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Even in established economies, empirical studies on the relationship between business incubation and firm performance do not show unequivocally positive results. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate based on the empirical evidence from the under-researched Central and Eastern European region in which no similar study has been conducted before. Due to the shorter experience with the management of business incubators and less developed institutions, business incubators may not be so effective in supporting their tenants in this region.

The authors utilise firm-level data from incubated Czech enterprises (n=205) founded after 2003 and compare them with those that have not received support from incubators. The authors implement three matching techniques to pair incubated and non-incubated companies. The outcome variables measured sales, price-cost margin, assets turnover, value added, size of total assets and size of personnel costs.

Compared to the control group, incubated firms reported on average lower values of the above-mentioned indicators. Presented study shows that Czech incubators have not been successful in supporting growth of incubated firms.

The study suggests that there is a clear room for improvements. Incubators should improve in attracting and selecting high potentials and in providing more effective support focussed on tenants’ growth, whereas policymakers should exercise stricter control regarding the money spent and effectiveness of incubators.

The empirical analysis was conducted based on the research gap in the studies related to the impact of business incubation in the under-researched Central and Eastern European region. It also shows that positive results from similar studies done in established economies cannot be taken for granted as they depend on the quality of institutions in a particular country.

The study responds to the calls for multilevel approaches in entrepreneurship research and seeks to answer whether the relationships between personal values and entrepreneurship remain stable across different economic conditions, using the unemployment rate as a moderator. It pays attention to the solo self-employed and women, as these groups are particularly vulnerable when crises occur.

We use Schwartz's theory of human values, which has been understudied in entrepreneurship and follow a correlational research design with micro and macro variables. Multilevel logistic regression is applied to the data from the large sample of 151,032 individuals participating in six waves of the European Social Survey. Solo self-employed are distinguished from those employing others, and analyses are run separately for men and women to understand gender differences.

The findings show that self-direction and achievement are positively, and benevolence and security negatively related to entrepreneurship. The high unemployment rate lowers the positive relationships with self-direction and achievement and mitigates the negative relationship with security, but only for the solo self-employed and not for employers. Results mostly hold for both genders.

The study suggests that security-related values should not be omitted from entrepreneurship research focused on entrepreneurs' values. It also emphasizes the need to distinguish between various subgroups of entrepreneurs and their motivation, which is important for efficient active labor market policies.

The study utilizes multilevel analyses that account for individual- and country-level influences on entrepreneurial activity. It contributes to understanding how economic context influences value salience and supports the applicability of Schwartz's theory of human values in entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of employee innovative behavior conceptualizing it as distinct from innovation outputs and as a multi-faceted behavior rather than a simple count of “innovative acts” by employees. It understands individual employee innovative behaviors as a micro-foundation of firm intrapreneurship that is embedded in and influenced by contextual factors such as managerial, organizational and cultural support for innovation. Building from a review of existing employee innovative behavior scales and theoretical considerations the authors develop and validate the Innovative Behavior Inventory (IBI) and the Innovation Support Inventory (ISI).

Two pilot studies, a third validation study in the Czech Republic and a fourth cross-cultural validation study using population representative samples from Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic (n=2,812 employees and 450 entrepreneurs) were conducted.

Both inventories were reliable and showed factorial, criterion, convergent and discriminant validity as well as cross-cultural equivalence. Employee innovative behavior was supported as comprising of idea generation, idea search, idea communication, implementation starting activities, involving others and overcoming obstacles. Managerial support was the most proximal contextual influence on innovative behavior and mediated the effect of organizational support and national culture.

The paper advances the understanding of employee innovative behavior as a multi-faceted phenomenon and the contextual factors influencing it. Where past research typically focuses on convenience samples within a particular country, the authors offer first robust evidence that the model of employee innovative behavior generalizes across cultures and types of samples. The model and the IBI and ISI inventories enable researchers to build a deeper understanding of the important micro-foundation underpinning intrapreneurial behavior in organizations and allow practitioners to identify their organizations’ strengths and weaknesses related to intrapreneurship.

