Purpose: Preventing business failure remains a significant challenge for small businesses in the Netherlands. Given their importance for the Dutch economy, understanding the causes of business failure and equipping business owners with strategies for resilience is imperative. This dissertation seeks to address this challenge by examining the sales role of business owners, referred to as ‘Entrepreneurial Selling,’ within the context of small-scale Dutch businesses. The goal is to identify how business owners can develop effective sales behaviors to mitigate the risk of failure and enhance the long-term viability of their businesses. The research into Entrepreneurial Selling is rising, yet further advancements, including this dissertation, are required to better support business owners in their continuous sales responsibilities. The main research question, therefore, is: How do small-scale business owners in the Netherlands behave in their Entrepreneurial Selling role and how can they become more effective in their sales behavior? Methods: To address the research question, a multimethod research approach is utilized. The research design comprises a literature review, three progressively linked studies, and practical applications. The first study (Chapter 4) involves a content re-analysis of 55 interviews to underscore the pivotal nature of Entrepreneurial Selling in preventing business failure. The second study (Chapter 5) conducts 12 semi-structured interviews, employing thematic analysis to categorize business owners' sales behaviors based on their entrepreneurial motivations. In the third study (Chapter 6), quantitative methods are employed (N=276) to explore the relationship between Entrepreneurial Selling Role Orientation (ESRO) and effective sales behavior. These studies provide the foundation for the practical applications developed in collaboration with practitioners (Chapter 7).Findings: The first study found that Entrepreneurial Selling is a crucial activity for preventing business failure and one that business owners recognize. Reasons for underperformance can include business owners allocating inadequate time to selling, deficient sales skills, and procrastination of sales activities. The subsequent studies build on this foundation. The second study introduces an Entrepreneurial Selling typology, linking business owners' motivations with their sales role strategies, offering insights into how motivations influence sales behavior. The third study introduces the concept of ESRO and substantiates its impact on sales behavior. Furthermore, a positive connection is identified between sales training and effective sales practices. The findings of the studies are individually applied to Sarasvathy’s Bird-in-Hand principle of Effectuation theory and are synthesized within the Entrepreneurial Selling Matrix. Originality/Value: This dissertation contributes to the Entrepreneurial Selling field by advancing our understanding of the business owners’ sales role in enhancing business resilience. It underscores the connection between ineffective sales practices and business failure and delves deeper by investigating the interplay between entrepreneurial motives and ESRO on sales behavior. Additionally, this study bridges the gap between entrepreneurship- and sales research by applying the Bird-in-Hand principle to business owners' sales behavior. In practical terms, the research's outcomes are twofold. First, it refines the Entrepreneurial Selling Matrix, providing a pragmatic typology that aids sales training practitioners in guiding business owners toward aligning sales behaviors with entrepreneurial goals. Second, it introduces an Entrepreneurial Selling Training Program, accompanied by tools, facilitating sales trainers in evaluating and improving current and desired sales behaviors. This practical approach contributes directly to nurturing resilient and thriving businesses.
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Only recently have scholars begun to explore the cross-section connection of entrepreneurship and personal selling and introduced the notion of entrepreneurial selling. This study contributes to the emerging debate by addressing the personal selling role of business owners of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the business-to-business (B-to-B) market in the context of failure. It examines how business owners make sense of their entrepreneurial selling activities and how underperformance in this role contributes to failure. Based on a literature review and interviews, the paper concludes that entrepreneurial selling is a crucial activity for preventing business failure and one that business owners recognize. Reasons for underperformance include business owners spending too little time on selling, their lack of personal selling skills, and procrastinating their selling activities. Answering the “bird-in-the-hand sales means” questions can produce either success or failure. Future research avenues are then suggested.
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Digitalization enables public organizations to personalize their services, tuning them to the specific situation, abilities, and preferences of the citizens. At the same time, digital services can be experienced as being less personal than face-to-face contact by citizens. The large existing volume of academic literature on personalization mainly represents the service provider perspective. In contrast, in this paper we investigate what makes citizens experience a service as personal. The result are eight dimensions that capture the full range of individual experiences and expectations that citizens expressed in focus groups. These dimensions can serve as a framework for public sector organizations to explore the expectations of citizens of their own services and identify the areas in which they can improve the personal experiences they offer.
