Serena Cubico

Passaggio generazionale e potenziale imprenditoriale: Senior e Junior a confronto. Studio su un gruppo di piccole imprese

The generation transition in the micro and small sized enterprises is a crucial moment for the national and European economy. The survey suggests to understand if and as much can be strong the differences in the entrepreneurial profile between Senior and Junior (through the Entrepreneurial Attitude Test) and the varied visions concerning the expertise, the roles and the relations inside the enterprise (through the Questionnaire for the Generation Transition). Some differences have shown themselves and the appeared data make think that this crucial moment of “the passage of the witness” it can be influenced also from these personal variables.

Women Entrepreneurship in India: A Work-Life Balance Perspective

The purpose of this empirical study is to study women entrepreneurs’ psychological well being as supported by their family members in terms of support network so that effect of role overload and dependent care could be minimized. In any society, women receive relatively less support in order to fulfill their career aspirations. In a study on south Indian women entrepreneurs, researchers have examined the factors of work life balance for women entrepreneurs. These factors are termed as, role overload, dependent care, quality of health, time management and support network.

Entrepreneurial Aptitude and Gender-Related Stereotypes: A Research on Competences, Policies and Practices to Foster Entrepreneurial Culture in a Less Favoured Environment

The present work explores gender stereotypes and perception of entrepreneurship in the island of Sardinia, an Italian region characterized by unfavourable socio-economic conditions. Exploring the relation between entrepreneurial aptitude, competences, and social environment is of primary importance for developing entrepreneurship and understanding the evolution of regional human capital. Results of a questionnaire administered to a sample of aspiring, actual, and attempted Sardinian entrepreneurs, suggest that gender stereotypes and perceived inequalities endanger entrepreneurial networks, in spite of pre-existing feminine norms, and gender equality of education, aptitude, competences and regional opportunities. The findings suggest that a pervasive masculine discourse on entrepreneurship can hinder entrepreneurial perception and outcomes, and supplement the extant literature on the importance of a multiple culture perspective. It is suggested that policy-makers should pay attention to gender-related stereotypes and to entrepreneurial aptitude in order to convert detrimental regional and social networks into innovation systems. Practises for future investigations and recommendations to develop knowledge competences are also discussed.

Entrepreneurial Competences: Comparing and Contrasting Models and Taxonomies

The emphasis on competences as capturing key aspects of entrepreneurship is relatively recent and quite distinct from research on entrepreneurial traits or cognitive styles in that competences represent observable and measurable knowledge, behaviour, attitudes and skills. Many competency taxonomies and models have been proposed by scholars, as frameworks organized into tiers of competences including descriptions of the activities and behaviours associated with that competency (Chouhan and Srivastava, IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 16(1): 14–22, 2014). However, no comprehensive set of entrepreneurial competences has emerged from these distinctions and no or little empirical evidence has been provided to validate these categorizations (Morris et al., Journal of Small Business Management 51(3): 352–369, 2013). This study compares and contrasts three traditional models (Morris et al., Journal of Small Business Management 51(3): 352–369, 2013; Bartram’s, Journal of Applied Psychology 90(6): 1185–1203, 2005, with the EU Entrepreneurship Competence Framework; Bacigalupo et al., EntreComp: the entrepreneurship competence framework, EUR 27939 EN, Publication Office of the European Union, 2016) previously empirically validated by the authors.

Family Business and Entrepreneurship: Competencies and Organizational Behavior

Family-owned enterprises go through various stages of growth and development over time once the second and subsequent generations enter the business. They present a unique set of challenges and problems, mostly due to generational transition, role confusion, different vision of the business, qualification and skills. This quantitative study aims at increasing the understanding of which competencies are relevant to family business success and how they significantly influence both organizational behavior and family dynamics. Findings highlight the importance of family business as a unique context to study organizational behavior and confirmed how family enterprises are influenced by family culture and kinship ties.

