The intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship: Mutual lessons to be learned

Leadership scholars are quite familiar with the often convoluted and problematic path that leadership theory has taken. Despite these challenges, leadership is currently considered a “mature field” [Hunt, J.G., & Dodge, G.E. (2000). Leader Deja Vu all over again. The Leadership Quarterly, 11 (4), 453–458] even though this maturity has not been achieved without considerable growing pains. Similar to the path that leadership scholars have taken, those who study entrepreneurship also struggle with issues associated with a field in its early stages. This review examines the intersection between the fields of leadership and entrepreneurship with an emphasis on how the path taken by leadership research can inform entrepreneurship and possibly lessen this young field's growing pains. We first identify several areas where these fields theoretically converge (both in the models employed and the research questions addressed). Next, we take a historical perspective of leadership and entrepreneurship by identifying the life cycle stage of each construct or domain. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts on how the entrepreneurship field may avoid (or is avoiding) the pitfalls experienced by those who study leadership.     

WAITING LIST CONTROLLED TRIAL OF COGNITIVE MARITAL THERAPY IN SEVERE MARITAL DISCORD

Forty-one couples with severe marital discord participated in a controlled trial conducted to evaluate whether a form of marital therapy that is designed to enhance marital intimacy through facilitating self-disclosure of personal constructs was effective. The study found that there was no spontaneous remission in marital discord in couples on a 10-week waiting list. Couples subjectively reported improvement as a consequence of participating in marital therapy, and couples in therapy and on the waiting list showed a significant reduction in symptoms of nonpsychotic emotional illness. There was a significant pattern of improvement for wives in the therapy group compared to the waiting list group, but no such effect for the husbands.     

Subexponential Distributions — Large Deviations with Applications to Insurance and Queueing Models

This paper presents a fine large‐deviations theory for heavy‐tailed distributions whose tails are heavier than exp(?√t and have finite second moment. Asymptotics for first passage times are derived. The results are applied to estimate the finite time ruin probabilities in insurance as well as the busy period in a GI/G/1 queueing model.     

Does Weather Really Influence the Measurement of Life Satisfaction?

Since the beginning of the nineties, a number of studies indicate that weather conditions at interview day can have an effect on measurement, in particular regarding life satisfaction. In their seminal paper, Schwarz and Clore (J Pers Soc Psychol 45(3):513–523, 1983) show higher reported life satisfaction for sunny days, a finding which is replicated recently by Kämpfer and Mutz (Soc Indic Res 110(2):579–595, 2013). However, both studies are based on relatively small samples (from a few dozen up to 200 cases). We use data of the German Family Panel (pairfam) and local weather data for every respondent to investigate if weather effects on satisfaction measurement can be replicated with a large sample (about 7,000 respondents). In addition to cross-sectional analyses in which we follow closely the approach of Kämpfer and Mutz, we estimate fixed effects regressions to model the effect of weather on individual changes in satisfaction over time. We do neither find an effect of nice weather on the day of the interview on the respondents’ ratings of general life satisfaction nor a consistent effect on any of the other satisfaction measures. These results show that at least with simple weather measures as they have been used as yet a relationship between weather conditions at interview day and answering behavior regarding life satisfaction cannot be found.     

Stereotypes and National Identity: Experiencing the “Emotional Brazilian”

In this article, I examine how stereotypes are deployed in the process of experiencing national identities. Specifically, I analyse how a group of Brazilian academics who have studied in Europe and the United States have dealt with stereotypical notions of Brazilians as “warm people” who establish friendship “easily.” Ideas about a “greater emotionality,” which were often seen as negative from a European colonial perspective, are embraced and re-signified by them as a positive feature of Brazilian national identity, particularly when compared to the supposed “closed nature” of some Europeans. I argue therefore that the presence of such stereotypes contributes to reinforce a subjective sense of Brazilianess and also reveals the negotiations of power relations in the process of elaborating Brazilian national identity.     

Finding Place in Community Change Initiatives: Using GIS to Uncover Resident Perceptions of their Neighborhoods

The growing recognition that place matters has led to numerous foundation- and government-sponsored initiatives that attempt to simultaneously strengthen neighborhoods and address the needs of families that live there. Despite the centrality of the concept of neighborhood, these place-based initiatives have few tools to understand how residents identify with the space within their target areas. This article demonstrates how resident-drawn maps gathered in a household survey can be used to uncover individual and collective neighborhood definitions. Using data gathered as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Making Connections program in 10 cities, the study finds that there is considerable variation among residents in how they define their neighborhoods, but that there are also commonly held neighborhood identities that need to be taken into account in community practice.     

‘NOTHING POWERFUL LIKE WORDS SPOKEN’

This article examines the rhetorical techniques black British female rap artists appropriate and manipulate when they compose and perform their songs. To this end, this work probes how they explore female agency and respond to political, race, class and gender inequity in their compositions. In all, this discussion corrects the virtual absence of black British female rap emcees from transatlantic discourses by offering a close reading of the hip-hop narratives written and/or performed by Shystie, Tor Cesay, Speech Debelle and Ms. Dynamite.     

A note On outlier sensitivity of Sliced Inverse Regression

Sliced Inverse Regression (SIR) is a promising technique for the purpose of dimension reduction. Several properties of this method have been examined already, but little attention has been paid to robustness aspects. In this article, we focus on the sensitivity of SIR to outliers and show in what sense and how severely SIR can be influenced by outliers in the data.     

Islamic death rituals in a small town context in The Netherlands: explorations of a common praxis for professionals

Islamic tradition tends to present death rituals in a quite univocal way, as the actual ritual practice shows to be far more diverse and flexible. This study focuses on the particular ritual of the cleansing of the deceased as it is practiced by a variety of Muslims in a small town context in The Netherlands. The presented vignettes are drawn on qualitative research data from interviews and (participant) observations. They are presented to draw attention to the different contexts that shape the religious and ritual practice of a variety of Muslims in The Netherlands. To develop an eye for this common praxis, it is important not only to be aware of the religious dimensions but also of the social dimensions. By offering insights into the actual practices it aims to offer tangible leads to professionals for a more tailor-made care for Muslim patients and their relatives.     

Balance in leader and follower perceptions of leader–member exchange: Relationships with performance and work attitudes

Using a sample of 285 matched pairs of employees and supervisors, we explore the extent to which congruence in leader and follower ratings of LMX quality is related to follower job performance and work attitudes. An original conceptual model is introduced that identifies four combinations of leader and follower LMX ratings: balanced/low LMX (low leader and follower LMX), balanced/high LMX (high leader and follower LMX), follower overestimation (low leader LMX/high follower LMX), and follower underestimation (high leader LMX/low follower LMX). As expected, balanced/low (high) LMX relationships were associated with relatively low (high) levels of follower job performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, while the incongruent combinations generally yielded intermediate levels of follower outcomes. However, follower underestimation was also related to high levels of follower job performance, whereas follower overestimation was associated with high levels of follower satisfaction and organizational commitment. Implications of these findings for future LMX research are considered.