Knowledge, Learning and Innovation

This introductory chapter discusses the role of knowledge, learning and innovation in terms of research into cross-sector collaboration. An essential part of this collaboration is entrepreneurship, which links knowledge, learning and innovation. An overview of the main trends within the innovation field is examined that highlights the interdisciplinary perspective of studies around the learning organization and knowledge management. This helps to stress how firms and individuals need to be entrepreneurial when engaging in cross-sector collaboration. The chapter concludes with an overview of the chapters in this book and suggestions about the practical importance of knowledge, learning and innovation is cross-sector collaboration.

This study examines the effects of the different types of entrepreneurial competencies on firm performance in ventures founded by women entrepreneurs in Malaysia. Focusing on the concept of entrepreneurial competencies incorporating competencies of analytical planning, innovation, enforcement/implementation, leadership, teamwork and networking, we tested the relationships between these different types of entrepreneurial competencies and firm performance using data collected from 117 women entrepreneurs in Malaysia. Our findings indicate that only enforcement/implementation and network competencies have significant effects on firm performance. In particular, we find that network competency firm performance. The paper sheds some light in relation to women’s entrepreneurship in emerging economies, and recommends further research that could assist policymakers in implementing more effective initiatives to encourage and develop women entrepreneurs for the success of the economy.

This article aims to study the effects of online co-creation on consumer behavior in terms of customer loyalty and purchase intention. In contrast to the existing literature that focuses on the results of co-creation or on participants’ perceptions of companies using co-creation, we focus on lead userness and opinion leadership of consumers during new product and service development. The empirical study is based on 303 consumers from the fast-moving consumer goods industry. Our findings suggest that online co-creation has significant effects on lead userness, opinion leadership, and consumer behavior. Our findings further indicate that lead userness is a full mediator between online co-creation and opinion leadership. Our study contributes to the research gap about the effect of co-creation on consumer behavior of lead users—the most innovative of consumers—and opinion leaders, who have the capacity to influence other consumers.

This chapter discusses the role of knowledge and innovation in Portuguese enterprises. The role of family businesses in the Portuguese economy is stated, which highlights the link between knowledge creation and family entrepreneurship. The unique characteristics of the Portuguese economy are stated together with the reasons for the high level of family businesses. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are stated.

While family business internationalization has been studied from different perspectives, we investigated the role of social ties, and human capital in internationalization of entrepreneurial family businesses. More importantly we have considered gender as an influential factor in applying human capital and social ties in internationalization efforts.

Entrepreneurship can be defined as a process of creating value by searching and creating some opportunities. Entrepreneurial organizations are known as the firms which do not abstain from taking risks while trying to create something new from different opportunities on the basis of organization, product, foundation, service, and process. Environment and society are the main factors for the entrepreneurs who should perfectly analyze the society for being beneficial to others. Gender is becoming popular as a new entrepreneurial field for creating an original idea. Today’s business world needs the coordination between personal issues and social issues while acting entrepreneurial. In this point, women become popular and play vital roles to be able to create different beneficial and entrepreneurial acts as a part of the society and global business environment. Besides men, the number of women entrepreneurs increase seriously day by day. The main purpose of this chapter is to find out and emphasize the importance of social entrepreneurship in business and social environment based on the perceived social support and its dimensions. Besides, traditional and social entrepreneurship, the status of male and female entrepreneurs, the features of entrepreneurs, and the relationship between perceived social support and social entrepreneurship with the participation of 302 undergraduate students from Mersin Toros University/Turkey will be emphasized and some suggestions will be noted to encourage people to become successful in the society and to develop upcoming future studies.

In Africa the majority of businesses operate as informal sector in the rural economy. With relevant current debates encompassing informality and the family firm and employing data from a national survey that captures over 18 million entrepreneurs and business owners, this chapter examines the social, economic, environmental, cultural and wider barriers to female entrepreneurship in rural Nigeria. This chapter describes how lack of capital, low levels of literacy and education, inadequate transport facilities and poor access roads are the most important barriers that face female entrepreneurship in rural African communities. These are magnified by traditions and cultural barriers that favour men over women in many African countries, including Nigeria.

The construction of professional identity of an entrepreneur involves many factors. In this chapter, the case study of a Chinese female immigrant entrepreneur in Sweden illustrates the complexity of professional identity which intertwines with the gender identity and the cultural identity in all levels from personal, professional and socio-cultural. The methods of participant observation and discourse analysis are used. The results reflect the impacts of gender and culture factors in the construction and communication of professional identity, which can contribute to the integration process of Chinese immigrants in Sweden.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, family businesses operate successfully as the backbone of the countries’ economies. We also know that even successful firms differ widely in use of best management practice. Smaller, newer firms in less developed countries should benefit from exposure to best practice. To this end we offer provide and present the advantages of using one of the newest and most successful approaches in marketing, that of relationship marketing. This chapter presents the theoretical aspects of relationship marketing, the advantages of using it and its specifics. Furthermore, in this chapter we discuss how relationship marketing affects the business development on two family businesses from two disparate industries in Bosnia and Herzegovina. AS Group is a group, including food, trade and textile, whereas Pharmamed Ltd. operates in the pharmaceutical industry. Relationship marketing concepts and specifics explained in this chapter will not help only the owners of family businesses, but also, the non-family businesses, policy-makers and researchers who want to know more about advancing use of proven managerial practices in a transition economy.

Gender in family entrepreneurship is still exploratory and, despite an increase in family entrepreneurship research, most of the studies give little or no information role of gender in family business. Existing research on family entrepreneurship tends to focus only or primarily on men, and the women appear invisible in the studies. However, there is little evidence that of extensive research focus on the issue of family entrepreneurship with the aim of building a cohesive understanding of gender in family entrepreneurship and the interactions existing between the different dimensions and components. Consequently, this chapter examines how gender issues are addressed in family entrepreneurship research. In particular, the chapter provides a critical review of the literature around the gender question in entrepreneurship, focusing on the resource-based view, organizational studies and gender in family entrepreneurship. Based on the review, a gender-aware framework is developed depicting three key areas for understanding the gendered process in family entrepreneurship: the determinants of women’s entry into family businesses, their gendered roles and the associated outcomes. Finally, implications and future research opportunities are identified and discussed.

In this chapter, we offer a composite index approach to detect firms’ information quality. Our interest coincides with recent moves among scholars in analysing the quality and understandability of corporate disclosure practices. We test our measure of information quality using a sample of annual reports of Italian family listed firms. We find a positive association between non-family female executives and firms’ information transparency. These findings support the argument that non-family female executives are more likely to reduce agency problems with a net benefit for the information quality. Our study may help policy makers and managers in looking at how to make corporate disclosures easier and more meaningful.

Tourism is one of the sectors that contribute to a country’s economy. Creative tourist activities form part of the strategy to increase public interest in this industry. The tourism sector is related to the hospitality industry, whose expansion cannot be separated from its development and vice versa. The hospitality industry’s rapid development has resulted in competitive rivalry between hotels over attracting customers to stay and use their facilities. This study aims to identify factors that influence the increase in hotel customers’ intention tore-visit by exploring customer experience management and customer value. The research focus is a themed resort hotel with distinctive characteristics. The sampling technique used a non-probability variety involving use of an accidental sampling approach. A total of 500 respondents participated in the questionnaire exercise. This study used a quantitative method employing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis techniques to test the hypothesis with Lisrel 8.8 used as the data processing tool. The findings of the research indicate that customer experience management exerts a significant influence on re-visit intention through customer value. The article’s later sections discuss recommendations, implications, and suggestions for future research.