Balance rather than critical mass or tokenism: gender diversity, leadership and performance in financial firms

Purpose: This study analyzes how board’s gender diversity, and more specifically a gender-balanced configuration—i.e., a proportion of women in the boardroom ranging between 40% and 60%—affects economic and risk oriented performance in financial firms. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical application uses a rich dataset that includes detailed accounting and organizational information for all financial firms in the Costa Rican industry during the period 2000-2012. The proposed hypotheses are tested using panel data (fixed-effects) regression models that emphasize that bank performance is affected by various dimensions of the banks’ gender diversity. Findings: The longitudinal analysis of the Costa Rican banking industry reveals that, unlike a proportion indicating a particular critical mass of women on the board, a balanced gender configuration yields superior economic performance (ROA and net intermediation margin). Additionally, the findings show that the performance benefits of gender diversity only exists in the presence of a gender balanced board configuration, and that this positive effect is not conditioned by the presence of women leadership in the corporate hierarchy (Chair or CEO). Originality/value: The paper further explores the influence of board gender diversity on organizational performance by adopting an approach to the gender diversity-performance relationship that goes beyond the mere representation of women within the corporate hierarchy.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Entrepreneurial experience and the innovativeness of serial entrepreneurs

Purpose - This paper examines the effects of past entrepreneurial experience on the reported innovativeness of serial entrepreneurs’ subsequent ventures. Building on insights from the generative entrepreneurial learning process and from cognition theories, we propose that regardless of the type of entrepreneurial experience, positive or negative, such experience enriches the cognitive schemas of serial entrepreneurs leading them to greater reported innovativeness. Knowing this will expand our knowledge of entrepreneurial career development. Design/Methodology/approach - The proposed hypotheses are tested using Heckman regression models relating past entrepreneurial experience, current business ownership and reported innovativeness of current businesses on a unique sample drawn from a Catalan adult population survey. The data on the past entrepreneurial experience of the Catalan adult population were collected specifically for the purpose of this study. Findings - Results reveal that practical experience is an essential prerequisite for entrepreneurial learning, and even negative entrepreneurial experience may induce generative entrepreneurial learning suitable for subsequent outperforming ventures for the psychologically strong who have managed to learn from their experience. Implications - This paper offers insights on how the nature of the past entrepreneurial activity influences future venturing decisions. This study contributes to the academic debate on whether increased entrepreneurial experience and generative learning processes best explain serial entrepreneurial behaviors. Originality/Value - The paper further explores the influence of previous entrepreneurial experience on current entrepreneurial activity by analyzing the relationship between serial entrepreneurship and reported innovativeness.Preprin

The differentiated impact of role models and social fear of failure over the entrepreneurial activities of rural youths

The main objective of this study is to determine the differential impact of certain socio-cultural variables (such as entrepreneurial self-confidence, role models and fear of failure) on the entrepreneurial process of Spanish rural youths. In consonance with the new rural policy paradigm, the European Commission and the OECD are proposing entrepreneurship as a tool for economic diversification and endogenous rural development. Entrepreneurship is associated in rural areas with economic vitality and prosperity. Entrepreneurship in rural areas becomes a means for capturing and optimizing the true natural, social and human capital of a territory as well as a source of opportunity and welfare for the local population. However, in a context where many rural areas are suffering from an aging and retiring population, the emphasis on developing an entrepreneurially active community becomes especially important within the segment of rural youths. Environmental and social-cultural factors have been used to explain differences in entrepreneurship across territories, including the rural urban divide. This line of research has found that certain variables, such as the local presence of role models and the social stigma of failure, have a differential impact over entrepreneurial activity across certain segments of the population (gender, immigrant status). Therefore, this study has the objective to verify whether age affects the impact that certain socio-cultural variables have on the entrepreneurial process of rural and urban youths. The methodology used in this study is the logistic regression model for rare events, with a database of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in Spain for 2009, which has a sample of 26,990 adults. The study shows that young adults in Spain have a higher propensity for entrepreneurial activity than the rest of the population, but discriminating between urban and rural youth, the latter are less likely to be entrepreneurs. Amongst younger-aged individuals, social-cultural factors are found to have a differential impact on entrepreneurship across the rural-urban divide.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Industrial districts in rural areas of Italy and Spain

