Positive Affect Mediates the Relationship Between Self-efficacy and Innovative Behavior in Entrepreneurs

Innovativeness is one of the crucial factors allowing companies to grow, and innovative behavior of entrepreneurs is an important source of firm innovativeness and business success. This study aims to better understand self-regulatory mechanisms stimulating the innovative behavior of entrepreneurs. We have tested the mediation model in which work-related affect (enthusiasm, comfort, anxiety, and depression) mediates the relationship between work self-efficacy and innovative behavior. A longitudinal study with three measurement times was conducted on a sample of entrepreneurs–business owners. The mediation analysis with bias-corrected bootstrapping method confirmed that the relation between work self-efficacy and innovative behavior of entrepreneurs is mediated by their work-related positive affect—comfort and enthusiasm—but not by negative affect.     

A Religious Profile of American Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneur is a celebrated figure in American society. These innovative risk‐takers hold an influential place in the economy and in popular culture. Substantial research has gone into identifying characteristics associated with these individuals, but research on entrepreneurs and religion is surprisingly sparse and inconsistent. Using national survey data, we examine religious affiliation, belief, and behavior for Americans who have started or are trying to start a business. American entrepreneurs appear no different than nonentrepreneurs in religious affiliation, belief in God, or religious service attendance. They do tend to see God as more personal, pray more frequently, and are more likely to attend a place of worship that encourages business activity. A discussion of implications concludes the research note.     

Globalizing Canadian Education from Below: A Case Study of Transnational Immigrant Entrepreneurship Between Seoul, Korea and Vancouver Canada

Witnessing the rise of the international education industry for the last two decades, this study examines the role of Korean immigrant entrepreneurs who play an important role in promoting Canadian education in the global market. Relying on close social and cultural linkages between Korea and Canada, the ways in which Korean immigrant entrepreneurs operate their transnational business demonstrate how globalization actually works in practice. Exploring immigrant participation at the heart of the knowledge economy (education), we also ask if the entrepreneurial opportunities that are being cultivated by Korean-immigrants represent an innovative shift from traditional and low-level ethnic niche economies toward more lucrative opportunities.     

Entrepreneurial Risk Taking Is Related to Mental Imagery: A Fresh Look at the Old Issue of Entrepreneurship and Risk

This paper contributes to the debate concerning determinants of willingness to take entrepreneurial risks and proposes a new approach to this issue. Our theoretical model predicts that entrepreneurs differ from non-entrepreneurs in their willingness to accept business risks because the former produce more vivid and more positive mental images of the consequences of risk taking than the latter. We investigated the psychological processes behind willingness to take business and non-business risks in groups of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. First, we measured basic risk attitudes. Next, participants were presented with risky scenarios and asked to: (1) produce mental images; (2) evaluate their positivity and vividness; and (3) assess fearfulness evoked by the scenarios as well as risk level and willingness to take risk. Entrepreneurs did not differ from non-entrepreneurs in either their basic risk attitudes or willingness to take non-business risks. However, entrepreneurs declared a greater readiness to take business risks and produced more positive and vivid mental images of business risks. We found that an indirect effect of vividness of mental imagery on declared business risk taking only occurred for entrepreneurs. On a theoretical level, our results show that mental imagery might determine entrepreneurs’ willingness to take business risk.     

Students' attitudes towards use of COMPUSTAT in teaching an introductory course in business finance

This paper describes the use of the COMPUSTAT database in teaching an introductory course in business finance at a large College of Business Administration. To understand students' attitudes towards this innovative method of instruction in business finance, a simple one-page questionnaire of 10 attitudinal statements was used. Responses of 148 students, analyzed by chi square, indicated students were unanimous in their opinion that the World Wide Web greatly paved the way in data retrieval from the COMPUSTAT database. They further reported that this interface facilitated analyses for the course. Also their understanding of finance was enhanced, and they were motivated to learn more. They seem to be highly in favor of using COMPUSTAT database in the introductory courses in business finance and expressed this view by suggesting that this financial database should be made an integral part of teaching other courses in finance.     

Research Ethics in a Business School Context: The Establishment of a Review Committee and the Primary Issues of Concern

This paper describes the establishment of and the issues experienced by the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of a Business School within a University in Ireland. It identifies the issue of voluntarily given informed consent as a key challenge for RECs operating in a Business School context. The paper argues that whilst the typology of ethical issues in business research are similar to the wider social sciences, the fact that much research is carried out in the workplace adds to the complexity of the REC deliberations. The use of deception in the design of research studies, pestering the local community and the potential for harm to the researcher are also discussed briefly in the context of business research. The experiences of the authors’, two of whom have served as respective chairpersons of the business school REC since its inception in addition to being members of the university level REC, inform the discussion.     

