The review process can be lengthy and involve major changes to all aspects of a paper. As authors, reviewers and editor on a paper we tend to see only our side of the process, or at best have a partial view of the other parties' perspective through decision letters and authors' responses. In this chapter we use a case study of a paper passing through the review process to interweave these different perspectives. One of us, Petra, was lead author on the paper, while the other, Mike, was the action editor. We present the process in the form of a first-person dialogue between us, interspersed with comments from the reviewers. We conclude with some general reflections for the publishing process.

Scholars find the journal publishing process exhilarating, baffling and frustrating in equal measure. The professional joy and excitement of receiving an acceptance letter following a long drawn-out process in which you have diligently responded to successive rounds of reviewers’ comments is probably only matched by a letter awarding a research grant. Contrast this to the sense of dejection and distress that accompanies a rejection letter. This is further exacerbated if the reviewers’ comments and decision appear to be harsh and if they make little sense. It is even more disappointing if the paper appears to have been progressing through different rounds of reviewing only to be rejected late in the process. Therefore, we have to start all over again. We may not realize it but academics are not dissimilar to actors in that they constantly have to audition their work in journals or to research funders. Learning to live with rejection is a key part of the role. We cannot be successful with every submission.

Research SummaryBuilding on business model research and the social entrepreneurship literature, we conceptually develop a set of business model choices for social ventures. These choices specify the scope of venture beneficiaries, the extent that customers and beneficiaries overlap, and how social meaning is attached to the venture's value proposition. Concurrent configurations of these choices give rise to four types of social business models: (1) Social Stimulators, (2) Social Providers, (3) Social Producers, and (4) Social Intermediaries. We illustrate this typology using data from seven social ventures and formulate propositions about the implications these business model choices have for a venture's value creation and value capture potential. We then discuss contributions to the literature on social ventures and social entrepreneurship, and the literature on business models.Managerial SummaryIn this article, we propose a framework outlining key business model choices for social ventures. These choices include the scope of target beneficiaries of the venture, the degree of overlap between customers and beneficiaries, and how the venture communicates its social mission through its value proposition. By combining these choices in different ways, we identify four distinct types of social business models which we call Social Stimulators, Social Providers, Social Producers, and Social Intermediaries. To bring this framework to life, we have examined data from seven real-world social ventures, offering concrete examples to illustrate each type. For each of these four types of social business models, we have also formulated propositions about how the business model choices impact a venture's value creation and value capture potential.

By building upon instrumental stakeholder theory, we aim to increase academic understanding of how changes in stakeholder relations affect acquisition performance outcomes in a private equity (PE) family firm buyout, during the holding period. With our sample of 134 PE-backed family firm buyouts, we find evidence to suggest that reducing social engagement during the holding period decreases medium-term performance, whereas the termination of existing supplier relationships affects this positively. Moreover, our data suggests that effects concerning the reduction of social engagement and employee downsizing are negatively moderated by increased levels of family ownership prior to the PE deal.

KRÓTKIE WPROWADZENIE – książki, które zmieniają sposób myślenia To książka poszerzająca rozumienie przedsiębiorczości, przedstawiająca jej różnorodność, bogactwo form i wieloaspektowość, ale też znaczenie gospodarcze i społeczne. Odkrywa przed Czytelnikiem, że przedsiębiorczość to nie tylko zakładanie firm, lecz także towarzyszą jej dużo głębsze procesy poznawcze, w których naczelną rolę odgrywają sposobności przedsiębiorcze – przedsiębiorca musi je zidentyfikować, ocenić ich wartość, a następnie wcielić w życie. Publikacja uczy zatem patrzeć zarówno na rezultaty działalności gospodarczej, jak i przeprowadza nas przez cały intrygujący proces, rozpoczynający się w umyśle przedsiębiorcy – od pomysłu powstałego w wyniku interakcji ze sposobnością przedsiębiorczą aż po jego wdrożenie, co powoduje powstanie czegoś nowego. Warto podkreślić, że przedsiębiorczość może trwać również po założeniu firmy, choć niekoniecznie będzie prowadzić do jej dynamicznego rozwoju. * Interdyscyplinarna seria KRÓTKIE WPROWADZENIE piórem uznanych ekspertów skupionych wokół Uniwersytetu Oksfordzkiego przybliża aktualną wiedzę na temat współczesnego świata i pomaga go zrozumieć. W atrakcyjny sposób prezentuje najważniejsze zagadnienia XXI w. – od kultury, religii, historii przez nauki przyrodnicze po technikę. To publikacje popularnonaukowe, które w formule przystępnej, dalekiej od akademickiego wykładu, prezentują wybrane kwestie. Książki idealne zarówno jako wprowadzenie do nowych tematów, jak i uzupełnienie wiedzy o tym, co nas pasjonuje. Najnowsze fakty, analizy ekspertów, błyskotliwe interpretacje. Opiekę merytoryczną nad polską edycją serii sprawują naukowcy z Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego: prof. Krystyna Kujawińska Courtney, prof. Ewa Gajewska, prof. Aneta Pawłowska, prof. Jerzy Gajdka, prof. Piotr Stalmaszczyk.