Many individuals start a new firm each year, mainly intending to become independent or improve their financial situation. For most of them, the first years of operations mean a substantial investment of time, effort and money with highly insecure outcomes. This study aims to explore how entrepreneurs running new firms perform financially compared with the established ones and how this situation influences their well-being.

A questionnaire survey was completed in 2021 and 2022 by a representative sample of N = 1136 solo self-employed and microentrepreneurs in the Czech Republic, with dependent self-employed excluded. This study used multiple regressions for data analysis.

Early-stage entrepreneurs are less satisfied with their financial situation, have lower disposable income and report more significant financial problems than their established counterparts. The situation is even worse for the subsample of startups. However, this study also finds they do not have lower well-being than established entrepreneurs. While a worse financial situation is generally negatively related to well-being, being a startup founder moderates this link. Startup founders can maintain a good level of well-being even in financial struggles.

The results suggest that policies should focus on reducing the costs related to start-up activities. Further, policy support should not be restricted to new technological firms. Startups from all fields should be eligible to receive support, provided that they meet the milestones of their development. For entrepreneurship education, this study‘s results support action-oriented approaches that help build entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy while making them aware of cognitive biases common in entrepreneurship. This study also underscores that effectuation or lean startup approaches help entrepreneurs develop their startups efficiently and not deprive themselves of resources because of their unjustified overconfidence.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the financial situation and well-being of founders of new firms and, specifically, startups. The personal financial situation of startup founders has been a largely underexplored issue. Compared with other entrepreneurs, this study finds that startup founders are, as individuals, in the worst financial situation. Their well-being remains, however, on a comparable level with that of other entrepreneurs.

This study aims to examine the impact of coworking spaces (CWS) on the wellbeing and entrepreneurial satisfaction of remotely working micro-entrepreneurs, highlighting the role of these spaces beyond conventional work locations. It specifically investigates how CWS foster a supportive ecosystem for micro-entrepreneurs, supporting their professional journey.

Employing a mixed-methodological approach, this study uses nearest-neighbor matching and multiple regressions based on quantitative surveys from a representative sample of micro-entrepreneurs, including those working from CWS, and a qualitative focus group with frequent CWS users. This comprehensive approach allows for a nuanced exploration of the impacts of CWS on micro-entrepreneurs' wellbeing and satisfaction.

The study finds that micro-entrepreneurs experience significant benefits from utilizing CWS, most notably in terms of wellbeing and work–life balance. These spaces provide valuable support through community building, networking opportunities and structured work environments. The benefits of CWS are particularly pronounced for women and micro-entrepreneurs with young children, aiding in boundary management and mitigating the challenges of social isolation.

We provide clear implications for remotely working micro-entrepreneurs, especially women with young children at home, on why to use CWS as their primary locations. The findings also offer insights for policymakers and CWS providers, underlining the importance of designing CWS environments that meet micro-entrepreneurs' diverse needs.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a detailed examination of the utilization of CWS among micro-entrepreneurs and the impact of CWS on their wellbeing and entrepreneurial satisfaction.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the ways in which K-8 teachers from a semirural, predominantly white district perceive their responsibilities to work toward anti-racism, as well as to learn more about how the teachers can be supported as they work to overcome the challenges facing teachers in these fraught times in this country’s history.

The authors use a reconstructive approach to critical discourse analytic methods (Bartlett, 2012; Hughes, 2018; Luke, 2002, 2004; Martin, 2004) to analyze an online discussion that took place among participants in a virtual anti-racist critical professional development course (Kohli, 2019; Kohli et al., 2015) as they grappled with what it means to confront their own racial identities, positionalities and responsibilities.

Three primary tensions emerged in teachers’ discussion: between geographic and professional identities; between individual and institutional responsibility; and between literacy instruction and critical literacy instruction. In all three cases, teachers expressed the difficulties associated with enacting anti-racist critical literacy pedagogy in their school context, while also leaving space for possibility.

