Who put the “NO” in Innovation? Innovation resistance leaders’ behaviors and self-identities

Individuals can exert strong influence on the fate of innovations. However, we know little about the most conspicuous market actors who resist innovations: innovation resistance leaders. We define innovation resistance leaders as figureheads in media and as active opponents who act against an innovation to exert influence at the societal level. To understand their role, we seek to answer the following questions: How do innovation resistance leaders engage in resistance, and who are these leaders? Our exploratory qualitative analysis of eight resistance cases reveals the following two behaviorally distinct resistance leader types. Initiators are among the first people to notice a problem after an innovation launch, and they scale up a resistance movement through the media (i.e., they organize a resistance initiation process), whereas Aggregators join an existing movement after a critical mass of negative voices has been reached (i.e., they organize a resistance aggregation process). Regarding resistance leaders’ self-identities, Initiators tend to have a missionary social identity while Aggregators tend to have a consumerist one. We contribute to innovation resistance and adoption as well as innovation diffusion literature by conceptualizing a new type of resister who, based on their self-identity, performs two distinct and newly identified resistance diffusion processes

Strangers in my home : the 2015 refugee event in Europe and founder social identities of nascent entrepreneurs

How does the grand challenge of refugees influence nascent entrepreneurs in host countries? To explore this question, we build on social identity theory and analyse how the 2015 European refugee event is related to the strength of different founder social identities (i.e. Darwinian, Communitarian, and Missionary founder social identities) of nascent entrepreneurs in the countries accommodating the refugees. Using a dataset of 6,096 nascent entrepreneurs from 24 European countries, we reveal a positive relationship between the refugee event and the strength of the Communitarian founder social identity. This relationship is even stronger when the previous percentage of foreign migrants in a country is lower and is mediated by the human health and social work industry. Interestingly, we do not find significant relationships between the refugee event and the strengths of the Darwinian or Missionary founder social identity, respectively. Hence, refugees as a grand challenge are likely to have divergent influences on different types of entrepreneur- ship in society

Strangers in my home: the 2015 refugee event in Europe and founder social identities of nascent entrepreneurs

How does the grand challenge of refugees influence nascent entrepreneurs in host countries? To explore this question, we build on social identity theory and analyse how the 2015 European refugee event is related to the strength of different founder social identities (i.e. Darwinian, Communitarian, and Missionary founder social identities) of nascent entrepreneurs in the countries accommodating the refugees. Using a dataset of 6,096 nascent entrepreneurs from 24 European countries, we reveal a positive relationship between the refugee event and the strength of the Communitarian founder social identity. This relationship is even stronger when the previous percentage of foreign migrants in a country is lower and is mediated by the human health and social work industry. Interestingly, we do not find significant relationships between the refugee event and the strengths of the Darwinian or Missionary founder social identity, respectively. Hence, refugees as a grand challenge are likely to have divergent influences on different types of entrepreneurship in society

Do patients value a hospital’s innovativeness reputation? A multi-method approach to assess the relative importance of innovativeness reputation in patients’ hospital choice

Innovations in health care are costly and risky, but they also provide the opportunity for hospitals to increase quality of care, to distinguish themselves from competitors and to attract patients. While numerous hospitals strive to increase their innovativeness by adopting a costly innovation leader strategy, the question of whether this actually influences the patient’s choice remains unanswered. To understand the role of innovativeness from the patient perspective, this study conceptualizes the construct of innovativeness reputation of hospitals and determines its relevance in patients’ hospital choice decisions. In the pretest, we identified six dimensions of innovativeness reputation such as progressive work procedures and value added services. We then used three different quantitative multi-criteria decision-making methods to evaluate the relative importance of innovativeness reputation in patient choice. We collected data from 355 former German patients who had undergone elective non-emergency surgery. Overall, innovativeness reputation accounts for 11.6%–16.8% of the patient decision. Innovativeness reputation has a moderate influence on hospital choice and should be taken into account by managers. Since technical innovations are costly, hospitals should use other means to enhance their innovative image. Strategies such as emphasizing value added services can enable hospitals to increase their innovativeness reputation efficiently

Für mehr Gründerinnen in der Schweiz: Ansatzpunkte zur Verbesserung gründungsrelevanter Rahmenbedingungen

Mit der vorliegenden Studie, die quantitative und qualitative Daten berücksichtigt, möchten wir herausfinden, wie Expert*innen die gründungsbezogenen Rahmenbedingungen für Unternehmensgründungen durch Frauen einschätzen und inwiefern sie Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Rahmenbedingungen für Frauen im Vergleich zu Männern sehen. Anlass für die Studie ist die niedrigere Gründungsquote von Frauen. Gemäss des Global Entrepreneurship Monitors 2022 liegt die Gründungsquote von Frauen bei 7.2 %, jene der Männer bei 12.3 % (Baldegger, Gaudart & Wild, 2022). Bei innovations- und wachstumsbasierten Unternehmensgründungen sind die Unterschiede noch grösser. So sind beispielsweise nur knapp 7 % der im Swiss Start-up Radar aufgeführten Finanzierungsrunden von Unternehmen abgewickelt worden, die frauengeführt sind (Kyora & Rockinger, 2020)

Resilienz durch soziale Innovation: Erfolgsfaktoren und Barrieren von sozialen Innovationen in der Stadtregion Bern

Soziale Innovationen, definiert als neue Lösungen für soziale Probleme, können zur Resilienz einer Gesellschaft beitragen. Damit deren Potenzial genutzt werden kann, gilt es jedoch, die Erfolgsfaktoren und Barrieren bei der Umsetzung von sozialen Innovationen zu verstehen. Dieser Beitrag untersucht deshalb im Rahmen einer Interviewstudie die Erfolgsfaktoren und Barrieren für soziale Innovationen im Raum Bern und stellt heraus, wie konkret zur Förderung von sozialen Innovationen beigetragen werden kann

Pathways to social value and social change : an integrative review of the social entrepreneurship literature

Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an important means of addressing grand challenges. Although research on the topic has accelerated, scholars have yet to articulate an overarching framework that links the different pathways taken by social entrepreneurs with the positive effects of these efforts. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a systematic literature review which enabled us to conceptually differentiate between social value and social change as distinct outcomes of social entrepreneurship and identify seven pathways for achieving these outcomes. Building on our analysis, we outline a research agenda for questions pertaining to: the dynamics between social value and social change; how contextual factors and social entrepreneurs influence various pathways; design principles of business models and innovations that facilitate social value and social change; and defining, measuring, and ensuring accountability for social value and social change

Blinded by a social cause? Differences in cognitive biases between social and commercial entrepreneurs

How are social entrepreneurs different from commercial entrepreneurs? This study sheds light on this issue by applying the perspective of entrepreneurial cognition and by arguing that social entrepreneurs are even more susceptible to cognitive biases than commercial entrepreneurs. The empirical study of 205 Swiss entrepreneurs could confirm that social entrepreneurs tend to be more overconfident and prone to escalation of commitment than commercial entrepreneurs, while the study found no differences for illusion of control. The findings indicate that cognitive biases are an important puzzle piece to understand the differences between social and commercial entrepreneurs