Johan Bruneel

The Social and Economic Mission of Social Enterprises: Dimensions, Measurement, Validation, and Relation

Social entrepreneurs have a dominant social mission and generate revenue to ensure financial viability. However, most research treats the extent to which social entrepreneurs actually adhere to social and economic mission as a black box. Performing higher order confirmatory factor analysis on a sample of social enterprises (N∼270), this study identifies dimensions and validates measures for understanding and delineating social and economic missions, and shows how the two constructs relate to each other. The theoretical untangling and the empirical validation of social and economic missions as distinct constructs—and multiple potential constellations of attached relative importance—opens up opportunities for quantitative hypothesis–testing research in social entrepreneurship.

Nurturing and Growing Innovative Start-ups: The Role of Policy as Integrator

Nurturing and growing innovative start-ups have become an important point on the political agenda. After the dotcom bubble, however, many financial schemes and incubation initiatives initiated, in the mid-nineties, were cancelled or down scaled. There was a consensus that innovative start-ups need more than just money. Networking and coaching were identified as additional needs. Besides this, there is a change in the intensity and nature of these needs during the different stages of the early life cycle. In this paper we make an in-depth study of three approaches to nurture and grow innovative start-ups. Each of these initiatives embeds in a very different national innovation system: Chalmers Innovation in Sweden and Anvar/Banque de Developpement des PMEs in France, and Sitras PreSeed Service in Finland. Each approach is compared in terms of its financing, networking, and coaching support, along the different stages of the start-ups life cycle.

Impact of the Type of Corporate Spin‐Off on Growth

Although previous research shows that corporate spin–offs contribute to economic growth, few studies link growth to the type of corporate spin–off. We distinguish between three types of corporate spin–offs: incumbent–backed, opportunity, and necessity spin–offs. Using empirical data on 46 corporate spin–offs in Flanders, we find that opportunity spin–offs outperform the other two types. By identifying the type of corporate spin–offs, this study aims to add to our knowledge on the relationship between spin–off type and firm growth.

Improving the success of radical innovation projects within established firms: engaging employees across different hierarchal levels

Growing empirical evidence highlights the importance of radical innovation for the long-term success of established firms. Though the recognition of radical innovation projects permeates many established companies, there exists considerable uncertainty about how to best manage radical innovation projects. A detailed field study of two radical innovation projects in two 100-year-old established firms shows the importance of bringing in external support and knowledge early on. Further, this study demonstrates that the success of radical innovation projects depends on the commitment of executive management, the boundary spanning role of the head of innovation, and the selection and reward mechanisms for R&D employees, which all must be aligned with the high-risk profile of these projects.

Entry Mode Research and SMEs: A Review and Future Research Agenda

Research on SMEs’ entry modes remains limited and is spread across various, often disconnected research fields using a broad variety of theories, sample characteristics, and methods. This makes it challenging for researchers to identify interesting research opportunities. Our study investigates the current state of the SME entry mode literature by conducting a systematic literature review of 47 articles. Our review shows that scholars should be more careful when conceptualizing SMEs, and we recommend the use of both quantitative and qualitative longitudinal research designs. We explain how new theories and perspectives might address existing problems and weaknesses in this literature.

Balancing competing logics in for-profit social enterprises: a need for hybrid governance

Abstract This paper reports a case study of a for-profit award-winning social enterprise that faced bankruptcy two years after founding. The findings show that the firms overemphasis on the social employment logic and the increasing disregard of the commercial market logic led to the failure. This imbalance in response to the two competing logics was fuelled by the entrepreneurs’ strong social values, stakeholder reinforcement, and lack of appropriate governance. This study shows that hybrid organizations need to pay attention to the governance of the tension between competing demands inside as well as outside the organization. Hybrid organizations therefore require a hybrid governance model. By presenting a case of failure of a social enterprise, the paper counterbalances the dominance of optimistic idealism in social entrepreneurship literature.

HOW KEY PARTNERS SHAPE THE EXTENT OF INTERNATIONALIZATION OF YOUNG, TECHNOLOGY-BASED FIRMS

In this paper, we use an organizational learning perspective to examine the extent of internationalization of young, technology-based firms. We develop hypotheses on the impact of the firms knowledge-base at founding, experiential learning, and interorganizational learning on internationalization, and use data on 114 young, technology-based firms in Flanders to test our hypotheses. The results show that both experiential learning and interorganizational learning have a significant, positive impact on the extent of internationalization. Further, by examining the interaction of these two types of learning, we find that learning from key partners may substitute for experiential learning; i.e., young, technology-based firms benefit more from interorganizational learning when their level of experiential learning is low. These results highlight the important role that key partners play in shaping the internationalization of young, technology-based firms and contribute to theory development in the fields of internationalization and organizational learning.

Determinants, causal connections and outcomes of corporate technology licensing: a systematic review and research agenda

Exchanges in markets for technology (MfT) have grown rapidly in recent years. MfT involve transactions for the use, diffusion and creation of technology. In this article we conduct a systematic review of the emerging market for technology literature and examine one of its most important aspects, corporate technology licensing. Using thematic analysis, we systematically review 78 papers published in 29 journals over 30 years covering the academic disciplines of technology/knowledge management, strategic management, entrepreneurship, innovation management and industrial economics. Based on this analysis, we present an organizing framework for the most prominent determinants, causal connections and outcomes of technology licensing research to date, and identify a research agenda highlighting important avenues for future research in this domain

Inter organizational trust and technology complexity: evidence for new technology-based firms

Integrating the transaction cost economics and relational perspectives, this paper puts forward that technology complexity within new technology‐based firms negatively influences the level of interorganizational trust in key partner relationships. Using a data set of 105 key partner relationships of 59 new technology‐based firms, we find that the new technology‐based firms level of trust in its key partners is lower when the level of technology complexity is high. Findings further show that both relationship and partner characteristics moderate the technology complexity—trust relationship. These results show that technology complexity as an appropriability mechanism becomes endogenous to collaboration, thereby extending the Teece framework.

The role of prior domestic experience and prior shared experience in young firm internationalization

This article examines how the prior domestic experience of a founding team influences an entrepreneurial firm’s ability to grow international sales. We argue that such experience leads to domestic mind-sets, which limit a team’s ability to perceive and interpret international stimuli and impact negatively upon international sales growth. Previous studies have overlooked the shared component of such experience. Prior shared experience allows ventures to learn faster from internationalization as a result of team familiarity and transactive memory systems. In uncertain environments, such as geographically distant regions, ventures that have founding teams with prior shared experience are able to outperform those without such experience.