The industrial district is a model of production mainly related to medium and small cities characterized by industrial specializations in small and medium enterprises. However, the mapping of the phenomenon in countries as Italy and Spain suggest that industrial districts are also present in rural areas. The objective of this contribution is the identification, mapping and characterization of industrial districts located in rural areas as well as to evaluate the extent in which industrial districts in predominantly rural areas have contributed to the dynamism of these areas. The analysis analyzes the importance of industrial districts for rural development and provides some recommendations regarding policy strategies. Specifically, the study illustrates some relevant results. First, industrial districts are present in rural areas of Italy and Spain although their importance is higher in Spain. Second, industrial districts in rural areas are geographically concentrated in a few rural areas. Third, patterns of specialization of industrial districts in rural areas do not differ from their patterns in other areas. Fourth, predominantly rural areas with industrial districts grow between two and three times faster than the rest of rural areas. Fifth, a significant share of the growth of rural areas with industrial districts is explained by the more dynamic behaviour of these districts. Sixth, the results do not vary when transferring the unit of analysis from industrial districts in rural areas to industrial districts with characteristics of predominantly rural areas. The existence of industrial districts in rural areas and their positive economic impact suggest that they have an important potential for development in those concrete rural areas where they are present. The particularity of industrial districts suggests that any policy strategy including industrial districts should be based on the premises of a flexible bottom up framework where the key governance structure becomes the local level

Entrepreneurial experience and the innovativeness of serial entrepreneurs

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of past entrepreneurial experience on the reported innovativeness of serial entrepreneurs’ subsequent ventures. Design/methodology/approach Building on insights from the generative entrepreneurial learning process and from cognition theories, the authors propose that regardless of the type of entrepreneurial experience, positive or negative, such experience enriches the cognitive schemas of serial entrepreneurs leading them to greater reported innovativeness. The proposed hypotheses are tested on a unique sample drawn from a Catalan adult population survey. Findings Results reveal that practical experience is an essential prerequisite for entrepreneurial learning, and even negative entrepreneurial experience may induce generative entrepreneurial learning suitable for subsequent outperforming ventures for the psychologically strong who have managed to learn from their experience. Practical implications The importance of this study stretches beyond a purely academic discussion and has implications for policy making within the area of business and economic development. Appropriate policy depends on the likeliness for serial entrepreneurs to improve. Thus, if serial entrepreneurs learn from their venturing experiences and/or acquire valuable knowledge from them, they may perform better, on average, in subsequent ventures. If subsequent ventures do build upon prior entrepreneurial experiences, calls for policy to encourage re-entries by entrepreneurs may be warranted, even if those entrepreneurs performed poorly in their previous ventures. Originality/value The authors analyze the impact of past performance of serial entrepreneurs on the reported innovativeness of their subsequence ventures. The contributions of this study stand as: the inclusion of the re-entry decision together with the innovativeness decision of entrepreneurs within the same model; separation of the positive or negative nature of serial entrepreneurs’ past experiences; focus on the entrepreneur rather than the firm as a unit of analysis; the use of a unique primary data set specifically collected for the purpose of this study about the past entrepreneurial experience of the Catalan adult population

Gender diversity in the board, women’s leadership and business performance

Purpose: This paper investigates how gender diversity in top management—i.e., boardroom and top management positions—impacts business performance among Colombian public businesses. Design/methodology/approach: Building on the Upper Echelon theory which emphasizes that gender in an important characteristic that influences top management’s decision making, we employ panel data models on a sample of 54 Colombian public businesses for the period 2008-2015 to test the proposed hypotheses relating gender diversity and subsequent business performance. Findings: The results support that gender diversity is positively associated with subsequent business performance. More concretely, we find that the relationship between gender diversity at the top of the corporate hierarchy—in our case, as CEO and in the top management team—and subsequent performance becomes more evident when performance is linked to business operations (ROA), while the positive effect of women’s representation in the boardroom and subsequent performance is significant when performance is measured via shareholder-oriented metrics (ROE). Originality/value: Few studies have addressed the role of gender diversity on performance in developing economies. This study contributes to better understand how gender diversity impacts performance in contexts where women are underrepresented in the top management, and where the appointment of women directors or managers is not driven by regulatory pressures.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Sustainable and traditional product innovation without scale and experience, but only for KIBS!

