Morten Huse

Entrepreneurship in Medium-Size Companies: Exploring the Effects of Ownership and Governance Systems

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE), which embodies a company’s innovation and venturing activities, is necessary in today’s competitive markets. CE is important for organizational renewal, the creation of new business, and improved performance. CE, however, requires strong and continued support from the company’s top executives. Data from 231 medium-size manufacturing companies show that commitment to CE is high when: (1) executives own stock in their company; (2) the board chair and the chief executive officer are different individuals; (3) the board is medium in size; and, (4) outside directors own stock in the company. The relationships between the ratio of outside directors and CE, and institutional ownership and CE, are mixed. CE is also positively associated with future company performance.

The Contribution of Women on Boards of Directors: Going Beyond the Surface

The increased attention to women on corporate boards presents new challenges to governance research. In this paper we go beyond demography and open the “black box” of board behavior by drawing upon theories of gender differences and group effectiveness. A unique survey of 201 Norwegian firms is used. The findings suggest that the ratio of women directors is positively associated with board strategic control. In addition, we find that the positive effects of women directors on board effectiveness are mediated through increased board development activities and through decreased level of conflict. However, our results show no evidence for a positive association between women directors and open debate. Nonetheless, open debate enhances boards strategic and operational control. Recognizing the limitations of traditional governance theories to explain the role and contributions of women on corporate boards, this paper draws upon group effectiveness and gender differences theories to shed some light on whether and how women make a difference to board effectiveness in strategic and operational control. Womens ability to make a contribution to the board may be attributable to their different leadership styles. The presence of women on corporate boards seems to increase board effectiveness through reducing the level of conflict and ensuring high quality of board development activities.

Recruiting outside board members in the small family business: an ideological challenge

The focus of this paper is to explore how contrasting ideologies influence the selection process of outside directors in the small family business. Small family businesses donot just represent smallscale economic activity but they are the outcome of entrepreneurial ambition and family involvement. This means that willpower and emotional commitment blend with calculative considerations. As emotional as well as cognitive constructs the family, management and entrepreneurship each represent an ideology: paternalism, managerialism and entrepreneurialism. The proposed ideological framework is positioned against alternative approaches to the study of board selection processes. Two sets of data are presented. A piloting survey of 12 family businesses is used to substantiate the theoretical assumption that entrepreneurial firms avoid having outside directors and managerial firms welcome outside directors, leaving paternalistically-run family businesses ambivalent. Repeated in-depth interviews in two family businesses, one founder-managed and entrepreneurial, the other established and traditional, reveal how the professionalization of the board enforces managerialism, challenging thus far dominating ideologies, entrepreneurialism and paternalism. The outcome of this ideological contest, if properly orchestrated, is an energized and more competitive family business.

Gender‐related boardroom dynamics

Purpose – The objective of this article is to examine and conceptualise gender‐related boardroom dynamics that affect how women can make contributions on corporate boards.Design/methodology/approach – Stories were collected from eight women directors about their experiences from more than 100 corporate boards. Narrative methods were used in the data analysis.Findings – Women as well as men need to understand the power game inside and outside the boardroom. Their contribution depends on the ability and willingness to make alliances with the most influential actors, to spend time on preparations, being present on the most important decision‐making arenas, and to take leadership roles.Practical implications – The study has implications for theory as well as practice. Process‐oriented theories should be included in studies of boards and governance, and the study showed that boardroom dynamics are not neutral to gender. Concepts and relationships are suggested that should be included in further theory developm...

The Influence of corporate governance, industry and country factors on environmental reporting

The relations between corporate environmental reporting in annual reports and corporate governance variables, industry variables and country variables are hypothesized and tested. Empirical evidence is gathered from large corporations in Finland, Norway, Spain and Sweden. The environmental disclosures are examined with the help of a three-class categorization. Industry appears to be the most important factor in explaining environmental disclosure in annual reports. Corporations in industries which are traditionally considered to be polluting, report most on the environment.

Boards of Directors' Contribution to Strategy: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

Research Question/Issue: Over the last four decades, research on the relationship between boards of directors and strategy has proliferated. Yet to date there is little theoretical and empirical agreement regarding the question of how boards of directors contribute to strategy. This review assesses the extant literature by highlighting emerging trends and identifying several avenues for future research. Research Findings/Results: Using a content-analysis of 150 articles published in 23 management journals up to 2007, we describe and analyze how research on boards of directors and strategy has evolved over time. We illustrate how topics, theories, settings, and sources of data interact and influence insights about board–strategy relationships during three specific periods. Theoretical Implications: Our study illustrates that research on boards of directors and strategy evolved from normative and structural approaches to behavioral and cognitive approaches. Our results encourage future studies to examine the impact of institutional and context-specific factors on the (expected) contribution of boards to strategy, and to apply alternative methods to fully capture the impact of board processes and dynamics on strategy making. Practical Implications: The increasing interest in boards of directors’ contribution to strategy echoes a movement towards more strategic involvement of boards of directors. However, best governance practices and the emphasis on board independence and control may hinder the board contribution to the strategic decision making. Our study invites investors and policy-makers to consider the requirements for an effective strategic task when they nominate board members and develop new regulations.

Boards of directors in SMEs: a review and research agenda

This paper aims at reviewing research and presenting a research agenda on boards of directors in SMEs. While most publications about boards in SMEs focus on the lack of research in the area, this paper presents some of the work that has been conducted. Publications on boards of directors during the 1990s in outlets for SME research are reviewed. Boards of directors in small and medium-sized companies are getting increased attention, but the knowledge about boards in such companies is still fragmented. This paper presents research challenges based on a holistic model of directorates in SMEs that is elaborated from previous research about directorates. The papers selected for this special issue on boards of directors in SMEs are presented in this framework.

Resource Configuration, Competitive Strategies, and Corporate Entrepreneurship An Empirical Examination of Small Firms

Relationships between firm resources and strategic orientations in small firms were explored in a study of 660 small firms. By using a resource-based view of the firm, we considered entrepreneurship and small business management as firm behavior—in contrast to focusing only on decisions and characteristics of the small business manager. “Managerial firms” were analyzers and used market strategies. “Technological firms” were prospectors and used product and growth strategies. “Traditional firms” avoided growth or risk-taking strategies. Firms having few resources lacked strategic orientation and were stuck in the middle.

The Effect of the Environment on Export Performance among Telecommunications New Ventures

The importance of exports for achieving business growth and superior financial performance is widely recognized in the literature. Consequently, researchers have sought to identify the variables that influence a companys export performance. Accumulated research findings highlight a need to document the effect of the domestic competitive environment on a firms export performance. Adopting a multidimensional view of export performance, this study of 121 U.S. telecommunication new ventures concludes that dynamism, hostility, and heterogeneity in a firms domestic environment are significantly associated with higher export performance. Further, while a ventures age, formal export planning, and technological sophistication are conducive to high export performance, the impact of the ventures size and past financial performance on export performance are insignificant.

Informal strategic networks and the board of directors

This paper contributes to the understanding of small firms directorates in developing informal strategic networks. These networks are of great importance to small firms, and directorates may play a central role in creating, maintaining, and influencing external contacts of importance to the firm. In a field survey of 104 dual leadership joint stock hotels in Norway and Sweden, associations between board composition, board-management relations, and director incentives, and the boards’ networking involvement have been explored. The study revealed the importance of the directors’ incentives in taking care of the networking functions of contacting and lobbying.