Michael Marcus Gielnik

Organisational age cultures: The interplay of chief executive officers age and attitudes toward younger and older employees

This article investigates the interactive effects of chief executive officer (CEO) age and CEO attitudes toward younger and older employees on organisational age cultures. Data was collected from 66 CEOs of small and medium-sized businesses and 274 employees. Results were consistent with expectations based on organisational culture and upper echelons theories. The relationship between CEO age and organisational age culture for younger employees was negative for CEOs with a less positive attitude toward younger employees and positive for those with a more positive attitude toward younger employees. The relationship between CEO age and organisational age culture for older employees was positive for CEOs with a more positive attitude toward older employees and non-significant for those with a less positive attitude toward older employees. The findings provide initial support for the existence of organisational age cultures, suggesting that these cultures can be predicted by the interplay of CEO age and age-related attitudes.

The motivational benefits of specific versus general optimism

This study addresses the question whether a specific, work-related form of optimistic thinking has motivational consequences in terms of work engagement above and beyond general optimism over time. A specific form of optimistic thinking is focus on opportunities. Focus on opportunities is a future-oriented belief that describes how many plans, goals, and possibilities people expect to have in their future at work. Based on a cross-lagged panel design with a two-year time lag and data from a sample of 124 German business owners, results of structural equation modeling showed that focus on opportunities positively predicted changes in work engagement over time, even when controlling for general optimism. This finding supports propositions of social cognition and self-regulation theories that emphasize the importance of a specific form of optimism that has motivating potential by referring to future work goals and opportunities.

Patterns of entrepreneurial career development: an optimal matching analysis approach

Longitudinal studies of entrepreneurial career development are rare, and current knowledge of self-employment patterns and their relationships with individual difference characteristics is limited. In this study, the authors analyzed employment data from a subsample of 514 participants from the German Socio-Economic Panel study (1984–2008). Results of an optimal matching analysis indicated that a continuous self-employment pattern could be distinguished from four alternative employment patterns (change from employment to self-employment, full-time employees, part-time employees, and farmers). Results of a multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that certain socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., age and gender) and personality characteristics (i.e., conscientiousness and risk-taking propensity) were related to the likelihood of following a continuous self-employment pattern compared to the other employment patterns. Implications for future research on entrepreneurial career development are discussed.

How Small Business Managers’ Age and Focus on Opportunities Affect Business Growth: A Mediated Moderation Growth Model

Research on business growth has been criticized for methodological weaknesses. We present a mediated moderation growth model as a new methodological approach. We hypothesized that small business managers’ age negatively affects business growth through focus on opportunities. We sampled 201 small business managers and obtained firm performance data over 5 years, resulting in 836 observations. Growth modeling showed systematic differences in firm performance trajectories. These differences could be explained by modeling focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between small business managers’ age and business growth. The study illustrates how mediation models can be tested using growth modeling.

Psychological Training for Entrepreneurs to Take Action Contributing to Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries

Entrepreneurship is one of the most effective means to alleviate poverty in developing countries. Effective entrepreneurship requires psychological approaches—in particular, active (i.e., agentic) approaches. We introduce an action-regulation training approach, focusing on self-regulation and active behavior in entrepreneurship as a bottom-up solution for poverty reduction. We present two different training interventions. The first focuses on enhancing personal initiative in entrepreneurs from developing countries. The second aims at boosting startup rates in these countries by enhancing participants’ entrepreneurial skills and motivation. We describe underlying theoretical assumptions, structures, and effects of both training interventions and discuss evaluation studies with randomized pretest-posttest control-group designs showing that action-regulation training is a successful means to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries.

How small business managers’ age and focus on opportunities affect business growth

Research on business growth has been criticized for methodological weaknesses. We present a mediated moderation growth model as a new methodological approach. We hypothesized that small business managers’ age negatively affects business growth through focus on opportunities. We sampled 201 small business managers and obtained firm performance data over 5 years, resulting in 836 observations. Growth modeling showed systematic differences in firm performance trajectories. These differences could be explained by modeling focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between small business managers’ age and business growth. The study illustrates how mediation models can be tested using growth modeling.

Entrepreneurship Training in Developing Countries

There are more than a billion people who live in poverty (Collier, 2007; Reynolds, 2012). Twenty-one percent of the population in developing countries (1.22 billion people) can only spend

Kreativität und Entrepreneurship

1.25 or below a day in the year 2010 (Olinto, Beegle, Sobrado, and Uematsu, 2013). In addition to poverty, a major problem for developing countries is the high rate of unemployment (The International Labor Office [ILO], 2013). Two thirds of the young population in developing countries was unemployed or worked in irregular employment in the year 2012 (ILO, 2013; UNDESA, 2013). What will aggravate the situation is that many more young people will enter the future job market. In least developed countries 40% of the population was younger than 15 years in 2012, and 20% were aged between 15 and 24 years (UNDESA, 2013). Consequently, many governmental and non-governmental bodies argue that solving the problem of unemployment and fostering employment creation in developing countries is of high importance (ILO, 2013; UNDESA, 2013). A possible approach to address the issue of unemployment is entrepreneurship since research shows that entrepreneurship supports employment creation (Acs, Desai, and Hessels, 2008; Gries and Naude, 2010; Mead and Liedholm, 1998; Naude, 2010, 2012; Naude, Gries, Wood, and Meintjies, 2008). This implies that through promoting entrepreneurship it is possible to contribute to employment creation.

Positive Impact of Entrepreneurship Training on Entrepreneurial Behavior in a Vocational Training Setting

Das Kapitel behandelt den Zusammenhang zwischen Kreativitat und Entrepreneurship. Kreativitat ist wichtig fur Entrepreneurship insofern, dass Kreativitat hilft neue und nutzliche Ideen zu generieren. Allerdings ist der Zusammenhang zwischen Kreativitat und Entrepreneurship nicht direkt, sondern abhangig von Kontextfaktoren und von einzelnen Phasen des unternehmerischen Prozesses. Dieses Kapitel fasst die existierende Literatur zusammen, die einen direkten Effekt von Kreativitat auf Entrepreneurship untersucht. Ferner zeigt dieses Kapitel, wie die Erweiterung theoretischer Modelle um Kontextfaktoren und die Berucksichtigung des unternehmerischen Prozesses das Verstandnis des Zusammenhangs zwischen Kreativitat und Entrepreneurship verbessert. Basierend auf diesen theoretischen Modellen beschreibt dieses Kapitel wie Kreativitat gesteigert werden kann, um dadurch Entrepreneurship zu fordern. Abschliesend werden in diesem Kapitel vier mogliche Wege aufgezeigt, wie zukunftige Forschung dieses Thema weiter erschliesen kann.

Age in the entrepreneurial process: The role of future time perspective and prior entrepreneurial experience.

Unemployment among youths is a serious problem in many African countries. Researchers and politicians alike consider entrepreneurship to be part of the solution to the high unemployment rates. In this study, we present the conceptual basis of an action-oriented entrepreneurship training program and provide evidence for its positive impact on trainees’ entrepreneurial behavior in a vocational training setting. Furthermore, we present a case study that illustrates how a vocational training institute successfully implemented the training. The case study demonstrates the long-lasting effects achieved by a vocational training institute to promote entrepreneurship among its trainees. Our study shows that entrepreneurship training boosts entrepreneurship among youths, creates jobs, and leads to income generating activities. Furthermore, our study indicates that entrepreneurship training can be successfully integrated into vocational training settings when the training institutions take over responsibility, keep the conceptual core of the training (that is the practical and action-oriented approach of the training), and tailor the overarching framework of the training according to their specific needs.