SME research and entrepreneurship

This paper analyses how top managers account for their consumption of popular management concepts. By 'consumption' we refer to managers acting as active users of popular management concepts within their organizations. After reviewing the relevant literature, we argue that the logic of appropriateness is a better theoretical perspective to view, understand and analyse managers' accounts of concept consumption than is the logic of consequence. We apply this perspective to extensive interviews we conducted with top managers in Germany. Based on the managers' own accounts of how they understand and apply popular management concepts, we identified four discourse categories: (1) learning from others' experiences, (2) controlling organizational change, (3) gaining external legitimacy and (4) collective sensemaking. We argue that these discourse categories all draw on the social norm of rationality central to managerial identity, while differing in socially defined rules about how rationality is realized in typical management situations. Our findings strongly encourage researchers, when investigating popular management concepts in the future, to take into account the situational nature of rationality that circumstantiates the consumption of concepts.

We discuss whether organization theory is susceptible to fashion. Theories of scientific progress often assert that scientists' research is guided exclusively by the need to solve problems that are left unexplained by existing theories. In contrast, we argue that scientists, to some extent, create and follow fashions. We formulate a number of hypotheses on fashion in scientific communication and test them with a sample of 44 concepts that were published and discussed in 1784 articles in organization studies journals from the year 1960 until 2005. We suggest that conditions such as reputation of authors and of the outlets in which concepts are published, or the provision of a methodology for empirical analyses, increase the attractiveness of academic publications and eventually set off a fashion. Overall, our results show that fashion is present in communication within organization studies while demonstrating that the field is characterized by trends toward positivistic empirical studies and economic reasoning. We conclude by discussing whether fashion has positive or negative effects on theory development, whether it is avoidable at all in the field of science, and how evaluation systems impact on fashion and innovation in organizations theory.

Expressed personality traits can play a pivotal role in convincing investors in crowdfunding. Our study answers the research question: What is the current body of knowledge regarding the relationship between personality factors and crowdfunding success and where are knowledge gaps where the literature is silent? In our literature review, we therefore analyze and categorize (1) the results provided by quantitative studies on the relationship between the personality of entrepreneurs and crowdfunding success and (2) the research gaps identified by the authors investigating personality in crowdfunding. We find that studies investigating the entrepreneur's personality, i.e. the Big Five, other baseline personality traits (self-efficacy, innovativeness, locus of control, and need for achievement) and the Dark Triad, find positive relationships between openness and crowdfunding success, while narcissism shows an inverted u-shaped relationship with crowdfunding success across articles. ...

Research on crowdfunding success that incorporates CATA (computer-aided text analysis) is quickly advancing to the big leagues (e.g., Parhankangas and Renko, 2017; Anglin et al., 2018; Moss et al., 2018) and is often theoretically based on information asymmetry, social capital, signaling or a combination thereof. Yet, current papers that explore crowdfunding success criteria fail to take advantage of the full breadth of signals available and only very few such papers examine technology projects. In this paper, we compare and contrast the strength of the entrepreneur's textual success signals to project backers within this category. Based on a random sample of 1,049 technology projects collected from Kickstarter, we evaluate textual information not only from project titles and descriptions but also from video subtitles. We find that incorporating subtitle information increases the variance explained by the respective models and therefore their predictive capability for funding su...

Extended Abstract We study a public good game with representatives in three different countries with varying levels of individualism. Experimental treatments differ with respect to communication possibilities between representatives and their constituencies. Representatives can never communicate with the other representatives. Thus, depending on how much they can communicate with their constituencies, they have to make judgements about the intentions of not only the other representatives, but also their own group members, to be able to represent them well. We focus on interactions between representatives of groups. To take the risk to behave in a cooperative way towards the other representatives, representatives must be sure that their constituency accepts them taking this risk. This implies understanding the possible intentions of the others and to behave in a way that fits with these expectations. In an earlier paper (Iida & Schwieren, 2013) we have shown that for Spanish subjects...

As the developing nations grow and experience rapid institutional transformation, research has begun to investigate the roles of culture, cognition and institutional context on entrepreneurship and innovation. This chapter aims to advance the entrepreneurial cognition literature by juxtaposing entrepreneurial effectuation, domain-specific expertise and ambiguity. By conducting a qualitative study of Chinese high-tech domestic and returnee entrepreneurs, the authors propose a spectrum between causation and effectuation and argue that the entrepreneur's perceived level of ambiguity may better explain differing logic orientations among

Developing and keeping a community motivated is critical for success, particularly in self-hosted crowdfunding. Existing research has identified social capital as an important driver of such endeavors. However, the process of how social capital can be developed, managed, and targeted towards a common goal in digital settings is mostly unknown. Applying social exchange theory and a mixed-methods approach, we leverage a large dataset of one of the world’s most-funded crowdfunding projects – Star Citizen – to zoom in on the process of social capital development as a success factor. We depict how repeated social exchange and reciprocity norms foster the emergence of a cohesive and supportive community from a crowd of strangers. Moreover, we explain how this is used by Start Citizen within five themes of a novel and IS-enabled managerial technique focusing on dreams. Our insights generalize to contexts beyond crowdfunding that require the engagement of crowds for joint value creation.

