This paper investigates whether students change their entrepreneurial entry preference if they are presented with different options. We propose that students’ entry preferences are mediated by concepts proposed by threshold theory: choice options, opportunity costs and psychic income. This study is exploratory in nature, analyzing a small sample of 31 student essays both quantitatively and qualitatively to test our propositions. Though lacking a control group, enrolment in a six-week module on entry mode options by a group of third year Bachelor students at a Dutch university resulted in some interesting changes—in particular, toward greater clarity in the entrepreneurial entry mode preference as well as a shift toward takeover options (including firm acquisition and family succession). However, thematic analysis of students essays reveals that the perceived ability to act on such preferences may still be limited by opportunity costs (i.e., the higher need for financial capital) and a self-perceived lack of human capital (entrepreneurial or management experience).
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The world of student associations, is not all what it seems to be. Here, like in the corporate boardroom, we find a world of personal ambition that drive unproductive acquisitions and other unwanted managerial behavior. Agency problems as studied by Jensen & Meckling (1976) and eloquently summarized by Gordon Gekko (1987) are major causes of the credit crisis of 2008.
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Bedrijfsoverdrachten leiden tot innovatie en groei in het mkb. In 2011 is voor het eerst onderzoek gedaan naar de economische gevolgen van bedrijfsoverdrachten (Van Teeffelen, 2012). Wat is de situatie eind 2014, begin 2015? Steekproef vergelijkbaar met 2011 Er is een random steekproef van 4350 ondernemers getrokken in drie rondes. 2428 ondernemers hebben deelgenomen aan het onderzoek. De dataset is goed vergelijkbaar met de trekking in 2011. Kwaliteit en aantal bedrijven in overdracht is toegenomen Het aantal bedrijven in de verkoop is sterk gestegen: van 23.500 in 2011 naar 55.700 bedrijven nu. 10% van alle bedrijven met personeel staat nu te koop, een verdrievoudiging in vergelijking tot 2011. De kwaliteit van de bedrijven is toegenomen. Bedrijven zijn gegroeid in personeelsleden van 5,8 naar 7,3 fte. Het zijn vooral familiebedrijven die nu in de verkoop staan. Verkopende ondernemers beschikken over meer aan- of verkoopervaring, de bedrijven zijn minder afhankelijk van de ondernemer, de vraagprijs bij verkopende ondernemers lijkt realistischer. Verkopende ondernemers exporteren meer. Het percentage bedrijven dat kansrijk is bij verkoop is gestegen van 44% naar 53%. Punt van zorg is de toename van de ondernemersleeftijd bij verkoop: van begin vijftig in 2011 naar zestig jaar in 2014/15. Kwaliteit en aantal bedrijven in opheffingen afgenomen Het aantal bedrijven in opheffing is afgenomen van bijna 59.000 in 2011 naar 53.000 in 2014/2015. De kwaliteit van de bedrijven in opheffing is sinds 2011 achteruit gegaan. Zij zijn in personeelsomvang gekrompen en lopen achter qua innovaties. Ook zijn bedrijven in opheffing minder kansrijk geworden bij een eventuele verkoop. Bij opheffingen gaan jaarlijks 2,0% van alle banen in Nederland verloren. Economische effecten van bedrijfsoverdrachten fors gestegen. Bij overdrachten staan nu 7,1% van alle voltijdsbanen op het spel. Het afbreukrisico voor de Nederlandse economie is sterk toegenomen. Het werkgelegenheidsverlies als gevolg van mislukte overdracht is in vergelijking tot 2011 verdubbeld, de omzetderving en kapitaalvernietiging zijn verviervoudigd.
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The use of the word “social” in the context of information technology goes back to the very beginnings of cybernetics. It later pops up in the 1980s context of “groupware.” The recent materialist school of Friedrich Kittler and others dismissed the use of the word “social” as irrelevant fluff – what computers do is calculate, they do not interfere in human relations. Holistic hippies, on the other hand, have ignored this cynical machine knowledge and have advanced a positive, humanistic view that emphasizes computers as tools for personal liberation. This individualistic emphasis on interface design, usability, and so on was initially matched with an interest in the community aspect of computer networking. Before the “dot-com” venture capitalist takeover of the field in the second half of the 1990s, progressive computing was primarily seen as a tool for collaboration among people.
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Different types of strategic renewal by the successor are identified: organizational change, innovation, combined actions and no action. The main assumption is that renewal after succession improves SME post-transfer performance compared to no actions taken. Also successor’s timing of the takeover is observed, looking at the economic conditions in the year of ownership transfer: decline, average or growing conditions. The hypotheses are tested on a random stratified sample of 333 Dutch firms. Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) and complementary T-tests show that organizational change, product/market innovation and combined actions all increase post-transfer performance compared to no renewal. Strategic renewal pays off in any economic period, but mostly so in periods of economic decline. The control variable firm size is a significant predictor: the smaller the firm the better the post-transfer performance.
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Er is weinig bekend over de verschillen in de ondernemersprofielen van starters, overnemers en opvolgers. Als voorbereiding op een grootschalig onderzoek van de HU/KvK Nederland is de literatuur op dit gebied bestudeerd.
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In this report Piet Bakker, professor of Cross Media Content, mapped the state of the media in the Netherlands.
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The corporate goal of striving for stockholder value meets considerable resistance due to various misunderstandings and prejudices. The goal of this contribution is to clear up some of those misperceptions.
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Environmental unsustainability is due to both structural features and historically specific characteristics of industrial capitalism resulting in specific patterns of production and consumption, as well as population growth. Sustainability literature criticises the established corporate and political power hegemonies, interested in maintaining economic growth, as well as inability or unwillingness of citizen-consumers to counteract these hegemonic tendencies. Yet, official policies are still targeted at social and economic ‘development’ as a panacea for unsustainability challenges. Instead, renewed accent on social and economic objectives are outlined by a set of sustainable development goals (SDG) that include objectives of fighting poverty, promoting better health, reducing mortality, and stimulating equitable economic growth. What is less commonly critiqued is the underlying morality of unsustainability and ethical questions concerned with the ‘victims of unsustainability’ outside of socioeconomic discourse. The achievement of SDG goals, as will be further elaborated on in this article, is unlikely to lead to greater social equality and economic prosperity, but to a greater spread of unsustainable production and consumption, continuous economic as well as population growth that has caused environmental problems in the first place and further objectification of environment and its elements. This article argues that an invocation of ethical duty toward environment and its elements is required in order to move beyond the current status quo. Such ethical approach to unsustainability can effectively address the shortcomings of the mainstream sustainability discourse that is mainly anthropocentric and therefore fails to identify the correct locus of unsustainability. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International "Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology" on 2015 available online: http://www.tandfonline.com https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2015.1111269 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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