International business scholars are increasingly calling for more awareness of the local context in which international entrepreneurs pursue business opportunities. In this paper, we respond to this call, arguing that an entrepreneur’s business network engenders self-sustaining dynamics that bear upon the entrepreneurial opportunity itself. We conclude that the dynamics that we observe can be interpreted as ‘multidimensional embeddedness’. Through a qualitative inquiry, we study how a Korean entrepreneur seeking to establish an agri-business venture in Cambodia embeds himself in the local business environment as a means to create an opportunity structure. We analyze how the international business venture initially thrived but ultimately failed, attributing these outcomes to the entrepreneur’s multidimensional embeddedness in the wider business environment. In so doing, we contribute a critical perspective to entrepreneurship research, widening the prevailing individualistic focus on entrepreneurship by engaging with the societal context within which an opportunity structure develops. We also extend international business studies by explaining how the opportunity structure underlying international ventures impacts upon opportunity pursuit, beyond the entrepreneur’s control.
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Our world is increasingly faced with wicked environmental sustainability challenges, requiring entrepreneurs to work in multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) to address these challenges. Network orchestration is essential for these MSIs to realize their sustainability goals and make an impact. The concept of opportunity beliefs is central in understanding the actions taken by these entrepreneurs. However, the current theorization of opportunity beliefs formation is individual-centric. Furthermore, there is little understanding of how orchestration influences the opportunity beliefs formation in multi-stakeholder teams. We build on the framework of McMullen and Shepherd (2016), who presented a two-stage model of how third-person opportunity beliefs transform into first-person opportunity beliefs. We advance two contributions by using a single case study and applying the Gioia method to code and analyze the data. First is a two-stage model consisting of the formation of joint first-person opportunity beliefs that suggests that value-aligning and informing resource orchestration activities are essential in this process. Second, we advance the idea that the resource orchestration activities have both enabling and adversely constraining effects impairing the formation of joint first-person opportunity beliefs under conditions of organizational pressure.
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Promoting inclusive school cultures and, more specifically, addressing inequality of opportunity is high on the European education agenda. Equipping teachers to be able to identify and address inequality of opportunity requires them to develop sensitivity, multi-perspectivity and agency, and these are complex attributes that require personal experiences and deep reflection. Following the principles of design research, five Dutch teacher-researchers developed IQ110 - a game that does just that. It helps both beginning and experienced teachers reflect on the hidden mechanisms of inequality, particularly on the effects of socio-economic status (SES), and it stimulates them to ad-dress these mechanisms. In the card game, that is played by 3-5 teachers, each teacher first draws a persona card: each player becomes a pupil with a given SES-background. Then the players, in turn, draw situation cards. These situations have three possible outcomes, each resulting in getting green (positive) or red (negative) chips. For each situation the other players discuss the most likely scenario and thus determine the pupil’s score. The persona cards are based on Bourdieu’s ideas on economic, cultural and social capital. The situation cards and scores are informed by SES research.The impact of the card game, both in terms of outcomes and its driving mechanisms, is now the subject of a study, funded by the Centre of Expertise Urban Education of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. To this end, the canvasses on which the individual participants record their learning outcomes are analyzed, and there is a retrospective questionnaire that is filled in after having played the game.The preliminary results are promising: especially identifying with low SES pupils and feeling the accu-mulation of negative experiences raises teachers’ awareness. The participants report that through the individual and collective reflections afterwards they are better equipped to address the issue.In our presentation we would first like to briefly demonstrate the game and then discuss the results and possible implications and applications. As we are now working on an international version of the game, we would also like to discuss with you the game’s potential outside of the Dutch context.
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Inequality of opportunity is high on the European education agenda. Equipping teachers to be able to identify and address inequality requires them to develop sensitivity, multi-perspectivity and agency, and these are complex attributes that require personal experiences and deep reflection.Recognizing this complexity, five Master’s students chose this challenge for their collective graduate research project. Following the principles of design research and inspired by Bourdieu’s ideas on different forms of capital, they developed a card game that helps both beginning and experienced teachers reflect on the hidden mechanisms of inequality, particularly on the effects of socio-economic status (SES), and it stimulates them to address these mechanisms.The impact of the card game – both in terms of outcomes and its driving mechanisms – is now the subject of a study, funded by the Centre of Expertise Urban Education of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The preliminary results are promising: especially identifying with low SES pupils and feeling the accumulation of negative experiences raises teachers’ awareness.In our presentation we first play the game with you and then discuss the results and possible implications and applications.
