PurposeThis study examines how international new ventures (INVs) from emerging markets deploy entrepreneurial bricolage to achieve frugal innovation and growth in resource-constrained African contexts. Focusing on a leading emerging-market new venture, this study explores adaptive resource recombination during market entry, expansion, and leapfrogging stages in response to institutional voids and infrastructural deficits.Design/methodology/approachWe adopt an inductive qualitative approach and conduct a longitudinal case study of the selected company's evolution since 2008. Our multisource dataset includes in-depth interviews with six key participants, including top and middle managers, key employees, and key customers, alongside secondary data such as media reports, academic literature, archival records and documentary materials, and field observations.FindingsThe findings reveal a three-stage process model of new venture growth in Africa. First, opportunity-oriented bricolage enables product and service innovations during market entry, supporting survival growth. Second, customer-oriented bricolage facilitates value-chain innovations during the expansion stage, advancing developmental growth. Finally, strategic-oriented bricolage drives ecosystem-level innovations during the leapfrogging stage, enabling integrated growth.Originality/valueThis study enriches entrepreneurship theory by developing an integrative process model that clarifies the dynamic relationships among entrepreneurial bricolage, frugal innovation, and new venture growth in resource-constrained African markets. It extends frugal innovation scholarship by explicitly linking specific bricolage modes to product-, value-chain-, and ecosystem-level innovations, producing an integrated growth model suited to resource-constrained contexts. It also contributes to international entrepreneurship (IE) literature by explaining a non-gradual, adaptation-driven growth pathway for INVs operating in Africa.

Venture capital (VC) is a vital source of financing for firms to support their growth and innovation. In China, however, VC tends to concentrate disproportionately and repeatedly on a few high-profile firms, through multiple rounds, large funding amounts, and many participating investors. The impact of this intense VC chase, especially on firm innovation, has received little attention in the existing literature. Based on data of companies listed on the Growth Enterprise Market from 2010 to 2024, with observation windows spanning three years before and after each firm's IPO, this study explores the relationship between VC chase and innovation performance of invested firms. The empirical results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship: while a moderate level of VC chase is positively associated with firm innovation, excessive chase is negatively associated with it. Furthermore, this study analyzes the boundary conditions of this relationship and finds that the inverted U-shaped relationship is more pronounced in firms with lower R&D intensity or greater technological distance from industry leaders. This study enriches the understanding of how VC influences firm innovation by conceptualizing VC chase as a dynamic, multidimensional pattern of investment and interpreting its effects through a temporal pacing and innovation rhythm perspective, and provides theoretical insights for policymakers and investment institutions to establish a well-developed capital market and efficient investment mechanisms.

Driverless taxis have attracted considerable attention as promising solutions to mitigate traffic congestion, enhance road safety, and improve transportation efficiency. Although prior research has examined public perceptions of autonomous vehicles (AVs), the role of motivated consumer innovativeness (MCI) in sustaining adoption of driverless taxi services remains underexplored. This study integrates MCI with expectation confirmation theory (ECT) to develop a novel framework in which innovation-driven motivations influence repurchase intention through the sequential mediation of expectation confirmation and satisfaction. Drawing on a nationwide survey of 512 users of driverless taxis in China, we analyze travel behaviours and preferences using path analysis within a structural model to identify latent relationships among key variables. The results indicate that MCI significantly influences their repurchase intention, highlighting the crucial mediating roles of expectation confirmation and satisfaction in this process. These findings offer actionable guidance for policymakers seeking to accelerate the integration of driverless taxis, underscoring the need to align policy design with consumer innovativeness. This research contributes to management scholarship by elucidating the interplay between transport psychology and technology adoption, while offering empirically grounded strategies for stakeholders navigating the autonomous vehicle landscape.

Women entrepreneurs face distinct gender-specific challenges, including restricted access to venture capital, work–life conflicts driven by stereotypes, and competing demands from their roles as business owners, caregivers, and community leaders. These pressures often foster polychronicity – a temporal orientation favoring simultaneous task management. Grounded in role accumulation theory, we conduct a two-stage survey of 129 Chinese women entrepreneurs to investigate the relationship between polychronicity and resilience. We further examine three moderators – frequent interruptions, entrepreneurial experience, and emotional intelligence – that amplify polychronicity’ s resilience-building effects. This study highlights the positive association between polychronicity and women entrepreneurs’ resilience, offering new insights into temporal dynamics in entrepreneurship. It also provides women entrepreneurs with practical strategies to help them navigate multiple role challenges and thrive amid adversity by leveraging their preference for multitasking.

