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The aim is to understand how goal orientation may help entrepreneurs maintain life satisfaction when faced with multiple crisis episodes. To do so, the authors study the early impact of COVID-19 on the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs who were previously faced with venture distress.

Data on 164 Belgian entrepreneurs, who were faced with previous venture distress, are used. The analysis is quantitative, and uses survey data, in combination with databases. The survey was administered in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020).

Entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely, and those high in performance-avoidance orientation are more likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction. Additionally, the time span between the two crises moderates the relationship between learning goal orientation and life satisfaction. Particularly, entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction if more time has passed between venture distress and the COVID-19 crisis.

Often, entrepreneurs are faced with multiple episodes of distress. The authors study entrepreneurs who have been in venture distress before and are then confronted with the COVID-19 crisis. The study shows that goal orientation, which is a type of self-regulation, plays an important role in how entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction is affected. Also, the authors find that the time between distress events matters. These are important insights for practitioners, including entrepreneurs and support providers.

The study adds to the emerging discussion on the impact of crises on entrepreneurs. It studies life satisfaction (a measure of well-being) and complements studies that examine the impact of crises, on entrepreneurs’ actions and firm performance.

Given prior limited research on boards in clean-tech enterprises, we investigate what constitutes an effective board exploring in-depth: who the board members are, what roles they perform and how these roles are performed.

Our study is an inductive, multiple case study of five clean-tech enterprises established in Norway.

We find that board composition in terms of complementary resources that the top management team lacks added by outside directors, their increased engagement in the board service role and board behavioural integration are important constituents of board effectiveness, which in turn translates into the increased levels of the firm’s strategic action capabilities, both action speed and breadth.

We suggest that these three constituents (prevalence of outside directors, board service role engagement and board behavioural integration) together make up the board contribution, which is most valued by clean-tech enterprises in the earliest stages of their development. Future research could be conducted in other types of high-tech start-ups and/or in other hybrid social enterprises to strengthen the generalizability of our findings.

While the mainstream governance research focuses on for-profit boards in large established companies, our study adds to the research on non-for-profit governance and boards in clean-tech enterprises that are both small entrepreneurial and hybrid social enterprises.

The open innovation (OI) paradigm suggests that firms should use inflows and outflows of knowledge in order to accelerate innovation and leverage markets. Literature examining how firms are adopting OI practices is rich; notwithstanding, little research has addressed this topic from the perspective of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given the relevance of SMEs in worldwide economies, the purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of research on OI in SMEs.

In total, 112 academic articles were selected from the Web of Science database. Following a bibliometric analysis, the most relevant authors, journals, institutions and countries are presented. Additionally, the main areas these articles cover are summarized.

Results are consistent in that the most prolific authors are affiliated with the universities leading the ranking of institutions. However, it is remarkable that top authors in this field do not possess a large number of publications on OI in SMEs, but combine this research topic with other related ones. At the country level, European countries are on the top together with South Korea.

Despite following a rigorous method, other relevant documents not included in the selected databases might have been ignored.

This paper outlines the main topics of interest within this area: impact of OI on firm performance and on organizations’ structure, OI as a mechanism to hasten new product development, the analysis of the inbound/outbound dimensions of OI, and legal issues related to intellectual property right management when OI is implemented.

The study uses a combination of bibliometric indicators with a literature review.

The Scandinavian boards are known for their “best practices” for corporate governance. This paper aims to examine the management incentives behind corporate disclosure via an empirical study.

Many of the previous empirical work have focused on the US data, but the generalizability of such findings is geographically bounded. The set of management incentives in this paper is examined using a total sample of 123 local annual reports via some of the largest publicly listed firms in the Scandinavian countries between the years 2008-2012.

The findings of this study reveal that a firm’s financial success originates from the different attributes of corporate governance. Correlation and regression analyses reveal that in terms of firm size, leverage ratio, the existence of audit committee and the independence of CEO, there is a correlation between firm-specific factors and the level of disclosure. In contrast to the previous literature, a positive relationship between corporate disclosure and information asymmetry was not found.

The results of this study are valuable to the policymakers when implementing regulations on corporate governance control. The strategic implications of the findings on business decisions and future research are also discussed.