The Role of Operations Management Across the Entrepreneurial Value Chain

This special issue contains articles that exemplify the role of operations management across the entrepreneurial value chain. This value chain encompasses all stages of the entrepreneurial phenomenon, including technology commercialization, where discovery, commitment, organization, and growth must take place. We report on a literature search that identifies research questions categorized with respect to topics crucial to operations management scholars and classify these questions under each stage of this value chain. The search guides the development of an evolutionary path for the use of resources, routines, and reputation (3Rs), often lacking in this process, and enables us to propose modeling and topical gaps in the literature. We offer a framework to set up exemplars for operational tradeoffs uniquely associated with the entrepreneurial value chain. We also articulate how five contributed articles in this issue tackle some of these tradeoffs, prior to introducing four perspective pieces. We hope this discussion motivates follow‐on work and triggers a significant increase in the flow of articles that make it to both entrepreneurship and operations management top‐tier academic and practitioner publications.     

Foreign Location Choice: Review and Extensions

International Business (IB) research on foreign‐location choice has experienced a revival in recent years, yet a comprehensive review has been sorely lacking. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the findings of recently published articles on the topic of foreign‐location choice and offer fruitful directions for future research. This review consists of three sections: first, the authors provide a historical overview of this research stream by tracing its origins and analyzing the general trend that has shaped research on foreign‐location choice. Next, the authors conduct a review of 137 recent articles published in leading IB and business/management journals. These articles are categorized according to common topics, and the main findings of each category are synthesized in order to bring some cohesion to this fragmented field. Lastly, the authors identify issues that remain under‐researched or require re‐thinking some taken‐for‐granted assumptions. Through this effort, they are able to connect the past, present and future of research on foreign‐location choice and to shed some new light on the IB literature.     

Review of female immigrant entrepreneurship research: Past findings,gaps and ways forward

We conduct a review of the literature on entrepreneurship by females with an ethnic minority background based on immigration to a new country and focus on entrepreneurial resources, entrepreneurial strategies, outcomes, and context. The intersection of gender and ethnicity influences entrepreneurship in specific ways that we discuss. The literature review indicates that particular (human, social, and financial) resources help shape entrepreneurial strategies, which in turn result in particular outcomes at the individual, firm, and societal levels. These factors are influenced by the co-ethnic and host country cultural and institutional contexts that we review. Situating our study in the mixed embeddedness perspective, we organize and synthesize extant research on the business endeavors of female immigrant entrepreneurs and discuss important gaps that provide opportunities for future research. We also address policy and practice implications.     

The Concept of International Opportunity in International Entrepreneurship: A Review and a Research Agenda

Recent research in the field of international entrepreneurship (IE) has emphasized the concept of international opportunity. The entrepreneurial behaviors focused on international opportunities have been found to be critical in IE. International opportunities, however, are often depicted in rather abstract and unspecified ways, and the research suffers from narrow theoretical discussion in relation to the concept of opportunity. To address these issues, the authors draw from entrepreneurship research and present alternative conceptualizations of opportunities as a basis for more in‐depth study of international opportunities in IE. To further articulate a future research agenda, the authors review the state of knowledge on opportunities in the IE field by content‐analyzing articles published between 1989 and 2012. All the analyzed articles incorporate the concept of opportunity into their studies. It is found that, although the IE research has investigated many relevant elements, it is rather limited in the articulation of the conceptual features of international opportunities and opportunity‐focused behaviors. Building on these observations, the authors propose a definition of international opportunity and research questions and strategies to advance IE research on international opportunities.     

Subsidiary Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Opportunity: An Institutional Perspective

A subsidiary's ability to identify opportunities in the host country and to subsequently exploit these opportunities could create competitive advantages for the Multinational Corporation. While research on subsidiary entrepreneurship has focused primarily on subsidiary-specific resources and capabilities, as well as environmental factors, the type of opportunities that the subsidiaries may find in the host environment has been underexplored. Drawing on the subsidiary entrepreneurship literature, institutional perspectives, and entrepreneurship research, this paper suggests that subsidiaries embedded in institutional contexts that are different from those of their home country have unique advantages that enable the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities. Accordingly, a theoretical framework is proposed, based on contingency perspectives on the different views of entrepreneurial opportunities in relation to business processes in the host country's institutional environment, vis-a-vis uncertainty levels and legitimacy requirements. In addition, appropriate strategic approaches are suggested, through which subsidiaries can exploit these entrepreneurial opportunities.     

