Johanna Vanderstraeten

Ambitious Entrepreneurship: A Review of Growth Aspirations, Intentions, and Expectations

In the study of entrepreneurial behavior types, “ambitious entrepreneurship” recently emerged as a new research concept. Unfortunately, a systematic overview of what is known (and not known) about this topic is missing. In particular, insights into the various definitions, measures, and antecedents of ambitious entrepreneurship are lacking. In this chapter, we offer a state-of-the-art review and analysis of extant research on ambitious entrepreneurship. We structure the literature review by providing insights into antecedents of ambitious entrepreneurship, and extensively discuss the conceptualization and operationalization of this research concept. We clarify the differences between related concepts such as growth intention, expectation, and aspiration, and argue how all these concepts fit into a unifying framework of ambitious entrepreneurship. We summarize promising future research avenues for the study of ambitious entrepreneurship, both from a methodological and a conceptual point of view.

Country classification and the cultural dimension: a review and evaluation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify, review and evaluate international marketing (IM) studies in the domain of cultural country classification (1985‐2006).Design/methodology/approach – First, articles in which an “original” classification is developed are identified. Then, the paper characteristics are summarized using Ronen and Shenkars characteristics. Eventually, Hunts evaluation criteria are used to evaluate these classifications.Findings – Summarizing and evaluating the selected papers reveals that the authors of the selected papers do not always seem to explicitly consider Ronen and Shenkars useful recommendations concerning questionnaire and sample characteristics. Moreover, evaluation seems to indicate that Hunts evaluation criteria are not always met.Research limitations/implications – It is recommended that future cultural country classification researchers consider Ronen and Shenkars recommendations. Moreover, researchers might explicitly specify the concept of culture and/o...

Toward a balanced framework to evaluate and improve the internal functioning of non-profit economic development business incubators. A study in Belgium

Non-profit organisations, such as economic development incubators, may adapt the balanced scorecard and strategy map in their efforts to improve their internal functioning. In this paper, we employ qualitative research among non-profit economic development incubators in Antwerp, Belgium, to modify these tools. By adapting these frameworks, we extend the current incubator literature where predominantly individual measures (such as tenant survival or the incubators occupancy rate) are employed to evaluate incubator performance. Incubator managers and their funding organisations may use our adapted strategy map and balanced scorecard to uncover the incubators internal processes that need improvement. The evaluation tools allow them to go beyond the objective and individual performance measures that often are used to evaluate the incubators performance. The tools can also be used to benchmark several incubators and help funding organisations to make more informed resource allocation decisions.

The added value of implicit motives for management research Development and first validation of a Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT) for the measurement of implicit motives

Many Management (sub-)disciplines, from Organizational Behavior and Marketing to Accounting and Strategy, are interested in antecedents and consequences of individual attitudes and traits. A key aspect of personality profiles are explicit and implicit motives. Yet, Management scholars mainly focus on explicit motives, with limited attention to implicit motives. We argue that this state of affairs probably came into being because current Management researchers mainly rely on implicit motive measures that are either difficult to apply or to develop, hampering researchers from applying implicit motive measures. To overcome the downsides of available instruments, we develop a Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT) as an efficient, reliable and valid measure of implicit motives, particularly the needs for achievement, affiliation and power. To explore our BIAT’s predictive validity, we apply this measure to a specific research domain within Management: Entrepreneurship. We examine implicit motives’ association with entrepreneurial self-efficacy, business founding, and financial profitability. Our results show that the introduction of implicit motives can unlock stranded discussions in this research domain. Overall, we argue that implicit motives can help to push the boundaries of the study of deep-level attributes in a wide range of organizational and managerial settings.