Fostering entrepreneurship: an innovative business model to link innovation and new venture creation

Does congruence between a descendant entrepreneur's personality traits and family business values matter for succession?

Purpose

In this paper, we investigate two research queries pertaining to the success of small family business succession. First, we examine how the Big-5 personality traits of descendant entrepreneurs influence the success of their family business succession. Second, we investigate whether descendant entrepreneurs whose personality traits are congruent with the values of their family business, would lead to the success of their family business succession, through the mediating role of descendant entrepreneur-family business value congruence (DE-FBVC).

Methodology

We rely on the person-organization fit theory for our conceptual framework and we collected primary data from 124 respondents designated as chairman and managing directors in small family businesses.

Results

Our results show that a descendant entrepreneur's openness, extroversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness traits are likely to lead to successful family business succession, but a descendant entrepreneur with neuroticism trait is unlikely to do so. In addition, our results reveal that the DE-FBVC mediates the relationship between openness and extroversion traits with succession success positively, but between neuroticism trait and succession success negatively. By contrast, we find that DE-FBVC does not mediate the relationship between conscientiousness and agreeableness traits with succession success.

Originality

The findings of our study suggest that while four of the Big-5 personality traits matter for the success of small family business succession, specific personality traits of descendant entrepreneurs which are found to be congruent with the values of their family business, will also lead to succession success.

Collapse of Better Place: A Managerial Cognition Perspective on the Failure of an Entrepreneurial Initiative

The survival of any entrepreneurial initiative depends on a working business model that could create value for the customers and, simultaneously, allow the firm to capture value from what has been created. Despite increased attention to business model research, the understanding of business models' impact on entrepreneurial development is quite constrained. In particular, the question of how an entrepreneurial firm's business model is influenced by its organizational members' managerial cognition remains under-explored. To tackle this research question, we drew a linkage between the business model literature and a managerial cognition perspective to build the theoretical foundation. We used this theoretical lens to investigate the failure of Better Place, an Israeli entrepreneurial company that focused on its proprietary battery-swap electric vehicles. In our findings, we argued that organizational members' managerial-cognition-based conceptual framework is critical to the business model decision-making of an entrepreneurial firm. The discrepant and strongly held conceptual framework may result in misjudgment of environmental changes, especially when emerging-market numbers in an industry are high, and consensus regarding technology innovation in an industry is still lacking. The improper conceptual framework can generate mistaken business models, which further bring about an organizational decline. It is crucial for entrepreneurial firms to learn and improve existing conceptual frameworks and consequent business models by business interaction in the initiative stage if they are to avoid failure. The research outcome paves the way for future empirical studies to contribute to machine learning in the field of cognitive automation, artificial-intelligence-driven smart manufacturing, and sustainable industrial value creation in the era of digital transformation.

Generating business intelligence through automated textual analysis: measuring corporate image with online information

Purpose

In this age of extremely well-developed social media, it is necessary to detect any change in the corporate image of an enterprise immediately so as to take quick action to avoid the wide spread of a negative image. However, existing survey-based corporate image evaluation methods are costly, slow and static, and the results may quickly become outdated. User comments, news reports and we-media articles on the internet offer varied channels for enterprises to obtain public evaluations and feedback. The purpose of this study is to effectively use online information to timely and accurately measure enterprises’ corporate images.

Design/methodology/approach

A new corporate image evaluation method was built by first using a literature review to establish a corporate image evaluation index system. Next, an automatic text analysis of online public information was performed through a topic classification and sentiment analysis algorithm based on the dictionary. The accuracy of the topic classification and sentiment analysis algorithm is then calculated. Finally, three internet enterprises were chosen as cases, and their corporate image was evaluated.

Findings

The results show that the author’s corporate image evaluation method is effective.

Originality/value

First, in this study, a new corporate image evaluation index system is constructed. Second, a new corporate image evaluation method based on text mining is proposed that can support data-driven decision-making for managers with real-time corporate image evaluation results. Finally, this study improves the understanding of corporate image by generating business intelligence through online information. The findings provide researchers with specific and detailed suggestions that focus on the corporate image management of emerging internet enterprises.

The Development of an Integrated External Environment Monitoring Framework Aimed at the Internal Control of the Procurement Process of Fat and Oil Companies

The article deals with the development of methodical recommendations for monitoring the external environment aimed at the internal control of the procurement process in business based on a risk-oriented approach and with the digital techniques used by fat-and-oil industry companies. For research purposes, the following were necessary: first, to develop an integrated scheme for monitoring the external environment aimed at the internal control of the procurement process, taking into account the specifics of the commercial organization’s activity; and second, to analyze the features of the integrated monitoring scheme with the use of digital techniques. The methodology for developing methodical recommendations for monitoring the external environment aimed at the internal control of the procurement process is based on a risk-oriented approach, the unforeseen circumstances theory, and the use of big data and business analytics. In the first section, the authors substantiate the relevance of the research topic. In the second section, investigations on the topic are reviewed, the theoretical foundations are summarized, and research hypotheses are formulated. The third section determines the methodology of the study. The fourth section presents the research results, their practical value, recommendations and limitations, and the developed integrated scheme for environment monitoring with regard to the internal control of the procurement process based on a risk-oriented approach taking into consideration the specifics of the fat and oil industry. This section also determines the specifics of the digital techniques used for monitoring the environment and discusses issues surrounding the external monitoring of raw material prices, different types of work, and services based on digital techniques aimed at internal control. In the fifth and final section of the article, the authors analyze the research results and substantiate the prospects for further research in this area. The research results could be used by commercial companies in processing industries which are undergoing digital transformation and developing platform solutions aimed at improving internal control. The main research result of this article is the development of methodical recommendations for monitoring the external environment aimed at the internal control of the procurement process in business based on a risk-oriented approach with the use of digital techniques and a developed integrated monitoring scheme.