转型经济背景下,新手创业者设立CTO岗位既能帮助创业企业提升合法性,又能促进企业提升技术创新能力,构建差异化竞争优势.然而,当企业面临高度复杂且不确定的外部环境和不断变化的战略需求时,新手创业者必须恰当考虑CTO的岗位设立问题.那么,哪些情况下新手创业者会选择设立CTO岗位?影响新手创业者设立CTO岗位的动因有何不同?本文基于最优区分理论,通过对两家本土创业企业进行双案例探索性研究,试图探寻新手创业者基于合法性/差异化机制选择设立CTO岗位的情境影响因素.研究发现,当创业企业所在行业竞争强度较高或技术成熟度较低时,新手创业者会选择设立CTO岗位提升企业合法性;而当新手创业者对创业企业技术目标和CTO人选有清晰判断及首次大规模量产时,也会选择设立CTO岗位帮助企业构建差异化竞争优势.本文丰富了最优区分理论在创业企业职能型高管设置领域的相关研究.

When a firm actively engages in CSR practices, does the leader always make ethical decisions? Drawing on social cognitive theory and the ethical decision-making literature, we develop a model to explain how a leader makes unethical decisions in an active CSR-practicing environment. Specifically, we argue that a firm's CSR practices do not necessarily translate into the leader's ethical decisions, and on the contrary, it may lead to the opposite. The relationship between a firm's CSR practices and its leader's unethical decisions is mediated by the leader's moral cognitive process (moral licensing and moral imagination) toward the firm's CSR practices, and this relationship is further moderated by the leader's altruistic values. Results from multi-method studies largely support our predictions.

Research Summary Prior research suggests that the founders of new ventures leverage their existing networks, such as close ties to service intermediaries, as a source of entrepreneurial improvisation. We draw attention to the trade-off between the benefits (trust and access to information and resources) and the costs (dependence and a constrained growth opportunity), and identify two contingency conditions for using close ties to improvise: a shorter time horizon for failure and less turbulent market. Analysis based on an original survey of founding teams in China in the period 2015-2016 provides empirical support for our argument. Our study contributes to research on entrepreneurial improvisation by exposing the tension involved in working with close contacts and enriches the literature on the role of service intermediaries.Managerial Summary We consider the trade-off involved in relying on close ties to service intermediaries and identify conditions under which founders of new ventures are more likely to rely on such intermediaries to improvise. Although close ties can foster trust and facilitate access to a wide range of information and resources, they may also foster a dependency that could constrain future growth. A survey of founding teams in China from 2015 to 2016 reveals that founding teams leveraged such ties when given a shorter time horizon within which to succeed or fail, and when the market was less turbulent. Our findings can help entrepreneurs decide when to resort to close-tied intermediaries as an aid to improvisation, that is, when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.

共同富裕作为我国重要的国家战略之一,强调以共创为导向、以共享为准则、以共生为目标的发展理念.创业企业是推动国家经济发展的重要动力,协同各方利益相关者进行价值共创、实现共益共生是其践行共同富裕战略的重要途径.本文以河南胖东来商贸公司为研究对象,通过探索性单案例研究,构建了利益相关者视角下创始人的亲社会动机对创业企业共创共益共生影响的理论框架.研究发现,创始人的亲社会动机将引导创业企业在创造经济价值的同时兼顾社会价值创造,协同利益相关者基于共同目标开展价值共创;同时,数字技术的应用能够加深企业与利益相关者的利益联结,推动创业企业与利益相关者能基于价值共创来共享价值创造成果,实现多方共益共生.本文拓展了企业层面参与共同富裕的研究视角,揭示了创业企业与利益相关者通过共创、共益、共生最终实现共同富裕的过程机制,为以数字技术为代表的新兴技术赋能创业企业价值共创提供了理论及实践启示.

