Entrepreneurial intentions: The influence of organizational and individual factors

An individual's intent to pursue an entrepreneurial career can result from the work environment and from personal factors. Drawing on the entrepreneurial intentions and the person–environment (P–E) fit literatures, and applying a multilevel perspective, we examine why individuals intend to leave their jobs to start business ventures. Findings, using a sample of 4192 IT professionals in Singapore, suggest that work environments with an unfavorable innovation climate and/or lack of technical excellence incentives influence entrepreneurial intentions, through low job satisfaction. Moderating effects suggest that an individual's innovation orientation strengthens the work-environment to job-satisfaction relationship; selfefficacy strengthens the job-satisfaction to entrepreneurial intentions relationship.Entrepreneurial intentions Job satisfaction Self-efficacy

Team design and performance : a study of short-term enterpreneurial teams

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-202).In this dissertation, I study the factors that influence the performance of short-term teams engaged in an entrepreneurial activity. This is an important area to study because team-started businesses account for a disproportionately greater number of high-growth firms (Kamm, Shuman and Seeger, 1990). Unfortunately, there has been limited research on team started businesses. The entrepreneurial teams that I study are participants in the MIT $50K Business Plan Competition. This sample is chosen because business plan competitions are increasingly becoming the meeting place for new ideas, people interested in starting business ventures and others who are interested in participating in these ventures (e.g., patent attorneys, investors and venture capitalists). In addition, the sample overcomes some problems typical of many entrepreneurship studies including left censoring biases, population identification and low response rates. Chapter 1 is an overview of the thesis while chapter 2 describes the entrepreneurial activities at MIT. Chapter 3 describes the MIT$50K Business Plan Competition and elaborates the steps taken to collect information from competition participants. Since entrepreneurial team performance is influenced by factors both internal and external to the team, this thesis takes a comprehensive approach, presenting three papers that explore the effects of team composition, team design and external contacts on entrepreneurial team performance. Both external and team-member evaluations of entrepreneurial team performance are used. Both evaluations are important because positive external evaluations can increase the venture's chances of getting resources (e.g., Roberts, 1991a) while positive internal evaluations can increase the chance that members will be satisfied with their teams and continue in team involvement (e.g., Hackman, 1987). The first paper, described in chapter 4, explores the influence of team design, both team structure and member interaction, on short-term entrepreneurial team performance. The findings show that there are different drivers of performance. While task design predicts external evaluations of performance, the way in which members interact predicts member-rated performance. The second paper, described in chapter 5, explores the influence of team-member functional diversity on short-term entrepreneurial team performance, with team design as the mediating variable. This study shows the need to investigate the indirect effects of functional diversity on performance and to distinguish between external and team-member evaluations. The results show that functional diversity has negative indirect effect on member-rated performance but no effect on external-rated performance. The third paper, described in chapter 6, explores the influence of member contacts with people outside the team on short-term entrepreneurial team performance. The study shows that high-performing teams gather a range of information and are efficient in information gathering. The study shows that social capital concepts, such as strong and weak ties, can be integrated with the team literature. The concluding chapter proposes a model that combines the influence of internal and external factors on entrepreneurial team performance. The chapter also summarizes the findings and compares them to the new venture and team literatures. Finally, areas for future research are proposed.by Maw-Der Foo.Ph.D

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION ACTIVITIES IN FIRMS AND PROPENSITY OF INDIVIDUALS STARTING NEW BUSINESSES

Prior studies have found that knowledge gained from work experience is a way to gather insights for business opportunity recognition. However, little is known about the specific types of knowledge that lead to business founding. Utilizing concepts from knowledge spillovers and from the opportunity recognition literatures, this paper argues that through an organization’s technological innovation activities, employees develop specialized knowledge that provides them with the entrepreneurial opportunities to found new businesses. Besides highlighting the positive relationship between technological innovation activities in organizations and the propensity of individuals leaving the organizations to start new businesses, this paper also provides a more fine-grained explanation of the types of technological innovation activities that can lead to business founding. We argue that knowledge acquired through product innovations is more easily appropriated by individuals for commercial uses, while knowledge acquired through process innovations must be integrated with other parts of the organization to be valuable. This study proposes that product innovation activities in an organization more so than process innovation activities in an organization are related to new business founding. Implications for opportunity exploitation and ways to appropriate knowledge spillovers are discussed

Antecedents of Entrepreneurial Propensity: Findings from Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan

The existing literature identifies a number of antecedent factors that positively influence the propensity of individuals to become entrepreneurs. Key among these are self-efficacy, prior knowledge of other entrepreneurs and perception of opportunities. At the same time, policy makers commonly identify fear of failure as a major deterrent factor for entrepreneurs taking the entrepreneurial plunge. This paper examines the relative impacts of these antecedents and deterrent factor on entrepreneurial propensity, defined as the likelihood of starting one’s own business in the three East Asian newly-industrialised economies (NIEs) of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. We also test for possible differences in the variables effects on opportunity vs. necessity entrepreneurial propensities. Our findings highlight significant location differences among the variables in the case of overall, opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship. Finally, we discuss the relevant policy implications from our findings

Antecedents of Entrepreneurial Propensity: Findings from Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan

The existing literature identifies a number of antecedent factors that positively influence the propensity of individuals to become entrepreneurs. Key among these are self-efficacy, prior knowledge of other entrepreneurs and perception of opportunities. At the same time, policy makers commonly identify fear of failure as a major deterrent factor for entrepreneurs taking the entrepreneurial plunge. This paper examines the relative impacts of these antecedents and deterrent factor on entrepreneurial propensity, defined as the likelihood of starting one’s own business in the three East Asian newly-industrialised economies (NIEs) of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. We also test for possible differences in the variables effects on opportunity vs. necessity entrepreneurial propensities. Our findings highlight significant location differences among the variables in the case of overall, opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship. Finally, we discuss the relevant policy implications from our findings

The effects of customer personality traits on the display of positive emotions

Academy of Management Journal472287-29

Reading your Counterpart: The Benefit of Emotion Recognition Accuracy for Effectiveness in Negotiation

Abstract Using meta-analysis, we find a consistent positive correlation between emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) and goal-oriented performance. However, this existing research relies primarily on subjective perceptions of performance. The current study tested the impact of ERA on objective performance in a mixed-motive buyer-seller negotiation exercise. Greater recognition of posed facial expressions predicted better objective outcomes for participants from Singapore playing the role of seller, both in terms of creating value and claiming a greater share for themselves. The present study is distinct from past research on the effects of individual differences on negotiation outcomes in that it uses a performance-based test rather than self-reported measure. These results add to evidence for the predictive validity of emotion recognition measures on practical outcomes

Reading Your Counterpart: The Benefit of Emotion Recognition Accuracy for Effectiveness in Negotiation

10.1007/s10919-007-0033-7Journal of Nonverbal Behavior314205-22