Cognitive and affective determinants of entrepreneurial decisions experimentally examined

Objectives. Our study investigates the role of emotions and cognitions in the pre-entrepreneurial decision-making process, i.e., the process prior to the decision to exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity, which has only looked at by few researchers so far. Methods. An online questionnaire experiment with three different samples, i.e., employees, students, and entrepreneurs (N = 578) using 16 different experimentally manipulated entrepreneurial scenarios was conducted. Results. Findings indicate that the relationship between the characteristics of an entrepreneurial opportunity and the evaluation of it is mediated by cognitive appraisals. Moreover, negative and positive affects moderate the relationship between the evaluation of an entrepreneurial opportunity and the decision to exploit it. Conclusion. This study confirms the central assumption of cognitive appraisal theories of emotion which state that the subjective representation of objective entrepreneurial opportunities better predicts the decision to exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity than the objective characteristics of the entrepreneurial situation

A Taxonomy of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are trustless organizations that automate transactions, operations, and decisions without a trusted third party (Wang et al. 2019). So far, this research area is missing a taxonomy that investigates the different dimensions and characteristics of DAOs and the many different forms they can take. This paper addresses this research gap by creating a data-driven taxonomy analyzing 72 DAOs. In doing so, we identify the three main categories treasury, community, and governance, seven sub-categories, 20 dimensions, and 53 characteristics. In addition, we provide dimensions with inadmissible characteristics DAOs cannot take, as well as dimensions used to assess DAOs. The results of our agglomerative clustering are five distinct DAO types: On-chain product and service DAOs, off-chain product and service DAOs with community focus or with investor focus, investment-focused DAOs, and networking-focused community DAOs

Is content king? Job seekers’ engagement with social media employer branding content

Resumen de la ponencia[EN] Increasing digitization and the emergence of social media have radically changed the recruitment landscape adding interactive digital platforms to traditional means of employer communication. Removing barriers of distance and timing, social media enable firms to continue their efforts of promoting their employment brand online. However, social media employer communication and employer brand building remains woefully understudied. Our study addresses this gap by investigating how firms use social media to promote their employer brand. We analyze employer branding communication in a sample of N = 216,828 human resources (HR) related Tweets from N = 166 Fortune 500 companies. Using supervised machine learning we classify the Tweet content according to its informational and inspirational nature, identifying five categories of employer branding social media communication on Twitter.Moser, K.; Tumasjan, A.; Welpe, I. (2016). Is content king? Job seekers’ engagement with social media employer branding content. En CARMA 2016: 1st International Conference on Advanced Research Methods in Analytics. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 124-124. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2016.2016.3103OCS12412

Disrupting Industries with Blockchain: The Industry, Venture Capital Funding, and Regional Distribution of Blockchain Ventures

The blockchain (i.e., a decentralized and encrypted digital ledger) has the potential to disrupt many traditional business models. This study investigates the emerging blockchain business-application landscape by analyzing its industry, venture capital funding, and regional distribution. By matching four venture databases on blockchain-based startups we create a unique database to analyze the technology from a diffusion of innovation theoretical perspective. First, our results show that blockchain startups are present across all industry segments and are most prominently represented in the Finance & Insurance and Information & Communication industries. A fine-grained analysis of financial services yields increasing novel applications in existing service offerings. Second, we find that mainly Finance & Insurance and Information & Communication industries are funded by venture capital, but that blockchain startups are present across all industries. Third, our regional distribution analysis of the emerging ventures identifies two leading geographical blockchain clusters (i.e., the US and UK)

It Depends on the Size: How Firm Strategic Emphasis on Digital Transformation Predicts Market Capitalization

Whereas digital businesses can have an enormous market value, it remains an open question, whether firms, embarking on a digital transformation journey, can realize similar benefits. Thus, we rely on the signaling theory to study, whether strategic emphasis on digital transformation – i.e., the extent, to which a firm focuses on digital transformation in its strategy – as well as firm size as an indicator of a large resource basis jointly influence market capitalization. To answer this question, we conducted a longitudinal panel data analysis of the largest German publicly listed companies from 2000 to 2017. Our results show, that strategic emphasis on digital transformation leads to a higher market capitalization for larger firms and to a lower market capitalization for smaller firms. Whereas larger firms should further disclose their strategic emphasis on digital transformation, smaller firms should consider sending additional signals to investors, demonstrating their ability to undergo digital transformation successfully