We discuss the results of an experimental public good game with group representatives in Germany and Japan, countries with varying levels of individualism. Representatives are permitted to communicate with their constituencies, but not with other representatives. We focus on accountability between representative and his constituency and on the risk taken in the interaction between representatives. German and Japanese subjects differ not only in their contribution behavior, but in their ability to reach agreement on strategy in pre-play communication. We find that between-country differences can be explained to a large extent by the framework for group behavior proposed by Yuki (2003).

A new brewery is founded in Brazil every two days. Yet with climate change, drinking water is increasingly scarce. Previous studies have begun exploring the brewing industry, but an examination of circular economy initiatives in Latin America is lacking, particularly during the COVID era. This study analyzes strategic implications of circular economy initiatives, together with their role in the coevolution of the craft beer sociotechnical system in Brazil from a resource perspective during the COVID pandemic. Using a qualitative methodology based on analytic induction, 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with key actors from the craft beer sociotechnical system in Guarapuava. For the content analysis, we triangulated the interviews with an analysis of 74 related documents. We found evidence of circular economy practices and sociotechnical transitions with the simultaneous coevolution of the system actors. Increasing rejection of the linear take–make–waste economy...

Expressed personality traits can play a pivotal role in convincing investors in crowdfunding. Our study answers the research question: What is the current body of knowledge regarding the relationship between personality factors and crowdfunding success and where are knowledge gaps where the literature is silent? In our literature review, we therefore analyze and categorize (1) the results provided by quantitative studies on the relationship between the personality of entrepreneurs and crowdfunding success and (2) the research gaps identified by the authors investigating personality in crowdfunding. We find that studies investigating the entrepreneur's personality, i.e. the Big Five, other baseline personality traits (self-efficacy, innovativeness, locus of control, and need for achievement) and the Dark Triad, find positive relationships between openness and crowdfunding success, while narcissism shows an inverted u-shaped relationship with crowdfunding success across articles. However, the effects of other personality traits on crowdfunding success are largely inconclusive. Further, we identify four main gaps in the literature. First, future studies should examine non-linear relationships between expressed personality traits and crowdfunding success. Second, there is a need for more studies that employ different methods like qualitative or mixed-method approaches. Third, replication studies in similar and different contexts are urgently needed. Fourth, a plurality of personality perspectives would strengthen future research (e.g., investor perspective, third party perspective). To our knowledge this is the first literature review of personality traits in crowdfunding. Our work aims to enrich our understanding of individual-level components in the underexplored alternative finance market.

This paper asks whether or not there is a hierarchy of entrepreneurship that goes beyond life cycle models of organizations to indicate a path to scalability. We posit a model illustrating a hierarchy that incorporates five progressive levels: solo, small, stable, salient and scalable. Embracing critical elements of any entrepreneurial venture-the entrepreneur, the opportunity and available resources-the model incorporates the key external variables: cultural, societal, legal and financial as well as internal attributes: confidence, skills, vision and leadership. We assume that global competitiveness motivates the  +1 (212) 618 6580;

Developing and keeping a community motivated is critical for success, particularly in self-hosted crowdfunding. Existing research has identified social capital as an important driver of such endeavors. However, the process of how social capital can be developed, managed, and targeted towards a common goal in digital settings is mostly unknown. Applying social exchange theory and a mixed-methods approach, we leverage a large dataset of one of the world's most-funded crowdfunding projects-Star Citizen-to zoom in on the process of social capital development as a success factor. We depict how repeated social exchange and reciprocity norms foster the emergence of a cohesive and supportive community from a crowd of strangers. Moreover, we explain how this is used by Start Citizen within five themes of a novel and IS-enabled managerial technique focusing on dreams. Our insights generalize to contexts beyond crowdfunding that require the engagement of crowds for joint value creation.

We discuss the results of an experimental public good game with group representatives in Germany and Japan, countries with varying levels of individualism. Representatives are permitted to communicate with their constituencies, but not with other representatives. We focus on accountability between representative and his constituency and on the risk taken in the interaction between representatives. German and Japanese subjects differ not only in their contribution behavior, but in their ability to reach agreement on strategy in pre-play communication. We find that between-country differences can be explained to a large extent by the framework for group behavior proposed by Yuki (2003).

As the developing nations grow and experience rapid institutional transformation, research has begun to investigate the roles of culture, cognition and institutional context on entrepreneurship and innovation. This chapter aims to advance the entrepreneurial cognition literature by juxtaposing entrepreneurial effectuation, domain-specific expertise and ambiguity. By conducting a qualitative study of Chinese high-tech domestic and returnee entrepreneurs, the authors propose a spectrum between causation and effectuation and argue that the entrepreneur's perceived level of ambiguity may better explain differing logic orientations among

We study a public good game with representatives in three different countries with varying levels of individualism. Experimental treatments differ with respect to communication possibilities between representatives and their constituencies. Representatives can never communicate with the other representatives. Thus, depending on how much they can communicate with their constituencies, they have to make judgements about the intentions of not only the other representatives, but also their own group members, to be able to represent them well. We focus on interactions between representatives of groups. To take the risk to behave in a cooperative way towards the other representatives, representatives must be sure that their constituency accepts them taking this risk. This implies understanding the possible