There is a lot of evidence to suggest that entrepreneurial self-efficacy influences intentions and performance, but little research on ESE and actual activities. In this paper the possible dual impact of ESE on task effort is explored. On the one hand self-efficacy boosts motivation and persistence, but on the other hand high confidence in one's abilities can lead to decision-making shortcuts and reduced effort on key tasks (the overconfidence hypothesis). Propositions about the relationship between self-efficacy and effort on different types of tasks (action and judgment tasks) are developed and tested with a small sample of active entrepreneurs. Results support a positive impact of self-efficacy on effort regardless of the type of task, thereby raising questions about the overconfidence hypothesis. Understanding types of confidence (in one's ability, knowledge, and judgment) and effort (cognitive effort) may explain these results. Further research on these topics, and on entrepreneurial experience and the use of heuristics are suggested.

The power of stories to persuade in infl uencing the process of change is the focus of this article. Attention is given to the importance of stories in making sense of past experience, of unifying groups, and in presenting options for future engagement and action. Unlike the narrative concern with sequencing, coherence and the need for a beginning, middle and end, it is argued that stories are often partial and ongoing, occur at multiple levels compete, complement and redefine positions. The plurality and political nature of stories are illustrated in an analysis of data drawn from a longitudinal study of six health care sites in remote and rural Scotland. The study concludes by arguing that stories are a powerful political vehicle in influencing sense-making and a critical component in maintaining choice and defl ecting the imposition of a single simple solution (hegemonic influence) over various interpretations of what are complex context-based issues.

The literature suggests that improving the management skills of owner-managers of SMEs contributes to their survival and growth and that there is considerable scope for further improvement in skills. However, evidence suggests that current support for management development (MD) does not meet the needs of SMEs. Nevertheless, there have been few changes on the supply side with policy makers continuously being concerned about low take-up of training. This study contributes to an understanding of how existing MD activities in SMEs can be better supported. Using Mumford's (1987) typology of MD activities to classify our interview data, findings from interviews with 25 owner-managers suggest two approaches to providing learning support: (1) incorporate structured opportunities for individual reflection and reflection within groups; and (2) address participants' concerns about training and mentoring. These findings have implications for policy makers and are timely given the current economic situation, where previous patterns of growth are being challenged and new ways of supporting MD in SMEs need to be found.

Adoption of management innovations like the balanced scorecard is generally a complex process. Many subdecisions are involved and customization is often required before firms can enjoy the benefits of these innovations. Consequently, firms tend to experiment before finally implementing such complex innovations. We develop a framework differentiating between antecedents of experimentation with and actual implementation of the balanced scorecard, a distinction that has largely been neglected in the literature. Focusing on a small set of firms that experimented with the balanced scorecard, we provide initial empirical evidence. The results support the framework showing that top management involvement, innovation-contingent departments and organizational-context factors play a significant positive role in the experimentation stage, while interdepartmental communication and formalization are important variables with positive and negative influences in the implementation stage. We discuss the findings and their managerial implications.

A critical analysis of contemporary strategic management theory and practice suggests that modernist, linear thinking has facilitated the development of an abstracted reality which is misleading to managers and fundamentally flawed. It is argued that formulaic strategic tools such as those propounded by Porter fail to capture the reality of the complex environments that confront firms and falsely suggest that an answer can be derived from a predetermined toolbox.

As an alternative to this dominant paradigm, the complexity of markets is presented not as something to be feared and ignored, but rather as a truth to be embraced. As a basis of taking this step, current knowledge on how complex environments work, perspectives on how they can be better understood and how people and organizations can engage within them, is presented. Ultimately it is recognised that both theoretical and practical foundations need significant, further development.

The employer–employee relationship is underpinned by a psychological contract, which refers to employee beliefs about the exchange of employee contributions and employer inducements. However, there is limited understanding of how employers can shape psychological contracts to meet employees' needs and aspirations. Meeting these needs starts with an understanding of employees' preferences for psychological contract contributions and inducements. We propose that career stage models can be used to achieve that understanding. Using the career stage models of Dalton, Thompson, and Price (1977) and Super (1957), we derive insights into the preferred contributions and inducements, respectively, at various points of an employee's career lifecycle. These insights will help organizations create desirable psychological contracts and retain valued employees.

