Pekka Stenholm and Mette Søgaard Nielsen
Recent research acknowledges entrepreneurial passion’s outcomes, but far less is known about how entrepreneurial passion comes about. In this study, the authors are interested in…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent research acknowledges entrepreneurial passion’s outcomes, but far less is known about how entrepreneurial passion comes about. In this study, the authors are interested in the emergence of entrepreneurial passion, and how competences and social network are associated with entrepreneurial passion. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors investigate whether entrepreneurial passion emerges out of socialisation, entrepreneurial experience or various combinations thereof. The authors tested the hypotheses on a data set of entrepreneurs who started their businesses with government financial support (n=1150).
Findings
The findings show that within a social environment, perceived emotional support is positively associated with entrepreneurial passion. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ task-related competence moderates this relationship positively. By investigating the emergence of entrepreneurial passion, the authors contribute to prior passion literature, which has mainly focused on its consequences.
Originality/value
The findings demonstrate both how entrepreneurial passion is associated with and how perceived emotional support can stem from unexpected sources, such as from a government-based start-up grant. For entrepreneurs, an increased awareness of passion’s emergence could better encourage them in their entrepreneurial endeavours. To people who are engaged in promoting entrepreneurship, our findings emphasise the symbolic and emotional aspects of instruments intended to support entrepreneurship.
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Klaus G. Grunert, Lisbeth Fruensgaard Jeppesen, Kristina Risom Jespersen, Anne‐Mette Sonne, Kåre Hansen, Torbjørn Trondsen and James A. Young
This paper extends the concept of market orientation from the firm to the value chain level and seeks to develop empirically founded propositions on determinants of different…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper extends the concept of market orientation from the firm to the value chain level and seeks to develop empirically founded propositions on determinants of different levels of market orientation of value chains.
Design/methodology/approach
Four case studies on value chains within the areas of agribusiness and fisheries are conducted. For each value chain, desk research is combined with interviews with decision‐makers of all types of value chain members. Interview guidelines were derived from a conceptual model of potential determinants of value chain market orientation.
Findings
Degree of market orientation of value chains is found to be related to degree of heterogeneity and dynamism of end‐users served, nature of chain relationships, regulations and prevailing mental models of decision‐makers. Short and balanced chains are believed to further upstream market orientation.
Research limitations/implications
The results point at two areas, where additional research on market orientation is called for: a better conceptualization of market intelligence and theorizing on most cost effective ways of being market oriented, including implications for the distribution of market oriented activities among value chain members.
Practical implications
The paper underlines the importance of managing channel relationships, up to and including vertical integration, when serving markets with high degrees of end‐user volatility.
Originality/value
This paper is the first empirical contribution to the market orientation literature employing a perspective encompassing the whole value chain.
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Maj Nygaard-Christensen and Esben Houborg
This paper aims to examine policy innovation among street-level bureaucrats at low-threshold services to people who use drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine policy innovation among street-level bureaucrats at low-threshold services to people who use drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on two research projects conducted during the first pandemic lockdown in Denmark. The first is a case study of how COVID-19 impacted on people who use drugs (PWUD) and services for PWUD at the open drug scene in the neighborhood of Vesterbro in Copenhagen. The second is an ethnographic study of how users of services at the intersection of drug use and homelessness were impacted by lockdown.
Findings
Drawing on Kingdon’s “multiple policy streams” approach, this study shows how lockdown opened a “policy window” for innovating services to people who use drugs. This paper further shows how the pandemic crisis afforded street-level bureaucrats new possibilities for acting as “policy entrepreneurs” in a context where vertical bureaucratic barriers and horizontal cross-sectoral silos temporarily collapsed. Finally, the authors show how this had more lasting effects through the initiation of outreach opioid substitution treatment.
Social implications
In Denmark, the emergence of a “policy window” for street-level bureaucrats to act as street-level “entrepreneurs” occurred in a context of rapid government response to the pandemic. For crises to act as “policy windows” for innovation depends on strong, preexisting institutional landscapes.
Originality/value
This paper adds to existing literature on policy innovation during COVID-19 in two ways: methodologically by contributing an ethnographically grounded approach to studying policy innovation and theoretically by examining the conditions that allowed policy innovation to occur.
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In organizational health promotion research, health promotion capacity is a central concept that is used to describe the abilities of individuals, organizations, and communities…
Abstract
Purpose
In organizational health promotion research, health promotion capacity is a central concept that is used to describe the abilities of individuals, organizations, and communities to promote health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the literature on health promotion capacity building and, further, to suggest an alternative theoretical perspective which draws on recent developments in organizational theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins by a critical discussion of the capacity building literature, which is juxtaposed with the relational perspective of contemporary organizational theory. The theoretical argument is developed in reference to the case of Danish municipal health promotion agencies, drawing on secondary sources as well as ethnographic fieldwork among public health officers.
Findings
The capacity building literature tends to reify the concept of capacity. In contrast, this paper argues that health promotion capacity is constantly defined and redefined through processes of organizing. The case study suggests that, faced with limited resources and limited knowledge, health promotion officials attain a sense of capacity through an ongoing reworking of organizational forms.
Research limitations/implications
Organizational health promotion research should look for the organizational forms that are conducive to health promotion practices under shifting social circumstances.
Originality/value
This paper makes explicit an inherent theoretical tension in the capacity building literature and suggests a novel theoretical framework for understanding organizational capacity.