Stepping out of the shadow: the leadership qualities of successors in family business

The purpose of this study is to better understand the development of successors in the family business and their approach to the leadership of the firm. Foundational concepts in the family business literature and leadership literature are reviewed. I propose an integration of leadership theory into family business studies. I examine the reasons successors join the family business, the successors development from follower to leader, differences between founders and successors, and the leadership qualities of successors. A case study approach is followed, using a mixture of qualitative interviews and a survey questionnaire, the Organizational Leadership Assessment. Six family businesses are described in detail, including an air conditioning wholesale company, a pest control company, an automobile dealership, a printing business, a funeral home, and an air conditioning service company. Reasons for successors to enter the family business include expectation, convenience, opportunity, and closeness to family members. Successors move through the stages of student of the organization, low level manager, top manager, and finally owner. I identify five areas of differences between founders and successors, including business environment concerns, company changes, ownership complexity, and two internal differences regarding entrepreneurial activity and business risk approach. Important leadership qualities for successors include the need for hands-on technical knowledge, the importance of long-term orientation, the need for a spirit of cooperation among family leaders, and the relevance of servant leadership. I provide eight propositions for encouraging the next generation to join the business, five propositions to encourage the development of successors, two propositions to understand the differences between successors and founders, and two propositions to understand the leadership qualities of successors

Mapping Perceptions of Burnout in the Information Technology Profession: A Study Using Social Representations Theory

Job-related burnout in information technology professionals is seen as a serious issue for organizations and individuals. While the substantial body of research on job stress and burnout can provide valuable insights into the prevention of burnout in IT as well as interventions, we argue that drawing upon this work should be done with caution. In particular, generalizability of the learnings beyond the occupations studied (predominantly people-oriented and/or caregiving roles) cannot be assumed. As a first step toward assessing the applicability of existing burnout research to IT, the purpose of the study described in this paper is to understand how IT professionals make sense of and assign meaning to burnout in the profession. The study uses an approach based on social representations theory, which was first formulated by French social psychologist Serge Moscovici. Social representations are defined as the shared images and concepts through which we organize our world. Transcripts from in-depth interviews of 20 IT professionals were content- analyzed and 22 key topics (concepts) identified. Quantitative methods (including analysis of similarity and analyses to determine the relational structure of the concepts) were used to create a social representations map of these professionals’ understandings of burnout. The map provides preliminary evidence of elements that are central/peripheral to those understandings, pointing to implications for the applicability of existing theory on burnout as well as priorities for future research

The social construction of the serial killer.

The research examined the social construction of the serial murderer. The primary theoretical proposition was that the serial murderer had learned to become such a murderer and therefore is a product of society. Sociological profiles of different types of serial murderers were created. The typologies employed in the research were the frequently cited typologies of serial murderer offered by Holmes and DeBurger (1988). The main source of data for the research was all available secondary information on the convicted serial killers Clifford Olson, Arthur Shawcross and Jeffrey Dahmer. The research followed a case study methodology and format. The results of the research determined that the hedonistic, power/control and mission-oriented typologies employed in the study were too general to be mutually exclusive and definitive. The typologies could become more valuable in terms of explanation through the continuing study of the social construction of the serial killer, and the creation of more social profiles. The research concluded that the study of the social construction of the serial killer through social profiling has much practical and theoretical usefulness. A recommendation for future research was to undertake the functional analyses of the social profiles of a larger number of serial murderers to increase the validity of social profiling criteria and ultimately provide the best explanation of how society produces the serial murderer.Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1995 .C37. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 34-06, page: 2251. Adviser: Thomas O\u27Reilly-Fleming. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1995

Examining the Entrepreneurial Mindset and Entrepreneurial Intentions

We examined factors contributing to developing entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and the relationship between EI and the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) among nascent student entrepreneurs. Further, we seek to increase awareness among business practitioners of the value of nascent entrepreneurs to the economy. Utilizing the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior, we investigated personal and contextual factors related to EI. We surveyed 400 US business college students, comparing those with EI (n=228) and those without EI (n=178). Our findings indicated that compared to respondents who did not have EI, respondents who possessed EI reported several significant personal factors. Specifically, they were more likely to view themselves as entrepreneurs, have family members who owned their own businesses, lead group projects as students, and have previously worked in a startup business. Additionally, the contextual factor of the Covid-19 pandemic positively affected business students who possessed EI

