Thomas J. Calo

Affiliation motivation and interest in entrepreneurial careers

Purpose – The goal of this paper is to better understand affiliation motivation patterns among students interested in pursuing entrepreneurial/self‐employment careers as compared to students less interested in pursuing entrepreneurial careers.Design/methodology/approach – The study sample included 424 college students enrolled in upper‐division business courses in a public institution in the Mid‐Atlantic region of the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the effects of four dimensions of affiliation motivation on entrepreneurial aspirations.Findings – Interest in entrepreneurial careers was negatively associated with the need for emotional support and positively associated with the need for positive stimulation from other persons. Therefore, persons with entrepreneurial interests enjoy interacting with other people, but they are not emotionally dependent upon them. Neither the need for social comparison nor the need for attention varied as a function of entrepreneurial aspirations.Researc...

Preference for group work in China and the US

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Chinese and US students differ in preference for group work (PGW) and whether the factors contributing to PGW differ in the two countries. Design/methodology/approach – The sample included 412 Chinese and 423 US college students who completed a survey measuring cultural values and motives. Hierarchical regression and simple-slope analyses were used to examine main effects and interactions. Findings – Overall, the US and Chinese students did not differ in PGW. Although US men exceeded US women in PGW, no gender difference occurred in China. PGW was positively associated with others focus (concern for what others think) and helping others in both countries, but the association was stronger in China. In China, but not in the USA, PGW was positively associated with extrinsic motivation and need for achievement. Therefore, despite the general acceptance of group work in the USA, participation in groups is not seen as critical in attaining rewards as i...

Culture in Shared Entrepreneurship Firms

“Organizational culture” has been defined as a system of shared, taken-for-granted assumptions that holds a group together and that determines how it reacts to its environment.1 More succinctly, it has been described as “the way we do things around here.”2 Organizations with healthy cultures are said to have enhanced employee morale and team cohesiveness, enhanced employee performance, and strengthened alignment toward goal achievement. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the cultural components most typically found in shared entrepreneurship (SE) firms, and to provide support for the benefits to be derived from such cultures in terms of organizational performance.

TEOCO (The Employee Owned Company): Principled Entrepreneurship and Shared Leadership

Fairfax, VA, October 6, 2009. Atul Jain, founder of TEOCO, a provider of specialized software for the telecommunications industry, had been meeting all day to finalize a partnership agreement with TA Associates, a private equity firm. For Atul, the pace of activities had been relentless on this special day.1 By all accounts, the last 12 hours had been hectic but the closing of the transaction was a success. The event had started with back-to-back meetings between TEOCO’s senior management and their new partner’s representatives and had culminated with the usual press conference to mark the occasion. The senior management teams of both organizations announced to the business community that TA Associates (TA hereafter) had made a minority equity investment of

Observers' impressions of unethical persons and whistleblowers

60 million in TEOCO. It was indeed a memorable day, the culmination of intense and uneven negotiations between two organizations that did not have much in common except for deep industry knowledge and a shared interest in seeing TEOCO succeed.