1,720,973 research outputs found
The more, the merrier? Women in top-management teams and entrepreneurship in established firms
No full textResearch summary: We study the association between firms' entrepreneurial outcomes and their gender composition. Though highly topical, there is little solid empirical knowledge of this issue, which calls for an inductive approach. We match a paired-respondent questionnaire survey with population-wide employer-employee data, and find evidence that the presence of female top managers is positively related to entrepreneurial outcomes in established firms. Yet, this relation is conditional on the proportion between male and female top managers. Another finding is that the overall proportion of women in the firm's workforce negatively moderates the relation between female top managers and entrepreneurial outcomes. We discuss various mechanisms that can explain these findings, and argue that they are best understood in terms of the dynamics of social categorization
The “human side” of open innovation: the role of employee diversity in firm-level openness
No full textThe use of external knowledge for innovation (i.e., inbound or outside-in open innovation) has received substantial attention in the innovation literature. However, the “human side” of open innovation is still poorly understood. We consider the role of employee characteristics with respect to predicting firm-level openness. Drawing on the human capital, learning and creativity literature, we theorize that knowledge diversity of the firm’s employees is positively associated with employees’ ability to identify and absorb external knowledge, which aggregates to increased firm-level openness—that is, firms’ use of external knowledge in their pursuit of innovation. Based on a combination of three data sources, namely, two survey data sources and register data, we find support for our hypothesis that employees’ educational diversity is positively associated with firm-level openness. However, we find no direct association between employees’ work history diversity and firm-level openness but rather—as also hypothesized—a conditional relationship based on educational background, which implies that diverse work history only has a positive impact at higher levels of educational diversity. To reduce endogeneity concerns, we undertake a series of robustness checks
The strategic organization of the entrepreneurial established firm
No full textThe entrepreneurship field predominantly focuses on start-ups, opportunity discovery and single individual. These overall characteristics mean that the field has difficulties conceptualizing and theorizing the entrepreneurial activities of established firms. In particular, the links between organizational designs, the various entrepreneurial activities of organizational members and firm-level entrepreneurial entrepreneurial outcomes are not well-understood. We sketch a research program for understanding the strategic organization of the entrepreneurial established firms
The role of senior management in opportunity formation : direct involvement or reactive selection?
Get PDFResearch Summary : Much research suggests that entrepreneurial opportunities in established firms result from bottom-up initiative in a diverse workforce, senior management’s main role in the entrepreneurial process is to select among opportunities generated in the bottom-up process, and it should refrain from directly getting involved in this process. We develop an alternative and more active view of the role of senior management in the opportunity formation process in which senior management intervenes in the entrepreneurial process to resolve coordination and collaboration problems across initiatives and decide on resource allocation. We proffer rival hypotheses concerning the effect of such senior management involvement in the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, we hypothesize that the positive relations between bottom-up initiative/employee diversity and opportunity formation are positively (negatively) moderated by such direct involvement by senior management. We examine these ideas using two matched data sources: a double-respondent survey of CEOs and HR managers and employer–employee register data. We find support for the view that senior management involvement positively moderates the relations between bottom-up processes/diversity and opportunity formation.
Managerial Summary: What are the processes through which entrepreneurial opportunities emerge in established companies? Research has pointed to diversity and bottom-up initiative, but our understanding is limited with respect to what senior managers should do to optimally promote Entrepreneurship in such companies. In one view, senior management should keep a distance and limit their involvement to picking the best opportunities out of those they are presented with in the bottom-up process. In contrast, we argue that given bottom-up initiative in the context of a diverse workforce, senior management should play a more direct role in the entrepreneurial process. The reason is that senior-management involvement at early stages of the opportunity formation process is required to handle the management challenges arising from diversity and bottom-up initiative. Overall, our study suggests that firms that wish to seize the potential benefits (in terms of entrepreneurial opportunities) of having a more diverse workforce and more bottom-up initiative need senior managers that directly engage in the entrepreneurial process
Wise choices : how thoroughness of opportunity appraisal, incentives, and performance evaluation fit together
No full textFirms need to invest their scarce resources into the most promising new business opportunities (e.g., new engineering technologies). Yet, the literature on strategic entrepreneurship pays little attention to how, and how thoroughly, firms appraise potential opportunities based on technical as well as managerial criteria. Given that such evaluation takes considerable time, energy, attention, and skill on the part of employees, we propose that firms need to establish a fit between the thoroughness of opportunity appraisal and their reward as well as performance evaluation practices. Evidence from a double-respondent sample of 565 Danish firms supports our theoretical expectations
Organizational design correlates of entrepreneurship : the roles of decentralization and formalization for opportunity discovery and realization
No full textExtant research offers relatively little insight into the organizational design correlates of entrepreneurship in established firms. We argue on theoretical grounds that the same organizational designs support the realization as well as the discovery of opportunities. Specifically, decentralized structures are associated with opportunity realization as well discovery, and this effect is reinforced by formalization. Decentralization gives managers the discretion and autonomy needed to recognize and realize opportunities, while formalization enables the standardization and codification of actions and processes. To test these ideas, we use a data-set based on paired responses from 474 Danish firms operating in several industries for our analyses. We find that decentralization and formalization have direct, positive, and significant associations with opportunity realization. We also address how these organizational design variables are related to opportunity discovery. We find similar effects. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our reasoning and results, such as implications for the idea in the innovation and organizational learning literatures that optimal performance over time requires that firms either vacillate between organizational designs or adopt ambidextrous designs
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