The Organizational Architecture of Nonprofit Governance: Economic Calculation Within an Ecology of Enterprises

This paper treats nonprofit firms as elements within the ecology of enterprises that constitute an economy. Within this ecological framework, nonprofit governance must to a significant extent be guided by economic signals generated through market competition. After we examine the problems of economic calculation that nonprofit enterprises face, we consider the organizational logic of nonprofit firms as one that is driven by the creation of points of contact with the market economy. The operation of this logic creates some general limit on the range and size of nonprofit firms, and also presents issues of governance that differ from those faced by profit-seeking firms. Subsequently, we use our conceptual framework to illuminate some issues concerning the organization of nonprofit firms.

Revisiting the Dartmouth Court Decision: Why the US has Private Nonprofit Agencies Instead of Public Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

In 1819, the US Supreme Court ruled in Dartmouth v. Woodward that Dartmouth College, even though originally chartered by government, was legally akin to a private corporation. This landmark decision was the founding legal document of what has become the American private nonprofit sector. While the decision has attained hagiographic status, this paper explores what the US nonprofit sector would look like if the Supreme Court had ruled the other way. Using alternate history and scenario writing as research methodologies, it highlights the invisible losses due to the decision and depicts what a public nonprofit sector would have looked like.

Knowledge Management for the Entrepreneurial Venture

We synthesize research from operations management, entrepreneurship, organizational science, and strategy to investigate the performance‐enhancing benefits of knowledge management activities throughout the entrepreneurial process of a high‐tech venture from idea conception to commercialization. We adopt a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship to understand how knowledge management activities change throughout four phases of the venture's life cycle. We introduce a framework that identifies a set of knowledge‐based capabilities that enhance the entrepreneurial venture's success. In the context of the first phase, we discuss knowledge as a key driver of entrepreneurial alertness and creativity, both of which impact the quality and quantity of opportunities and innovations discovered. Second, we describe how knowledge enables the entrepreneur to make decisions under uncertainty such as determining which opportunity to pursue. For Phase 3 of the life cycle, we explore the challenges of managing knowledge during the development of the product or technology including the trade‐off between exploration and exploitation. In the final phase, we explore how knowledge impacts the market entry decision, survival, and the value captured at commercialization. We conclude the article with suggestions for future research.     

The Property Rights Approach to Nonprofit Organization: The Role of Intrinsic Motivation

The standard property rights approach to nonprofit organization claims that attenuation of property rights in the form of nondistribution constraint stimulates managerial shirking in nonprofit firms and thereby makes them less efficient than for-profit firms. This paper argues that this view neglects the important role played by intrinsic motivation in nonprofit organization. Intrinsically motivated stakeholders provide resources to nonprofit firms and thereby facilitate their economic survival. However, intrinsic motivation is subject to the crowding-out effect, i.e., the danger of being displaced by the use of extrinsic (monetary and administrative) incentives. The property rights structure in nonprofit organization is designed to minimize the crowding-out effect by dampening monetary and administrative incentives through nondistribution constraint and self-governance orientation, respectively. This facilitates not only economic survival of nonprofit firms but also maximization of utility of their intrinsically motivated stakeholders.

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.     

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.     

基于效果推理理论视角的创业机会创造研究

首先分析了创业机会及其研究现状,并基于效果推理的理论视角研究了机会创造的选择机制和过程模式;随后,阐述了机会配置观、机会发现观和效果推理理论视角下的机会创造观之间的区别,并分析了新古典经济学、奥地利经济学、资源基础论、动态能力理论和效果推理理论对创业机会发现与创造过程的解释模式差异;最后,给出了主要结论,论述了理论贡献、对创业管理的实践价值、所存在的不足和今后进一步研究的方向。     

同群效应对创业活动影响的模型构建与实证

本文从社会个体与群体行为互动的视角研究个体的创业活动决策机理,分析认为,个体因受到周围创业者冒险拼搏精神的影响而进行创业,或者通过与周围创业者交往的社会学习得到与创业相关的技术或者经验从而自身也投入创业,二者均使得创业活动具有同群效应。进一步基于中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）截面数据进行检验的结果显示：（1）个体的创业活动存在显著同群效应,即邻里的创业活动对个体产生了明显的示范作用,带动其投入到创业活动中;（2）信息时代因电视、互联网等媒体传播应用对于传统物理意义上的同群效应存在一定程度的替代。文章采用了工具变量法解决了关联效应和反射性问题对同群效应的估计带来的影响,以确保同群效应的有效识别。上述发现说明,尽管创业活动是市场参与个体的自由选择行为,但各种途径的宣传,包括社区宣传和各种媒体宣传对于推动大众创业有不可或缺的作用。     

企业学习型组织的创建与研究

管理学家罗宾斯曾说过,20世纪90年代后期管理学理论正式进入了学习型组织管理的理论时代。距今20多年过去了,管理学人对学习型组织的研究方兴未艾。当前以创新驱动和开放式创新为时代背景下的中国企业,面对日益复杂的经济环境,要想保持核心竞争力,必须注重学习型组织的建立。鉴于此,文章从相关理论综述、学习型组织实现目标、创建学习型组织的障碍等方面进行详细的分析,最后结合我国企业实际提出了创建学习型组织的建议,以期对我国企业学习型组织的创建提供帮助。     