Executive onboarding has become a popular technique in the business world during the past decade. However, the demonstrated success of traditional onboarding practices is mixed. We assert in this article that executive onboarding should be strategic, so that it not only prevents executive derailment, but accelerates contribution to optimize strategic achievement. We review the literature and identify six problematic areas externally hired executives often encounter when transitioning in to new organizations. It is recommended that effective onboarding should be tailored to the targeted organizations and executives to address specific transition issues. We propose a conceptual framework to implement onboarding on a strategic basis. It is hoped that such a review and conceptual discussion will enhance the effectiveness of onboarding experiences and increase the likelihood of success for executives hired from outside the organization.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of different organizational enablers – i.e. ‘structural capital’ – on the ideation stage of innovation processes from an ‘intellectual capital’ (IC) perspective. Considering company size as one of the most relevant contingent variables as regards organizational conditions, the moderator role of this variable is also examined. To gather information about the variables under study, a questionnaire has been designed and addressed to the CEOs of a set of 142 Spanish manufacturing firms with more than 50 employees and which carry out R&D activities. Structural equation modelling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) has then been applied in order to test the hypotheses drawn from the research. The results obtained show the organizational components which exert the greatest impact on the ideation phase and, therefore, the priority aspects to work on, in order to enhance this particular dimension of the innovation capability.

Using a sample of 72 European and 22 North American educational institutions, we examine the extent to which business schools in North America and Europe are driving educational programs and initiatives in corporate social responsibility and sustainability (CSRS). Drawing on several theoretical perspectives, such as institutional-comparative perspectives and resource dependence theory, the study indicates the increasing prominence of CSRS education in business schools on both continents. It does so through analysis of the extent to which business schools offer (a) dedicated CSRS programs, (b) CSRS tracks and majors, (c) compulsory CSRS classes or modules, and (d) optional CSRS modules across the range of taught programs. Contrary to some previous findings, religious affiliation, public/private status, and program size had only a negligible direct association with schools' commitment to CSRS education. However, business school prestige showed a statistically significant relationship. Finally, the study highlights how European respondents' perceptions concerning the primary drivers and constraints of CSRS initiatives differed from those in North America.

The idea of this paper is to develop a sensemaking tool that can help managers to generate a more asserted approach to innovation. A tool can be defined as something which is needed to perform an action – like innovation. We see innovation as ‘an improvisational dynamics of “moving to” the future’ (Pye, 2005) and use the concept of future perfect thinking (Weick, 1979, 1995), which has been lately debated in studies of project management (Pitsis, Clegg, Marosszeky, & Rura-Polley, 2003; Winch & Kreiner, 2009), to develop a tool that can reduce the perceived uncertainty of innovation. The key in future perfect thinking is to treat the future as something that has already happened in the past and thereby reducing the perceived open-endedness of the future. We suggest, more particularly, that verbal reflections on future challenges by relevant employees can help state the future as something that has a deeper, more stable and more practical meaning. The sensemaking tool is illustrated in a recent case of software development.

This study sought to investigate if there is a link between women on boards of directors and corporate sustainability. Using a sample of publicly listed firms from Australia, the results suggest some level of support that a link does exist. Boards that have a strong complement of gender diversity are expected to offer more effective monitoring of agents, as well as offer more stringent enforcement of ethical conduct, thereby minimizing affects of subversion of shareholder funds that can be detrimental to their returns. Accordingly, findings confirm a positive link between women on boards and economic growth. Because of their relational abilities, women on boards are more likely able to engage with multiple stakeholders and respond to their needs, resulting in an avenue for demonstrating social responsiveness, which is confirmed by the results. However, due to their backgrounds and work experiences, sex-based biases and stereotyping might exist in boardrooms with men directors discounting input from women directors on issues relating to environmental quality. The results of this study find that women directors are not significantly associated with environmental quality. Discussion is given to these findings along with paths for future research.

In the context of education for sustainable development, the purpose of this paper is to report on the findings of a study in Spain into the extent to which corporate social responsibility (CSR) is taught in management schools. The study makes an exploratory and descriptive web-content analysis of the curriculum and subjects on Business and Management degrees at all universities in Spain. Our findings show that a high percentage of universities include CSR-related subjects on their curriculum. CSR content is taught as either specific CSR subjects (stand-alone CSR subjects) or as part of various subjects on the academic curriculum (embedded CSR subjects). Although at first sight our findings may seem promising, a more detailed analysis shows that few universities include stand-alone CSR subjects and that although many universities have embedded CSR subjects, the CSR content is by no means fully developed.

