坚持还是放弃? 基于前景理论的新生创业者承诺升级研究

坚持或者放弃创业是新生创业者面临的重要且艰难的抉择。已有研究主要基于理性决策的假设分析个体特征、创业活动以及创业环境对坚持或者放弃创业的影响。与已有研究不同,本文认为新生创业者的坚持不是完全理性的决策,其中存在承诺升级现象。研究基于前景理论(框架效应和反射效应)分析了坚持创业中的承诺升级,识别了可能的影响因素:前期投入时间、前期投入资金、创业计划的规范性、技术创业和心理预算,并利用面向中国新生创业者的动态跟踪调查数据(Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics,CPSED)进行了实证检验。针对两类样本(所有273个样本、没有盈利的182个样本)的实证研究取得了一致的结论 :前期投入的时间越多,新生创业者越倾向于坚持创业;前期是否投入资金以及创业计划的规范性对是否坚持创业的影响不显著;存在心理预算负向影响新生创业者的坚持;与非技术创业者相比较,技术创业者更倾向于坚持创业。     

中国式创业失败：归因、学习和后续决策

  失败是多数创业活动的必然结果,创业者对创业失败的行为反应是创业研究的一个重要议题。意义建构是一个嵌入式的社会化过程,文化是影响创业者意义建构创业失败的重要因素,中国创业者对创业失败的行为反应可能有别于西方创业者。然而,已有关于创业失败的研究主要来自欧美国家,对中国创业者在创业失败之后的行为研究很少。此外,中国的相关研究主要是概念性研究,缺少质化或量化的证据。因此,有必要探索中国情景下创业者在创业失败后的行为反应的独特规律。         基于文化比较视角,使用中国创业失败的典型事例,采用扎根理论设计,以中国创业者对创业失败的归因、学习和后续决策为切入点进行探索性研究,并与欧美研究的结果进行比较。通过霍夫斯泰德文化维度理论对中西方创业者在创业失败之后的行为差异进行分析并提供解释,提出中国式创业失败在归因、学习和后续决策方面的7个命题。         研究结果表明,与欧美创业者相比,中国创业者在创业失败后的总体归因倾向、内部归因倾向、外部归因倾向、学习内容、学习导向和后续创业意向等方面存在独特规律;文化是创业者在创业失败之后行为反应的重要影响因素,不同文化维度的具体取向会对创业者在创业失败后的行为反应产生不同的影响。         研究结果增强了对中国创业者如何对创业失败归因、如何从创业失败中学习以及在创业失败之后倾向选择坚持还是放弃这3个问题的认识,为中国本土化的创业失败研究提供了经验证据;强调了文化在创业失败研究中的重要作用;深化和拓展了创业失败归因、学习和后续决策的相关理论,为未来进一步的理论研究提供了思路。研究结论为创业者管理失败、推动创业教育改革、营造更有利于连环创业的制度环境提供了有针对性的建议。     

连续创业研究现状评介与未来展望

创业者并非一个同质的群体,其中连续创业者即是创业者的重要组成部分。在此,界定了连续创业者的概念;从一般特征、认知行为以及创业绩效3个方面比较了初创者与连续者的相关研究进展;探讨了创业经验的作用、创业学习对连续创业的影响,并展望了未来研究连续创业的可能方向。     

基于CPSED的创业者伦理与创业机会关系研究

从创业者伦理2个层面出发,按照创业机会开发2个阶段,运用中国创业动态跟踪调查(Chinese panel study of entrepreneurial dynamics,CPSED)项目2轮调查数据开展了实证检验。研究发现,创业者伦理意识有助于创业机会识别,创业者伦理行为对创业机会识别与利用之间的关系具有正向调节作用,而环境中伦理水平和创业者自我效能感未对创业者伦理与创业机会之间的关系产生调节影响。     

首次创业失败学习:来自创业新手、新创企业与行业特征的解释

聚焦创业者从首次创业失败经验中的学习,基于以往文献提出创业新手、新创企业与行业特征对创业失败学习影响的理论假设,通过深度访谈法获取首次创业失败的情景材料,使用内容分析方法来验证理论假设。研究发现,首次创业失败学习内容包括自我学习、内部学习与外部学习3个方面;高科技创业者更倾向内部学习,非高科技创业者更倾向自我学习与外部学习;首次创业经营时间较短的创业者更倾向自我学习和内部学习;创业失败财务成本较高的创业者倾向自我学习,创业失败财务成本较低的创业者倾向内部学习与外部学习。     