Assessing the Relation between Entrepreneurial Environment and Institutions and Aptitude towards Entrepreneurship: an Experience in Veneto’s Vocational Schools

Satisfaction of those needs which are fundamental to life-quality often depends on availability of opportunities related to human and social capital, which in their turn are favoured by education. As in financial and social crises young people with low qualifications are one of the weakest segments in the labour market as they are exposed to work exclusion, long-term scar effects, and vulnerable market position, public institutions must reinforce policies and practices to foster school-to-work transition. European Union indeed advocates the enhancement of entrepreneurial education related policies and practices. As entrepreneurship is however strongly interlinked with formal and informal institutions, socio-cultural and economic contexts, a similar interplay exists between regional context, enterprise education and vocational training. The present work explores characteristics and aptitude towards entrepreneurship possessed by students of vocational education and training centres in the Italian Veneto region as a case study to explore the degree to which low qualified young students, in contact with an entrepreneurial formal or informal environment, show higher level of knowledge, propensity, self-efficacy and aptitude towards entrepreneurship. Some implications for entrepreneurial education and policies are provided.

Entrepreneurial Competencies and Business Creation, A Research on Policies and Applications

The theme of this study can be justified by the importance that European Union gives in promoting the culture of Entrepreneurship among young people, so that they can deal with more awareness and attitude to future educational and career choices. Set this as a premise, this research aims to give an answer to this question: is the Italian university system really meeting the European expectations in terms of developing sense of initiative and entrepreneurship among Italian university students. This article focuses on describing and analyzing the perception that Italian university students have about entrepreneurship in Higher Education. A quantitative research method was used (a questionnaire structured and applied to a sample of 1918 university students). The most significant results are: 71% of the students do not work; 7% are entrepreneurs and out of 71% students who do not work, 39% never had a work experience. However, most of the respondents show interest to start a business and this perception decreases over the years. Moreover, 58.4% do not believe that the university can help a student find a job and 57.6% believe that the university can help an entrepreneur, but only 12.8% actually. A Supranational Policy of Education indicates that Higher Education should develop competencies in students, especially those ones that are considered as key competencies for a student such as initiative, Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, but how effective these indications are in reality if, as percentages show, only a few students opt for an entrepreneurial career. Index Terms—Entrepreneurship, Europa, Italy, key competencies, new venture, policy, university education.

Work values and aging workforce. a perspective on value orientations and motivations for post-retirement activities

Population ageing is not only linked to social or health problems, but it also concerns economic and HRM strategies and policies in work organizations. Elderly and retired workers are often still active and recent literature in social sciences has indeed focused on the management and motivation of ageing workforce. The present work aims to explore the relationships between reasons to stay active and the work values of elderly workers, by examining how value orientations affect the reasons behind post-retirement activity. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 480 north-Italian elderly, retired from different jobs who continued to work. Part of questionnaire adopted the Work Important Study/Work Values Scale (WIS/SVP) to explore the work values of aging workforce. As a result, people in retirement appear to be moved mainly by reasons of social connections and usefulness. More personal dimensions related to the need of being appreciated, self-realized, or the need of keep themselves active and busy are considered less important. Interestingly, financial reasons and work continuity are considered not important. In addition, work values and value orientations influence to various degrees these motivations to stay in activity after formal retirement. These findings suggest that HRM practices and policies, capable of motivating older workers to continue to work, should address social and relational issues rather than financial related aspects or continuous career development.

EVALUATION AND MONITORING: PROBLEMATIC ROLES IN STUDYING INNOVATION

In Ticino, the Italian speaking canton of Switzerland, in past years a reform of the secondary school system has been implemented. This reform originates from some preliminary reflection started during the ‘90ies. During the academic year 2004/2005 started the first visible transformation in school. Using a multi-focus research design a study on this process of change has been conducted during the years 2006 - 2012. This project has several aims: define a theoretical framework to study future innovations; give some feedback to stakeholders; implement a monitoring process. Different sources of information have been used: public documents; interviews to stakeholders; four case studies and data from a questionnaire administered to the teachers. This paper is mainly devoted to explore the theoretical implication and to make a general reflection on evaluation and monitoring processes. This research process has been used to reflect on the different role of researchers in evaluation and monitoring processes. The data collected make possible to validate and up-date the initial theoretical framework based mainly on the work of Fullan (1993, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003) and Huberman & Miles (1984), to demonstrate that in an organizational change the energy spent in the consolidation phase need to be proportional to the depth of the changes.

Italian workers in retirement: Reasons for post-retirement activities are influenced from own former job

Differential effect of multi-level science parks on motives and performance of high-tech firms under change in China