Asians in the UK: gender, generations and enterprise

Purpose – Asian immigrant entrepreneurs in the UK have been used as examples of what can be done through free enterprise. Academic interest is developing in the changes taking place as newer generations emerge. Seeks to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A small-scale qualitative study was undertaken with interviews of five men and five women entrepreneurs of the second generation. The issues explored included their background, the factors that have influenced, facilitated or inhibited their decision to become self-employed, their experiences of entrepreneurship and the particular issues that confronted them. Female entrepreneurs in the sample were older and felt inhibited and more constrained than their male counterparts in their freedom to act. Findings – Both males and females of second generation entered business through attraction for the opportunities rather than as their only option in an unknown environment. Notwithstanding expectations, later generations did not enter activities adding much greater value than those of the first generation, even though they were better integrated with their environment. Boundary stresses between first and second generation are likely to lead to further studies of succession planning and of the influence of culture and gender on attitudes to enterprise. Originality/value – Methodologically the study is novel in so far as the researcher (an Asian female from a typical family business background) has taken care to observe the cultural proprieties often noted within this particular group. Hence, the data are arguably more authentic than previous studies undertaken by distant researchers

Voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy: determinants and outcomes. An empirical study into the risks and payoffs of communicating corporate strategy.

Business leaders increasingly face pressure from stakeholders to be transparent. There appears however little consensus on the risks and payoffs of disclosing vital information such as corporate strategy. To fill this gap, this study analyzes firm-specific determinants and organisational outcomes of voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. Stakeholder theory and agency theory help to understand whether companies serve their interest to engage with stakeholders and overcome information asymmetries. I connect these theories and propose a comprehensive approach to measure voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. Hypotheses from the theoretical framework are empirically tested through panel regression of data on identified determinants and outcomes and of disclosed strategy through annual reports, corporate social responsibility reports, corporate websites and corporate press releases by the 70 largest publicly listed companies in the Netherlands from 2003 through 2008. I found that industry, profitability, dual-listing status, national ranking status and listing age have significant effects on voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. No significant effects are found for size, leverage and ownership concentration. On outcomes, I found that liquidity of stock and corporate reputation are significantly influenced by voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. No significant effect is found for volatility of stock. My contributions to theory, methodology and empirics offers a stepping-stone for further research into understanding how companies can use transparency to manage stakeholder relations

Switch leadership in projects: An empirical study reflecting the importance of transformational leadership on project success across twenty-eight nations

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”Mahatma GandhiThis paper documents an empirical analysis of leadership in project management practices on 153 projects across 28 nations. This is a two-phase research study for which 46 projects were studied in phase 1 representing 14 nations and 107 projects were examined in phase 2 originating from25 nations. The main purpose of this research is to study the importance of project leadership and team related factors and enlist the factors that play a pivotal role inachieving project success. It is a multinational and thus multicultural research study that represents the presentday project environment, which is highly multicultural and multidisciplinary. The results from the analysis of dataobtained from phase 1 lead to the development of the phase 2 questionnaires that further explores the links between different leadership aspects and project success aspointed out in the phase 1. At the end the author provides a tentative and suggestive list of factors displaying theimpact of critical leadership factors on projectsucces