Strategic networks of discovery and creation entrepreneurs

Current research favors diversity within strategic networks as a source of idea generation and opportunity pursuit. However, diversity may not always be advantageous. Drawing from literature on entrepreneurial opportunities, social network theory, and cognitive psychology, it is argued in this paper that the level of diversity in entrepreneurial strategic networks differs based on the nature of the entrepreneurial opportunity context—discovery or creation. Competing hypotheses are developed for the nature of strategic networks in the discovery and creation opportunity contexts. The results from our two studies (using PSED II dataset and data collected from women entrepreneurs in India) show that entrepreneurial strategic networks differ based on whether entrepreneurs are pursuing discovery or creation opportunities, i.e., entrepreneurs operating in ‘discovery’ contexts tend to use networks ties with individuals who are relatively similar to themselves, while entrepreneurs in ‘creation’ contexts tend to use network ties with individuals who are relatively different from themselves. Further, the results also show that the diversity in strategic networks is not unidirectional in discovery and/or creation contexts but varies depending on the specific matters for which the entrepreneur seeks advice. Discussion and future research directions outline the unique findings of this study and potential implications for theory development.     

The Development of Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Role of Human,Social and Institutional Capital

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial leadership development. Leadership studies are characterized by an increasing emphasis given to an individual leader's social and organizational domain. Within the context of human capital and social capital theory, the paper reflects on the emergence of a social capital theory of leadership development. Using a retrospective, interpretivist research method, the authors present the experience of a cohort of business leaders on an executive development programme to uncover the everydayness of leadership development in practice. Specifically, they explore how entrepreneurial leadership develops as a social process and what the role of social capital is in this. The findings suggest that the enhancement of leaders’ human capital only occurred through their development of social capital. There is not, as extant literature suggests, a clear separation between leader development and leadership development. Further, the analysis implies that the social capital theory of leadership is limited in the context of the entrepreneurial small firm, and the authors propose that it should be expanded to incorporate institutional capital, that is, the formal structures and organizations which enhance the role of social capital and go beyond enriching the human capital stock of individual leaders.     

Formation and Constitution of Effectual Networks: A Systematic Review and Synthesis

The co‐creational processes of effectuation represent an important development in understanding of entrepreneurial action. They also manifest in networks that are themselves important artefactual outcomes of effectual processes. To synthesize research connecting effectuation to the networks involved, this paper offers a systematic literature review. Following recent theorizing, the authors organize the literature around two general themes: (1) why and how network development occurs; and (2) what network develops. The resultant thematic model offers a comprehensive perspective on network development under effectuation logic. The analysis identifies that understanding of effectual networking and effectual networks is fragmented, incomplete and constrained by a lack of construct and contextual clarity. The authors present alternative perspectives on constructs and assumptions surrounding networks in effectuation, integrate network theory into effectuation, and generate important trajectories for future research.     

Human resources management and corporate governance: Integration perspectives and future directions

The aim of this article is to investigate, through a systematic review of the literature, what has been studied and published in the international academic literature regarding the integration between human resources management (HRM) and corporate governance (CG).We accomplished it answering two research questions: How has evolved the academic publications regarding the integration between HRM and CG? and Under which theoretical perspectives the integration between HRM and CG has been studied? The research covered the publications from 2000 to 2017, and the analysis comprises 79 articles from relevant international journals. The results revealed the predominance of a shareholder theoretical perspective and the apparent legitimation of HRM as an important variable of CG, but with a secondary position, as consultant or processes provider. Besides exploring and exposing the state of the art in this area of knowledge, through a critical analysis of the literature, this study highlights the gaps in the literature and provides suggestions for future studies.     

创业导向与探索式创新的关系：一个双中介效应模型

  创业导向对探索式创新的影响决定创业企业在不确定商业生态环境中的市场机会捕捉能力和价值创造效果。虽然已有研究部分证实了创业导向与探索式创新的相互作用,但面对创业企业生存环境不确定性更高、资源约束更明显的事实,创业企业如何借助合理的战略决策和高效的资源使用行为帮助自身实现由生存到发展的过渡显得尤为重要,鲜有研究对此类问题予以深入探讨。         基于战略创业理论、创新管理理论和资源基础观理论,以创业导向为解释变量,以探索式创新为被解释变量,引入战略灵活性和创业拼凑两个可能影响导向与产出关系的关键要素,探讨创业导向对探索式创新的直接影响,以及战略灵活性和创业拼凑可能起到的特殊中介作用。借鉴并改进已有研究的成熟量表形成问卷,选取深圳的创业企业为调研对象,以电子邮件的形式发放问卷,基于最终获得的283份有效问卷,采用结构方程和双中介模型的研究方法,全面检验创业导向、战略灵活性、创业拼凑与探索式创新之间的关系。         研究结果表明,创业导向、战略灵活性和创业拼凑均对探索式创新产生促进作用;创业导向与战略灵活性呈显著的正相关关系,也对创业拼凑产生积极影响;战略灵活性与创业拼凑呈显著的正相关关系。创业拼凑在创业导向与探索式创新之间和战略灵活性与探索式创新之间起部分中介作用。由战略灵活性和创业拼凑形成的中介链部分中介了创业导向与探索式创新之间的关系。         研究结论从导向-策略-行为-产出的研究框架拓展了战略创业理论的研究内容,揭示了创业导向、战略灵活性、创业拼凑与探索式创新之间的关系机理,为创业企业理解战略灵活性和创业拼凑的影响、充分实践和发挥创业导向的创新精神、促进探索式创新活动的持续开展提供了重要的理论依据和经验证据。     

手段导向、知识获取与新企业创业能力的实证研究

创业能力对于新企业创造和维持竞争优势具有重要意义,相关研究受到创业领域学者们的广泛关注。然而创业能力的实证研究主要集中于创业者个体层面创业能力的前因和结果分析,组织层面的创业能力的实证研究尚处于探索阶段,仍有待运用有效的理论揭示新企业如何构建组织层面创业能力的内在机理和路径。作为新兴的创业理论,手段导向理论有助于面临高不确定性的新企业在创业过程中持续进行迭代式学习,而组织学习理论认为,知识获取作为组织学习的核心环节有助于组织创业能力的构建。因此,手段导向可能通过知识获取提升新企业创业能力。然而,少有学者关注此方面研究。 运用手段导向理论和组织学习理论,深入剖析手段导向各维度对创业能力的积极影响,检验知识获取在手段导向与创业能力关系间的中介作用。采取大样本问卷调查,收集215家中国新企业数据,并运用多元线性回归分析和因子分析等方法进行实证检验。 研究结果表明,手段导向的4个维度均对创业能力具有积极影响,试验、可承受损失和先前承诺3个维度通过知识获取提升新企业创业能力,但是知识获取在柔性与新企业创业能力关系间的中介作用不显著。 研究结论对于丰富和拓展组织层面创业能力相关研究和推动手段导向理论的发展具有重要意义,为新企业如何在高不确定性和强资源约束下构建组织创业能力提供必要的理论指导。     

Strategic Orientations in Management Literature: Three Approaches to Understanding the Interaction between Market,Technology, Entrepreneurial and Learning Orientations

Market, technology, entrepreneurial and learning orientations have attracted major scholarly interest within their specific streams of literature for some decades. These strategic orientations are seen as principles that direct and influence the activities of a firm and generate the behaviours intended to ensure its viability and performance. Prior studies have argued that firms should develop and use multiple orientations, yet the relationship between different orientations has received only fragmented attention. This paper presents a systematic review of this literature, covering 67 scholarly articles published between 1987 and 2010 which investigate multiple orientations. The paper contributes first by summarizing the current state of knowledge on the interplay between these orientations. Many of these relationships have not been studied to any great degree, and there are research gaps in the information available on the relationships between entrepreneurial, technology and learning orientation in particular. Secondly, the paper contributes to further theoretical and empirical enquiry by synthesizing the empirical findings into a three‐approach framework. The sequential, alternatives and complementary approaches to perceiving the relationship between orientations all suggest areas for further research. The sequential approach could further contribute by developing better constructs for explaining the orientation of the firm; while the alternatives approach could increase its relevance to management through the exploration of contingency settings and comparative studies. The complementary approach encourages discussion between researchers from the different streams of literature through the investigation of the relationships. It suggests focus on the investigation of both universal‐ and contingency‐dependent‐orientation configurations.     