This study analyzes the ideal strategic trajectory for sustainable and traditional product innovation. Using a sample of 74 Costa Rican high-performance businesses for 2016, we employ fuzzy set analysis (qualitative comparative analysis) to evaluate how the development of sustainable and traditional product innovation strategies is conditioned by the business’ learning capabilities and entrepreneurial orientation in knowledge-intensive (KIBS) and non-knowledge-intensive businesses. The results indicate two ideal strategic configurations of product innovation. The first strategic configuration to reach maximum product innovation requires the presence of KIBS firms that have both an entrepreneurial and learning orientation, while the second configuration is specific to non-KIBS firms with greater firm size and age along with entrepreneurial and learning orientation. KIBS firms are found to leverage the knowledge-based and customer orientations that characterize their business model in order to compensate for the shortage of important organizational characteristics—which we link to liabilities or smallness and newness—required to achieve optimal sustainable and traditional product innovation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Commercialisation et privatisation associative de l'aide au développement

L'essai, intitulé Commercialisation et Privatisation Associative de l'Aide au Développement, tente de percer la réticence qu'a le secteur du développement international face à l'implication d'une gestion commerciale au sein d'effort de développement. Plus précisément, cet essai tente de démontrer le rôle que peut jouer l'introduction du système de gestion, emprunté au secteur privé, sur l'efficacité de l'aide au développement par l'augmentation de son efficience allouée. Contrairement à d'autres analyses antérieures, je fais la distinction entre l'efficience productive/budgétaire et l'efficience allouée qui se base sur les objectifs d'entraide et sociaux de l'intervention

HOW ENTREPRENEURIALLY INFLUENTIAL SOCIAL TRAITS AFFECT BUSINESS CREATION AMONGST RURAL IMMIGRANTS: Evidence from Spain

Usually, immigrants have been studied as employed work force. However, they often choose to become entrepreneurs. According to the relevant literature, there are evidences that immigrants are more entrepreneurially active than local inhabitants. However, results from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for Spain show that this is not consistent across the urban-rural divide. Explanation for variances in entrepreneurship in rural as compared to urban areas have been linked to specific socio-institutional traits that exert a differentiated impact on the entrepreneurial activity levels of specific segments of the population. The objective of this study is to verify how the entrepreneurial activity of rural immigrants responds to socio-institutional traits that have been identified as key explanatory factors of entrepreneurial behaviour. To carry out this research, the Spanish Global Entrepreneur Monitor (GEM) data set from 2008 was used. We conduct a comparative analysis between three population groups: immigrants as compared to non-immigrant, rural immigrant as compared to urban immigrant, and rural immigrants as compared to rural non-immigrants. To do this, a rare events logit regression model was applied. The results indicate that the probability to become an entrepreneur is greater for immigrants. The same is true for an individual residing in a rural area. However, contrary to Spaniards, rural immigrants are not more likely to become entrepreneurs. We find explanation for this in the econometric analysis of the selected socio-institutional traits

Digital disruption of optimal co-innovation configurations

We evaluate the co-innovation trajectory of firms adopting different collaborative innovation networks (i.e., vertical, horizontal, and institutional). The results of the empirical applications are obtained from a multilevel regression, and a Nash bargaining model estimated via data envelopment analysis on a sample of 734 enterprises from seven OECD countries form Europe and Latin America. Findings point to important national and firm-level distinctions across the optimal co-innovation configurations: whereas vertical co-innovation strategies are characteristic of firms with the highest innovation efficiency, institutions are frequently found to be optimal for co-innovation success in less developed innovation systems that may be faced with structural deficiencies. However, digital competency is found to disrupt co-innovation configurations for successful innovation, facilitating the development of efficient vertical and horizontal co-innovation trajectories.© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed