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This paper aims to examine the role of social capital as a strategic decision aid in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in different service sectors.

Data on 434 strategic decisions in service SMEs was gathered through computer‐aided telephone interviews and analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the mediating role of level of risk acceptance and confidence in the relationship between the breadth of social capital and decision effectiveness.

Evaluative judgments (risk acceptance and confidence) explain the negative effects of social capital on decision effectiveness. Service delivery and dependency on tacit know‐how account for differences between SMEs in different service sectors and serve as explanations for different effects of social capital as a decision aid.

The study sheds light on the psychological underpinnings of social capital effects in strategic decisions. Higher varieties of actors make decision makers more tolerant for risk and decrease their confidence, which in turn hampers decision effectiveness.

Previous work on social capital suggests that it is beneficial to outcomes. The literature and policy initiatives also stress the beneficial effects of social capital and networking. This research on strategic decision‐making shows that the positive effects of social capital are not as pronounced as expected for the service SMEs. This paper draws explicit attention to the negative effects for strategic decision‐making.

Purpose – By means of this case study, we aim to learn from failure and provide an explanatory approach why the promising prospects in a developing country could not be exploited and strategic actions failed.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on literature within the areas of uncertainty, entrepreneurial activity and political strategy, we provide an event-based case analysis and develop an explanatory model as to why the foreign direct investment (FDI) failed.

Findings – Results provide insights on the effectiveness of political strategies and point to the relevance of entrepreneurial overconfidence as a diminishing cognitive process leading to a misinterpretation of both internal and external conditions.

Originality/value – The exploratory study provides in-depth insights on a failed business and presents an explanatory approach for the business’ collapse.

This chapter first describes the essential aspects of a currently changing world, which is characterised by digitalisation, globalisation and politically unstable situations. Based on this transformation context, key concepts such as leadership, innovation, innovation leadership and leadership competences are introduced, along with a new definition and framework for innovation leadership. The chapter discusses the distinction between innovation leadership and innovation management, and the connecting lines between these two concepts. The innovation leadership framework is described and related to the individual contributions of the authors in the book. The chapter frames these contributions along the dimensions of self-leadership, team leadership, organisational leadership and ecosystem leadership.

This study analyzes emerging market (EM) firms’ entrepreneurial transformation process at both the cognitive and behavioral levels to facilitate successful international venturing. Specifically, the relationships among entrepreneurial orientation (EO), strategic renewal, and international venturing, the mediating role of strategic renewal, and the contingent roles of technological dynamism and competitiveness are examined. Cross-sectional survey data collected from 137 paired EM firms in China confirm our hypotheses. Results show that strategic renewal positively mediates the link from EO in the form of proactiveness, risk-taking, and innovativeness, to international venturing. Moreover, technological dynamism elevates the mediation effect of strategic renewal, whereas technological competitiveness diminishes the facilitating role of strategic renewal.

Ports and port cities play a pivotal role toward the sustainable development of coastal ecosystems. These ecosystems provide their natural capital by offering favorable locations for industry and accessibility to world markets. While port industrial activities have been reactive to pressure from stakeholders, in more recent years ports have adapted inclusive strategies and seek to align their strategic intentions with stakeholders. Around the world, port authorities are aligning their ambitions toward their contribution to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), such as the World Port Sustainability Program (WPSP) for port authorities and AIVP2030 for port cities. The aim of this chapter is to assess to what extent ports have contributed to the implementation of the SDGs. The analysis is based on a content analysis on a portfolio of 212 projects in which port authorities demonstrate leadership in sustainable development. The results indicate that the contributions of port and port city authorities are generally motivated to “do no harm.” Port authorities also have “do good” intentions for their ecosystems, which are mainly focused on reenforcing connections with communities and less to restore their impact on the biosphere. Furthermore, the findings show that linkages between WPSP projects with the SDGs are rather ambiguous. Directions are given toward a methodology for port authorities (PAs) to establish a stronger link between (monitoring) business strategies with the implementation of inclusive port development strategies to prevent using SDG reporting for greenwashing purposes.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the influence of offshoring on entrepreneurial activity (i.e. the introduction of new products and services).

Methodology/approach – Conceptual

Practical implication – The framework proposed in this study provides some indication to managers about designing an offshoring strategy. Particularly, we aim to inform managers that offshoring various functions may differentially influence firm innovation and that the effect also depends on the governance mode used for the offshore operations and managerial oversight of the offshoring process.

Originality/value of chapter – We provide a theoretical framework that proposes that the offshoring of knowledge intensive services (KIS) and that of labour-intensive services (LIS) will differentially influence the ability of firms to introduce new products and services. While the offshoring of KIS has an inverted U-shaped influence on entrepreneurial activity, the offshoring of LIS has a positive impact. In addition, we propose that these relationships are conditioned by organisational (i.e. governance mode) and managerial (i.e. TMT reflexivity) factors. Specifically, we argue that the degree of integration with the offshore affiliate and TMT reflexivity each moderate the non-linear relationship between offshoring KIS and innovation in such a way that the positive effects of low levels of offshoring KIS will be stronger and the negative effects of high levels of offshoring KIS will be lower. In addition, we argue that the degree of integration constrains and TMT reflexivity enhances the relationship between offshoring LIS and innovation.

This chapter investigates the coffee value chain in Latin America. By drawing on the concept of just transitions as a “connective tissue” between the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the discussion zooms in on the promise of agroforestry for environmental upgrading. The chapter concludes by providing examples of trade-offs between environmental, social and economic aspects.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Over the last decade, scholars extensively discuss talent management phenomenon in various country contexts paying much attention to different exogenous and endogenous factors influencing talent management systems and practices and their relationships with other organizational processes. In this chapter we particularly talk about the peculiarities of talent management in Brazil and Russia and explore the potential impact key management practices aimed at attracting, developing and retaining high potentials and high performers have on the development of firms’ absorptive capacity. We argue that for Brazilian and Russian firms “crossverging” context-specific talent management practices play a key role in the acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation of external and internal valuable knowledge, thus becoming one of the main drivers of organizational performance and competitive advantage.

As the current “one size fits all” research approach is likely to be ineffective in identifying the conditions that promote the entrepreneurial career of the solo self-employed, this paper advances the current understanding of the heterogeneity among the solo self-employed.

A person-centered approach is used to identify groups among the solo self-employed based on their starting motives and to examine their engagement in proactive career behaviors.

Using Latent Class Analysis (LCA), six groups displaying distinct motivational profiles are identified: (1) the pushed by necessity, (2) entrepreneurs by heart, (3) control-seekers, (4) occupationally-driven, (5) challenge-seekers and (6) the family business-driven. In line with the argument that starting motives affect behavior because they reflect the future work selves that individuals aim for, results show that solo self-employed with distinct motivational profiles differ in their engagement in proactive career behaviors. For future research, it is recommended to examine the role of demographic characteristics in the engagement in proactive career behaviors.

Although starting motives among self-employed people have been studied frequently, this research applies an innovative methodological approach by using LCA. Hereby, a potentially more advanced configuration of starting motives is explored. Additionally, this study applies a career perspective towards the domain of solo self-employment by exploring how solo self-employed with distinct motivational profiles differ in terms of managing their entrepreneurial careers.