资源约束情境下创业拼凑手边资源要素识别的扎根研究

基于战略即实践相关思想,通过理论演绎的方法,论证资源约束是应用创业拼凑理论的前置情境条件。在此基础上,以4家处于资源约束情境的典型新创企业为研究对象,遵循扎根理论范式识别创业拼凑的手边资源要素,以深化创业拼凑的理论内核。研究发现:资源约束企业通过手边资源建构资源基础,确定了手边资源兼具可触达性、可用性和低成本性,并将识别到的手边资源要素与资源边界管理研究进行理论对话,指明手边资源建设不仅要判别资源的边界要素,也要提升管理认知和资源警觉力来加以强化。     

Employee performance management across borders: A review of relevant academic literature

The purpose of this paper is to survey the emerging academic literature on employee performance management (PM) from an international perspective. The primary information source was a search of electronic databases. Two criteria were used to determine which studies to include in the literature survey: (1) those published in an English-language blind refereed academic journal, and (2) those focused on employee PM or performance appraisal (PA) from an international/global perspective. Sixty-four articles, published between 1985 and 2005, met the criteria. A preliminary scheme was developed for classifying the existing academic research into conceptual and empirical articles. The empirical articles were further classified by their foci and themes. In addition to classifying the articles, the paper presents a summary of what can be learned from the major findings of the empirical studies. The major conclusion is that the academic literature on cross-border PM is relatively atheoretical and exploratory in nature and that the design and substance of the research studies are weak. With regard to themes, there are a number of foci in the literature with only scant attention paid to the central concern with the PM of expatriates as expressed by firms. The empirical articles look at the disparate components of PA and are interested mainly in cultural differences as an intervening variable. Several recommendations are presented for researchers to help focus future research on cross-border PM.     

Small Business Social Responsibility: A Critical Multilevel Review,Synthesis and Research Agenda

Small‐business social responsibility (SBSR) related research is rapidly increasing in quantity, but is found in divergent literatures and disciplines. It is time to offer a comprehensive review that identifies, synthesizes and integrates previous research, and highlights the knowledge gaps and the way forward. This methodical search of the literature helped to identify 115 multidisciplinary peer‐reviewed academic articles appearing in high‐quality journals over the 1970–2016 period. Using a systematic and in‐depth content analysis technique, the authors reviewed the articles and identified the theories used, the national contextual focus and the methodological orientations in these articles. They also identified the predictors, outcomes, mediators and moderators of SBSR at the institutional, organizational and individual levels of analysis. This review helps to identify significant knowledge gaps in terms of the theoretical orientation, the national contextual focus, the core content under study, and the methods used. The authors offer numerous suggestions across these topics to help address the knowledge gaps and raise important questions for future research. The primary contributions of this paper are: delineating and summarizing a multilevel analysis of an emerging literature on SBSR; integrating contributions from a wide range of management disciplines and geographical contexts; extracting the potential theoretical contributions in this field; and informing directions for future research. The authors propose a research agenda that is theoretically relevant and innovative, and call for context‐ and size‐aware research on SBSR, using small‐business‐specific methodologies and measurements.     

