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In recent years, scholars, business practitioners and consultants frequently talk about building the networked enterprise. The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections between networked enterprises, organizational legitimacy and organizational performance.

A survey was developed that measured the following aspects of a networked enterprise: employees who network and communicate extensively via internal digital platforms across their organizations; leaders who actively use internal digital platforms to communicate with employees; leaders who actively communicate with stakeholders via external digital platforms; and an innovation culture. The survey measured the following forms of legitimacy judgments: moral; instrumental; and relational. Altogether, 501 executives and managers were surveyed (207 executives, 147 senior managers and 147 managers) in mid-to-large sized (over 500 employees) companies.

The analyses showed strong statistical significance for nearly all relationships. Internal communication on digital platforms, networked employee communication and an innovation culture all contributed to moral, instrumental and relational legitimacy. Leadership communication on external digital platforms (social media) was not a significant contributor to moral or relational legitimacy but was a significant contributor to instrumental legitimacy. Higher organization legitimacy was correlated with higher profit growth.

Leaders and communicators should prioritize a networked enterprise in several ways. They should actively communicate with employees on internal digital platforms. To be absent on internal digital platforms is a significant missed opportunity by leaders to build organizational legitimacy. Further, leaders and communicators should actively promote networked communication among employees as much as possible. Finally, leaders and communicators should communicate, model and reward an innovation culture.

There are no known scholarly studies that accomplish the following: empirically examine a model of networked enterprises comprised of vertical and horizontal communication and an innovation culture; and make connections between leadership communication on digital platforms in networked enterprises with legitimacy judgments. The large sample of contemporary executives and managers bolsters the strength of the findings.

Unlike other populations, entrepreneurs may be unable to fully escape from job-related stress due to their financial and/or psychological connection to their ventures. The authors argue that stress is a universal, intangible variable that profoundly influences the entrepreneurial process. In the present review, the authors critically synthesize past literature to evaluate the substantive body of research on stress in entrepreneurship and assess the impact of stress on individuals’ well-being. The authors find that entrepreneurial stress stems from role conflict or overload, issues related to business operations, and concerns from life outside the venture. Further, stress may result in changes to personal satisfaction and psychological well-being, contingent upon an individual’s stress tolerance, coping strategies, or recovery practices. The entrepreneurial process, from creation to exit, is comprised of several transition periods, all of which are uniquely stressful. The authors explore the implications of our findings by discussing stressors that may manifest during each stage of the entrepreneurial process. Therefore, the authors respond to calls for more dynamic investigation of entrepreneurial stress while also highlighting the need for more research into stressors associated with specific entrepreneurial activities.

Although scholarly inquiry into entrepreneurial stress has existed for nearly 40 years, little is known about how events drive stress responses in entrepreneurs, and how entrepreneur coping responses impact their well-being, relationships, and venture performance. In response to these deficiencies, the authors propose a stress events theory (SET) which they apply to an entrepreneurial context. The authors begin by providing a brief review of existing literature on entrepreneurial stress, which highlights unique stressors and events that entrepreneurs encounter. The authors then introduce event systems theory as developed by Morgeson, Mitchell, and Liu (2015). From this foundation, the authors develop SET, which describes how entrepreneurs react to particular event characteristics (novelty, disruptiveness, criticality, and duration). Additionally, the authors propose that how entrepreneurs interpret events drives coping choices, and that the accuracy of these coping choices subsequently differentiates the quality of entrepreneur well-being, interpersonal relationships, and venture-related consequences. The authors conclude with a discussion of contributions and areas of future research using our proposed theory.

The purpose of this article is to recognize emotional intelligence (EI) as a specific emotional competency possessed by entrepreneurs that facilitates their coping with stressors that arise in their day-to-day work. Highlighting the problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies employed by entrepreneurs, the paper establishes that EI in entrepreneurs enables the onset of acceptance of the existence of a stressful situation and that of optimism that a stressful situation can be solved.

The paper reviews literature on the topics related to links between EI, entrepreneurial behaviors and entrepreneurial coping. Subsequently, acceptance-avoidance motivation theory is used to posit that entrepreneurs' EI serves as an antecedent that (1) guides the selection of their coping strategies through onset of optimism and acceptance of stressful situation, (2) assists in perceiving those situations as either controllable or uncontrollable and (3) shapes the actual process through which entrepreneurs cope.

