Andreas Kuckertz

Antecedents to Permission Based Mobile Marketing: An Initial Examination

Purpose: A conceptual model is developed to examine the influence of four antecedent factors (personal trust, institutional trust, perceived control and experience) on consumers’ willingness to participate in permission-based mobile marketing. We empirically test our model across three European countries and gender.Methodology/Approach: Data is collected from surveys of consumers in Finland, Germany and the UK. The Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach is utilised to test the model fit.Findings: The main factor affecting the consumers’ decision to participate in mobile marketing is institutional trust, which is a significant factor in all three countries and across gender. The influence of other antecedent factors are less pronounced. On the whole, we find that the more experienced consumers become with mobile marketing, the less influence of perceived control will have on permission. There are notable variations across gender, with perceived control being an important determinant of permission for men, while it is not so for women.Research Implications/Limitations: The results indicate the relative importance of four antecedents in the likelihood of consumers giving their permission to companies to send mobile marketing messages.Practical Implications: As institutional trust is the most important determinant of permission based mobile marketing, mobile marketers should focus on building a strong and positive media presence and image, and thereby influence consumers’ likelihood of giving permission to mobile based marketing.Originality/Value: The first international empirical investigation of the different antecedents of permission based mobile marketing.

Ties that Blind? How Strong Ties Affect Small Business Owner-Managers' Perceived Trustworthiness of Their Advisors

This research investigates how a strong personal relationship (strong tie) between a small business owner-manager and his professional or informal advisor affects the relationship between the advisors recent performance and the owner-managers perceptions of the advisors trustworthiness in terms of ability, benevolence and integrity. A negative moderating effect could point to a ‘tie that blinds’: the owner-manager may be less critical in evaluating the advisors perceived trustworthiness in light of their recent performance, because of the existing personal relationship. A conceptual model is constructed and examined with survey data comprising 153 young Finnish businesses. The results show that strong ties increase the owner-managers perception of the advisors integrity, disregarding their recent performance. For professional advisors, strong ties reduce the impact of recent performance in the owner-managers evaluation of their ability. For informal advisors, a strong tie makes it more likely that their benevolence will be evaluated highly in light of their recent performance. While the results show that ‘ties can blind’ under certain circumstances, the limitations of the study raise the need for further research to specify these contextual factors and examine the causal link between the choice of advisor and business performance.

Explaining individual entrepreneurial orientation: conceptualisation of a cross-cultural research framework

The entrepreneur can be viewed as the source that implements his entrepreneurial capabilities to recognise, pursue and successfully exploit viable business opportunities. However, it is at the beginning of the entrepreneurial process that the pre-nascent entrepreneur is confronted with various influences from his environment. Moreover, there is knowledge lacking as to what affects entrepreneurs in different environments or countries and to what degrees. This paper aims at conceptualising a research framework based on the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) construct and transferring this construct to the individual level. Through this, insights into the influencing factors of entrepreneurial individuals operating in different countries become possible. The factors in the environment of a pre-nascent entrepreneur to be discussed are culture, politics/law, macro-economic and micro-economic influences.

The Fast Eat the Slow - The Impact of Strategy and Innovation Timing on the Success of Technology-Oriented Ventures

This paper explores the role of the two dimensions of ambidextrous strategic management (exploration and exploitation) on technology-oriented ventures’ innovation and company level performance. Based on a representative sample of German venture capital backed technology start-ups from various innovative industries, we are able to provide support for the oftstated assumption that the ambidexterity strategy positively influences performance. Results indicate, that both explorative and exploitative activity add to the overall success of innovation projects which consequently influence overall firm performance positively. Moreover, our data suggest that for technology-oriented ventures the timing of the second innovation project after start-up, i.e. the point in time when ventures become potentially ambidextrous, plays a decisive role.

