1,722,355 research outputs found
Competitive empathy: sharing values and strategies with rivals
Full text linkPurpose: This study aims to introduce the original idea of competitive empathy, to go beyond competitive advantage and help managers and entrepreneurs strategize with a shared purpose. Design/methodology/approach: This study builds on and originally combines seminal works on empathy in the fields of psychology and management, which are extended to embrace the notion of empathy toward competitors. Empirical research leveraged different methods, including “class as a lab” research; field studies; and collaborative research. Findings: To support managers’ and entrepreneurs’ effort to be more empathic and emotionally intelligent when dealing with competitors, the study introduces the “Competitive Empathy Catalyst” tool, which identifies three layers – namely, orientation, execution and foundation – where to look for common ground between your company’s and your competitors’ strategy. A set of principles that should inspire managers’ strategic behavior and action to enable competitive empathy are also proposed: search for a non-conflicting identification with competitors and avoid “egotism”; adopt “perspective-taking”; practice “mirroring”; aim at the “greater good”; leverage “vicarious learning” and apply “cautionary trust.” Practical implications: Looking at competitors from a different angle and applying competitive empathy as a strategic device can uncover a plethora of opportunities benefiting the company’s strategy and ability to create, deliver and capture value. Originality/value: Empathy in management theory and practice has been traditionally associated with interaction with customers, employees and stakeholders. Competitive empathy counterintuitively applies empathy to a category of players that were largely left out from the discussion, that is, competitors
How Entrepreneurs make sense of Lean Startup Approaches: Business Models as cognitive lenses to generate fast and frugal Heuristics
Full text linkThe role of the business model (BM) as heuristics to support entrepreneurial and strategic problem solving at a cognitive level has been hinted at by extant literature, but left largely unexplored as of yet. This study is positioned in the emerging research on the cognitive individual microfoundations of Entrepreneurship and Strategy, and contributes to the discussion of how business models are used as heuristics, in the novel and relevant setting of Digital Entrepreneurship. We conducted a multiple case study on three digital startups that applied the emerging Lean Startup Approaches (LSAs) and embody technological development in their value proposition. We found that digital entrepreneurs applying LSAs as a systematic process to validate their business ideas rely on business models as cognitive lenses to make sense of LSAs and translate abstract guidelines into fast and frugal heuristics, in order to ‘make do’ with cognitive resource scarcity. These BM-generated heuristics in turn help entrepreneurs in the activities of: (i) making sense of entrepreneurial opportunities; (ii) formulating falsifiable hypotheses concerning their startups’ viability; (iii) filtering, selecting and organizing fuzzy and incomplete external and internal information; (iv) designing multidimensional customer experiments and tests revolving around the notion of value, through Minimum Viable Business Models (MVBMs); (v) prioritizing these experiments and tests to validate their early BM through analogical arguments; and (vi) processing the learning they obtain from experiments, and concretizing it in the form of BM pivots. We also provide empirically-driven insight on an integrative set of cognitive processes – namely (1) cognitive imprinting, (2) common language transfer; (3) attention intensity and (4) scientific and experimental cognition – that mold and blend together the BM-generated heuristics and explain how they are learnt, transferred, enacted, and how they persistently enable a cognitive transition to the application of a scientific method to Entrepreneurship based on more sophisticated experiments and metrics
Digital startups and the adoption and implementation of Lean Startup Approaches: Effectuation, Bricolage and Opportunity Creation in practice
Full text linkDigital startups launching original value propositions can test out and validate their business model using a recent and emerging set of practices known as Lean Startup Approaches (LSAs), which consist of Customer Development and the Lean Startup. While LSAs are gaining momentum in the ecosystem surrounding digital startups, they still suffer from poor theoretical foundations and operational issues that hinder their adoption and implementation. The aim of this study is to go beyond recalling anecdotal and single-case examples and, through mixed-methods research involving 227 digital startups, provide a first large-scale analysis of: (i) if and how digital startups apply Lean Startups Approaches; (ii) the ensuing results; (iii) the main advantages and disadvantages that stem from adopting and implementing LSAs; and (iv) how digital startups connect and combine the LSAs with other entrepreneurial approaches and tools for launching startups. The findings reveal that most of the sample has adopted LSAs and obtained several benefits from their use. A list of practical guidelines on how to solve the existing drawbacks and enhance the effectiveness of adopting and implementing LSAs is hence proposed. To conclude, a framework for organizing the empirical findings is put forward, where LSAs are inserted into the entrepreneurship theory debate on Effectuation, Entrepreneurial Bricolage and Opportunity Creation. Suggestions are then provided on how to sequence and bridge effectuation and causation logics and decision-making tools in an “entrepreneurial opportunities space”
Economic growth: The role of digitalization and entrepreneurship
No full textResearch widely acknowledge that entrepreneurial activity is a driving force for economies. Recently, leading political institutions and scholars argue that digitalization is a central factor for economic growth and a fundamental right for citizens and societies. Moreover, studies have introduced the emergence “digital entrepreneurship” as a new research stream, to indicate an entrepreneurial process triggered by the infusion of new digital technologies in various aspects of entrepreneurship. However, research has often treated entrepreneurship and digitalization in isolation, partially neglecting a combined role as explanatory factors and driving forces for economic growth. To cope with this research gap, with this study, we aim at exploring how entrepreneurship and digitalization may impact economic growth. By employing a quantitative approach, we observe that entrepreneurship is positively related to economic growth and that digitalization mediates this relationship. Building on previous studies, we propose an original process model for measuring entrepreneurial activity made up of three phases, entrepreneurial quantity, quality and outcome. Findings show that only the last two phases of entrepreneurial quality and outcome have a positive impact on economic development. We believe that scholars can find interesting this research to further explore the role of digital entrepreneurship for economies and societies. Finally, policymakers can find useful our original method to measure the entrepreneurial activity and the impact that digitalization and entrepreneurship have on their economies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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