This paper provides the first nationally representative assessment of intrinsic job quality in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). We propose a workforce re-contracting perspective, which views LBOs as having negative implications for some aspects of intrinsic job quality (job demands) but positive implications for others (job resources), and employee wellbeing and affective outcomes that are no different than in comparable non-LBOs. Our empirical findings support this perspective. Nevertheless, we find some evidence that certain LBO types have more negative implications for specific elements of intrinsic job quality than others. However, our overall findings contribute towards studies suggesting that the impact of LBOs on employees is modest, while also highlighting the varying implications of different LBO types for employees.

A large body of work argues that the accumulation of organizational experience fosters learning because firms can correctly modify their understandings on the basis of past actions and their outcomes. But although performance information on past decisions can often be delayed, little research considered how firms respond to experience without complete performance information. In this study, we propose that experience is a double-edged sword: whereas experience with performance feedback can foster learning, experience without complete performance feedback impedes learning. Using a sample of 7,223 private equity buyout investments, we find that experience with (in)complete performance information increases (decreases) the performance of a subsequent investment. The positive impact of experience with complete performance information is amplified when firms engage in search, following a shortfall in their performance. Moreover, we find that experience with (in)complete performance information decreases (increases) excessive risk taking. Overall, we advance the experiential learning literature by unpacking the positive and negative impact of experiential learning.

Abstract In this introduction to The Handbook of State Capitalism and the Firm, we provide an overview of state capitalism, its evolution, diversity, and theoretical implications. We clarify the tension between the market and the government that drives state intervention in the economy. A brief historical overview of state capitalism provides a much-needed background to explicit and implicit discussions of the diversity of dimensions of state capitalism. We document how state capitalism seems to have followed a pendulum between periods of high dominance and periods of retrenchment that have resulted in the transformation of the literature over time. We also explain the variety of state capitalism that has been implemented across countries and time. We then outline the diversity in the theorization of state capitalism as a phenomenon and the implications of the cross-border expansion of state capitalism. We conclude with an overview of the potential avenues for future research on state capitalism and the firm.

Academic research on private equity (PE) has been concerned with the management of PE funds, the returns to investors from investments in PE relative to the returns available in public equity markets and, more predominantly, the analysis of the post-investment performance of PE portfolio firms. There has been less research on how PE firms select their investments and the characteristics of their targeted firms. We derive hypotheses, from an agency perspective, on the firm-level characteristics of PE-targeted firms. Utilizing data on the population of private companies in the UK, we identify those firms that have received PE investment from the pool of potential investees within the population of private companies and known buyouts, and examine their pre-investment characteristics. Using panel logit regression, we estimate multivariate models determining the probability of PE acquisition and examine the multivariate profiles of targeted firms in relation to our hypotheses on PE selection.