The Internal Connection Analysis of Information Sharing and Investment Performance in the Venture Capital Network Community

In order to explore the internal connection between information sharing and investment performance in the venture capital network community, this study took environmental-governance start-ups as the research object and used the 2009–2020 environmental-social enterprise start-up venture capital investment events as a data sample. The successful exit rate of the venture capital portfolio and the successful listing rate of investment ventures were used as the measurement criteria. Combined with regression analysis, the relationship between information sharing and investment performance in the venture capital network community was analyzed in detail. Research shows that there are differences between the ways of information sharing in the venture capital network communities. In the regression results, all coefficients are less than 0.01. There is a positive correlation between information sharing and investment performance in the venture capital network community. With the increase in enterprise characteristic variables, the degree of enterprise risk information sharing is getting higher and higher. This ultimately leads to more and more frequent corporate investment performance and a higher possibility of acquisition. Among them, the degree of information sharing in the venture capital network community is relatively high, and venture capital companies that are supported by corporate venture capital institutions will benefit even more from listed capital. Not only was the analysis of the relationship between finance and investment in the venture capital network community pointed out in this research, but also the investment development of entrepreneurial enterprises was also provided with feasible suggestions.

Deconstructing the ivory tower: identifying challenges of university-industry ecosystem partnerships

Collaboration between industry and academia necessitates the management of entrepreneurial dynamics within ecosystem contexts. However, such partnerships perpetuate numerous challenges that, without effective management, can impact upon the ecosystem as a whole. Limited research to date has addressed the challenges affecting these university-industry partnerships and ascertained their impact upon ecosystem management. This study identifies the challenges pervading university-industry partnerships across entrepreneurial ecosystems, with a view that through an exposition of such challenges, more specific strategies could be implemented to address them. Questionnaires were distributed to key ecosystem stakeholders, requesting their perceptions of the key challenges affecting their collaborative relationships. Empirical data was analysed utilising fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to deduce the configurational nature of the conditions. Results reveal mutually exclusive solutions grounded upon distinct combinations of conditions, constituting distinct pathways to ineffective ecosystem management. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as well as acknowledged limitations of this study and suggestions for future research.

The Effect of Venture Capital on Enterprise Benefit According to the Heterogeneity of Human Capital of Entrepreneur

This research was conducted for the purpose of exploring the role of venture capital (VC) based on the heterogeneity of human capital in the process of transforming innovation capabilities of enterprise into enterprise benefits and providing a reference for further research on enterprise performance development. In this study, 399 listed companies that obtained VC before 2018 from the China VC database and Wind China financial database were selected as research objects, and relevant data of patent number, return on equity, Tobin’s Q ratio, and research and development (R&D) investment ratio of each enterprise were obtained. Enterprise innovation ability was introduced to construct the relationship model of human-capital VC, enterprise innovation ability, and enterprise benefit, and the relationship between human-capital VC, enterprise innovation ability, and enterprise benefit was analyzed by the multiple-regression model. The results show that the number of patents of invested enterprises has an extremely significant positive correlation with the human capital index (P < 0.001), and a significant positive correlation with the education level of personnel, the proportion of engineering professionals (P < 0.05). The return on equity and Tobin’s Q ratio of enterprises have extremely significant positive correlations with the number of patents of invested enterprises (P < 0.001) and have a significant positive correlation with the number of patents of the invested enterprises × education level of the personnel, and the number of patents of the invested enterprises × proportion of engineering professionals (P < 0.05). All in all, the education level of the entrepreneur’ s VC human capital and the proportion of engineering professionals can effectively improve the innovation ability of the enterprise, thus indirectly playing a value-added role in the improvement of enterprise benefits. The invested enterprises will also face the problems of scale diseconomy and financing constraint when their profitability is enhanced, so they need to optimize their own business strategies.

Clarifying the boundary conditions of value creation within dynamic capabilities framework: a grafting approach

This study extends dynamic capabilities research by examining the underlying and fundamental concepts of capabilities, resource allocation, fungibility, and environmental change with respect to value creation and appropriation (VCA). Scholars generally assume that VCA depends on the amount of resources allocated to generate future capabilities. We diverge from this ability-performance tautology and instead ground dynamic capabilities in a resource allocation framework. By introducing two boundary conditions, we suggest that environmental change and fungibility between current and dynamic capabilities determine whether resource allocation leads to VCA. We believe that our findings not only represent a fruitful path for future research by strategy and organization scholars, but also provide an important contribution to our knowledge of managing resources in dynamic environments to create future capabilities.