Examining the Entrepreneurial Intentions of U.S. Ethnic Minorities During the Covid-19 Pandemic

We examine minority entrepreneurial intentions in the U.S. and seek to make business leaders and business educators aware of minority students’ interest in entrepreneurship activity. Utilizing the theory of planned behavior, we investigated if demographic and behavioral factors are related to entrepreneurial intentions. A major contextual factor was that we performed our research during the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed the entrepreneurial intentions of 400 U.S. business college students, comparing minority respondents (n=137) with white respondents (n=263). The minority respondents belonged to the three predominant minority entrepreneur groups in the U.S. -- African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. Minority respondents had significantly greater entrepreneurial intentions than their white counterparts. We investigated contextual factors affecting minority entrepreneurial intentions and found that a significant difference existed regarding the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in that it counter-intuitively increased minority entrepreneurial intentions. Significant personal factors included having family members who own a business and having a role model

Drivers of Entrepreneurial Intentions in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic

This study investigated the effect of the personality factors, creativity, risk-taking, and locus of control, on the entrepreneurial intentions of U.S. business college students, employing the theoretical lens of the theory of planned behavior. We surveyed 353 student respondents, comparing those with self-reported entrepreneurial intentions (n=213) versus those without entrepreneurial intentions (n=140). Our results indicated that the personality characteristics of risk-taking and creativity both significantly and positively predicted entrepreneurial intentions, but locus of control did not have a significant impact. Contextually, this study was undertaken during the extensive difficulties of the Covid-19 pandemic. One positive consequence of the pandemic has been a heightened interest in entrepreneurship. We advise business school educators to pursue activities that encourage nascent entrepreneurship by fostering creativity and providing educational initiatives that help students reduce the perceived risk of starting their own businesses

Data Processing Techniques for Ion and Electron Energy Distribution Functions

Retarding field energy analyzers and Langmuir probes are routinely used to obtain ion and electron energy distribution functions (IEDF, EEDF). These typically require knowledge of the first and second derivatives of the I-V characteristics, both of which can be obtained in various ways. This poses challenges inherent to differentiating noisy signals, a frequent problem with electric-probe plasma diagnostics. A brief review of commonly used analog and numerical filtering and differentiation techniques is presented, together with their application on experimental data collected in a radio-frequency plasma. The application of each method is detailed with regards to the obtained IEDF and EEDF, the deduced plasma parameters, dynamic range, energy resolution and signal distortion.Comment: A.C. and F.F. are co-first authors. The following article has been submitted to Physics of Plasmas. After it is published, it will be found at https://aip.scitation.org/journal/ph

Provenance Variability in Coeval Slope Channel Systems : Hermod S2 Member Sandstone (Eocene), South Viking Graben (North Sea)

Funding Information: This research was conducted as part of a Ph.D. project funded by AkerBP. Acknowledgments: We would like to express our deepest gratitude to sponsors from AkerBP who kindly provided funding and data necessary for this research. We would also like to thank Kingba Princewill, Ahmed Jama Ahmed, Elliot Foley and Fraser Scott for their outstanding work on their respective MSc projects, which helped further this research, and other staff at the University of Aberdeen, most notably John Still for his support with microprobe analysis. This article belongs to the Collection Detrital Minerals: Their Application in Palaeo-Reconstruction)Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Helicon waves in a converging-diverging magnetoplasma

Waves propagating along a converging-diverging rf magnetoplasma having the characteristics of a bounded m=0 helicon mode are reported and characterised. The discharge features a 30 cm separation between the region of radiofrequency energy deposition by a single loop antenna and the region of maximum magnetic field applied by a pair of coils. With 200 W of rf input power, the resulting plasma exhibits a strong axial plasma density gradient peaking at the magnetic mirror throat where an Ar II blue-core is observed. Two dimensional B-dot probe measurements show that the rf magnetic fields are closely guided by the converging-diverging geometry. The wave is characterised as a m=0 mode satisfying the helicon dispersion relation on-axis with radial boundary conditions approximately matching the radii of the plasma column. Analysis of the wave phase velocity and wave axial damping failed to identify collisionless or collisional wave-plasma coupling mechanisms. Instead, the wave axial amplitude variations can be explained by local wave resonances and possible reflections from localised rapid changes of the refractive index. A Venturi-like effect owing to the funnel-shaped magnetoplasma and conservation of the wave energy may also explain some level of amplitude variations.Comment: The following article has been submitted to Plasma Sources Science and Technolog