Private equity (PE) funds typically invest in and acquire established companies (via buyout mechanisms) and implement value creation strategies that realize efficiency improvements and exploit entrepreneurial growth opportunities. This paper explores the relationships between PE backing of bought-out companies and their post-acquisition strategy to stimulate sales growth through exporting. Importantly, we explore the routes through which PE funds, as 'active investors', affect the acquired companies' ability to enter and expand export markets. First, through providing access to financial resources, increasing capital and operational expenditure, to boost both efficiency and improve managerial processes; and second, by bringing expertise and relational capital via managerial change and board representation to their acquisitions. Using a panel dataset covering the period 1998-2013, involving 2.6 million company-level observations of which around 10% are actively engaged in exporting, we find that PE-backed firms are more likely to engage in exporting (export propensity) and be internationalized post-buyout than a control sample and that the effect is larger than for listed companies. Moreover, in relation to export performance we find a positive export performance differential (export intensity) for PE-backed buyouts.

Previous research has focused on a private equity (PE) firm's role as principal in its relationship with an investee, but few studies have looked into their role as agents for their investors. We examine how a PE firm's relationship as agent for limited partners (LPs) and banks influences its incentives to resolve financial distress in the investee. We examine the effect of PE fundraising reputation, PE fundraising activity, and PE bank affiliation on the likelihood of a financially distressed buyout ending in bankruptcy. We build a unique data set of 338 distressed buyouts in the United Kingdom to test our hypotheses.

This article analyzes the state of the art of the research on corporate entrepreneurship, develops a conceptual framework that connects its antecedents and consequences, and offers an agenda for future research. We review 310 papers published in entrepreneurship and management journals, providing an assessment of the current state of research and, subsequently, we suggest research avenues in three different areas: corporate entrepreneurship antecedents, dimensions and consequences. Even though a significant part of the overall corporate entrepreneurship literature has appeared in the last decade, most literature reviews were published earlier. These reviews typically cover a single dimension of the corporate entrepreneurship phenomenon and, therefore, do not provide a global perspective on the existing literature. In addition, corporate entrepreneurship has been studied from different fields and there are different approaches and definitions to it. This limits our understanding of accumulated knowledge in this area and hampers the development of further research. Our review addresses these shortcomings, providing a roadmap for future research.

This article explains how viewing resource-based theory within Brandenburger and Stuart’s value creation framework adds clarity to the theory as a whole and to its essential elements including the definition of its dependent variables, its approach to value creation, and its approach to the appropriation of economic value. Building on this foundation, the article addresses several questions about resource-based theory: Is it a theory or a view? Is resource-based theory tautological? Is resource-based theory static? How important are stakeholders within resource-based theory? Does resource-based theory constitute a theory of the firm? Does resource-based theory acknowledge industry structure’s role in explaining firm performance? Does resource-based theory incorporate uncertainty? Does resource-based theory have strong managerial implications? In accomplishing these tasks, the article sets the stage for the further evolution and application of resource-based theory.

Understanding why some firms outperform others is central to strategy research. The resource-based view (RBV) suggests that competitive advantages arise due to possessing strategic resources (i.e., assets that are valuable, rare, nonsubstitutable, and inimitable), and researchers have extended this logic to explain performance differences. However, RBV is relatively silent about the actions managers could use to create or capitalize on a resource-based advantage. Enriching RBV, the resource orchestration framework describes specific managerial actions that use such resources to realize performance gains. After reviewing the conceptual evolution of these two literature streams as well as related streams, we use meta-analytic structural equation modeling to aggregate evidence from 255 samples involving 111,120 observations to answer outstanding research questions regarding the strategic resources–actions–performance pathway. The results show strong complementarity and interdependence between their logics. Additional inquiry drawing on their complementarity is a clear path toward enhancing scholars’ understanding of how and why some firms outperform others. We build on our findings to lay a foundation for such inquiry, including a call for theorizing centered on the interdependence of resources and actions, as well as new theoretical terrain that can help resource-based inquiry continue to evolve.

