Search results
1 – 10 of 342Brian Gregory, Allan Discua Cruz and Sarah L. Jack
There is a growing interest on how critical perspectives can help us understand family businesses. Current literature suggests that critical reflection is needed in aspects such…
Abstract
There is a growing interest on how critical perspectives can help us understand family businesses. Current literature suggests that critical reflection is needed in aspects such as conflict, fear, and emotions. In this chapter, we argue that the use of a critical perspective illuminates the intricate complexities of family business behavior and that a critical discussion around fear, which is conceptualized as both an inhibitor and a motivator for business, plays a significant role in the dark side of family business. To advance understanding, we review recent conversations that can help us understand better the role of fear; how does this impact on resilience? And, how do feelings and emotions impact family firms? In our review, we argue that perspectives that focus on specific tangible resources (e.g. financial) are limited to explain how families in business may deal with fear. A critical perspective suggests that three areas merit further attention: fear of failure, effects of failure, and the intersection between entrepreneurial learning and the effects of fear in the dark side of family businesses. By contextualizing critical approaches, we provide insight for researchers, policymakers, and those operating family businesses alike.
Details
Keywords
Jan A. Pfister, David Otley, Thomas Ahrens, Claire Dambrin, Solomon Darwin, Markus Granlund, Sarah L. Jack, Erkki M. Lassila, Yuval Millo, Peeter Peda, Zachary Sherman and David Sloan Wilson
The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors share a common concern about the future of humanity and nature. They challenge the influential assumption of economic man from neoclassical economic theory and build on evolutionary science and the core design principles of prosocial groups to develop a prosocial paradigm.
Findings
Findings are based on the premise of the prosocial paradigm that self-interested behaviour may outperform prosocial behaviour within a group but that prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interest. The authors explore various dimensions of performance management from the prosocial perspective in the private and public sectors.
Research limitations/implications
The authors call for theoretical, conceptual and empirical research that explores the prosocial paradigm. They invite any approach, including positivist, interpretive and critical research, as well as those using qualitative, quantitative and interventionist methods.
Practical implications
This paper offers implications from the prosocial paradigm for practitioners, particularly for executives and managers, policymakers and educators.
Originality/value
Adoption of the prosocial paradigm in research and practice shapes what the authors call the prosocial market economy. This is an aspired cultural evolution that functions with market competition yet systematically strengthens prosociality as a cultural norm in organizations, markets and society at large.
Details
Keywords
Águeda Gil-López, Elena San Román, Sarah L. Jack and Ricardo Zózimo
This chapter explores how network bricolage, as a form of collective entrepreneurship, develops over time and influences the shape and form of an organization. Using a historical…
Abstract
This chapter explores how network bricolage, as a form of collective entrepreneurship, develops over time and influences the shape and form of an organization. Using a historical organization study of SEUR, a Spanish courier company founded in 1942, the authors show how network bricolage is implemented as a dynamic process of collaborative efforts between bricoleurs who draw on their historical experience to build and develop an organization. Our study offers two main contributions. In combining network bricolage with ideas of collective entrepreneurship, the authors first extend knowledge about the practice of bricolage and the role of the bricoleur in the entrepreneurial context beyond start-up. Second, the authors show that, while entrepreneurs’ decisions are historically contingent, it is how entrepreneurs wed past experience with current context which informs their actions in the present, shaping the enterprise for the future.
Details
Keywords
Alistair R. Anderson, Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd and Sarah L. Jack
The purpose of this paper is to consider why entrepreneurship theorising has become fragmented and how the research problem might be resolved.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider why entrepreneurship theorising has become fragmented and how the research problem might be resolved.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors first examine how entrepreneurial constructs reflect only part of what we “mean” by the construct to argue that we use different social constructions. This explains why theories are fragmented. But the authors then ask how we might use and reconcile this diversity, pointing to the utility of the constructs as part of a complex whole. The authors discuss entrepreneurship as a complex adaptive system showing how connections and relatedness help explain the power of entrepreneurship to use and adapt to change.
Research implications
The authors' proposition of entrepreneurial endeavours as a complex adaptive system provides a fresh theoretical platform to examine aspects of entrepreneurship and improve theorising.
Practical implications
The authors argue that this idea of connecting can also be used at the level of practice – how the connections that entrepreneurs use may help to explain some of what goes on in entrepreneurial practice.
Originality/value
The paper's contribution is a relatively novel way of connecting diverse theorising.
Details
Keywords
Sarah L. Jack and Alistair R. Anderson
The enterprise culture is founded on the premise that entrepreneurship is the engine that drives the economy. One aspect of this cultural pervasion is the increase in the numbers…
Abstract
The enterprise culture is founded on the premise that entrepreneurship is the engine that drives the economy. One aspect of this cultural pervasion is the increase in the numbers of educational institutions teaching entrepreneurship courses. Yet this hegemony of the encouragement of new business start‐up, almost for its own sake, needs to be critically reviewed. One aspect is the enigmatic nature of entrepreneurship itself; what is it, and can it be taught? Another aspect is the very different expectations of those stakeholders promoting entrepreneurship education. Argues that the process of entrepreneurship involves both art and science; consequently our students need more than SME management skills. Graduating enterprise students must be innovative and creative to satisfy the need for entrepreneurial novelty ‐ the art. Yet, paradoxically they also need to be competent and multifunctional managers ‐ the science. Explores both these areas to argue that theory can bridge the art and science. The final section explains briefly how the recent research and practice at Aberdeen University attempts this synthesis. The intended outcome of our educational process are reflective practitioners, fit for an entrepreneurial career.
Details
Keywords
Xileidys Parra, Xavier Tort-Martorell, Fernando Alvarez-Gomez and Carmen Ruiz-Viñals
Rational use of the information available to companies is one of the strategic concerns for both family businesses and non-family businesses. The aim is to make the best use of…
Abstract
Rational use of the information available to companies is one of the strategic concerns for both family businesses and non-family businesses. The aim is to make the best use of the information resulting from data analysis in order to gain strategic advantage and to be more competitive as a company in all its functional areas. Experience indicates that emotions play an important role, especially in family businesses. Many maturation models exist to analyze decision-making processes (DMPs), but none from the perspective of family business cognition. The authors start from their own “Circumplex Hierarchical Representation of Organisation Maturity Assessment” (CHROMA) model (Parra, Tort-Martorell, Ruiz-Viñals, & Alvarez-Gomez, 2017), which was created to support decision processes in family businesses. This model was proven successful in the analysis of DMPs in large family businesses. The model was simplified as CHROMA-SHADE (Parra, Tort-Martorell, Ruiz-Viñals, & Alvarez-Gomez, 2019), more adequate for the analysis of small and medium-sized family businesses. Despite being a good DMP analysis instrument, intangible aspects such as family values and emotions have not yet been included. Both entrepreneurial emotions and entrepreneurial cognition must be taken into account when analyzing the DMP of the family business. In this chapter, the authors wish to explore attributes that can be introduced into a new dimension in the CHROMA model in order to make it more specific in the analysis of DMPs of family businesses regardless of size. The resulting FAMILY-CHROMA model represents a specific maturation model to evaluate DMPs based on the use of business information of family businesses.
Details
Keywords
Alistair R. Anderson and Sarah L. Jack
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the context, approach and teaching techniques used for entrepreneurship education need to reflect the different roles that encompass…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the context, approach and teaching techniques used for entrepreneurship education need to reflect the different roles that encompass enterprise.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyse and reflect upon what attributes, qualities, skills and knowledge are required for the different roles involved in entrepreneurship.
Findings
From the analysis the authors identify role typologies and argue that teaching entrepreneurship needs to produce a combination of the creative talents of the artist, the skills and ability of the artisan, yet include the applied knowledge of the technician with the know‐what of the professional. The authors then present some examples of pedagogies in entrepreneurship that might be used to develop the skills required for these roles.
Practical implications
The authors demonstrate why the teaching of entrepreneurship requires a combination of theory and practice.
Originality/value
The paper shows that a different approach to understanding entrepreneurial pedagogy may be useful for educators and students.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details