Uncovering the factors behind new ventures’ international performance: Capabilities,alertness and technological turbulence

This research is based on the perception that the explanation of International New Ventures' (INVs) performance demands a process view, going deeper than the standard approach, in empirical papers, of testing a direct relationship between company-level antecedents and performance. A three-tier model was developed to investigate the process leading to INVs international performance, emphasizing the role of entrepreneurial alertness. Based on the dynamic capabilities framework, entrepreneurial alertness was envisaged as the mediating element between firms' capabilities and their international performance. Empirical research confirmed the hypothesized model. Firms' capabilities (entrepreneurial orientation, foreign market knowledge, and absorptive capacity) significantly influence the level of entrepreneurial alertness, which impacts on the levels of self-reported satisfaction with the company's international performance. The paper makes four contributions to International Entrepreneurship literature. First, it highlights the key role played by entrepreneurial alertness in explaining INVs' international performance. This is convergent with the dynamic capabilities view on firms' ability to sense and seize specific international business opportunities. Second, this study considers entrepreneurial alertness as a capability that is not limited to the entrepreneur, but it is an organizational capability. Third, it shows that entrepreneurial alertness does not exist in the vacuum, is based on a set of base capabilities, namely entrepreneurial orientation, foreign market knowledge, and absorptive capacity, that simultaneously leverage the INVs to sense possible opportunities and constrain the focus of opportunities to international markets, as a key element to foster INVs' higher performance. Fourth, it underlines the role of technological turbulence as a moderator of the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and INVs' international performance.     

Corporate governance effectiveness along the entrepreneurial process of a family firm: the role of private equity

This paper was motivated by the increasing interest in the corporate governance debate on how effective structure and processes may influence entrepreneurial transitions. Along the entrepreneurial process, little research to date has investigated the exit in the context of entrepreneurial family firms. Previous literature has considered the exit mainly as a failure for entrepreneurial families, but when uncertainties arise this choice may enable ownership transitions, thus facilitating survival and long term strategies. Among the exit options, a private equity buyout may balance the family’s wealth protection and the firm’s future growth. However, which family specific characteristics and strategic needs may affect the exit option still remains a neglected topic. Drawing on corporate governance literature and recent research addressing entrepreneurship in family firms, this paper investigates, by a single case study, the bridging role of private equity buyout for going through entrepreneurial transitions. Findings suggest that a private equity buyout is a governance mechanism that may sustain an entrepreneurial transition by realigning family interests and goals. It may also allow the family commitment for improving organizational capabilities required by an entrepreneurial transition.     

Most cited articles and authors in global strategy research

Recent reviews of global strategy research have documented a number of top contributors based on the number of their publications. However, no citation analysis has been conducted to ascertain the impact and influence of this research. In response, we have conducted the first ever citation analysis of 393 global strategy articles in nine leading journals published during the 1990s. Our findings identify the 25 most cited articles in the nine journals, the top 40 authors who publish these most cited articles, and the most cited articles in each of the 16 categories (subfields) of global strategy research. We also find that there is relatively little correlation between the set of 30 most prolific authors identified by Lu [Lu, J.W., 2003. The evolving contributions in international strategic management research. Journal of International Management, 9, 193–213.] and our set of 40 most cited authors. Among the 30 most prolific contributors, only eight (27%) have authored one of the top 25 most cited articles. Conversely, 32 (80%) of the 40 authors who publish the top 25 most cited articles are not on the list of most prolific authors. The eight leading authors who excel in both volume and influence of their research—Paul Beamish, John Hagedoorn, Jean-Francois Hennart, W. Chan Kim, Anoop Madhok, Arvind Parkhe, Mike Peng, and Aimin Yan—are surveyed to offer their insights on how to craft high impact research.     

Digital Internationalization of Traditional Firms: Virtual Presence and Entrepreneurial Orientation

While digital technologies like the internet offer new and less cost-intensive ways to seize international opportunities, when it comes to traditional firms selling tangible products, little is known about their use of online channels for servicing foreign markets. This is especially the case for their choice between customized (active) or general (default) forms of corporate internationalization websites (viz. virtual presence modes). Building on the entrepreneurial orientation literature, we propose that firms that are more entrepreneurially orientated are more likely to capture internationalization opportunities with active internationalization websites. We further suggest that the threat of competitive pre-emption will moderate this relationship. Using a sample of Austrian SME exporters, we find support for the positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on the use of active internationalization websites, but do not find a significant moderating effect of competitive pre-emption. In this way, we add to the growing research on digital internationalization by explaining the circumstances in which traditional firms choose between different internationalization website formats.