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Entrepreneurs often experience rejection, criticism and failure as part of the entrepreneurial journey – which can cause shame. This study examines the influence of shame on advice-seeking and advice-taking. Since advice is known to influence firm performance and entrepreneurs rely on the advice of mentors, advisors and investors, understanding the role of shame in influencing advice-seeking and advice-taking is essential.

We used an online experimental design on actual entrepreneurs working in business incubators. We asked all participants to evaluate a business idea and then induced shame and neutral emotion in the treatment and control groups, respectively. After emotion manipulation, we showed the expert advice and gave the choice to participants to revisit their earlier assessment.

We hypothesized that shame would make the entrepreneur less open to seeking advice but more open to utilizing the advice in decision-making. The results showed that we had no support for the impact of shame on advice-seeking and weak support for the impact of shame on advice-taking.

This paper is an original creation of the authors.

The growing uses of digital technologies have been creating several new business opportunities. Recently, a new concept has emerged in the literature, the “digital entrepreneurship ecosystem” (DEE). However, it has been empirically understudied. Thus, this study aims to analyze the influence of DEE on entrepreneurial activity. The meta-organization theory was used as a perspective of analysis. A quantitative methodology was applied in a sample that includes data from 28 European countries through the generalized method of moments. It was concluded that the DEE pillars, informal and formal institutions, market conditions, physical infrastructure, human capital and talent and networking and support positively influence entrepreneurial activity. It was also found that the variables knowledge, creation and dissemination and finance have a negative impact on entrepreneurial activity. Several theoretical and empirical contributions are also left for the various stakeholders. The present study is original, as no known studies analyze the influence of DEE on entrepreneurial activity in European countries from the perspective of meta-organization theory.

Evaluating and exploiting an opportunity is an iterative process, and one of the triggers for the re-evaluation is the feedback received from stakeholders. Most of the time, the feedback comes in the form of harsh comments, criticisms and rejections, which can cause shame. There is also a lack of studies on the impact of shame on the decision-making ability of the entrepreneur, which is addressed through this study.

The study uses an experimental design, which is considered the “gold standard” in establishing causality. By manipulating the emotions of 107 entrepreneurs and making them assess a hypothetical opportunity, the study finds conclusive evidence for the proposed hypotheses.

Using the appraisal tendency framework, the authors show that shame makes an entrepreneur assess an opportunity as lower in desirability and feasibility. Shame also makes an entrepreneur give more significant weight to feasibility (over desirability) when deciding on entrepreneurial action.

The study provides strong empirical evidence that shame is an important emotion and influences the decision-making ability of the entrepreneur. The study reveals that important stakeholders assessing entrepreneurs need to be careful about how they provide feedback. Since the emotion it can elicit has a bearing on the subsequent decisions made by the entrepreneur.

This study aims to synthesize and conceptualize the highly fragmented yet important literature on racial discrimination in entrepreneurship.

A bibliometric analysis and literature review were performed that involved 523 articles containing 26,926 references.

The bibliometric analysis identified three dominant research themes that comprehensively illustrate the state of research in this domain: strategic, sociocultural and individual-level perspectives. The synthesis of extant literature helped in formulating a holistic conceptual model that portrays the genuineness of racial discrimination in entrepreneurship. The sources, factors and impact of racial discrimination faced by entrepreneurs were identified. Based on the review and analysis of keywords, certain fruitful future research directions were formulated that will take the field forward.

This work is the first attempt to review the literature that narrows down the focus to racial discrimination in entrepreneurship (from other discriminations such as gender, cultural and religious discrimination) as one form of discrimination due to its unique origins and consequences.

To address the challenges encountered in disaster responses, optimize resource utilization, minimize environmental and social impact, and ensure transparency and accountability, it is essential to review humanitarian supply chains and incorporate sustainability considerations. Humanitarian organizations can enhance their ability to deliver timely and effective assistance to those in need by continuously improving supply chain practices. Consequently, this work explores the convergence of two fast-growing domains: sustainability and humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM).

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles to identify the prominent research trends and themes from the two domains' interactions. The extant literature is represented under the theory, context, characteristics, and research method (TCCM) framework. The authors have utilized a stakeholder theory perspective to identify coordination and collaboration among the various stakeholders.

This study's review findings reveal five future research directions formulating this study's central themes: the role of environmental sustainability, coordination, and collaboration in building effective HSCs; the role of humanitarian aid for the responsive HSC; the influence of big data predictive analytics on the HSC performance; development and empirical validation of sustainable HSC performance framework; the role of HSC stakeholders in building effective and efficient HSCs.