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This chapter proposes an integrated perspective on institutional work as ingenious actions of entrepreneurs for the purpose of opportunity development. Ingenuity refers to actions undertaken by entrepreneurs who work within ‘the institutional setting and uses this embeddedness by co-opting, coordinating, and whenever possible, drawing on organizational slack to effect change’ (Lampel et al., 2011: 715). Ingenuity involves bringing together thinking and acting, individually and collectively, to take advantage of opportunities or to overcome problems. As such, ingenuity denotes the space between a challenge and a solution (Homer-Dixon, 2000). We present day-to-day actions of an ingenious entrepreneur who combines opportunity development and institutional work. The concept of opportunity development is central in the study of entrepreneurship (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Recognizing opportunities, entrepreneurs develop initial ideas of new combinations of products, processes, markets and organizing to be offered to the market. Opportunity development requires the dynamic and interactive process to prepare a resource base and create an organizational structure for opportunity exploitation, and interactions with a diverse set of stakeholders in the institutional environment and understand their conflicting needs and motivations and to perceive possibilities resulting from these (Slotte-Kock and Coviello, 2010).
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Hacktivism represents the promotion in the cyber landscape of ideo-logically motivated agendas using hacking techniques. Despiteresearch on the topic has provided some clues on how hacktivistnetworks develop, the processes behind their evolution remain mostlyunknown. This gap in the literature prompted us to research the role ofonline/offline social relationships and of the offender convergencesettings in the creation, recruitment process and development ofhacktivist networks. This study is based on 30 interviews with hackti-vists, and it uses the social opportunity structures framework to ana-lyze the development of 21 hacktivist networks. The results show thatsaid networks can be divided in sub-categories based on the type ofconnections used to create them. Online social relationships andonline convergence settings (particularly social media platforms andIRC channels) seem to play a key role in the development of hacktivistnetworks, while offline contacts are limited. For the recruitment pro-cess, hacktivists use comparable strategies to any organization, butthree different categories were identified when discussing the level ofsophistication applied to the selection of new candidates.
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Are migrant entrepreneurs innovative with their business ideas and practices? The introduction of novel business ideas would provide migrant entrepreneurs with a cutting edge advantage against competitors, but the research about this topic is thin on the ground. I propose that the opportunity of migrant entrepreneurs to introduce an innovation is better understood by a closer look at the business idea itself and to which extent it is innovative; by considering the contextual factors where the opportunity structure influences the development of migrant businesses; and by the existence of social connections to share resources and information among entrepreneurs. Such complementary concepts - combining the interaction of the social, human, cultural and financial resources of individual migrants in relation to the wider opportunity structure - provide a comprehensive understanding of the opportunity for entrepreneurs to innovate. By using those contributions as conceptual building blocks, I propose the use of innovativeness levels for migrant entrepreneurs following the processes of adaptation and massification of goods and services introduced by migrants over time. This article builds from existing frameworks: contributions about the definitions and typology of innovation; the mixed-embeddedness approach, which has been largely used to study the opportunity structure; and the model of diffusion of innovations which pays a larger attention to the product and the agency of actors.
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This chapter answers the question: Why do we need new approaches such as Imagineering? The answer to this question turns out to be simple and clear: Because with growing connectivity comes growing complexity. The chapter starts with an explanation of the difference between complicated and complex issues. Then it explains how hyperconnectivity brings forth not only VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) challenges but also important network opportunities, such as increasing the possibilities for value creation and enabling learning. The main part of this chapter focuses on the big shift in value creation in society and the opportunities that this brings for the operating logic. The implication is that we need to rethink marketing and managerial logic. There is an opportunity to reframe value creation from profit to purpose and to build better business for a better world. The chapter closes by reflecting on the complex innovation challenge that stems from this opportunity. We need new innovation logic.
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Teaching history requires clear, detailed and subject specific language. History teachers teaching in a second language are confronted with students' second language limitations, which likely have an aggravating impact on their application of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). We analysed and compared 12 Dutch spoken and 12 English spoken paired history lessons in junior grades 7 and 9. Contrary to our expectation, we found a strong similarity of the teachers’ PCK application in both grades 7 and 9, irrespective of the used language. The PCK application in both grades and languages was of average quality, while the PCK used in grade 9 was more advanced.
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