创业团队企业家精神与公司绩效关系的实证研究

企业成长过程中创业团队企业家精神能否得到有效传承将直接影响企业的可持续发展.在文献回顾的基础上提出评价创业团队企业家精神的4个维度,并通过对206住企业高管成员的实地访谈和179份有效问卷的数据分析做实证研究,结果表明.创业团队企业家精神与团队绩效、公司绩效具有显著正相关关系,团队绩效作为中介变量影响创业团队企业家精神与公司绩效的关系,协作进取维度对团队绩效和公司绩效的影响作用尤为突出.     

基于企业生命周期的企业家社会责任及精神耦合研究

根据企业生命周期不同阶段的特征,在剖析企业家社会责任与企业家精神耦合机理的基础上,通过文献与逻辑分析,得出两者以一定的组合方式可以有效地耦合于企业不同成长阶段的结论,并构建了耦合模式。     

创业环境和创业自我效能对个体创业意向的影响

基于社会认知理论,探讨创业环境中市场资源环境和制度规范环境对个体创业意向的影响,并考察创业自我效能对以上影响效果的调节效应。通过对384个样本的问卷调查,结果表明:市场资源环境和制度规范环境越宽松,个体的创业意向越强。对于创业自我效能水平不同的个体,2类环境的影响效果存在差异:创业自我效能正向调节制度规范环境和个体创业意向之间的关系,而负向调节市场资源环境和创业意向的关系。     

The Entrepreneurial Tendencies of Managers: a Research Note

In this study associations are sought between certain biographical, family, personality and career variables and the likelihood that managers will develop their own business venture. Results, based on an analysis of questionnaires completed by 194 managers, reveal that ownership of a business by self or parents together with certain personal characteristics predispose managers towards business founding. Contrary to expectations, job and career frustration does not incline managers towards proprietorship.     

参与度、信任与合作效果的关系——基于中国非营利组织与企业合作的实证分析

非营利组织与企业合作共同解决社会问题,是非营利组织和企业共同关注的发展战略,也是和谐社会建设的重要方面。本文基于中国非营利组织与企业合作的现实,通过建立合作双方参与度、信任关系与合作效果的假设模型,根据230个合作项目样本数据,利用回归分析进行了检验。分析结论表明,高的参与程度会带来良好的合作效果;信任在参与度与合作效果关系中的中介作用不完全一致:在参与度影响合作的直接效果中起中介作用;在参与度影响知识创造效果中没有起中介作用;在参与度影响社会效果中起到一定的中介作用。这对改进非营利组织与企业合作管理实践,以及有目的和针对性地实现相应合作效果具有指导意义。     

制度环境、创业能力对国际创业模式选择的影响

基于制度理论和组织能力理论,通过对我国的172家国际新创企业进行问卷调查,运用层次回归分析模型对影响国际创业模式选择的能力因素和制度因素进行实证研究。研究表明,创业能力强的国际新创企业偏好于采用高级的国际创业模式,而且这种创业偏好在制度环境友好的东道国更加明显。     

Designing the Entrepreneurial University: The Interpretation of a Global Idea

Becoming an entrepreneurial university has been identified as the solution to the problems facing contemporary higher education systems. The idea of becoming an entrepreneurial university can be seen as the result of a more globalised higher education sector where the domestic and institution-specific characteristics of universities are downplayed in favour of a more uniform idea of what a university should do and how it should be organized. This article contributes to this scholarly discussion by analysing how efforts to transform universities into “more complete organisations” are understood and interpreted in terms of organisational structures.     

感知的创业环境对中层管理者内部创业行为的影响研究

在复杂快变的竞争环境中,中层管理者的内部创业行为对公司内部创业战略的成败至关重要.基于公司内部创业和社会认知理论,以280名在职中层管理者为样本,实证分析感知的创业环境对中层管理者内部创业行为的影响及其作用机理.研究表明,感知的创业环境对中层管理者内部创业行为有积极的影响,而创业自我效能感在感知的创业环境与中层管理者内部创业行为之间起中介作用.由此,尝试打开感知的创业环境对中层管理者内部创业行为影响机制这一“黑箱”,丰富公司内部创业行为研究,同时为企业激发中层管理者内部创业行为提供有益的启发.     

创业管理:管理工作面临的新挑战

进入新世纪以来,创业与创业精神受到广泛关注,人们并不单纯研究个体的创业行为,而是将创业与创业精神拓展到已经存在的公司甚至是大公司,拓展到非赢利组织和整个社会,创业与创业精神成为动态复杂环境下管理者的思维模式和行为准则。创业管理作为一门新兴的交叉学科已经受到广泛关注,创业管理是对传统管理理论的一种挑战。本文以个体创业与公司创业的差异为主线,揭示了创业管理领域的一些具有创新性的研究课题,希望对创业管理理论和实践的探索能够起到推动作用。