The existing literature emphasizes the importance of customer engagement and customer dependence in service encounters. An essential and typical manifestation of customer engagement is the interaction between customers and service scene elements. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the interactions between customers and service providers, neglecting multiactor service encounters. With rapid technological advancements in recent decades, network-based interactions involving multiple actors have become prevalent. However, our understanding of how such interactions affect customer loyalty in multiactor service encounters is limited. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how customer-provider interactions, namely customer-employee, customer-technology, and customer-physical environment interactions, contribute to customer-perceived dependence and loyalty. We developed a research model based on motivation theory and analyzed survey data from 410 commercial bank customers in China. Our results show that technology plays a crucial role in fostering customer loyalty through both benefit-based and switching cost-based dependence, whereas employees primarily influence loyalty through customer dependence on relational benefits. This study contributes to the literature on the interactive nature of customer engagement and dependence by providing valuable insight for practitioners who manage service encounters.

基于信号理论,探讨了领头创业者伦理型领导对创业团队成员变动的影响.研究一通过联合实验法,分析领头创业者伦理型领导对潜在创业团队成员加入意愿的影响.研究二采用问卷调查法,探究领头创业者伦理型领导对现有创业团队成员退出意愿的影响.结果表明,领头创业者伦理型领导会促进潜在团队成员的加入意愿,且上述影响受到新企业外部融资的负向调节及潜在团队成员诚实-谦恭的正向调节.此外,领头创业者伦理型领导会抑制现有团队成员的退出意愿,且这一关系受到创业团队独立导向伦理氛围和现有团队成员道德认同的正向调节及自利导向伦理氛围的负向调节.本文丰富了创业团队成员变动领域的研究,拓展了创业团队新成员加入的研究视角,深化了信号理论在创业情境的应用,对于创业团队成员的调整优化具有一定的借鉴意义.

农民合作社带动小农户成功进入大市场对助力农民增收致富具有重要的现实意义.然而现阶段许多农民合作社面临制度和资源的双重约束,其如何实现与大市场的成功对接在理论上和实践中都还是未解的难题.本文从制度逻辑视角出发,结合社会拼凑理论,对河南省4家在乡村振兴战略背景下成立的农民合作社的市场进入过程进行跨案例分析.研究发现,农民合作社在"探索期—修补期—嵌入期"的市场进入过程中,遵循"公益性效率逻辑—联盟合法性逻辑—关系合法性逻辑"的制度逻辑路径,推进了"价值创造—利益相关者联合—说服"的社会拼凑行动过程,并随着市场合法性的获得和价值链的完善,最终成功进入大市场.研究结果对处于"卖难"等困境中的农民合作社具有启发意义.

With many employees returning to work after lockdowns and quarantines in the current COVID-19 pandemic, research that seeks to identify effective ways to help them regain focus at work is warranted. However, the small body of applied psychology literature on large-scale disruptive events has paid insufficient attention to this important topic. Further, different from acute events (e.g., disasters), the ongoing pandemic poses an additional challenge for organizations as they seek to effectively protect employees' job engagement from health and safety threats in the workplace. To address these gaps, we drew from job reattachment research and investigated it as an important antecedent of job engagement for employees returning to work. Moreover, we incorporated leader safety commitment as a moderator that can strengthen the effectiveness of job reattachment in enhancing job engagement. We further linked engagement to work withdrawal, use of personal protective equipment (e.g., wearing a mask), and task performance to underscore the downstream implications of job reattachment. To test our research model, we collected multiwave, multisource data from the original epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic-Wuhan, China-where many employees were returning to work. The results provide strong support for our model. In addition to extending research on large-scale disruptive events, the current study has important implications for organizations and employees in the COVID-19 pandemic.

基于制度理论,从平台组织视角出发,探究农民合作社如何帮助非正式创业者从非正规市场转移到正规市场,以实现小农户与大市场的有机衔接.通过对5家农民合作社的市场进入过程进行分析,研究发现:农民合作社多阶段、多层面的平台组织功能促进了非正式创业农户的正规化过程——“思维启发—能力构建—关系重塑—市场合法性”;同时,正规化过程是连续且脆弱的,会受到农户个体经营绩效、关系网络以及包容性市场、赋权性政策的影响.