Rainer Harms

Family firm research: Sketching a research field

Due to the importance of family firms for the economy, researchers have begun to embrace family firms as a research object. This article seeks to summarise and to structure family firm research based on an extensive survey of the literature. Important research foundations such as the definition of family firms, a theoretical foundation in the resource based view and in entrepreneurship and research topics such as performance differences of family firms, their goal structure, psychological ownership and business succession are outlined and discussed.

The suitability of the configuration approach in entrepreneurship research

The aim of this paper is to discuss the configuration approach as applied in the context of new ventures. A key topic in entrepreneurship research is the analysis of new venture performance (NVP) and change. Taking into account variations in the population of new ventures and considering the complex nature of NVP and development, the configuration approach may be helpful for these analyses. The configuration approach seeks to identify firm types and explicitly considers interrelations between personal, structural, strategic, and environmental factors pertaining to new ventures. In doing this, refined modelling of NVP and an integration of theoretical approaches in entrepreneurship research may be achieved. However, the configuration approach may not be applied without a prior discussion of its suitability to the research context of new ventures. Any time a research approach is applied in a (new) research context, key aspects of this approach may be violated, which could lead to questionable results. We discuss key assumptions of the configuration approach, the concepts of fit, of equifinality, of reductive mechanisms, and of configuration changes, and find that these building blocks also apply in the context of new ventures. Then, we argue that a specific emphasis on the founder and on the environment and the consideration of unique variable patterns are elements of a configuration approach for new ventures.

Antecedents of innovation and growth: analysing the impact of entrepreneurial orientation and goal-oriented management

For technology-oriented SME, innovation and growth are important aspects of firm performance. A strategic orientation that emphasises entrepreneurial behaviour (entrepreneurial orientation, EO) may be an effective way to obtain these goals. However, there is little information on the internal organisational processes that link EO to innovation and growth. In this study, the performance implications of goal-oriented management techniques (GoM) such as management by objectives (MbO) on innovation and growth in the context of EO are analysed on a sample of 165 fast growth technology-based ventures from Germany. The results show that EO has a positive impact on innovation and growth, with innovation being a partial mediator. In addition to that, EO seems to be negatively related to the degree to which GoM is used, while GoM itself has a negative relationship with innovation.

Strategic business planning and success in small firms

This paper attempts to identify the degree and the methods of strategic business planning in small enterprises. A broad literature review on strategic planning in small enterprises in entrepreneurship and strategy journals within the last 25 years reveals that strategic planning in small enterprises is still in its infancy, and the reports of its relationship regarding success are not consistent. This literature review serves as a starting point for the development of hypotheses. Using a sample of 248 small Austrian enterprises from various industries, we test if the time horizon of strategic plans, the degree of formalisation, the use of strategic planning instruments and the frequency of control relate to firm performance. We discover that the degree of formalisation has a positive, and highly significant, impact on firm performance. As a result, this paper seeks to provide a new conceptual definition of strategic planning in small enterprises.

Age, job identification, and entrepreneurial intention

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how age and job identification affect entrepreneurial intention. Design/methodology/approach – The researchers draw on a representative sample of the Austrian adult workforce and apply binary logistic regression on entrepreneurial intention. Findings – The findings reveal that as employees age they are less inclined to act entrepreneurially, and that their entrepreneurial intention is lower the more they identify with their job. Whereas gender, education, and previous entrepreneurial experience matter, leadership and having entrepreneurial parents seem to have no impact on the entrepreneurial intention of employees. Research limitations/implications – Implications relate to a contingency perspective on entrepreneurial intention where the impact of age is exacerbated by stronger identification with the job. Practical implications – Practical implications include the need to account for different motivational backgrounds when addressing entrepreneurial employees of different ages. Societal implications include the need to adopt an age perspective to foster entrepreneurial intentions within established organizations. Originality/value – While the study corroborates and extends findings from entrepreneurial intention research, it contributes new empirical insights to the age and job-dependent contingency perspective on entrepreneurial intention

