Andrea Rey-Martí

The Development of ICTs and the Introduction of Entrepreneurial Capital

Building on an extensive literature review, this article presents a conceptual study of the relationships between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and intellectual capital (IC), placing special emphasis on entrepreneurial capital. IC comprises human capital, structural capital, and relational capital. Relational capital consists of two sub-components: social capital and organizational capital. Human capital’s main elements are knowledge, experience, and education. Knowledge is a fundamental resource for any organization (Baden-Fuller & Pitt, 1996; Grant, 1996; Spender, 1996). Entrepreneurial capital was recently introduced as a component of human capital (Audretsch & Keilbach, 2004). A firm’s entrepreneurial capital consists of employees who innovate and take risks to change how the firm acts. In addition to addressing IC, this research examines new ICT use. An ICT firm can be defined as a firm that is technologically connected in real time. Technology, information, and communication are the most powerful tools to develop firms (Hafkin & Taggart, 2001). As such, technology, information, and communication may also have profound links to entrepreneurial capital. ICTs and IC are two keys to entrepreneurship (Costa, 2012). ICT firms need their employees’ intellectual capital, or else these firms will never achieve long-term sustainability (Madsen, Neergaard, & Ulhoi, 2003). Similarly, intellectual capital benefits from ICT firms to transfer knowledge via networks.

The New Spirit of Strategy for Competitive Management: Editorial

Globalization has increased complexity in the economy, thereby causing differences in different types of firms’ management and modus operandi and with the different economics markets (Brandt et al., 2005). Therefore, examining the differences between how different types of firms manage their market operations is crucial. The growth of global markets stimulates competition and forces both governments and firms themselves to adapt to market demands developing new technologies (Sapir et al., 2003). This special issue collates eight articles that examine how different types of firms operate and manage their operations. Firms discussed in these articles are franchises, social enterprises, family businesses, born-globals, universities, and public enterprises. Thus, we expect this special issue to shed light on management differences within these firms. The first article titled “Brand and Price: Key Signals when Opening a Franchise Outlet” by Calderon-Monge and Huerta-Zavala focuses on the choice of franchise by a potential franchisee when opening his or her first franchise outlet. This study examines how franchisees choose a franchise chain when they want to start their business as a franchise. The study’s aim is to analyze the relationship between brand and price of a franchise, and it is of great interest because it allows franchisors to design a portfolio of signals that they can use when they want to expand their businesses through franchise outlets. The next article, “Linking Training to Organizational Performance: An Absorptive Capacity-Based View. Case Study Method in Spanish Family Businesses,” Hernández Perlines and Yáñez Araque analyze the effects of training on organizational performance within family businesses. Accordingly, this study’s aim is to develop an approach to determine whether absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between training and performance

New Knowledge Impacts on Designing Implementable Innovative Realities

This special issue covers two key research methods: qualitative case studies and quantitative studies. First, the special issue presents qualitative papers consisting of case studies on pressure in intercultural negotiation, tourism clusters, New Zealand firms, Swedish universities, and value-creating firms. The qualitative case study method is valuable when building and developing theory, constructing theoretical frameworks, formulating hypotheses, and analyzing, exploring, and describing dynamic or long-term phenomena (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Case studies also offer a close-up of the key actors, and they provide a rich information output that enhances the analysis of these actors’ interpretations of the firms’ situation. Because case studies stem from actual experience and practice, they can lead to action and contribute to changes in practice. Therefore, findings from case studies have a major impact on both academic research and society. Findings from specific case studies can lead to generalizations, which can then be tested empirically (Voss, Tsikriktsis, & Frohlich, 2002). Second, this special issue contains articles on innovation and the constant changes that firms must overcome to survive in today’s globalized world. Innovation refers to something new, molded to adapt to changes in the environment (Nocke & Yeaple, 2014). The phenomenon of innovation continues to attract attention from researchers outside the bounds of technology and product innovation (Mol & Birkinshaw, 2009). This interest owes to a series of subdisciplines that have emerged within the field of innovation. These include innovation in business models and service innovation (Berends, Jelinek, Reymen, & Stulti€ens, 2014), a result of the customer’s growing importance in firms’ business activities. Thus, this special issue addresses topics such as the changes forced upon entrepreneurs in the wake of the financial crisis, innovation in the search for solutions to open-ended problems, and the new ways that consumers relate to products to mitigate climate change. The first article titled “Do financial crises moderate entrepreneurial recipes? A comparative fuzzy analysis” by Andreea Apetrei, Jordi Paniagua, and Juan Sapena focuses on analyzing the effect the 2007 financial crisis has had on the way Spanish entrepreneurs do business and contributes to a new perspective in the crisis-entrepreneurship link. To accomplish this, the study performs a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The data used in this study spans from