Explaining the entrepreneurial intentions of employees: The roles of societal norms, work-related creativity and personal resources

This article addresses the important question of why those in paid employment might be hesitant to start their own businesses. In particular, we predict how diminished work-related creativity of employees might mediate the relationship between their perceptions that societal norms do not support initiative taking and their own entrepreneurial intentions. In addition, we consider how risk tolerance and passion for work might buffer this process. Survey data, collected among public-sector employees in the United Arabic Emirates, confirm these predictions with the exception of indications for a buffering role of passion for work. For entrepreneurship stakeholders, this research reveals a critical factor – a diminished propensity to generate new ideas at work – by which employee beliefs about limited normative support for enterprising efforts may escalate into a reluctance to consider an entrepreneurial career. It also identifies how this process can be muted when employees are willing to take risks

Ireland: Bewley's coffee.

Promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production is one crucial effort to ensure the resources of the Earth are managed efficiently for future development. The continuous growth in the world's population and a surge in consumerism as countries develop are forcing more competition for resources to fulfil the growing needs of humanity. According to the United Nation's latest SDG report (United Nations, 2022), the reliance on natural resources is rising by over 65% globally from 2000 to 2019. But at the same time, waste and pollution are also increasing exponentially. This suggests high inefficiency in the use of resources would jeopardise future development. As such, there are calls to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation (Sanyé-Mengual et al., 2019). Sustainable consumption and production (CSP) offer an integrated approach that extends into economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development which help to provide a systemic change to manage resources in a sustained way. One family business: Bewley's Limited, headquartered in Ireland with operations in the United Kingdom, is managing sustainability through relationships, community and environment. Bewley's works hard to ensure its business manages resources and production responsibly and is cautious of its carbon emissions and actively supports others' success

Gender inequalities in Korean family business: contradictions between show and tell.

This paper explores how gender-related issues are communicated in Korean family-run conglomerates (chaebols) and the roles of women within these businesses. It also addresses to what extent the communication of chaebols about female employment and career development reflects the perception of gender representation in these organisations. By paying attention to gendered discourse in Korean chaebols, this paper examines what is said and written about gender issues in glottographic statements (texts) and non-glottographic statements (charts and other visuals) of annual reports (ARs) published by five chaebols since 2010. The paper uses a Foucauldian framework to develop the archive of statements made within these ARs. Although there is an increase in female-employee ratios, ARs show that number of women at the board or senior management level continue to be small. ARs tend to provide numbers related to female employment and retention in their non-glottographic statements, yet these numbers occasionally differ from and frequently are not explained by glottographic statements. The strategies used by chaebols to improve career prospects for their female staff are only vaguely described and rarely evaluated. This paper looks beyond the existing discourse analysis on "talk and text" by also investigating claims made through graphic and linear/pictorial elements and their interplay with text. This approach opens new understandings of how gendered discourses are constructed and how they (unintentionally) fail to resolve issues and perceptions related to female employment and career development in Korea

Experiences of high-growth technology firms in Malaysia and New Zealand.

How do technology firms experience high growth and the support available from governments? This qualitative study explores the experiences of high-growth technology-based firms in Malaysia and New Zealand. Case studies were developed for eight high-growth companies in the information and communication technology sectors of each country. The countries differ in national cultures and the forms of government support. There were no marked country differences in growth drivers. Growth was driven by innovation and flexibility within business-to-business sales relationships. These firms faced four obstacles: intense competition; liabilities of smallness; limited human capital; and funding ability. Malaysia offers broader mainstream support with favourable tax treatment of R&D related expenditure. In contrast, New Zealand’s has been criticised for a highly targeted approach, although this is now broadening. Both countries appear to be converging on a hybrid approach combining mainstream and targeted support for growth businesses

Capabilities, strategy, and performance: the case of ICT firms in New Zealand.

Smaller technology-based firms are critical for many economies. This study investigates the determinants of performance in a sample of 110 firms from the information and communication technology industry in New Zealand. It is a single industry study, reflecting the industry specificity of resource-based capabilities. Partial least squares methods are used to investigate relationships between capabilities, strategy, and performance. A product-innovation strategy maximized performance, mediating innovation and human capital capabilities. Pursuing a market-expansion strategy ahead of one of product innovation led to inferior performance outcomes. Financial and organizational capabilities had direct positive effects on performance irrespective of strategy

Public transportation in Hanoi: applying an integrative model of behavioral intention.

Hanoi is a populous capital with consistently growing transportation demands. This study applies an integrative model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), service satisfaction, and environmental concern, in order to examine behavioral intention to use public transportation systems. Using 873 completed questionnaires collected from residents in Hanoi who have used public transport before. The study demonstrates that attitude, perceived behavioral control, personal norms, and descriptive norms influence behavioral intention. The impact of subjective norms lessens when descriptive norms and personal norms are included in this integrative model. Environmental concern indirectly affected behavioral intention through attitude, perceived behavioral control, and personal norms, thus strengthening the TPB model. This shows the appropriateness of this TPB-based integrative model, while service satisfaction is not an important motivation for changing from private vehicles to public bus systems. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed, along with suggestions for future research

Socioemotional wealth and the innovativeness of family SMEs in the United Arab Emirates.

Why are some family SMEs more innovative than others? We use the heterogeneity within family SMEs to explore how their socioemotional wealth (SEW) affects innovativeness. The ubiquity of smaller family firms means that their innovativeness is critical for policymakers, such as those in the United Arab Emirates, seeking innovation-led development. We conduct a multi-case study analysis of SEW and innovativeness in fourteen family SMEs based in the United Arab Emirates. Participants were from a range of sectors and across the employment size-range of family SMEs. None of the most innovative family SMEs had highly family-centric socioemotional wealth. High family-centricity was however evident in all the least innovative firms who survived on reputation and incremental customer or supplier-driven improvements. The least innovative firms were amongst the smallest but not the youngest, with firm age not influential for innovativeness. The paper proposes redressing family-centric SEW preferences to raise the innovativeness of family SMEs. This will involve longer-term decision-making that gives greater consideration to the interests of external stakeholder as well as future generations of the family

Explaining the entrepreneurial intentions of employees: the roles of societal norms, work-related creativity and personal resources.

This article addresses the important question of why those in paid employment might be hesitant to start their own businesses. In particular, we predict how diminished work-related creativity of employees might mediate the relationship between their perceptions that societal norms do not support initiative taking and their own entrepreneurial intentions. In addition, we consider how risk tolerance and passion for work might buffer this process. Survey data, collected among public-sector employees in the United Arabic Emirates, confirm these predictions with the exception of indications for a buffering role of passion for work. For entrepreneurship stakeholders, this research reveals a critical factor – a diminished propensity to generate new ideas at work – by which employee beliefs about limited normative support for enterprising efforts may escalate into a reluctance to consider an entrepreneurial career. It also identifies how this process can be muted when employees are willing to take risks

Integrative model of behavioural intention: the influence of environmental concern and condition factors on food waste separation.

This paper positions environmental concern as the antecedent of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. It also sets to expand the theory of planned behaviour by including two condition factors: favourable situation and facility availability on the intention to separate food waste at source. The study collects data by using self-administered questionnaires on 682 respondents in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling is employed to test the conceptual model and the proposed hypotheses. The results show that environmental concern positively influences attitude and subjective norms, which, in turn, influences food waste separation intention. Favourable situation and facility availability are found to influence the separation intention. This study is one of the earliest studies to investigate residents' intention to participate in food waste separation at a source that employs the expanded theory of planned behaviour with environmental concern and condition factors