28 research outputs found
The role of the entrepreneurial university in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict economy: an exploratory study of Rwanda
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the entrepreneurial university in supporting the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a post conflict, transitional economy. We developed a cross case analysis to identify common themes and patterns in the data. Our findings demonstrate that in a post conflict, transitional economy entrepreneurial universities entrepreneurial ecosystem development is constrained by a number of institutional factors including, structures, systems, leadership, strategies, and culture. We further identify that, when an entrepreneurial ecosystem system has been destroyed during conflict, these constraints present significant challenges to the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem post conflict. Second, in a departure from other studies, our findings also outline the role of the entrepreneurial university in the unique evolution of the post conflict entrepreneurial ecosystem in Rwanda. We identify that the entrepreneurial ecosystem evolves through a number of stages including, embryonic, destruction, formation, and capacity building stages
Entrepreneursâ age, institutions, and social value creation goals: a multi-country study
This study explores the relationship between an entrepreneur's age and his/her social value creation goals. Building on the lifespan developmental psychology literature and institutional theory, we hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between entrepreneursâ age and their choice to create social value through their ventures, such that younger and older entrepreneurs create more social value with their businesses while middle age entrepreneurs are relatively more economically and less socially oriented with their ventures. We further hypothesize that the quality of a countryâs formal institutions in terms of economic, social, and political freedom steepen the U-shaped relationship between entrepreneursâ age and their choice to pursue social value creation as supportive institutional environments allow entrepreneurs to follow their age-based preferences. We confirm our predictions using multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions on a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs (aged between 18 and 64 years) in 45 countries from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data. The findings are robust to several alternative specifications. Based on our findings, we discuss implications for theory and practice, and we propose future research directions
Prosociality in business: a human empowerment framework
This study introduces a human empowerment framework to better understand why some businesses are more socially oriented than others in their policies and activities. Building on Welzelâs theory of emancipation, we argue that human empowermentâcomprised of four components: action resources, emancipative values, social movement activity, and civic entitlementsâenables, motivates, and entitles individuals to pursue social goals for their businesses. Using a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs from 43 countries, we report strong empirical evidence for two ecological effects of the framework components on prosociality. We find that human empowerment (1) lifts entrepreneursâ willingness to choose a social orientation for their business, and (2) reinforces the gender effect on prosociality in business activity. We discuss the human empowerment frameworkâs added value in understanding how modernization processes fully leverage the potential of social business activities for societies
The impact of work-related values and work control on the career satisfaction of female freelancers
Using the job demands-resources theory incorporating a job-crafting perspective to develop a set of hypotheses, this study contributes to the self-employment and freelancing literature by examining whether female freelancers use their agency to mobilize their personal resources (i.e. work-related values) to craft their work resources (i.e. workâcontrol indicators: work autonomy and time-spatial flexibility) to achieve more career satisfaction. Our structural partial least squares model (Nâ=â203) shows that the work-related value âintrinsically rewarding workâ prompts two motivational processes that affect career satisfaction: one running directly to âcareer satisfactionâ and one through âwork autonomyâ. Although the value âworkâlife balanceâ is positively associated with greater âtime-spatial flexibilityâ, this does not affect career satisfaction. Moreover, we find negative associations between the value âfinancial securityâ, on the one hand, and the two work resources, on the other hand. Hence, the value financial security is negatively related to work autonomy towards career satisfaction. We conclude that female freelancersâ multiple, oftentimes blended values compete with one another, implying that achieving meaningful work, workâlife balance and financial independence simultaneously is difficult in female freelancersâ careers. We discuss the studyâs implications for future research and advocate labourâmarket stakeholders (e.g. freelancers, freelancersâ networks, career coaches, temporary work agencies, unions, local and national governments, educational institutions and public and private organizations) to partner in developing value-based career strategies and policies that account for less linear career paths in increasingly flexible and individualized markets and truly support (female) workers developing portfolios that better match with their multiple work-related values on a long-term basis
Business performance and angels presence: A fresh look from France 2008â2011
Business angels enjoy a strong reputation for being more efficient than other investors among policy makers, practitioners, and scholars. However, due to the limited availability of specific financial data, previous research has barely assessed the impact of angels on companiesâ performance. This paper seeks to bridge this gap by providing evidence from a unique dataset made up of 432 angel-backed French companies which are compared to two control groups, one randomly selected and another one consisting of similar enterprises. This double comparison process enables us to purge our analysis of structural effect and to demonstrate the importance of the methodology in generating the sample. Indeed, the results we obtain significantly differ depending on the control group. Our results show that the positive influence of angels depends on the condition of the comparison. The set of BA-backed companies is more likely to exhibit superior performance when it is compared to a random sample whereas the companiesâ performance is either identical or worse when it is compared to a sample composed of k-nearest neighbors. In addition, using a quantile regression technique makes it possible to differentiate the effect of business angels based on the distribution of the value of the growth rate. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York
Leveraging the macro-level environment to balance work and life: an analysis of female entrepreneurs' job satisfaction
This study investigates the interactive effect of female entrepreneursâ experience of workâlife imbalance and gender-egalitarian macro-level conditions on their job satisfaction, with the prediction that the negative linear relationship between workâlife imbalance and job satisfaction may be buffered by the presence of women-friendly action resources, emancipative values, and civic entitlements. Data pertaining to 7,392 female entrepreneurs from 44 countries offer empirical support for these predictions. Female entrepreneurs who are preoccupied with their ability to fulfill both work and life responsibilities are more likely to maintain a certain level of job satisfaction, even if they experience significant workâlife imbalances, to the extent that they operate in supportive macro-level environments