Eric R. Kushins and Myriam Quispe-Agnoli
Compared to Whites, People of Color (POC) in the USA face substantial cultural, structural and institutional challenges on their paths to entrepreneurial success. Many of these…
Abstract
Purpose
Compared to Whites, People of Color (POC) in the USA face substantial cultural, structural and institutional challenges on their paths to entrepreneurial success. Many of these challenges have their roots in institutional racism—pervasive discriminatory practices and policies found within institutions. Institutional theory suggests that organizations gain access to institutions and resources when they conform to “appropriate” business practices. How does the reality of institutional racism square with institutional theory when many of those institutions, like banks, are fundamentally afflicted by racist practices and norms? Can another institution, the family, act as a resource substitute to provide POC business owners the necessary resources for success?
Design/methodology/approach
Focusing on White-, Black- and Asian-American business owners, the authors analyze data from the USA. Census's Annual Business Survey.
Findings
Despite vast performance differences between POC- and White-owned businesses, family firms of every racial group outperform their same-race nonfamily counterparts. Idiosyncratic resources families bring into family firms, known as familiness, appear to help mitigate the challenges to entrepreneurial success that POC face.
Practical implications
Policy makers should consider specific types of support different entrepreneurs require given the kinds of hurdles racial minorities continue to face in the USA.
Social implications
Despite scholarly attention on family firm heterogeneity, there is scant research on race.
Originality/value
This research is one of the first to explore the implications of institutional racism on institutional theory and the first to employ this concept within the context of family firms.
Details
Keywords
Eric R. Kushins, Henry Heard and J. Michael Weber
This article proposes a new disruptive innovation in healthcare through the development of a physician assistant business model, which can be most readily applied in vulnerable…
Abstract
Purpose
This article proposes a new disruptive innovation in healthcare through the development of a physician assistant business model, which can be most readily applied in vulnerable rural health care settings.
Design/methodology/approach
This study reviews the current state of the health care system in terms of physician assistant utilization and primary care shortages in rural communities. The study proposes that the physician assistant-owned and -operated primary care business represents a disruptive innovation, via the application of the five principles of Clayton Christensen’s (1997) thesis on disruptive innovation.
Findings
Considering the current state of the health care industry, the study logically defends the proposed model as a disruptive innovation in that it: focuses on an underserved market, has lower costs, has few competitors, offers high quality and provides a sustainable competitive advantage.
Practical implications
The physician assistant business model is a viable solution for providing primary care for rural communities with educational, financial, transportation and other resource limitations.
Originality/value
This is a unique application of the theory of disruptive innovation, which illustrates how a new business model can solve a chronic shortage in primary care, especially in underserved populations.
Details
Keywords
Robert Randolph, Eric Kushins and Prachi Gala
Despite similarities, research across family business and business advising forwards contradictory conclusions when considering family business advising. The authors seek to…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite similarities, research across family business and business advising forwards contradictory conclusions when considering family business advising. The authors seek to integrate these literature and in doing so uncover both the hurdles facing family business advisors attempting to adapt tools developed in corporate advising to the family business context as well as the potential for greater integration of these streams in ways that contribute to both family business and advising research and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary data were collected both in the form of a survey questionnaire and website marketing content. In the survey, 47 family business advisors evaluated the distinctiveness of their family business clients across structural, cognitive and relational social capital dimensions. Motivated by unexpected findings, a content analysis of advisor websites uncovered specific marketing themes that illustrate the divides between family business advising and scholarship.
Findings
Family business advisors reliably acknowledge structural and cognitive social capital as preeminently characterizing the distinctiveness of their family business clients. Expanding on this, the authors’ findings suggest that the urgency signaled in advisor marketing via their websites may inspire tactics misaligned with the long-term time horizon typically characterizing family businesses strategy.
Originality/value
The few family business advising studies that exist predominantly consider post-hoc evaluation of advising by family business clients. The primary data the authors collect are unique in the literature in that the data detail how family business advisors perceive and engage with potential clients.
Details
Keywords
Eric R. Kushins and Myriam Quispe-Agnoli
This chapter explores various structural, socio-cultural and economic factors that have precipitated the significant change in the supply of free family firm workers, specifically…
Abstract
This chapter explores various structural, socio-cultural and economic factors that have precipitated the significant change in the supply of free family firm workers, specifically women’s unpaid labor. To investigate these concerns, we use longitudinal data from the U.S. Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). We provide a general overview of critical social, cultural and economic factors impacting women’s opportunities since 1948, with an emphasis on recent historical changes between 1994 and 2020.
We find that, among other factors, the deinstitutionalization of marriage, changing rates of educational attainment, fluctuating labor force participation, economic recessions and women’s rights movements have led to a steep decline in unpaid female family workers. We further assess the distribution of unpaid family workers by industry and by age of worker to build a more nuanced picture of this trend. We sought to determine where these unpaid female workers went --to industry jobs, government work or self-employment.
Given that complex national-level factors will continue to impact women’s life choices, family firms should consider the short- and long-term impact of the changing social value of women and their roles in family firms. We suggest family firms: ensure appropriate financial compensation for talented women, provide a range of supportive options for work-family balance to increase retention, and consider differential work opportunities for women at the start of their professional lives and those who may be interested in contributing to their families’ business in the later years of their careers.
Details
Keywords
Bumsoo Kim, Eric Cooks and Yonghwan Kim
Employing the cognitive mediation model, the study aims to examine a moderated-mediation mechanism of social media news use contingent upon elaboration on political knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
Employing the cognitive mediation model, the study aims to examine a moderated-mediation mechanism of social media news use contingent upon elaboration on political knowledge through fact-checking – specifically, the interaction effect of social media news with elaboration on fact-checking.
Design/methodology/approach
The moderated-mediation model is tested using panel survey data collected during the 2016 USA presidential election (N = 1,624 at Wave 1; N = 637 at Wave 2).
Findings
The findings reveal that social media news users are frequent visitors of fact-checking websites. Results also suggest that those with increased social media news use and cognitive elaboration on news content are more likely to visit fact-checking sites, which contributes to increased political knowledge.
Originality/value
The results of the current study, especially in the era of social media environment where various information is overflowing, suggest an important role of individuals' responsibility as democratic citizens given that people's cognitive elaboration and surveillance efforts, which tries to think about important public issues they consume through media, could strengthen a positive pathway toward informed citizens.