Recruiting Women in IT: A Conjoint-Analysis Approach

The war for talent in the fields of information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) has intensified over the last years. Especially the attraction of skilled women to compensate for higher demands and to bring in different perspectives and diverse expertise has become a challenging task for organizations. So far, literature suggested promoting special female programs and a balanced work-family culture to attract more women to IT omitting that women may also seek general career characteristics such as salary and benefits, career advancement and promotion opportunities, and challenging tasks. By using an experimental conjoint design with 101 female and 115 male IT-professionals, we simultaneously tested and compared the effects of these factors on the intention to apply for an IT-related position. The results suggest that both female and male IT-professionals value work-family balance as the most important characteristic followed by general career characteristics while mentoring programs for women appeared as least important

Individual cognitions as antecedents of emotional competence and job satisfaction

A model linking cognitions to emotional competence is presented and tested. The model is based on the four domains of Emotional Intelligence (Goleman, 2002) and on the theoretical framework of Rational-Emotive-Behavior Therapy (Ellis, 1962, 1994). In this respect, we expect irrational beliefs to be negatively associated with both emotional competence and job satisfaction. Furthermore, we expect emotional competence to be positively associated with job satisfaction. Additionally, it is proposed that irrational beliefs mediate emotional competence’s influence on job satisfaction. We test our hypotheses using data from two different studies. Study 1 collected data from 113 respondents that answered an experimental questionnaire study using organizational scenarios. Study 2 collected data through a questionnaire using the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI 2.0) as direct measure of emotional intelligence and competencies and an irrationality scale (Försterling & Bühner, 2003) as a measure for irrational beliefs. Findings from these 2 studies suggest that irrational beliefs are negatively related to both emotional competence and job satisfaction and that emotional competence is positively related to job satisfaction. Our results confirm the central assumptions of Ellis’ appraisal theory and support our basic hypothesis of a correspondence between cognitions and emotional competence. Implications for future research are discussed

Irrationale Überzeugungen und emotionale Intelligenz als Determinanten individueller Lebenszufriedenheit und Glücklichkeit

Die vorliegende Studie befasst sich mit der Rolle irrationaler Kognitionen (Ellis, 1994) und emotionaler Intelligenz (Wong & Law, 2002) für die Vorhersage individueller Lebenszufriedenheit und Glücklichkeit. Erste empirische Untersuchungen hierzu (Spörrle & Welpe, 2006) bestätigen den prädiktiven Wert beider Konstrukte. Nicht in diese Untersuchungen miteinbezogen wurden allerdings globalere Persönlichkeitsfaktoren, die sich ebenfalls als relevante Determinanten der Lebenszufriedenheit erwiesen haben (Diener, Oishi & Lucas, 2003) und möglicherweise in hoher Weise Varianz der beiden Prädiktoren enthalten. Zur Prüfung dieser Überlegungen wurden an einer überwiegend studentischen Stichprobe (N =199) Irrationalität, emotionale Intelligenz sowie die Big Five erfasst. Die Messgenauigkeit der verwendeten Instrumente kann hierbei mit Ausnahme der Irrationalitätsskala als zufriedenstellend angesehen werden. In einer schrittweisen Regression zeigt sich, dass emotionale Intelligenz (Emotionsregulation) und Irrationalität individuelle Lebenszufriedenheit vorhersagen, dass allerdings emotionale Intelligenz ihren Vorhersagewert verliert, wenn die Persönlichkeitsfaktoren miteinbezogen werden. Dies spricht dafür, dass insbesondere emotionale Intelligenz in der hier gewählten Operationalisierung eine hohe Überlappung mit den Big Five aufweist, wohingegen Irrationalität noch Eigenvarianz aufweist. Auch bei Vorhersage individueller Glücklichkeit (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) zeigt sich, dass emotionale Intelligenz ihren Vorhersagewert bei Einschluss der Persönlichkeitsvariablen verliert