The proposed conceptual model asserts that entrepreneurs' EI as reflected in their abilities to perceive, use, understand and regulate emotions is key to their coping. EI in entrepreneurs assists them in being optimistic about solving a stressful situation and accepting of such situations as well. Thereafter, selection of a problem-focused or emotion-focused coping strategy or both ensues.

The current work offers a conceptual model that highlights the role of entrepreneurs' EI in coping, integrates both the cognitive and affective components of coping and suggests a variety of avenues for future research. This model extends models of coping that categorize coping types to specify the process thought to be involved. Understanding the role of emotional intelligence in coping with stress by entrepreneurs has theoretical and practical implications which are discussed as well.

The formation of international joint ventures (IJVs) is one of the prevalent approaches for Western companies to conduct business in China. Yet, doing business in China is difficult for many firms, partially because of the institutional voids that are created by weak formal institutions. The paper aims to focus on the role of guanxi (an informal institution and a company capability that fills such institutional void) in the formation and management of IJVs.

A systematic literature review on the role of guanxi in IJV formation and management is conducted based on papers published in top international business journals between 2005 and 2020 – in total, 47 papers are included in the review.

The findings of the study are presented in four themes, namely, the role of guanxi as social capital in IJV formation, the role of trust in guanxi-based IJVs, the role of control mechanisms in balancing high reliance on trust in guanxi-based IJVs and the role of guanxi in managing inconsistencies in the regulatory environment. The analysis also reveals that guanxi has a positive effect on the development of IJVs if control between the parent firms is well balanced; otherwise, guanxi can trigger opportunism and leads to failures.

The study unravels how guanxi leads to successful outcomes in IJV formation and management, which assist managers who operate IJVs with their decision-making.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous paper has critically analysed the literature on IJVs using a guanxi perspective at micro (personal), meso (business) and (macro) governmental levels. This approach allows for providing more nuanced view of the role of guanxi in the formation and management of IJVs and aligns more closely with managerial decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the existing literature on entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) by employing the integrated model of personality traits and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). It further examines the mediating role of TPB’s dimensions between personality traits and EIs of final-year university students in two diverse economies: China and Pakistan.

The paper uses a survey method for data collection, administered both in electronic and paper form. The authors use structural equation modeling and the partial least square (PLS) method on a sample of 1,016 students and present PLS path modeling, mediation analysis and multigroup analysis.

Results reveal several differences regarding personality traits and TPB on EIs across the two countries. The impact of TPB was positive and significant in both countries; however, TPB demonstrated more explaining power in China’s student sample. Using three personality traits (risk-taking propensity, proactive personality and internal locus of control) as antecedents to TPB, the results reveal a stronger influence of personality traits among Chinese students. The mediation of three dimensions of TPB also revealed differences between country samples.

This is the first study of its kind to compare and contrast the differences between EIs in terms of personality and the determinants of planned behavior among university students in two diverse economies. The integrated model is original, supports both TPB and personality factors and provides a valuable perspective through its findings on two culturally diverse Asian countries. By applying the model in two different cultures, this study distinguishes the results for the two economies from those conducted in other economies.

The purpose of this paper is to expand our understanding on team listening by incorporating an action component. The authors empirically test the effect of this expanded concept, namely team action listening on team success, and investigate how team commitment moderates the relationship between team trust and team action listening.

The authors explored listening in teams in the field and in the lab, both qualitatively and quantitatively, through studying 474 team members representing 100 teams. The authors tested the hypotheses by structural equation modeling augmented with in-depth team interviews.

The findings showed that: teams demonstrate that they listen by taking action, teams that exhibit action listening are more successful, there is a direct relationship between team trust and team action listening and team commitment negatively moderates this relation in larger teams.

Managers should encourage taking action in team discussions. Yet, they should be wary of the detrimental effects of team commitment to team action listening particularly in teams with high trust. Commitment increases the risk of groupthink and decreases the participation to team discussions and listening. In particular, managers may benefit from keeping the team smaller, as in large teams, commitment suppresses the relationship between trust and team action listening.

This study extends research on team listening by adding the action aspect that distinguishes successful teams. It is one of the first to investigate the interrelationships between team trust, commitment, team action listening and success in teams.