Prediction of Entrepreneurial Success: The Development of a Rating Scale for Entrepreneurial Characteristics

Predicting entrepreneurial success is a complex task, which is performed more or less daily by consultants for small business firms. In this study, the development of an entrepreneurial rating scale designed to assist consultants in assessing the behavioural characteristics of starting entrepreneurs is reported. A model was formulated that incorporates two features of the prediction of entrepeneurial success: (a) entrepreneurial characteristics as well as aspects of the future job (present in the entrepreneurial plan) are appraised, (b) advising is part of the prediction issue, e.g. certain aspects of the entrepreneurial plan may be modified. The model is a variant of‘adaptive selection’, and is partly operationalized in the rating scale for entrepreneurial characteristics. Three studies were conducted with regard to the first feature: judgements on the relevance of situational and behavioural characteristics were obtained from several samples of consultants (N= 38, 23 and 48), and a sample of starting entrepreneurs (N= 61) was rated on behavioural characteristics. The findings indicate that consultants have a common opinion about the behavioural requirements for starting entrepreneurs and that some of these requirements covary with situational characteristics (i.e. general business features). Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the possible design of a validation study.     

Psychological Determinants of Entrepreneurial Success and Life-Satisfaction

The presented study focused on different stages of the entrepreneurial process. The first group comprised those starting a new business and the second group those who have been through the whole process of creating a new business and have now been operating in the market. The general aim of the article was to examine the relationship between action orientation, hope, goal commitment, entrepreneurial success, and life satisfaction, and to determine the role of psychological characteristics (hope, action orientation) in the entrepreneurial process. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 344 potential entrepreneurs in the prelaunch stage and 127 actual entrepreneurs in the post-launch stage. To analyze these relationships, multiple-group analysis was conducted.     

Toward Developing a Framework for Measuring the Business Value of Corporate Community Involvement

Business today is a key player in addressing social and environmental challenges. Every year companies contribute significant resources—cash, in-kind donations and employee volunteers—to non-profit organizations and community support initiatives. This support is critical for community development. Yet many companies have a limited understanding of the value their initiatives add to the community or to their business. In most cases they measure inputs and outputs but not actual impacts. Measuring and communicating the business value of community-focused programs, however, is critical to maintaining funding for such programs in downturns such as the recession of 2007–2009. This article provides critical analysis of existing efforts to measure the business value of corporate community involvement programs and offers guidance for developing indicators of business impact. Building on lessons learned, it identifies key criteria and makes recommendations for the development of an effective measurement framework and indicators. The article concludes with a discussion on how such a framework can lead to social change.     

Attributes of Successful MBAs: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study

Are attributes of successful MBA (Master of Business Administration) students useful for predicting success? Can information about these attributes contribute to improved business management? This 20-year study of Stanford male MBAs identified the importance of social extroversion as a contributor to success.' Successful MBA students are more likely to end up employed in small businesses or to be self-employed. In addition, earnings of MBAs who had undergraduate degrees in engineering or who were older students do not keep pace with earnings of younger MBAs with broader backgrounds. Earnings at 20 years are best predicted by previous earnings.     

A case study of ‘The Good School:’ Examples of the use of Peterson’s strengths-based approach with students

This applied case study centers on two aspects of Peterson’s research as introduced into a large K-12 school in Australia: (i) creating enabling institutions and (ii) applications of character strengths. The paper describes five character strengths initiatives. Four of the strengths initiatives have been integrated into existing school experiences such as English curriculum, school sport, student leadership, and counseling. The fifth initiative involved a brand new program which introduced a Positive Education Curriculum for years?K-10. We describe these five initiatives and then explain how students at the school may experience these in a more holistic and integrated way. We hope that this article will act as a fitting tribute to the legacy of Christopher Peterson.     

Educating Responsible Managers. The Role of University Ethos

The current economic crisis is forcing us to reflect on where we have gone wrong in recent years. In the search for responsibilities some have looked to Business Schools and Administration Departments. It is surprising that this situation has come about despite the fact that Business Ethics and Social Corporate Responsibility have been taught in business schools for years. Without wanting to place all the blame on higher education institutions, but from a critical perspective and assuming responsibility, we believe it is necessary to reflect rigorously on how to train leaders for the future and how we can best educate responsible Managers. In this article our objective is to reflect on the two factors which influence the training of responsible Managers: management discourse theory and the ethos of the institutions training future Managers. The central point of our article will be to argue for the need to develop an institutional ethos in Administration Faculties and business schools which is consistent with the responsibility discourse we propose and with the aim of providing high quality technical and moral training. Our central argument is that institutional ethos has enormous educational power and that the moral climate of an institution has a major influence on students' ideas, values and behaviours. The second argument for this main point is that corporate ethos can be managed and modulated. It is a process of cultural change which requires time and the setting up of specific initiatives to achieve the organisation that we want.     

An Empirical Comparison of Entrepreneurs and Employees: Implications for Innovation

Much has been written regarding the organizational changes needed to achieve entrepreneurship in established companies. Many corporate strategists conclude that above all others, a firm's "rank and file" have the intimate knowledge of business operations necessary to discover innovations within a corporation. However, little attention has been devoted to discovering a measure to identify the employees within a corporation who possess entrepreneurial characteristics and are thus likely to produce innovations. This exploratory study used external entrepreneurs as proxies for corporate internal entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of two measures: Kirton's Adaption-Innovation Inventory (Kirton, 1976) and an adapted version of Roner' s Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966) in distinguishing entrepreneurs from a population of employees. Participants (54 entrepreneurs and 79 employees) completed the 2 measures. Results indicated some significant differences between entrepreneurs and employees. Implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.     

