Ingrid Le Roux

Dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation and small and medium enterprise performance in emerging economies

The removal of trade barriers has encouraged the entry of new competitors into formerly protected markets. This situation creates pressure on many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies such as Tanzania. Using a survey method and cross-sectional research design, the research examines three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), namely: pro-activeness, risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness. Understanding their relationships and variance may help to improve our ability to explain SME performance. The findings contribute to how SME performance in emerging economies can be enhanced to enable SMEs to face challenges posed by competitor influx in the context of an open market economy. The findings indicate a strong relationship between EO dimensions and performance, with risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness moderating the effect of pro-activeness. The proposed model could predict 72% of the variance explained in SME performance.

A reality check for corporate leaders: when managers don't respect their bosses

Purpose – The paper endeavors to determine the reasons why key managers fail to win the respect of their direct reports.Design/methodology/approach – Junior and middle managers were asked to judge why managers generally fail as leaders and what they think the consequences are when there is leadership failure. They were prompted to consider their own managers first. Their responses were categorized, ranked and reported. Thereafter a framework was developed to explain the consequences to better understand the impact of leadership failure.Findings – Managers fail at leadership as a result of poor posture, lack of “people skills”, unfocused thinking, failed communication, not giving encouragement and support, lack of expertise, lack of experience and insight as well as lack of vision and direction. The consequences influence the individual, team, organization and leadership within the organization through the feelings that they create and the subsequent actions that followers take.Research limitations/implica...

Seeking the best blend for deep learning in a flipped classroom – viewing student perceptions through the Community of Inquiry lens

We describe a case study of a third-year undergraduate class in Enterprise Education. A blended learning design in the form of a flipped classroom with a duration of one semester, was explored in two cohorts. The question was to explore how students experienced the flipped class for learning and how this approach presented the different presences in the Community of Inquiry (CoI), and its revisions. The online learning components represented the individual learning space, where the main resource was bespoke videos that replaced lectures and complemented the textbook and other learning material. The classroom hosted a business school-style seminar where students in small groups engaged in solving a new business case study, going through phases of developing a concept to presenting the group solutions to the class. It aimed at fostering active learning both inside and outside the class. Students participated in the activities to apply the theory in new cases. The teacher facilitated the sessions, provided direction and correction as needed. The research used mixed methods consisting of trace data, quantitative and qualitative student feedback to explore how suitable the flipped classroom in undergraduate education was towards developing deep learning. The online individual learning space yielded highly salient Teaching Presences, accompanied by evidence of Agency Presence, characterised by independent activity and personal learning preferences. Online videos and ICT resources helped with understanding the theory ahead of class meetings. Seminars in the collaborative space fostered deep learning of the theory, and enabled students to apply the prepared theory in case studies and solve problems. Integration and particularly Resolution in Cognitive Presence of CoI featured in the seminars, while Social Presence was the weakest. Suggestions are made to implement the flipped class principles in an online class.

Discovering the entrepreneurial endowment of the youth

Entrepreneurship is considered as a possible solution to youth unemployment, and the number of initiatives fostering youth entrepreneurship has multiplied accordingly, also in Africa. However, the effectiveness of such initiatives also lies in whether young people display personality and contextual dimensions conducive to starting and running businesses. The purpose of this paper is to examine the composition of young South Africans’ “entrepreneurial endowment”, represented by personality traits and contextual variables commonly associated with entrepreneurship.,This paper surveyed secondary students using a questionnaire constructed from validated measurement instruments, obtaining 827 valid responses. It employed exploratory factor analysis to investigate the composition of respondents’ entrepreneurial endowment. It also compared respondents’ entrepreneurial endowment across demographic variables by means of t-tests and ANOVA.,The results reveal the existence of an entrepreneurial endowment composed of: need for achievement, locus of control, community support, two role models sub-constructs and two family support sub-constructs. Significant differences from the perspective of gender, cultural background and entrepreneurship education also emerged.,The findings confirm that young South Africans have the entrepreneurial endowment needed to be the recipients of entrepreneurship support and highlight relevant differences across demographic variables.,From a theoretical perspective, this paper unveils the structure of young South Africans’ entrepreneurial endowment, composed of four unique dimensions not found in previous research. The insights gained from comparing entrepreneurial endowment results across different groups offer practical implications.