交情行为与创业机会：基于农业创业的多案例研究

在中国情理文化背景下,创业者在社会交往中注重人际情感交流,这种交情行为对把握创业机会具有重要作用。选取央视《致富经》栏目中20个农业创业故事作为研究样本,运用扎根理论方法对数据进行编码,探析创业者如何在创业实践中运用交情行为获取创业机会。研究结果表明,创业者采用面子、人情和关系等社会技巧,向创业资源所有者寻求情感交汇以获得对方的社会认同,以此揭示创业者运用交情行为塑造创业导向性社会情境的行为机理;通过构建创业网络和激活创业资源,交情行为促进创业者对创业机会的探索和利用,具体表现为交情行为能够促进创业者从社会网络关系中构建创业网络、提高从创业网络中调用创业资源的效率、强化将社会资源激活为创业资源的机会。     

创业者持股、外部股东与资本结构

以450家高科技创业企业为样本,实证考察创业企业的资本结构特征,以及揭示创业企业与成熟企业微观经济特征的差异及其对资本结构的影响.研究结果表明,创业企业资本结构呈现"短期债务为主"的期限特征和"商业信用为主"的来源特征.进一步,受创业者与股东间代理冲突不及成熟企业严重的微观经济特征的影响,自由现金流和外部大股东持股比例对创业企业资本结构无显著影响,而高持股比例使得创业者倾向于选择低的债务水平,且创业者持股对长期负债和银行贷款的负向影响较其对短期负债和商业信用的负向影响更为明显.     

先前经验、学习风格与创业能力的实证研究

如何提升创业者的创业能力是目前创业实践中亟待解决的问题。在将经验和能力区分开的基础上,从创业学习的视角出发,深入挖掘创业者先前经验与创业能力之间的作用关系机制,探讨创业者经验向创业能力转化的内在机理,采用探索性因子分析、验证性因子分析、层级回归分析等方法,对173家中国新创企业的调查问卷进行分析。研究结果表明,学习风格在创业者先前经验与创业能力的关系中发挥调节作用,不同类型的先前经验对不同类型的创业能力产生影响,创业者的学习风格也并非像以往研究所认为的那样存在优劣之分,而是存在一个匹配关系,当创业者的信息获取/转化方式与他的先前经验类型相匹配时,这一类型的经验才能更好的转化为创业能力。     

创业者如何从事件中塑造创业能力?——基于事件系统理论的连续创业案例研究

本文采用探索性案例研究方法,以连续创业者10年创业经历为纵向研究案例,基于事件系统理论深入探索创业者创业能力形成的过程机理,并揭示创业活动的差异、创业者自我效能感、创业认知、创业学习对该形成过程的影响。研究发现:事件空间、强度影响连续创业者的创业认知模式支配地位,创业者在被动性事件中倾向于采用分析式认知模式识别创业机会,采用直觉式认知模式发现创业资源,通过创造主动性事件在行动学习中利用创业机会,在经验学习中获取并管理创业资源;创业自我效能感能够调节创业者认知模式的转变,创业学习能够促进主动性事件对创业能力的提升效果;连续创业过程中,被动性和主动性事件的交互作用形成创业能力提升的正反馈,被动性事件变少、主动性事件变多,创业能力得以巩固。研究结论对创业者如何在复杂事件环境中提升创业能力具有一定的启发和指导意义。     

“深科技”创业者三驱动

当下,中国的创业主题正在发生深刻变化,无论是创业者的背景或是创业方向,都带着浓厚的科技色彩,一个科技主导的创业新时代已经到来。面对创业新时代,创业者更要做好"科技驱动、绿色驱动、责任驱动"三个驱动。     

Introduction to Special Section on Sensitivity Analysis and Summary of NCSU/USDA Workshop on Sensitivity Analysis

This guest editorial is a summary of the NCSU/USDA Workshop on Sensitivity Analysis held June 11–12, 2001 at North Carolina State University and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis. The objective of the workshop was to learn across disciplines in identifying, evaluating, and recommending sensitivity analysis methods and practices for application to food‐safety process risk models. The workshop included presentations regarding the Hazard Assessment and Critical Control Points (HACCP) framework used in food‐safety risk assessment, a survey of sensitivity analysis methods, invited white papers on sensitivity analysis, and invited case studies regarding risk assessment of microbial pathogens in food. Based on the sharing of interdisciplinary information represented by the presentations, the workshop participants, divided into breakout sessions, responded to three trigger questions: What are the key criteria for sensitivity analysis methods applied to food‐safety risk assessment? What sensitivity analysis methods are most promising for application to food safety and risk assessment? and What are the key needs for implementation and demonstration of such methods? The workshop produced agreement regarding key criteria for sensitivity analysis methods and the need to use two or more methods to try to obtain robust insights. Recommendations were made regarding a guideline document to assist practitioners in selecting, applying, interpreting, and reporting the results of sensitivity analysis.     