The findings from this study add to the field’s understanding about how teachers in various contexts approach the work of anti-racist critical literacy pedagogy at different stages in their careers and how teacher educators might support them in doing so.

This study is important in its focus on professional development for in-service teachers, as much of the work has focused on preservice teachers and those who have been in classrooms for varying lengths of time have different levels of experience and different professional needs (Hambacher and Ginn, 2021). It is also notable that these teachers worked in a semirural, predominantly white district, as teachers working in such geographic locations often do not receive education about engaging with diversity (Anthony-Stevens et al., 2017; Anthony-Stevens and Langford, 2020) and it is essential that teachers and students in these districts are engaged if we are going to make headway in challenging whiteness in schools.

In this chapter we reinvigorate socialization as a theoretical framework for studying gender and sexuality, and we do so by focusing attention on the sexual socialization of young children. We provide an overview of the literature on the sexual socialization of young children. We discuss why researchers should be interested in childhood sexuality, and the role of parents, peers and schools, and the media in sexual socialization. We also address three overarching issues: methodology, the hegemony of heterosexuality, and child sexual abuse. Throughout, we suggest and organize some of the empirical questions that form a research agenda for those interested in this topic.

This paper seeks to focus on civil society organizations (CSOs) and their capacity to exercise power in the employment relationship. In particular, the paper is concerned with identifying the sources of power, how it is exercised and whether CSOs can exert pressure on other employment actors despite their apparent lack of resources possessed by more established representative structures.

Findings are based on 139 completed postal questionnaires and 47 interviews, primarily face‐to‐face, across 34 different CSOs.

Adopting a resource dependence framework suggests that CSOs have the capacity to exercise power and influence key employment actors. However, the power of CSOs is undermined by the absence of an internal organizational presence, making it difficult to mobilize workers.

The research highlights the role of an often‐ignored employment actor. To provide further insights further research is needed to garner the views of other employment participants.

In employee relations discussions of workplace power have typically focused on the power of the state, employers and trade unions. This paper adopts a novel angle by exploring the role of CSOs and their ability to exercise power.

Purpose – Changes in the environment – political, economic, social, educational and technological – have demanded changes in many areas of work, most particularly in the roles and tasks of those involved in the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage, and interpersonal information intervention. Sending, storing and receiving digital information are commonplace activities, and now formally constructed digital libraries constitute an important component of this virtual information environment. Similar to traditional physical libraries, digital libraries are constructed for particular purposes, to serve particular clienteles or to collect and provide access to selected information resources (whether text documents or artefacts). Information intermediaries – or digital librarians – in this transformed information environment must learn new skills, play different roles and possess a new suite of competencies.

Design, methodology and approach – Myburgh and Tammaro have, for several years, examined the new knowledge, skills and competencies that are now demanded, in order to design and test a curriculum for digital librarians which has found expression in the Erasmus Mundus Master's in Digital Library Learning (DILL), now in its sixth year.

Findings – The chief objective of the Digital library program is to prepare information intermediaries for effective contribution to their particular communities and societies, in order to assist present and future generations of digital natives to negotiate the digital information environment effectively. This includes, for example, the necessity for digital librarians to be able to teach cultural competency, critical information literacies and knowledge value mapping, as well as understanding the new standards and formats that are still being developed in order to capture, store, describe, locate and preserve digital materials.

Research limitations – In this chapter, we propose describing the work we have done thus far, with special reference to the development of a model of the role of the digital librarian, including competencies, skills, knowledge base and praxis.

Social implications – Amongst the various issues that have arisen and demanded consideration and investigation are the importance of a multidisciplinarity dimension in the education of digital librarians, as information work is orthogonal to other disciplinary and cultural categorisations; that a gradual convergence or confluence is being identified between various cultural institutions which include libraries, archives and museums; the new modes of learning and teaching, with particular regard to knowledge translation and the learner-generated environment or context; and possibly even a reconsideration of the role of the information professional and new service models for their praxis.

Originality/value – The chapter tries to evidence the present debate about digital librarianship in Europe.