The contributions and shortcomings of past entrepreneurship research can be viewed within the context of six research design specifications: purpose, theoretical perspective, focus, level of analysis, time frame and methodology. The authors suggest a unifying definition of the field of entrepreneurship. The recent trend toward theory driven research that is contextual and process oriented is encouraging. It is time for entrepreneurship researchers to pursue causality more aggressively. Exploratory studies that are not theory driven should be discouraged unless the topic is highly original. Implications for practicing entrepreneurs are discussed.

This study provides a meta-analysis on the relationships between organizational tenure and three broad classes of job behaviors: core-task behaviors, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive behaviors. Across 350 empirical studies with a cumulative sample size of 249,841, the authors found that longer tenured employees generally have greater in-role performance and citizenship performance. It is interesting that organizational tenure was also positively related to some counterproductive behaviors (e.g., aggressive behavior and nonsickness absence). Most of these relationships remain statistically significant even after controlling for the effects of chronological age. The authors also observed that the tenure—performance relationship was stronger for younger workers, for women, for non-Caucasians, and for college-educated workers. Finally, the authors found evidence of a curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and job performance. Although the relationship of organizational tenure with job performance is positive in general, the strength of the association decreases as organizational tenure increases.

The resource-based view suggests that firms’ heterogeneous resource endowments are important for explaining interfirm performance differences. To date, however, the literature provides little insight on the factors that shape the identification of markets in which firm resources, as embodied in a product or service, can create value for end customers. Building on entrepreneurship research and Penrose’s early resource-based work, the authors examine how four main types of pre-entry human capital endowments (i.e., the characteristics that the founders bring to the founding process) shape the identification of market opportunities for emerging technology firms. They find that prior entrepreneurial and management experience endowments enhance, while marketing and technological experience endowments constrain, the number of market opportunities identified. In addition, the authors find that the number of market opportunities identified depends on the combinations of generalized and specialized endowments in the founding team.

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has been around for over 20 years—during which time it has been both widely taken up and subjected to considerable criticism. The authors review and assess the principal critiques evident in the literature, arguing they fall into eight categories. They conclude the RBV’s core message can withstand criticism from five of these quite well provided the RBV’s variables, boundaries, and applicability are adequately specified. Three critiques that cannot be readily dismissed call for further theorizing and research. They arise from the indeterminate nature of two of the RBV’s basic concepts—resource and value—and the narrow conceptualization of a firm’s competitive advantage. As their suggestions for this work indicate, the authors feel the RBV community has clung to an inappropriately narrow neoclassical economic rationality, thereby diminishing its opportunities for progress. The authors’ suggestions may assist with developing the RBV into a more viable theory of competitive advantage, especially if it is moved into a genuinely dynamic framework.

Most research on trust has taken a static, “snapshot” view; that is, it has approached trust as an independent, mediating, or dependent variable captured by measuring trust at a single point in time. Limited attention has been given to conceptualizing and measuring trust development over time within interpersonal relationships. The authors organize the existing work on trust development into four broad areas: the behavioral approach and three specific conceptualizations of the psychological approach (unidimensional, two-dimensional, and transformational models). They compare and contrast across these approaches and use this analysis to identify unanswered questions and formulate directions for future research.

Drawing from conservation-of-resources theory, we examine a trickle-down model of differentiated transformational leadership (leaders treating followers differently) across three hierarchical levels (i.e., managers, supervisors, and supervisors’ followers). Specifically, we develop a model in which manager differentiated transformational leadership increases department unit stress (i.e., the managers’ group of followers), which then translates into increased differentiated supervisor transformational leadership. The latter then again positively predicts team unit stress (i.e., the supervisors’ group of followers) and, eventually, results in decreased team helping behavior of supervisors’ followers. We tested this model using data from a large, multisource field study. The results provide support for our trickle-down model in that department managers’ differentiated transformational leadership decreased team helping behavior two hierarchical levels below the manager via increasing department unit stress (Stage 1 mediator), supervisor differentiated transformational leadership (Stage 2 mediator), and team unit stress (Stage 3 mediator).

Team reflexivity, the extent to which teams collectively reflect upon and adapt their working methods and functioning, has been shown to be an important predictor of team outcomes, notably innovation. As described in the current article, the authors developed and tested a team-level contingency model of team reflexivity, work demands, and innovation. They argue that highly reflexive teams will be more innovative than teams low in reflexivity when facing a demanding work environment. A field study of 98 primary health care teams in the United Kingdom corroborated their predictions: Team reflexivity was positively related to team innovation, and team reflexivity and work demands interacted such that high levels of both predicted higher levels of team innovation. Furthermore, an interaction between team reflexivity, quality of physical work environment (PWE), and team innovation showed that poor PWE coupled with high team reflexivity was associated with higher levels of team innovation. These results are discussed in the context of the need for team reflexivity and team innovation among teams at work facing high levels of work demands.

This study examines relationships among high-performance work systems (HPWS), job control, employee anxiety, role overload, and turnover intentions. Building on theory that challenges the rhetoric versus reality of HPWS, the authors explore a potential “dark side” of HPWS that suggests that HPWS, which are aimed at creating a competitive advantage for organizations, do so at the expense of workers, thus resulting in negative consequences for individual employees. However, the authors argue that these consequences may be tempered when HPWS are also implemented with a sufficient amount of job control, or discretion given to employees in determining how to implement job responsibilities. The authors draw on job demands–control theory and the stress literatures to hypothesize moderated-mediation relationships relating the interaction of HPWS utilization and job control to anxiety and role overload, with subsequent effects on turnover intentions. The authors examine these relationships in a multilevel sample of 1,592 government workers nested in 87 departments from the country of Wales. Results support their hypotheses, which highlight several negative consequences when HPWS are implemented with low levels of job control. They discuss their findings in light of the critique in the literature toward the utilization of HPWS in organizations and offer suggestions for future research directions.

Thirty years have passed since Pfeffer and Salancik’s seminal work on resource dependence theory (RDT). During this time RDT has been applied broadly across the research domain to explain how organizations reduce environmental interdependence and uncertainty. In this review, the authors assess the conceptual development, empirical research, and application of RDT. They structure their review around the five options that Pfeffer and Salancik propose firms can enact to minimize environmental dependences: (a) mergers/vertical integration, (b) joint ventures and other interorganizational relationships, (c) boards of directors, (d) political action, and (e) executive succession.The authors summarize past work, synthesize contemporary thought, and propose future research directions.