Finding the first among equals: role of cognitive styles in entrepreneurial decision-making of novices

Effectuation theory explains how expert entrepreneurs differ in decision-making during situations of high uncertainty and low information availability. Exploring the cognitive reasoning behind effectual decision-making offers fertile ground for research as well as teaching entrepreneurship. Cognitive styles have proved to be useful in studying information processing and decision-making of individuals. With increasing attention being paid to entrepreneurial, cognition, researchers have also studied the role cognitive styles in entrepreneurial decision-making. Using a sample of 400 university students from Germany and the Netherlands we investigate the relationship between the participants' cognitive style and their preference for making Causal versus Effectual decision-making. We find a strong relationship between the causal decision-making and the cognitive style index score as well as the affordable loss aspect of effectuation through our ANOVA analysis. We present our case for why these relationships matter in designing entrepreneurship education

A temporal perspective on phronetic strategizing:exploring strategy making in unsettled times

Strategy making in organizations is a future oriented process and is fundamentally complex and full of uncertainties. Therefore there is a need to further improve our understanding of the way organizational actors exercise their judgment and how this informs strategic action and change. However, the role of temporality in such processes in poorly understood. In this paper we further take up this perspective and propose and apply a temporal perspective on practical judgement to study how situated actors embark on strategic action and change in respond to drastic institutional changes. By temporality is implied the dominant temporal orientations of situated actors towards either the past, present, or future that shape the way practical judgment unfolds and influences how and when strategic action and change comes about. We draw on a study of six nonprofit associations in the Netherlands who are usually concerned with the maintenance and protection of their local environments and preservation of the cultural value. We examined how members of these associations engage in practical judgement based on their dominant temporal orientations in response to a drastic change in the subsidy regimes forcing them to reconsider their strategies. We found three fundamentally different outcomes for strategic action and change: suspending (past oriented), desiring (present oriented) and adapting (future oriented). We elaborate on each of them and why practical judgement processes varied leading to these outcomes on how that relates to each dominant temporal orientation. Contributions are offered to the strategy as practice literature by proposing a temporal perspective and highlight the importance of agency in relation to outcomes in strategy practices. We also contribute to the literature on practical judgment especially in regard to the tensions that organizational actors undergo when they are forced to make tradeoffs between realizing internal goods through practice and external goods demanded by institutions

Determine the User Country of a Tweet

In the widely used message platform Twitter, about 2% of the tweets contains the geographical location through exact GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude). Knowing the location of a tweet is useful for many data analytics questions. This research is looking at the determination of a location for tweets that do not contain GPS coordinates. An accuracy of 82% was achieved using a Naive Bayes model trained on features such as the users' timezone, the user's language, and the parsed user location. The classifier performs well on active Twitter countries such as the Netherlands and United Kingdom. An analysis of errors made by the classifier shows that mistakes were made due to limited information and shared properties between countries such as shared timezone. A feature analysis was performed in order to see the effect of different features. The features timezone and parsed user location were the most informative features.Comment: CTIT Technical Report, University of Twent

Challenges to the implementation of fiscal sustainability measures

Purpose: Fiscal sustainability is high on the global political agenda. Yet, implementing the needed performance-orientation throughout public-sector organizations remains problematic. Such implementation seems to run counter to deep-seated social structures. In this paper the aim is to shed light via key change agents' views on these social structures at the management level during the implementation of a performance-based budgeting scheme. Design/methodology/approach: The authors analyzed documentary data and conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key change agents operative within central government ministries in The Netherlands. The data were analyzed using a structurational approach to identify the enablers and barriers to performance-based budgeting implementation. Findings: In total, 29 social enablers and barriers to performance-based budgeting implementation were derived. These were categorized into: Context, Autonomy, Traditional beliefs, Influence on results, and Top management support. Based on these categories five propositions were developed on how social structures enable and constrain performance-based budgeting implementation among public managers. Research limitations/implications: The study was executed in one country in a specific period in time. Although the problems with performance-based budgeting exist over the globe, research is needed to study whether similar social structures enable and impede implementation. Social implications: Policy makers and change agents aiming to improve fiscal sustainability by budgeting reform need to consider the found social structures. Where possible they could strengthen enablers and design specific comprehensive measures to tackle the barriers identified. Originality/value: This paper provides insight and develops knowledge on the social structures that enable and constrain performance-based budgeting, which in turn improves fiscal sustainability

Open banking and inclusive finance in the European Union: perspectives from the Dutch stakeholder ecosystem

In the European Union (EU), the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) aims to provide more convenient and customized financial products through open banking (OB) platforms. However, little attention has been paid to the role of OB in improving the financial well-being of the growing number of the EU’s underserved groups, which currently constitute approximately a quarter of its population. This study examines how the PSD2 and OB impact inclusive finance in the EU based on the perspectives of the Netherlands’ ecosystem, one of the leaders in the EU’s financial technology (FinTech) landscape. A fundamental distinction can be drawn between the OB users and the ecosystem’s players. Regarding the impact of financial services on the users’ inclusivity, while the PSD2 strengthens the infrastructure necessary for financial inclusion, many challenges remain, mainly because it was not designed for this purpose. This study identifies several areas of improvement that include adjustments to the know your customer and anti-money laundering processes for underserved customers, innovative ways to communicate the PSD2’s potential, and the regulation of technology providers’ activities to build trust. Meanwhile, from the ecosystem’s position, there is a need to strengthen and improve microfinance regulation according to the opportunities provided by the PSD2 to support microfinance institutions (MFIs) in scaling up and reaching underserved clients across borders with innovative services. OB improvements can also be achieved by organizations formed by MFIs and FinTechs in collaboration with banks. Such hybrid institutions will combine the best features of each of them: knowledge of the needs of local underserved clients from MFIs, technological innovations from FinTechs, and large and trusted customer bases, infrastructures, and access to institutional investments and governments from banks. Finally, an EU inclusive OB sector depends on the centrality of trusted regulators as coordination bodies