Distinguishing traumatic, vicarious and routine operational stressor exposure and attendant adverse consequences in a sample of police officers

Problems in studying occupational stress within the police service are identified and the paucity of work on operational duties as potential stressors are discussed. The present study reports the results of a factor analysis of operational stressors (N = 601 serving British police officers) that revealed three factors: exposure to death and disaster; violence and injury; sexual crime. These were demonstrated to be reliable scales and were included in logistic regression models together with a range of demographic and psychological variables. Models were applied to men and women separately, which showed there to be different predictors of the likelihood of suffering distress (measured by the General Health Questionnaire, GHQ) in terms of the officer's gender and operational role. Overall the model for women officers was better at predicting psychological distress than that for men. These findings are related to aspects of the police occupational culture. Further discussion is offered that conceptualizes police operational stressors as traumatic, routine and vicarious. Finally, some implications are drawn for the provision of stress intervention in the light of this differentiation.     

Criteria for selecting a production control philosophy

Logistic objectives constitute a compromise between having short leadtimes and a low volume of work in progress on the one hand and a high resource loading and due date obligation on the other. Miscellaneous production planning approaches offered today provide different combinations of logistic objectives for satisfying a manufacturing strategy. To combine the strength of the various approaches into a unified system, a new approach based on a dynamic and distributed production planning methodology is proposed. To customize the approach, various analyses and specifications have to be made and for that reason some important characteristics and criteria for analysing production control philosophies will be given.     

The social construction of the meaning of acute stressors: a qualitative study of the personal accounts of police officers using a stress counselling service

The police profession is one in which acute stressors are encountered more frequently than in other occupations. Using the personal accounts of 35 police officers attending an in-house stress counselling clinic, the aim of the present study was to provide a qualitative examination of how the institutional context of policing influenced the ways in which acute stressors signified to individual police officers experiencing felt distress. Using the framework of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy as an analytical tool, it is argued that beliefs contributing to the experience of felt distress are related to the way in which policing as both an identity and an activity is constructed through the police organizational culture. Not only do these constructions influence the ways in which officers perceive themselves and their environments, but they also operate at the collective level to 'normalize' some emotional responses and to 'pathologize' others which, it is argued, could impact upon the outcomes of interventions such as stress counselling.     

The moderating role of social support in Karasek's job strain model

This paper examines whether social support is a boundary-determining criterion in the job strain model of Karasek (1979). The particular focus is the extent to which different sources of social support, work overload and task control influence job satisfaction, depersonalization and supervisor assessments of work performance. Hypotheses are tested using prospective survey data from 80 clerical staff in a university setting. Results revealed 3-way interactions among levels of support (supervisor, co-worker, non-work), perceived task control and work overload on levels of work performance and employee adjustment (self-report). After controlling for levels of negative affect in all analyses, there was evidence that high levels of supervisor support mitigated against the negative effects of high strain jobs on levels of job satisfaction and reduced reported levels of depersonalization. Moreover, high levels of non-work support and co-worker support also mitigated against the negative effects of high strain jobs on levels of work performance. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of social support networks both at, and beyond, the work context.     

Job insecurity, coping resources and personality dispositions in occupational strain

This paper presents research on the relationships between the work-related stressor of perceived job insecurity and various indicators of occupational strain, taking into account employees' personality dispositions (trait negative and positive affectivity) and coping resources. Respondents were 222 Australian public servants surveyed during organizational restructuring that involved downsizing and threat to job certainty. The research was formulated within an adaptation of Osipow, Doty, and Spokane's (1985) framework of stress-strain-coping that included the possible direct as well as moderating effects of personality dispositions in reporting occupational strain (Parkes, 1990). Findings from hierarchical regression analyses indicate consistent significant independent effects of personality dispositions, coping resources and perceived job insecurity on various indicators of strain. There was also support for the moderating roles of negative affectivity and self-care in the relation between perceived job insecurity and physical strain. Implications for the role of dispositional factors, especially negative affectivity, and the utility of various coping resources in accounting for occupational strain in times of threatened job security are discussed.     