Investor relations for start-ups: an analysis of venture capital investors' communicative needs

The term ‘investor relations’ (IR) often refers only to the very formal and primarily anonymous relations and communication between publicly traded companies and their (potential) shareholders. Especially for young and not yet publicly traded companies (so-called start-ups), it can be shown that the individual contact to a very small and well-known group of investors (e.g., venture capital investors) is essential for survival. Using conjoint analysis, this paper examines the communicative needs of venture capital investors, as they are the formative influence on the communication strategy of young, unlisted start-ups.

Entrepreneurship Education – Status Quo and Prospective Developments

This paper discusses the current state of entrepreneurship education particularly at the level of higher education institutions. Based on the premise that the main goals of entrepreneurship education are a) increasing the level of entrepreneurial competence and b) raising a positive attitude towards entrepreneurial behavior, I take stock of methods and tools that can be utilized to achieve those goals. Furthermore, based on this analysis of the status quo two trends are identified and discussed that may shape the future of entrepreneurship education. These trends are a) the tendency to narrow the scope of entrepreneurship education and to deliver entrepreneurial knowledge to specialized audiences and b) the opposing tendency to widen the scope of traditional entrepreneurship education by introducing entrepreneurial concepts to audiences that could be considered unusual from a pure business perspective.

CONTINUOUS INNOVATION IN ENTREPRENEURIAL GROWTH COMPANIES: EXPLORING THE AMBIDEXTROUS STRATEGY

This paper applies ambidextrous management to entrepreneurial growth companies. Ambidexterity aims at overcoming organizational inertia that threatens organizational survival. The concept is typically applied to established corporations in order to cure existing inertia. However, ambidextrous management may also help to avoid the emergence of inertia in entrepreneurial growth companies. We therefore discuss ambidexterity against the background of entrepreneurial growth companies and reveal how it can be used to build sustainable organizations. Our reasoning is based on organization science and entrepreneurship theory; in doing so we derive two groups of theoretical propositions explaining the antecedents of emergence and the antecedents of success of ambidextrous management in entrepreneurial growth companies.

Organizational readiness and the adoption of electronic business: the moderating role of national culture in 29 european countries

In this paper we explore the relationship between average organizational readiness and actual electronic business (e-business) adoption at a national level. Several researchers have provided empirical evidence suggesting that an organizations readiness is one of the most important antecedents of e-business adoption; however, despite often comparable levels of organizational readiness, tremendous variations in the national level of e-business adoption can still be observed. We argue that cultural specifics can explain these variations to a great extent, and report results from a pan-European empirical study conducted among 14,065 enterprises from 29 different countries. Measuring culture by Hofstedes (2001) well-known cultural dimensions we are able to show that national culture significantly moderates the relationship of organizational readiness and e-business adoption. Power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance were found to exert a significant influence on the relation between organizational readiness and e-business-adoption. We suggest that decision makers interested in e-business consider these cultural effects prior to starting new initiatives.

Understanding, Differentiating, and Measuring Opportunity Recognition and Opportunity Exploitation

Purpose Opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation are two central concepts in the entrepreneurial process. However, there is a lack of both a clear specification of the content domains of the constructs and valid and reliable multi-item scales for their measurement. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper first reveals existing issues around the definitions and measures relating to the concepts, then defines their content domains, and also proposes scale items to measure the concepts. Four samples are used to develop the measurement instruments. Findings Two scales are suggested, one to measure opportunity recognition, and other to measure opportunity exploitation. The scales demonstrate reliability and construct, discriminant, and nomological validity. Originality/value The resulting instruments provide tools for research and practice that could prove valuable when examining the antecedents and consequences of both opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation.

E-Entrepreneurship and ICT Ventures: Strategy, Organization and Technology

E-Entrepreneurship and ICT ventures: Strategy, Organization and Technology provides a unique and quintessential overview of the current state of conceptual and empirical research at the interface of e-business and entrepreneurship research. Contributing an enhanced understanding of the important interface of e-business and entrepreneurship, this reference publication brings together leading academics and practitioners from around the world, offering essential reading material for students, educators, managers, entrepreneurs, and political decision makers interested in applying and fostering e-business concepts in an entrepreneurial environment.