Dealing with spatial heterogeneity in entrepreneurship research

In quantitative research, analyses are generally made using a geographically defined population as the study area. In this context, the relationships between predictor and response variables can differ within the study area, a feature that is known as spatial heterogeneity. Without analyzing spatial heterogeneity, a global model may not be correct, and there may be unclear spatial boundaries in the generalizability of the findings. The authors discuss how the method of geographically weighted regression (GWR) can be used to identify the study area, and illustrate the utility of GWR for empirical analyses in entrepreneurship research. Future entrepreneurship research can benefit from analyzing whether conflicting evidence may be due to spatial heterogeneity and from applying GWR in an exploratory way.

Contextualizing the relationship between self-commitment and performance: Environmental and behavioural uncertainty in (cross-border) alliances of SMEs

Cooperation based on self-commitment of the partners is relevant for successful alliances in the context of uncertainty. However, the performance impact of self-commitment can be contingent on the type of uncertainty. Based on the distinction between environmental uncertainty and behavioural uncertainty, we analyse the contingent effect of cooperation based on self-commitment in national and international alliances with focal companies from both market economies and transition economies (n = 181). Our analysis reveals that cooperation based on self-commitment has a positive relationship with performance when the focal company is from a transition economy, irrespective of whether it is engaged in a national or an international alliance. We conclude that the performance effect of cooperation based on self-commitment is contingent upon the geographic origin of the focal company.

Willingness to Pay for Eco‐Certified Refurbished Products: The Effects of Environmental Attitudes and Knowledge

Refurbishing products, which are increasingly sold in business-to-consumer markets, is a key strategy to reduce waste. Nevertheless, research finds that consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for refurbished products is low. Strategies for a higher WTP are needed in order to grow consumer markets for refurbished products. Eco-certification of refurbished products may be a key strategy here. Drawing on the consumer WTP literature concerning “green” products, we investigate the impact of independent eco-certificates. Our analysis is based on a survey of 231 potential customers. The results suggest that, across various product categories, the WTP for products with refurbished components is significantly lower. Adding an eco-certificate tends to return the WTP toward the virgin product level. We show that consumers with proenvironmental attitudes particularly exhibit green buying behavior. Our findings indicate that eco-certification is often worthwhile because it enhances the business rationale for producing products with refurbished components

Introduction: A Strategy for Overcoming the Definitional Struggle

Matthias Fink is Assistant Professor in the Department of Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship at the Vienna University of Economics & Business Administration, Augasse 2–6, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. E-mail: matthias.fink@wu-wien.ac.at. Rainer Harms is Assistant Professor at NIKOS, the Dutch Institute for Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship, University of Twente, Capitool 15, Room C3-05, Postbus 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. E-mail: r.harms@utwente.nl. Guido Möllering is a Senior Research Associate at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Paulstrasse 3, 50676 Cologne, Germany. E-mail: gm@mpfig.de.

A Multivariate Analysis of the Characteristics of Rapid Growth Firms, Their Leaders, and Their Market

Abstract Rapid growth small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) serve as a role model for many founders and managers. However, rapid growth is difficult to attain. A large number of studies that analyse rapid growth SMEs are based on bivariate comparisons of rapid growth firms and normal growth firms. However, bivariate analyses may suffer from an inflation of the experimentwise error rate, the neglect of possible interdependencies between the independent test variables, and the fact that population effects may be obscured by opposing effects in subpopulations. Moreover, definitions of rapid growth vary from study to study, which may impact on the results. This analysis adds to research on rapid growth firms by contrasting bivariate and multivariate approaches and by analyzing the impact of varying definitions of rapid growth on a sample of 225 rapidgrowth and normal-growth firms from Germanys Entrepreneur of the Year Competition. The results show that attributes of rapid growth firms include a low degree of experience of the founder and cost leadership in the total market. This analysis also shows that the results of the analyses differ significantly depending on the analytical method chosen.