Job stress, job strain, and psychological withdrawal among Dutch university staff: towards a dualprocess model for the effects of occupational stress

This study examined the antecedents of job strain (emotional exhaustion, health complaints) and withdrawal behaviour (e.g. lowered organizational commitment) among a cross-sectional sample of 131 academic staff members of the law department of a large Dutch university. Conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) provided the theoretical background for this study. Strains and withdrawal behaviours were expected to be most prominent among those who reported having few resources and/or who reported high job demands. Structural equation modelling revealed that this was indeed the case. As predicted, differential patterns of effects emerged for job demands and job resources. Analysis of the effects of four job-specific stressors revealed that especially the structural aspects of a staff member's teaching task (e.g. the number of students in their classes) contributed strongly to perceived job demands. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Dermal Uptake of 18 Dilute Aqueous Chemicals: In Vivo Disappearance‐Method Measures Greatly Exceed In Vitro‐Based Predictions

Average rates of total dermal uptake (K_up) from short‐term (e.g., bathing) contact with dilute aqueous organic chemicals (DAOCs) are typically estimated from steady‐state in vitro diffusion‐cell measures of chemical permeability (K_p) through skin into receptor solution. Widely used (“PCR‐vitro”) methods estimate K_up by applying diffusion theory to increase K_p predictions made by a physico‐chemical regression (PCR) model that was fit to a large set of K_p measures. Here, K_up predictions for 18 DAOCs made by three PCR‐vitro models (EPA, NIOSH, and MH) were compared to previous in vivo measures obtained by methods unlikely to underestimate K_up. A new PCR model fit to all 18 measures is accurate to within approximately threefold (r = 0.91, p < 10^?5), but the PCR‐vitro predictions (r > 0.63) all tend to underestimate the K_up measures by mean factors (UF, and p value for testing UF = 1) of 10 (EPA, p < 10^?6), 11 (NIOSH, p < 10^?8), and 6.2 (MH, p = 0.018). For all three PCR‐vitro models, log(UF) correlates negatively with molecular weight (r² = 0.31 to 0.84, p = 0.017 to < 10^?6) but not with log(vapor pressure) as an additional predictor (p > 0.05), so vapor pressure appears not to explain the significant in vivo/PCR‐vitro discrepancy. Until this discrepancy is explained, careful in vivo measures of K_up should be obtained for more chemicals, the expanded in vivo database should be compared to in vitro‐based predictions, and in vivo data should be considered in assessing aqueous dermal exposure and its uncertainty.     

Systems Resilience for Multihazard Environments: Definition,Metrics, and Valuation for Decision Making

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction reported that the 2011 natural disasters, including the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, resulted in $366 billion in direct damages and 29,782 fatalities worldwide. Storms and floods accounted for up to 70% of the 302 natural disasters worldwide in 2011, with earthquakes producing the greatest number of fatalities. Average annual losses in the United States amount to about $55 billion. Enhancing community and system resilience could lead to massive savings through risk reduction and expeditious recovery. The rational management of such reduction and recovery is facilitated by an appropriate definition of resilience and associated metrics. In this article, a resilience definition is provided that meets a set of requirements with clear relationships to the metrics of the relevant abstract notions of reliability and risk. Those metrics also meet logically consistent requirements drawn from measure theory, and provide a sound basis for the development of effective decision‐making tools for multihazard environments. Improving the resiliency of a system to meet target levels requires the examination of system enhancement alternatives in economic terms, within a decision‐making framework. Relevant decision analysis methods would typically require the examination of resilience based on its valuation by society at large. The article provides methods for valuation and benefit‐cost analysis based on concepts from risk analysis and management.     

Employees' perceptions of organizational restructuring: the role of social support

Organizational change and restructuring is often perceived as leading to increased occupational stress, impacting negatively on the psychological well-being of employees. This pragmatic study investigates the role of social support and dispositional affect as moderators of role stress post-restructuring for employees in a public utility company. A total of 176 employees, including 37 managers, 60 graded staff and 78 industrial staff completed a self-report questionnaire, approximately 1 year postrestructuring, retrospectively assessing role conflict, ambiguity, overload and positive and negative feedback pre- and post-restructuring. Results suggested that overall role stress increased for managers/ senior officers and graded staff, but not for industrial staff. Social support was linked with lower role stress, more positive feedback and less negative feedback at post-restructuring. For certain role stressors this impact was moderated by dispositional affect, but the effect was not consistent across occupational groups. Positive affect enhanced the effect of manager support in reducing role conflict for graded staff, and the effect of co-worker support in increasing positive feedback and reducing negative feedback for industrial staff. Findings suggest that managers should pay particular attention to support and feedback for employees during periods of chronic occupational stress following organizational restructuring.