Working in the Uncharted Technology Frontier: Characteristics of Women Web Entrepreneurs

The numbers of women choosing to become entrepreneurs has been steadily increasing for the past two decades. Recently, the Internet has provided a new venue for business that may be especially appealing for women. This study was conducted to explore gender- and business-related characteristics of women who own Internet businesses. Two hundred and eight women web entrepreneurs responded to an on-line survey. The results indicated that the types of businesses participants owned could be differentiated based on characteristics of the women web entrepreneurs. Specifically, women owning retail businesses reported less familiarity with computers and geared their Internet businesses more to women. In addition, participants defined the success of their Internet businesses in multiple ways that reflected their current life roles.This research was partially funded by an Initiatives for Women Grant from the University at Albany. A previous version of this article was presented at the Association for Women in Psychology conference in 2003.     

Teaching business ethics to professional engineers

Without question “business ethics” is one of the hot topics of the day. Over the past months we have seen business after business charged with improper practices that violate commonly-accepted ethical norms. This has led to a loss of confidence in corporate management, and has had severe economic consequences. From many quarters business educators have heard the call to put more emphasis on ethical practices in their business courses and curricula. Engineering educators are also heeding this call, since the practice of engineering usually involves working for (or leading) a business and/or engaging in business transactions. In the summer of 2002, Auburn University’s Engineering Professional Development program made the decision to produce—based on the author’s Executive MBA course in Business Ethics—a distance-delivered continuing education program for professional engineers and surveyors. Participants across the USA now may use the course to satisfy continuing education requirements with respect to professional licensing and certification. This paper outlines the purpose and content of the course and describes its production, distribution, application, and evaluation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

The Life Satisfaction of Owner-Manager Entrepreneurs When the Business of Business is not only Business

This paper studies the anatomy of entrepreneurs’ satisfaction with life, which refers to the relationship between life satisfaction, satisfaction in domains of life, and affective, evaluative, and sensory experiences of being well. The paper focuses on owner-manager entrepreneurs, who, as managers, lead their firms and take major business decisions and, as owners, have room to deviate from the exclusive procurement of profits to pursue their happiness. The study of entrepreneurs’ anatomy of life satisfaction provides insight on how they lead their firms and how they weight the well-being repercussions of their business decisions. The paper distinguishes between family-firm and nonfamily-firm entrepreneurs, and it shows that there is heterogeneity in entrepreneurs’ anatomy of life satisfaction; with the life satisfaction of family-firm entrepreneurs being strongly driven by family satisfaction and by negative affect, while the life satisfaction of nonfamily-firm entrepreneurs is strongly driven by work satisfaction. These differences in the anatomy of entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction do correspond with observed differences in the organization and behavior of family and nonfamily firms, which suggests that the anatomy of life satisfaction provides insight on how entrepreneurs weight their business decisions and lead their firms. The empirical exercise is based on an original survey applied to Spanish entrepreneurs in 2019.

     

性别角色认定对领导风格的影响：以女性创业者为例

领导风格的性别差异一直受到关注。以往的研究有两种观点：领导风格存在性别差异,女性的领导风格更有效;领导风格不存在性别差异。而最新研究认为领导风格差异源于社会性别角色,探讨女性创业者的性别角色认定特征及其对领导风格的影响十分必要。实证结果显示,不同性别角色认定的女性创业者在领导风格上存在差异,双性化者多采用高定规、高关怀的领导方式,女性化者多采用高关怀的方式,而男性化者则多采用高定规的方式。影响领导风格的并不是个体的性别本身,而是其对性别角色的认定。     

The Case for Creating a DBA Program – A Virtue-based Opportunity for Universities

Although efforts have been made to increase the opportunities for American-born minorities to obtain doctoral degrees in business, the actual number of business students who are American-born minorities has been extremely low. At the same time more than half of all PhD candidates in business schools are foreign-born. We suggest that business schools owe an ethical duty to provide role models for minority business students, and that this duty can be achieved by initiating Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programs that can enable working professionals who are American-born minorities to obtain terminal degrees in business. We outline eight steps that can be taken to implement a viable and cost effective DBA program.     

Coaching of Insolvent Entrepreneurs and the Change in Coping Resources,Health, and Cognitive Performance

As coaching becomes an established learning and development tool, it expands to new work contexts and relevant populations. Exploring coaching outcomes in insolvent entrepreneurs is a new and promising field. Business failure is a devastating experience for entrepreneurs, associated with negative emotions and adverse psychological and physiological reactions. Our study is the first to examine if coaching can help improve the coping resources, health, and cognitive performance of insolvent entrepreneurs. The results of our pre-post-test-within-subject analyses based on 19 participants show a positive improvement in psychological well-being, vital exhaustion, and vigilance. By contrast, no improvements were found with regard to coping resources and biomarkers such as stress hormones concentrations in hair. Unexpectedly, the working alliance between client and coach did not increase the improvements following coaching. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on the effects of coaching; however, our results should be interpreted cautiously as unfortunately we had no opportunity to include a control group in our research design.