There is no existing academic literature review available on sustainable HSCM. This review fills this void by fostering discussion about sustainable humanitarian supply chains where the authors notably propose the TCCM framework in the context of sustainable HSCM, followed by a stakeholder network.

The purpose of the paper is to establish the need to study the shame-proneness trait of entrepreneurs – what is it and why is it important to study.

In this conceptual paper, the authors argue that shame-proneness is an important understudied trait of entrepreneurs and put up a case for further research. The authors argue that shame-proneness moderates the effect of social acceptability on opportunity exploitation decisions. The authors also argue that productive entrepreneurship can be promoted and unproductive entrepreneurship can be prevented through policy intervention, and the level of intervention can be determined by knowing the shame-proneness level of entrepreneurs.

The key argument is the following: an entrepreneur is homo economicus and homo sociologicus, i.e. she is driven both by rational economic value consideration and by the prevalent social norms, which influence opportunity exploitation decisions. Since shame enforces compliance with social norms, it is vital to study entrepreneurs' shame-proneness to understand entrepreneurial founding across different regions. Knowing the level of shame-proneness of entrepreneurs in a given region would help the government devise effective interventions to promote productive entrepreneurship and deter unproductive or destructive entrepreneurship.

This paper is an original creation of the authors.

Literature suggests that there are sets of common variables that are capable of explaining organisational performance differentials. These variables are used to examine performance variance and its contribution to organisation profitability. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of large construction organisations’ performance in South Africa using a partial least squares path analytic method.

This study examines the interrelationship between a number of constructs, namely, organisational characteristics, resources/capabilities, competitive strategies, business environment and performance, using a questionnaire survey to obtain data from 72 large construction organisations in South Africa. Using a path analytic approach, the paper examines the relationship between the constructs discussed in the study.

The findings from the analysis of the data show that organisational characteristics do indeed influence the performance of organisations, and that the business environment is capable of moderating the relationship between competitive strategies and performance. The results, however, indicate that organisations that combine sustained organisational characteristics and strategy tend to experience high performance over those that do not.

The study findings have implications for management practice, as it could help managers of construction organisations to acknowledge the influence of organisational characteristics, unique resources/capabilities, competitive strategies and business environment as sources of competitive advantage. The study contributes to the current debate on the causes of performance differentials among large construction organisations.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and understand the obstacles hindering social entrepreneurship as a business model. Methodology/Approach: We performed an exploratory analysis structured in three stages. First, we used the Delphi method to identify the main difficulties with the collaboration of 20 social entrepreneurship experts. We then analyzed how these experts and a group of 21 social entrepreneurs rated the importance of the difficulties that had been identified. Finally, we performed a comparative analysis of both groups' ratings and found significant differences between their perceptions. Findings: Experts and social entrepreneurs agree on identifying financial difficulties as the main obstacles. They all highlight the lack of financial resources and difficulties in the sustainability and independence of the venture in the long term. However, while the experts recognize that human resources' lack of skills is another important obstacle, the social entrepreneurs give more importance to external factors, such as resistance to social change or lack of knowledge and understanding of the social entrepreneurship concept. Practical Implications: The decision to seek the collaboration of two different groups is enriching, as the results show that their perceptions of the barriers facing social entrepreneurship do not always coincide. Originality/Value of Chapter: It is a chapter focused exclusively on deepening the knowledge of the obstacles to social entrepreneurship, which tries not only to identify them but also to offer the vision of experts in social entrepreneurship as well as of social entrepreneurs themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible moderating role of organisational characteristics (organisational structure, management style and decision-making style) in the relationship between strategy and organisational performance among large construction organisations in South Africa.

The study adopted a quantitative research approach using a questionnaire survey to obtain data from 72 large construction organisations in South Africa. Using hierarchical multiple regression, the paper examines the relationship between the constructs discussed in the study.

The internal characteristics of the organisation form the vital basis for achieving optimal performance. The results obtained from the analysis revealed that decision-making style directly influences the measure of organisational effectiveness, while it could also be inferred that organisational characteristics partly moderate the relationship between competitive strategy and organisational performance. The findings indicate that internal characteristics is one of the means through which organisational strategic factors and contextual aspects are organised to achieve greater organisational performance levels.

The findings have theoretical implications for strategic management literature in construction as it extends the scope of research on strategic management from assessing a set of individual management practices to evaluating a complex mechanism that connects internal characteristics and competitive advantage. It is believed that this study will contribute positively to the role of organisational characteristics in the competitive strategy-performance relationships in large construction organisations in South Africa and to the ongoing discussion on emerging strategic management issues in construction.