Consideration Sets as Resources for Business Model Generation

Business models as outcomes for entrepreneurship are increasing in prevalence in pedagogy and practice. Instructors and entrepreneurs are focusing efforts on iterating potential ideas through a process of trial and error in hopes to produce working business models. However, such practices need to be better underpinned by theory so we can develop an understanding of how to identify more valuable opportunity ideas and how to progress them towards working business models with fewer trials and errors. This conceptual paper focuses on integrating extant conceptualisations of business models as interdependent activities with research on identifying opportunities as problem-solution pairings. While integrating those literatures, the present framework also details how reliance on constrained, systematic search—with its resource-based view underpinnings—can help individuals with entrepreneurial aspirations identify more valuable opportunities and progress them faster and with fewer trials and errors into working business models

Do Online Consumers Value Corporate Social Responsibility More in Times of Uncertainty?: Evidence from Online Auctions Conducted During the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The relationships between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and consumer behaviors have been widely explored in the literature. From the consumer standpoint, it has been shown that individuals largely want to be socially responsible actors and that, more than ever, they consider the CSR aspects of products or services when contemplating purchasing decisions. We utilize data from 23,247 online auctions conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to analyze in what way consumer preferences might be influenced by how the CSR characteristics of products are touted in their descriptions. We find that a greater CSR emphasis is positively associated with an increased prospect of an online auction item selling. Additionally, we find CSR is valued more by consumers during a period of economic hardship and social uncertainty (COVID-19). Finally, we find that profit-seeking behaviors by intermediary auction house brokers undermine the effect of CSR on consumer purchasing behavior

The Role of Socioemotional Wealth in Entrepreneurial Persistence Decisions for Family Businesses

Many factors may influence entrepreneurial persistence in various contexts. For example, scholars find that family business entrepreneurs are more persistent than other entrepreneurs. However, the reasons why they are more persistent are not as well known. Utilizing a conjoint experiment with 64 entrepreneurs and 376 decisions, this paper examines the influence of socioemotional wealth (SEW) on persistence decisions in a family business context. The results of the Hierarchical Linear Modelling show that the expected financial returns, expected non-financial benefits, expected switching costs, and probability of expected outcomes influence entrepreneurial persistence decisions. Further, family business entrepreneurs with higher levels of SEW focus more on non-financial benefits when facing alternative opportunities. This study also provided empirical evidence for different dimensions of SEW. The results show that the emotional attachment of family members and the renewal of family bonds to the firm are effective indicators, which provide a direct measurement of SEW. The findings of this study increase scholarly understanding of both entrepreneurial persistence literature founded in threshold theory and SEW literature

Engaging and Misbehaving: How Dignity Affects Employee Work Behaviors

While there has been a growing body of research on workplace dignity, the majority of studies tend to focus on how dignity is experienced by organizational members, paying considerably less attention to consequences for organizations. In this study, we explore the influence of workplace dignity on employee work behaviors that affect organizational performance. Framing our inquiry with Sharon Bolton’s yetuntested multidimensional theory of dignity, we analyze Randy Hodson’s content-coded ethnographic data to reveal that increases in workplace dignity tend to predict increases in employee engagement, yet have mixed effects on counterproductive workplace behaviors. Following a post-hoc ethnographic reimmersion, we identify the critical role of safe and secure working conditions in enabling and constraining employees’ ability to redress or resist workplace indignities with counterproductive workplace behaviors