This study investigated the interactive effects of on-the-job training (OJT), co-worker support (CWS), and supervisor support (SS) with newcomer job-related education (JRE), on newcomer adjustment. Given that socialisation is a learning process, an important factor in socialisation is job-related knowledge. Although many studies on organisational socialisation drew on new graduates making the school-to-work transition, they have not considered the role of JRE and associated job-related knowledge for socialisation. It was hypothesised that JRE and newcomer information-seeking will moderate the effects of OJT, CWS, and SS on role clarity, role conflict, and role orientation. The study was conducted with a sample 244 business and engineering graduates of an Asian university. Results provide some support for the moderating effects of JRE on role clarity and conflict. It was also found that SS was positively related to newcomer innovative role orientation. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The objective of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the role of absorptive capacity in enabling interorganizational new product development (INPD). We contend that despite what is known about the benefits of absorptive capacity to innovating firms, this research is dominated by firm-level analyses using cross-sectional data. The accumulated knowledge about absorptive capacity thus does not help with understanding how absorptive capacity unfolds as a process within and between firms such as when firms collaborate in new product development. Using a longitudinal case study, we build new theory at the INPD system level of analysis that leads us to shed new light on the cross-level interactions between firm- and alliance-level absorptive capacities.

Writing from an autoethnographic perspective, in this paper I re-visit Erving Goffman's ideas to examine impression management tactics used by staff from a large Brazilian mining company. The analysis is based on a 6-week fieldwork trip to Brazil in 2008 for the purpose of gathering qualitative data for a study on corporate social responsibility in the extractivist sector. Post-fieldwork reflections prompted the insight that during the data gathering phase of my research, I was subject to a series of impression management ‘performances’ by my corporate informants, carried out to foster a positive image of their company. In the paper I juxtapose data obtained during fieldwork and my personal reflections with selected excerpts from Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

A firm's collaborative context can represent an important source of knowledge for sustaining its entrepreneurial outcomes. Drawing on entrepreneurship and resource-based view literature, we study how the acquisition of knowledge from inter-firm ties affects the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance, distinguishing between two types of knowledge, market and technological, and between two types of entrepreneurial orientation, radical and incremental. The results of the study on a sample of 203 Spanish small businesses from the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector suggest that knowledge acquisition plays different roles, depending on the type of entrepreneurial orientation developed and also on the type of knowledge exchanged. In particular, market and technological knowledge acquisition positively moderate only the relationship between radical entrepreneurial orientation and performance, while in the case of incremental entrepreneurial orientation we find only a direct positive influence of market knowledge acquisition on performance.

This research is aimed at analyzing the relationship between the underlying dimensions of boundaryless (boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference) and protean (self-directed and values-driven) career attitudes and subjective career success, within today's complex and dynamic organizational context in which careers are unfolding. Drawing on a sample of 150 Spanish professionals from the Catalonia region, which enabled hypotheses testing by means of hierarchical regression analysis, the research results suggest that self-direction in managing one's career and vocational development is instrumental in achieving subjective career success. Organizational mobility preference was found to be negatively associated with individuals' perceptions of the success achieved in their careers. Furthermore, the study suggests some future research lines that could draw more light upon the hypothesized relationships.

While institutional organization research to some extent has neglected the micro agency of organization members, parts of the strategy-as-practice research have tended to bracket off wider societal environments shaping the practices-in-use of top-level strategy practitioners. This article attempts to address parts of this void. This study examines the agency exerted by top-level public servants through their everyday strategy and policy work in face of co-existing logics of public administration. The findings illustrate how their action strategies span from more passive strategies of coping with coexisting logics of administration to more skilled agency of combining logics aimed at enhancing their opportunity and action space. The study suggests that the interplay between co-existing institutional logics, action strategies and the practical skills of top-level public servants provides the basis for both coping and more proactive strategies in pluralistic public administrations. Findings illustrate the role of public servants' practical sense of realizable opportunities that inform such strategies of handling co-existing institutional logics. Implications for institutional studies of organizations are outlined.

The attention for sustainable development (SD) is ever growing (Van Poeck, Vandenabeele, & Bruyninckx, 2009). Although the importance of SD integration in higher education (HE), both on strategic and operational level, is often stressed, actual measurements of this integration are less frequent. Therefore, a large scale assessment was set up to assess SD integration within 33 professionally and academically oriented programs of applied economics in a total of 22 Flemish HE institutions. The integration of SD in applied economics programs is crucial for society, among others because business students are our future managers (Ceulemans & De Prins, 2010). The interrelations between different SD integration strategies and the barriers to them were also studied in this research, leading us to a new concept, where two different dimensions of SD integration are combined. From the research we can conclude that an SD integration approach that combines horizontal and vertical integration with bottom-up and top-down seems to be the most beneficial for sustained SD integration efforts.