A configurational analysis of the antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation

Entrepreneurial orientation is widely acknowledged as a strong predictor of firm performance. It is therefore critical to understand the factors and conditions that nurture it. In this paper, we investigate what configurations of motivations and personality traits trigger entrepreneurial orientation in three strategic leadership situations: successor of a family business, family-oriented founder, non-family founder. Strategic leaders in these situations are differently exposed to the opportunities and constraints to pursue entrepreneurial posture, because of the influence of family embeddedness and organizational resistance. We apply Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to a sample of 257 Italian SME owner/managers. We identify 12 coherent configurations of internal and external motivations, and personality traits that are all conducive to entrepreneurial orientation. These configurations are consistent with features of the family and organization environments in which the entrepreneurial action takes place; furthermore, in each strategic leadership situation, different configurations of attributes lead to entrepreneurial orientation

Satisfaction of entrepreneurs: a comparison between founders and family business successors

Although a substantial body of literature compares the job satisfaction of employees to that of the self-employed, scholars rarely take into account the heterogeneity of the latter population. We compare the level and the drivers of job satisfaction of founders and successors in family businesses. Building on the notion of procedural utility, which entails the gratification that individuals experience in the process of performing a task, we find that job satisfaction and perceived discretion in decision making is lower for successors. We also find that perceived discretion fully mediates the relationship between mode of entry into entrepreneurship and job satisfaction

Strings attached : socioemotional wealth mixed gambles in the cash management choices of family firms

Altres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICFamily owners differ from other types of owners due to the presence of socioemotional wealth (SEW) concerns. We take a closer look at this distinctive aspect by examining the impact of family control and influence dimension of SEW on the cash management choices of family firms, conceptualizing it as a mixed gamble choice. Our empirical analysis of 195 Italian firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange between 2003 and 2015 shows that family firms derive more value and incur lower costs than nonfamily firms when they increase their cash holdings. We then delve deeper into family firms' cash management choices by exploring how different levels of family control and influence as well as types of board governance arrangements moderate this relationship. The empirical results indicate that the positive effects of family ownership are more pronounced under a high level of family control and influence and with separation of the board chair and CEO positions

Founding team composition and early performance of university\u2014Based spin-off companies

The start-up of business ventures (university spin-offs\u2014USOs) is an important channel that universities can use to transfer the results of public research to the economic system. Several empirical investigations however show that the majority of public-research spin-offs perform rather poorly (see for example Mustar et al., 2008. Science and Public Policy 35(2), 67\u201380). Therefore, identifying and analysing the obstacles that limit the success of this type of high-tech start-ups appears extremely important to better understand and, where possible, leverage their potential contributions in terms of innovation and growth. The existing literature on the performance of USOs studies these companies as any other high-tech start up, overlooking the peculiarities related to the presence of academic personnel in the entrepreneurial/management team. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by analysing the relationship between founding teams and USO performance through a multi-level approach to the team demography. In particular, we try to account for some of the peculiar features which may shape the functioning of USO founding teams and arise mostly from the need to properly balance the scientific and commercial orientation with one another. The empirical analysis, carried out on a sample of 103 Italian USOs, shows that founding teams with a composition that promotes simultaneously differentiation and integration of academic and non-academic profiles, exhibit superior levels of performance in terms of growth