition from the perspective of interrelated conflict episodes on multiple levels.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical part is based on a qualitative single case study of a coopetitive buyer-supplier relationship in the manufacturing sector.
Findings
Conflicts in vertical coopetition evolve from being merely functional and task-related to becoming dysfunctional and relationship-related, as the level of competition increases. The nature of conflict episodes influences the development of vertical coopetition, and therefore, the interrelatedness of conflict episodes is important to acknowledge.
Practical implications
Although a conflict is considered functional within a company, it may still be dysfunctional as far as the coopetitive relationship with the buyer or seller is concerned. Competition may trigger conflicts related to protecting own technology and knowledge, which may lead to termination of the cooperation, therefore coopetition should be managed in a way that balance sharing and protecting important knowledge to get advantages of coopetition.
Originality/value
The findings enhance prior research on vertical coopetition by offering new perspectives on causes of conflicts, their management, outcomes and types. The value of taking a multilevel approach lies in the ability to show how conflicts occur and influence other conflicts through the interrelatedness of conflict elements on different levels.
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We examined a large multi-year undergraduate leadership development program (LDP) across seven universities and used an integrated framework of transformational leadership and…
Abstract
We examined a large multi-year undergraduate leadership development program (LDP) across seven universities and used an integrated framework of transformational leadership and situational judgment tests (SJTs) during a critical and formative period of leadership development. This study was the first to show a significant relationship between experience and transformational leadership style in students in an undergraduate LDP using SJTs and the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ). The results showed that greater experience was positively related to increased transformational leadership style and that high overall decision scores were indicated in all groups of students with varying leadership styles and varying experience levels and decision abilities. The study findings and implications are discussed, along with recommendations for leadership educators to develop decision quality in LDPs.
Karen Verduijn and Karin Berglund
Following the example of the critical management education tradition, the purpose of this paper is to argue whether we should keep EE vital by disturbing it, in particular by…
Abstract
Purpose
Following the example of the critical management education tradition, the purpose of this paper is to argue whether we should keep EE vital by disturbing it, in particular by interrogating that which has seemingly become “untouchable” from interrogation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes inspiration from Paolo Freire’s work by proposing a pedagogical approach to entrepreneurship education which builds on an iterative and interactive process, oscillating between deconstructing and reconstructing entrepreneurship, creating space for invention in the classroom. The paper provides exemplary contributions in developing suggestions as to ways forward.
Findings
The ways forward being proposed in this paper include entrepreneurship educators engaging students as co-learners, and evoking their curiosity to pose new questions about the phenomenon; “grounding” students in their own creativity and supporting them to build the confidence needed to develop alternative understandings of how entrepreneurship can function – for themselves, in their future organizations and for society as a whole; and challenging our own teaching positions, and adopting a pedagogical process of invention, stimulating curiosity, co-creation, thought-provoking questions and entrepreneurial action.
Originality/value
This paper provides ways forward in keeping EE “fresh”, by sketching how we need to teach about entrepreneurship, adopting the critical insights emerging in the field. The paper argues how we do not only need other models and approaches to understand entrepreneurship, but also to understand learning and education.
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I aimed to obtain a deeper insight into the link between supplier involvement in product development (SIPD), supplier relationship resilience and company performance.
Abstract
Purpose
I aimed to obtain a deeper insight into the link between supplier involvement in product development (SIPD), supplier relationship resilience and company performance.
Design/methodology/approach
To collect data, a survey among 500 Polish manufacturing companies was conducted. I used quantitative methods (structural equation modeling) to test several research hypotheses referring to a single supplier–customer relationship. Thanks to the use of multi-construct measurement of SIPD and supplier relationship resilience, the study provides detailed research results on the topic.
Findings
Collaborative practices implemented during SIPD increase procurement flexibility and decrease redundancy in the relationship with the involved supplier. Communication during SIPD increases supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Increased supplier flexibility and increased procurement flexibility in the relationship with the involved supplier as well as collaborative practices during SIPD positively impact company performance. I confirmed the indirect effect between communication during SIPD and company performance when the mediators are supplier flexibility and procurement flexibility. Decreased redundancy in relationship with involved supplier does not impact company performance.
Practical implications
Supply chain managers need to rethink SIPD practice to effectively ensure supply chain resilience (SCRES), especially in the face of the contemporary global crisis and black swans affecting the supplier base. My article provides important managerial insights into drivers of SCRES and company performance.
Originality/value
To the best of my knowledge, this research is among the first to conclude that SIPD does not have an unequivocally positive or direct impact on supplier relationship resilience. The research fills the gap by analyzing the impact of SIPD on two main SCRES elements. The study examines supplier relationship resilience, understood as flexibility and redundancy elements, in a single supplier–buyer relationship perspective. Thus, the presented considerations go beyond the traditional understanding of flexibility and redundancy in supplier relationship management, that is through the prism of double or multi sourcing and having back up-suppliers.
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Romeo Bandinelli, Diletta Acuti, Virginia Fani, Bianca Bindi and Gaetano Aiello
The present research expands the debate on environmental sustainability in the wine industry. Since the literature on sustainability and wine is relatively recent, current results…
Abstract
Purpose
The present research expands the debate on environmental sustainability in the wine industry. Since the literature on sustainability and wine is relatively recent, current results do not cover all the practices that can be implemented along the wine supply chain. Thus, the paper presents a classification of environmental practices specific for the wine industry, according to the increased attention that has been paid to this topic in recent years. Moreover, it investigates the adoption level of these practices with reference to Italian wine producers.
Design/methodology/approach
The research presents a systematic literature review including papers published in academic journals during the past 30 years and in Italian specialised magazines. This methodology is useful to provide a clear overview of sustainable practices that can be adopted along the wine supply chain. Therefore, an empirical study based on the results of an online survey shows how wineries approach environmental sustainability.
Findings
The literature review provides a definition and classification of environmental practices in the wine industry, as well as identification of those that require further attention in the literature, suggesting future research paths. The results of the online survey give an overview of the adoption level of environmental practices and highlight widespread attention to all the listed environmental practices, including those not adopted.
Originality/value
From a theoretical point of view, this paper fills a literature gap in terms of the definition and classification of environmental practices that cover all wine supply chain processes, also providing a useful instrument for wine companies' managers. Moreover, the results of the empirical research give an overview of the adoption level of environmental practices in one of the most relevant countries in terms of wine production and highlight widespread attention to all the listed environmental practices, including those not adopted.