Search results

Following the lead of neighboring fields such as strategy and organization studies, entrepreneurship is gradually joining in the adoption of a practice perspective. Entrepreneurship as practice (EaP) is thus a nascent domain of investigation where the methodological debate is still unsettled and very fluid. In this paper, the authors contribute to this debate with a focus on family entrepreneurship.

The authors develop a conceptual paper to discuss what it entails to look at family entrepreneurship through a practice lens and why it is fruitful. Moreover, the authors propose a research strategy novel to the field through which such investigation can be pursued, namely process tracing, and examine its inferential logic.

Process tracing is a strategy of data analysis underpinned by an ontology of causal mechanisms. The authors argue that it complements other practice methods by inferring social mechanisms from empirical evidence and thereby establishing a connection between praxis, practices and practitioners.

Process tracing helps the articulation of an “integrated model” of practice that relates praxis, practices and practitioners to the outcome they jointly produce. By enabling the assessment of impact, process tracing helps providing prima facie evidentiary grounds for policy action and intervention.

Process tracing affinity with the practice perspective has been so far acknowledged only to a limited extent in the social sciences, and it is, in fact, a novel research strategy for the family entrepreneurship field.

This paper aims to address the research question of whether family social capital affects the degree of engagement in the entrepreneurial process in the case of hospitality and tourism (H&T) new ventures, and how this relates to environment-related motivations. In particular, drawing on a process-based approach of individuals’ engagement in entrepreneurship, this paper provides new insights into the relationship between the perception of support by the family through the provision of bonding and bridging social capital and the decision to engage in the entrepreneurial process. The main contribution consists in the role of “following an environmental mission” that emerges as a motivation mediating the relationship between family resource provision and entrepreneurial engagement in the H&T industry.

For this exploratory study, we rely on cross-sectional observations from 2,923 individuals gathered through the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students Survey, which collects information on career choices and preferences of university students around the globe. Given our focus on the early engagement process in entrepreneurship and the role of embeddedness in family structures, the use of a sample of young potential entrepreneurs such as students is particularly appropriate.

This study suggests that the family acts as a fundamental institution fostering entrepreneurship, both through the provision of bonding and bridging social capital, and the nurturing of attitudes toward the environment. The results indicate that, in the H&T industry, entrepreneurship can be a valuable means to pursue such attitude and is perceived as a way to proactively contribute to undertake responsible environmental activities.

The study provides some implications for researchers, educators and policymakers interested in fostering entrepreneurial initiatives in the field, considering the role of a social-oriented mission as a vehicle to encourage profit-oriented entrepreneurial initiatives, and the importance of the family as a resource provider that fosters entrepreneurial engagement. The paper also discusses the strengths and limitations of this unique and broad cross-national sample.

Becoming entrepreneurs is depicted as climbing an entrepreneurial “ladder”, whereby each individual’s engagement along this process depends on a number of antecedents. Family bridging and bonding social capital, as well as following an environmental mission, emerge as important factors in the H&T industry, thus extending previous literature on the distinctiveness of this industry.

This study seeks to focus on factors characterizing a pool of hyper‐growth firms, trying to gather insights on how the hyper‐growth firms achieve hyper‐growth.

A theoretical framework is proposed, borrowing well established approaches from strategic management and entrepreneurship. Subsequently, some explorative case studies are described and help in understanding how much of a firm's hyper‐growth can be explained by the resource endowment and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). A revised framework and some propositions are eventually suggested.

Hyper‐growth seems mainly explainable by extraordinary business opportunities and extraordinary access to resources (especially knowledge‐based). Entrepreneurship appears much more as a moderating variable, rather than an explanatory variable per se of hyper‐growth.

Although the case study approach is robustly motivated as a research step that can contribute to the process of theory building, the findings are not statistically generalizable.

It has long been argued that policy makers and governments, especially in Europe, should concentrate their efforts on those industries and environments where rapid growth firms are likely to be found. The paper offers a practical example on a suitable environment to facilitate such growth, where practices like mergers and acquisitions in foreign countries as well as venture capital and private equity financing play a role.

No research has been performed so far on the explicit link between resources, EO and hyper‐growth. Moreover, the research suggests a possible reconciliation of resource‐based view (RBV) and EO frameworks in explaining such a pattern.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of the actors (especially firms) in interactions between contexts defined as “innovation ecosystems.”

The paper presents a conceptual framework. A review of the literature to frame the concepts of innovation ecosystems and the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) approach is presented. A possible integration of the two concepts is then discussed.

The paper adds new discursive inputs to the concept of innovation ecosystem that validate its use in the context of the knowledge economy and extends the theories of knowledge, by analyzing the role that various actors who populate an innovative ecosystem play in the creation, learning, use, and dissemination of knowledge.

The paper furnishes an approach to the research on knowledge management and innovation, in the attempt to relate the IMP Group approach with the perspective of the “innovation ecosystems” concept.

This paper aims to shed light on how family firms execute open innovation strategies by managing internal and external knowledge flows.

First, through a comprehensive literature review, the paper identifies the barriers to the acquisition and transfer of knowledge in open innovation processes. Second, it presents and discusses the results of an exploratory case study on Loccioni, an Italian family firm providing high-tech measurement solutions, highlighting how this family firm managed to overcome the barriers in executing an open innovation strategy.

The case study shows that Loccioni faced specific challenges in acquiring and transferring knowledge in its open innovation processes and developed two idiosyncratic capabilities – labelled imprinting and fraternization – that helped the firm overcome the barriers to knowledge acquisition and transfer. The analysis shows that these two capabilities are enabled by the distinctive goals and social capital characterizing family firms.

The paper creates a link between open innovation and family business research with an empirically grounded model illustrating how the idiosyncratic capabilities of a family firm help overcome the critical barriers to the acquisition and transfer of knowledge in executing an open innovation strategy.