Knowledge that Transforms

Research on the topic of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) continues to proliferate. Nonetheless, the conceptualization and measurement of this construct are matters of ongoing discussion and debate, and construct-specific advice with respect to the generation high value-added EO research is sparse. This editorial is aimed at providing guidance to EO researchers in three areas: (a) EO’s conceptualization(s) and position as they relate to the larger set of corporate entrepreneurship-related constructs, (b) EO’s measurement challenges and possibilities, and (c) suggested guidance and directions for future EO research.

We integrate literatures on entrepreneurial passion, shared emotions, and group identities to extend a conceptual model of team entrepreneurial passion (TEP). We delineate mono-focal, complete, and incomplete poly-focal TEP, and examine how each type and focus of TEP is related to team performance. We test our hypotheses with 73 new venture teams. Results reveal that TEP occurs in 61 teams in our sample (23 mono-focal, 26 complete poly-focal, 12 incomplete poly-focal). In terms of focus, TEP for inventing and developing are positively related to team performance. Concerning type, mono-focal and complete poly-focal TEP are the most beneficial for team performance.

We investigate how home-peer entry density (the number of same-industry firms that originate from the same country and export to the same foreign market) affects the export market exit of small firms. Drawing on panel data from 41,445 Canadian small business exporters, we find a U-shaped relationship between home-peer entry density and small firms’ hazard of exit from an export market; that is, firms’ hazard of exit decreases as the home-peer density increases to a certain point and increases after that point. We also find that this U-shaped relationship is stronger for small firms that internationalize early.

We consider the role that gender-stereotyped behaviors play in investors’ evaluations of men- and women-owned ventures. Contrary to research suggesting that investors exhibit bias against women, we find that being a woman entrepreneur does not diminish interest by investors. Rather, our findings reveal that investors are biased against the display of feminine-stereotyped behaviors by entrepreneurs, men and women alike. Our study finds that investor decisions are driven in part by observations of gender-stereotyped behaviors and the implicit associations with the entrepreneur’s business competency, rather than the entrepreneur’s sex.

How do entrepreneurs fill institutional voids that prevail in emerging markets? By incorporating insights from both the political and family embeddedness perspectives, we argue that both political ties and family ties can compensate for gaps in the institutional infrastructure of emerging markets. Specifically, we propose and examine the partial substitutability of family ties for political ties as a means of filling institutional voids. Our empirical work based on Chinese private enterprises strongly supports this argument. We also find that the effective utilization of family ties is contingent on both family members’ motivation (willingness to use resources for the firm) and entrepreneurs’ mobilization (authority in the family to mobilize family members). This study bridges the literature on political ties and family ties to understand their respective costs and benefits and therefore advances our understanding of entrepreneurs’ networking strategies in emerging markets.

Empirical studies examining firm performance following CEO succession in family firms predominantly document inferior performance of family successors. This evidence is at odds with general theoretical literature that attests a positive effect of family involvement inside the firm. To explore this enigma, we theoretically and empirically disentangle the influence of the CEO attribute family member (i.e., the CEO is affiliated to the family) on post-succession firm performance, from other, distinct CEO attributes (e.g., CEO-related human capital). Our analysis on the individual CEO level shows that after respective controls, the family member attribute is significantly positively related to post-succession firm performance.

This study develops an understanding of the role of emotional connectivity for volunteer retention in prosocial business venturing. By embedding it in organizational ambivalence theory, our analysis of four volunteer-dependent community ventures reveals two mechanisms through which entrepreneurs strengthen volunteers’ emotional connectivity. We first identify emotion-focused practices that form volunteers’ emotional attachment to the venture, and then demonstrate how duality-focused practices, in the form of managing inherent organizational duality, complement emotion-focused practices to foster volunteers’ emotional loyalty to the venture. Theorizing from our findings, we introduce a model of managing volunteers’ emotional connectivity, and conclude by discussing its implications for prosocial venture research on volunteerism and affective commitment.

Despite the importance of social impact to social entrepreneurship research, standards for measuring an organization’s social impact are underdeveloped on both theoretical and empirical grounds. We identify a sample of 71 relevant papers from leading (FT50) business journals that examine, conceptually or empirically, the measurement of social impact. We first describe the breadth of definitions, data sources, and operationalizations of social impact. Based on this analysis, we generate a typology of four approaches to conceptualizing social impact, which we use to organize insights and recommendations regarding improved measurement of the social impact of entrepreneurial ventures.

We use transaction cost economics to explain the individual-level entrepreneurial behavior of family and nonfamily managers in family firms. We argue that nonfamily managers exhibit lower entrepreneurial behavior than family managers, particularly after the founder’s departure from the business. Moreover, we identify an expanded set of factors through which family firms can facilitate nonfamily managers’ entrepreneurial behavior, including monitoring, incentives, distributive justice, access to the top management, and job control perceptions. We test these hypotheses in a sample of 296 family firm managers, contributing new insights on nonfamily managers and corporate entrepreneurship in family firms.

Entrepreneurship contributes importantly to the economy. However, differences in the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship vary significantly across developing and developed countries. We use a sample of 70 countries over the period of 2005–2015 to examine how formal and informal institutional dimensions (availability of debt and venture capital, regulatory business environment, entrepreneurial cognition and human capital, corruption, government size, government support) affect the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship between developed and developing countries. Our results demonstrate that institutions are important for both the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship. However, not all institutions play a similar role; rather, there is a dynamic relationship between institutions and economic development.