Our increasingly globalized world creates dynamics and paradoxes that lead to an abundance of entrepreneurial opportunities and patterns. Transnational entrepreneurship (TE) is a unique entrepreneurial model that considers the global and the local as its playing field, accordingly reshaping the entrepreneurial environment. Early research (for example, Light, 2007; Portes et al., 1999, 2002; Saxenian, 2002), identified emerging globalization as impacting and impacted by entrepreneurship, and accordingly depict immigrant entrepreneurship as a cultural and economic process of adaptation and embeddedness. This research typically focused on a host country, usually in North America or Europe. Examples include the Chinese and Taiwanese (Wong, 2003, 2004; Wong and Ng, 2002; Yeung, 1999, 2002), Korean (Yoo, 2000), Dominicans (Itzigsohn et al., 1999), Colombians and Salvadorans (Guarnizo, 1994). Furthermore, TE ventures were said to facilitate the rapid and global transfer of resources, such as capital, labor, technology and knowledge, which made them focal points in expanding transnationalism (Light, 2007; Zhou, 2004). For example, in the wake of critiques such as the ‘brain drain’ (Beine et al., 2001) lamenting the costs of losing high-quality human capital, a new phenomenon termed ‘brain circulation’ was introduced, whereby the migration of technologically educated entrepreneurs helped to develop high-technology industries in countries such as China, India, Taiwan, Ireland and Israel (Breznitz, 2007; Saxenian, 2006). Transnational entrepreneurship scholarship recognizes the prominence and uniqueness of entrepreneurship in the era of intense global transformation of technological and economic systems (Drori et al., 2009). Research continues to expand the study of immigrant and/or ethnic entrepreneurship by advancing our understanding on a variety of issues related to the role, scope and institutional and cultural contexts of transnationalism and entrepreneurship (for example, Drori et al., 2006; Elo and Freiling, 2015; Honig et al., 2010; Urbano et al., 2011). Accordingly, transnational entrepreneurs are defined as social actors who utilize multiple and tangible cross-border networks and resources for the purpose of developing business and other social entrepreneurial opportunities within numerous social fields and multiple locales to promote their entrepreneurial activities.

Purpose This paper aims to study the effect of two important marketing decisions on the extent of value capturing by the firm owners. First, it addresses the debate whether acquirers of young technology-based firms value targets that span multiple technology and market categories indicating multiples options for growth or prefer more narrowly defined targets with a clear product and market focus. Second, it investigates to what extent the use of alliances for marketing purposes contributes to value capturing and how they moderate the effect of diversification of technology and marketing. Design/methodology/approach To estimate the acquisition price, a linear regression model is used, including a Heckman correction controlling for the likelihood of being acquired. The hypotheses are tested in a sample of British venture capital backed firms. Findings Firms that convey focus in their marketing activities (either because they focus on a few market categories or because they rely on downstream alliance to market their inventions) receive higher valuations at acquisition than those that diversify. Further, also the size of the product portfolio is negatively correlated to the acquisition price. Finally, the results reveal that firms with a broad patent portfolio can reduce the negative effects on firm value by engaging in less downstream alliances. Originality/value This paper advances existing research on exit strategies for entrepreneurial firms by considering factors explaining acquisition prices, instead of acquisition probabilities. Further, it adds the categorization research by demonstrating how acquirers respond to complex combinations of technology and market categories.

As a digital financial innovation, equity crowdfunding (ECF) allows investors to exploit the complementarity of information provision and network effects in a reduced transaction cost environment. We build on the underlying distinction between soft and hard information and show that ECF platforms create an environment of greater information pooling that benefits from network externalities. We test our hypotheses using a unique proprietary dataset and find that soft information has a greater impact than hard on the likelihood that a financing pitch will be successful. Moreover, the effects of soft information are amplified by the size of the investor network on the platform and network size also positively moderates the effect of information on the amount invested during each pitch. We conclude that ECF platforms can successfully exploit low transaction costs of the digital environment and bring network externalities to bear on investor decisions. Taken together that these increase the supply of funds to entrepreneurs.

As states across the world increase their interventions in the economy to deal with the fallout from the pandemic, we are likely to see an uptick in state ownership of assets (again). States can use various tools for proactive intervention in economic production and the functioning of markets, in addition to its regulatory and security roles. Mike Wright, Geoffrey Wood, Aldo Musacchio, Ilya Okhmatovskiy, Anna Grosman, and Jonathan Doh undertake an exploratory factor analysis with seven variables that represent various aspects of state intervention in economic activities for 59 countries. They find that not all state interventions should be threatening to business.