Anita Van Gils

Explaining Entrepreneurial Intentions by Means of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

– This paper sets out to present a detailed empirical investigation of the entrepreneurial intentions of business students. The authors employ the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), in which intentions are regarded as resulting from attitudes, perceived behavioural control, and subjective norms., – The methodology used was a replication study among samples of undergraduate students of business administration at four different universities (total n=1,225). Five operationalisations of intentions are used as well as a composite measure. Prior to the main study, qualitative research conducted at two other universities (total n=373) was held to operationalise the components of the TPB., – The results show that the two most important variables to explain entrepreneurial intentions are entrepreneurial alertness and the importance attached to financial security., – Various research design features are used that result in better and more detailed explanations of entrepreneurial intentions., – Should one want to stimulate entrepreneurship in educational or training settings, then this papers results provide guidance. Several suggestions are offered on how entrepreneurial alertness can be improved and financial security concerns can be reduced., – The study provides detailed and solid results on entrepreneurial intentions which are positioned in the career literature.

Board Composition in Small and Medium-Sized Family Firms

This study focuses on the determinants of board composition in Belgian small and medium‐sized family firms. It extends the empirical literature on board composition in private small and medium‐sized family enterprises by integrating several dimensions of the “family component” in the research model. Furthermore, using a multinomial logit model, we examine in which circumstances family firms opt for (1) a family board, (2) an inside board, or (3) an outside board. Results suggest that family‐related contingency variables are far more important than CEO‐related or control variables, giving support to the argument that board composition in family firms is a reflection of the family characteristics and objectives. Moreover, the results suggest that a resource dependence and added value perspective explain more of the variation in board composition than agency considerations.

Boards of Directors in Family Businesses: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

This paper offers a review of the theoretical and empirical literature addressing boards of directors within the unique organizational setting of family businesses. By reviewing and structuring past research, this paper aims to improve the understanding of how family involvement in firms affects the roles and behaviours of boards. The review of the literature is structured according to the family business boards two primary tasks as an internal administrative body, namely the exercise of control and the provision of advice. For both board tasks, theoretical perspectives and the match between theory and empirical findings will be discussed. The review concludes by offering an integrative discussion of the relevant theories and by highlighting the need for multi-theoretic, process and contextualized approaches in future research on boards of directors in family businesses.

Accessing Resources from Innovation Partners: The Search Breadth of Family SMEs

This study investigates differences in the diversity of cooperation partners used for innovation‐related activities (i.e., search breadth) between family and nonfamily small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as within the group of family SMEs. The results generally confirm our hypotheses derived from the behavioral theory of the firm. Specifically, we show that family SMEs have a lower search breadth than their nonfamily counterparts. Our findings further illustrate how attributes of the CEO (level of education) and the top management team (nonfamily management involvement and educational background diversity) relate to the search breadth of family SMEs.

Implications of family business employment for employees' innovative work involvement

This study builds on the idea that family businesses perform particularly well in the domain of exploitative innovations and explores a possible source of this strength, namely their employees’ spontaneous involvement in informal innovation activity. Specifically, we develop a mediation model on the interrelationship between family business employment and employees’ innovative work involvement. Analyses are based on a sample of 893 Belgian employees using structural equation modeling. Results suggest that family business employment is positively associated with employees’ innovative work involvement, and that part of this relationship can be attributed to their heightened perceptions of organizational support and work motivation.

Social Issues in the Family Enterprise

In this introduction, we discuss social issue research in the management and family business literatures, focusing on ethics, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropic practices of family enterprises. Next, we introduce and highlight four articles accepted for publication. The editorial concludes by presenting future research questions at the social issues—family business interface. Our review of 35 articles, as well as those included in this Special Issue, suggest that family businesses are more attuned and attentive to social issues and stakeholders than nonfamily business. Noneconomic motivations (e.g., reputation, socioemotional wealth, and stewardship) appear particularly salient to family enterprises.

CEO's empathy and salience of socioemotional wealth in family SMEs - The moderating role of external directors

A focus on preserving socioemotional wealth may influence entrepreneurial activities in family firms. In this paper, we identify the emotion of empathy in the family CEO as an antecedent of socioemotional wealth creation. We argue that the presence of one or more external directors can have a direct as well as moderating influence on the relationship between CEOs empathy and the salience of socioemotional wealth to the family CEO. Our empirical tests confirm these hypotheses. Several areas of future research are suggested to incorporate empathy and other emotions in family business studies.

Exploring Antecedents of Service Innovation Performance in Manufacturing SMEs

Various factors enable manufacturing firms to attain a competitive advantage based on service innovation – that is, to achieve service innovation performance. Starting from a dynamic capabilities perspective, this article predicts that absorptive capacity is one such critical factor, which in turn may be driven by employee collaboration and the firm’s search breadth. The findings of a survey study of small to medium-sized Dutch manufacturing firms confirm that employee collaboration and search breadth have positive effects on an organization’s potential absorptive capacity, whereas employee collaboration also reinforces its realized absorptive capacity. Thus realized absorptive capacity ultimately enhances service innovation performance. The results have implications for dynamic capabilities theory, and they provide practitioners with potential means to outperform their competitors in service innovation efforts.

Entrepreneurial education and learning at universities: exploring multilevel contingencies

Abstract Despite the worldwide increase in entrepreneurship education offered at universities, there is an ongoing debate whether and under which conditions this type of education contributes to students’ entrepreneurial learning. Building on human capital theory, we hypothesize that the exposure to various entrepreneurship education initiatives has an inverted U-shaped relationship with entrepreneurial learning outcomes. We also argue that this relationship is moderated by the entrepreneurial experience of the students, the teaching pedagogy applied in entrepreneurial initiatives offered at the university and the prevalence of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in the country. A multi-level analysis on a cross-country sample of 87,918 students resulting from GUESSS (‘Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey’) strongly confirms our hypotheses, and allows us to discuss implications for researchers, educators and policy makers with respect to the nature of entrepreneurial learning, the design of entrepreneurial education programs, as well as the contextual conditions that impact entrepreneurial learning outcomes.

The Board's Demography — Firm Performance Relationship Revisited: A Bayesian Approach

Building on behavioral theory, we argue that the effect of board demography on the performance of small and medium‐sized family firms differs significantly at the individual firm level and that the degree by which board task performance meets board task needs explains this effect. Using a Bayesian estimation method, we obtain firm specific estimates of the effect of board demography on firm performance. Analysis of these estimates indicates that the size of the gap between board task needs and board task performance explains the effects of the board demographic characteristics—board size and percentage of family directors—on firm performance.