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Every year I talk to many entrepreneurs about business transfers and acquisitions. Only rarely do they tell me that it was a cinch. Buying or selling a business is complex. For a start, a business should be shipshape from an organizational and administrative perspective, while several legal and fiscal matters also affect the transaction. Moreover, many parties are involved in a business transfer: the buyer and the seller, of course, but also the employees, the spouse and/or family of the entrepreneur, the customers and suppliers. Emotions and trust also play a central role in selling a firm. Many owner/managers find it hard to abandon their business. The fact that a transaction of fixed assets may also be involved is another complicating factor. Is it a good thing to include fixed assets in the sale, or in fact the reverse? Considering that most people find it quite hard to sell their own house, engaging an estate agent to do it for them, it is understandable that buying and selling a business is a transaction fraught with difficulties.
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We examined the various career paths of PhDs in the Netherlands. In this publication, we feature the personal stories of ten of our study participants, detailing their careers both within and outside of academia. The ten portraits of PhD graduates are complemented by three portraits of employers describing their experiences working with PhDs. The personal accounts featured in this publication contain a wealth of information and recommendations for PhD students, universities and employers alike.
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Websites placing cookies on your computer to track your browsing behavior. TikTok stores your personal data in China. Are you aware of what products, services, and organisations do with your personal data? It is often not obvious. Our digital lives are becoming more and more prominent. We are now meeting each other virtually for work and leisure, and are spotted and traced without our knowledge, both in physical places (public areas and streets) and in virtual spaces. Technology is developing rapidly and policy makers are not able to keep up, resulting in unknown threats for citizens in modern society. Moreover, technology can lead to inequality and exclusion, as demonstrated in the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. The aim of the Inholland Digital Rights Research Team, co-founded by Professors Wina Smeenk, Ander de Keijzer and Ben Wagner, is to focus their work on the social, economic, cultural, communication, design and technological elements that can lead to a digitally responsible society. This means that we want to be part of the debate and research on how technology in our digital age can contribute to the quality of peoples’ lives: how can people benefit from the digital society and how are they hindered, or even worse, excluded from partaking in our digital society. We do this in our research lines, as well as in the sustainable media lab courses and the data-driven minor.
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How do we increase biodiversity in the Netherlands? By working together! What can food forests and restaurants mean for each other? This report focuses on the question: “What is the potential of collaborations between food forests and restaurants in the Netherlands?”Interviews revealed that successful partnerships are based on direct supplier relationships, internal motivation and niche products that create a unique selling point.
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People tend to disclose personal identifiable information (PII) that could be used by cybercriminals against them. Often, persuasion techniques are used by cybercriminals to trick people to disclose PII. This research investigates whether people can be made less susceptible to persuasion by reciprocation (i.e., making people feel obligated to return a favour) and authority, particularly in regard to whether information security knowledge and positive affect moderate the relation between susceptibility to persuasion and disclosing PII. Data are used from a population-based survey experiment that measured the actual disclosure of PII in an experimental setting (N = 2426). The results demonstrate a persuasion–disclosure link, indicating that people disclose more PII when persuaded by reciprocation, but not by authority. Knowledge of information security was also found to relate to disclosure. People disclosed less PII when they possessed more knowledge of information security. Positive affect was not related to the disclosure of PII. And contrary to expectations, no moderating effects were found of information security knowledge nor positive affect on the persuasion–disclosure link. Possible explanations are discussed, as well as limitations and future research directions. Uitgegeven door Sage, APA beschrijving: van der Kleij, R., van ‘t Hoff—De Goede, S., van de Weijer, S., & Leukfeldt, R. (2023). Social engineering and the disclosure of personal identifiable information: Examining the relationship and moderating factors using a population-based survey experiment. Journal of Criminology, 56(2-3), 278-293. https://doi.org/10.1177/26338076231162660
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Many mental health professionals have also used mental health services. What role should their personal experience play in their clinical practice - if any? - a commentary
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The current western agrifood system is highly successful in providing for human needs. However, the dominant agricultural approach of up-scaling and specialisation is put under pressure by a number of developments in the global landscape. Global developments such as population growth, pollution, soil degradation and climate change, in which agriculture plays a crucial role, make the need for a transition towards a paradigm with a broader range of values evident. Niche initiatives often develop as a reaction to needs not fulfilled by the regime. Therefore, certain niches may have the potential of driving a necessary transition. This research aims to determine if permaculture, being a niche, has this potential. The main question for this research was formulated as follows: How can a production system based on permaculture principles contribute to the agrifood transition? To answer this question, relevant current trends and global developments were used as a basis for developing a future scenario. Empirical qualitative data on permaculture businesses in the Netherlands was gathered as well, of which the results were used for a determination of permaculture’s performance in this future scenario. This was done by comparing a standardised permaculture system with a conventional potato system. As a result of this comparison, the Unique Selling Points of permaculture were identified, which determine the future potential of permaculture.
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