Entrepreneurial experience and the innovativeness of serial entrepreneurs

Purpose - This paper examines the effects of past entrepreneurial experience on the reported innovativeness of serial entrepreneurs’ subsequent ventures. Building on insights from the generative entrepreneurial learning process and from cognition theories, we propose that regardless of the type of entrepreneurial experience, positive or negative, such experience enriches the cognitive schemas of serial entrepreneurs leading them to greater reported innovativeness. Knowing this will expand our knowledge of entrepreneurial career development. Design/Methodology/approach - The proposed hypotheses are tested using Heckman regression models relating past entrepreneurial experience, current business ownership and reported innovativeness of current businesses on a unique sample drawn from a Catalan adult population survey. The data on the past entrepreneurial experience of the Catalan adult population were collected specifically for the purpose of this study. Findings - Results reveal that practical experience is an essential prerequisite for entrepreneurial learning, and even negative entrepreneurial experience may induce generative entrepreneurial learning suitable for subsequent outperforming ventures for the psychologically strong who have managed to learn from their experience. Implications - This paper offers insights on how the nature of the past entrepreneurial activity influences future venturing decisions. This study contributes to the academic debate on whether increased entrepreneurial experience and generative learning processes best explain serial entrepreneurial behaviors. Originality/Value - The paper further explores the influence of previous entrepreneurial experience on current entrepreneurial activity by analyzing the relationship between serial entrepreneurship and reported innovativeness.Preprin

Balance rather than critical mass or tokenism: gender diversity, leadership and performance in financial firms

Purpose: This study analyzes how board’s gender diversity, and more specifically a gender-balanced configuration—i.e., a proportion of women in the boardroom ranging between 40% and 60%—affects economic and risk oriented performance in financial firms. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical application uses a rich dataset that includes detailed accounting and organizational information for all financial firms in the Costa Rican industry during the period 2000-2012. The proposed hypotheses are tested using panel data (fixed-effects) regression models that emphasize that bank performance is affected by various dimensions of the banks’ gender diversity. Findings: The longitudinal analysis of the Costa Rican banking industry reveals that, unlike a proportion indicating a particular critical mass of women on the board, a balanced gender configuration yields superior economic performance (ROA and net intermediation margin). Additionally, the findings show that the performance benefits of gender diversity only exists in the presence of a gender balanced board configuration, and that this positive effect is not conditioned by the presence of women leadership in the corporate hierarchy (Chair or CEO). Originality/value: The paper further explores the influence of board gender diversity on organizational performance by adopting an approach to the gender diversity-performance relationship that goes beyond the mere representation of women within the corporate hierarchy.Peer ReviewedPreprin

WHEAT SEGREGATION AND IDENTITY-PRESERVATION COST

Budgets were used to estimate additional identity-preserved wheat production costs that ranged from $0.81 to$5.35 per bushel. A survey was developed to estimate the feasibility for country elevators to market identity-preserved wheat and the premiums required to do so; estimated premiums reported ranged from $0.05 to$1.45 per bushel.Identity-Preservation, Genetically Modified Wheat, Wheat Marketing, Marketing,

The differentiated impact of role models and social fear of failure over the entrepreneurial activities of rural youths

The main objective of this study is to determine the differential impact of certain socio-cultural variables (such as entrepreneurial self-confidence, role models and fear of failure) on the entrepreneurial process of Spanish rural youths. In consonance with the new rural policy paradigm, the European Commission and the OECD are proposing entrepreneurship as a tool for economic diversification and endogenous rural development. Entrepreneurship is associated in rural areas with economic vitality and prosperity. Entrepreneurship in rural areas becomes a means for capturing and optimizing the true natural, social and human capital of a territory as well as a source of opportunity and welfare for the local population. However, in a context where many rural areas are suffering from an aging and retiring population, the emphasis on developing an entrepreneurially active community becomes especially important within the segment of rural youths. Environmental and social-cultural factors have been used to explain differences in entrepreneurship across territories, including the rural urban divide. This line of research has found that certain variables, such as the local presence of role models and the social stigma of failure, have a differential impact over entrepreneurial activity across certain segments of the population (gender, immigrant status). Therefore, this study has the objective to verify whether age affects the impact that certain socio-cultural variables have on the entrepreneurial process of rural and urban youths. The methodology used in this study is the logistic regression model for rare events, with a database of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in Spain for 2009, which has a sample of 26,990 adults. The study shows that young adults in Spain have a higher propensity for entrepreneurial activity than the rest of the population, but discriminating between urban and rural youth, the latter are less likely to be entrepreneurs. Amongst younger-aged individuals, social-cultural factors are found to have a differential impact on entrepreneurship across the rural-urban divide.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft