The impact of socioemotional wealth on family firms' financial performance

Pietro Gottardo,

Anna Maria Moisello

Published: March 11, 2015

The authors study the effect on performance of family endowment on the business from the perspective of socioemotional wealth (SEW), i.e. the stock of affect-related value which the family attaches to the business. The researchers analyze the impact of ownership and board characteristics on profitability, taking into account the possible moderating factors of the family generational stage, firm size, qualified presence of non-family shareholders and firm risk. The authors analyze 2,884 medium-large Italian private firms comparing 1,944 family and 940 non-family firms using correlation and pooling GLS regressions during 2001-2010. It is shown that in the first generational stage family …

Firm failure causes: a population level study

Oliver Lukason,

Richard C. Hoffman

Published: March 11, 2015

Business failure may be the result of either voluntaristic (internal) firm actions/decisions, deterministic environmental (external) events or both given causes (integrative approach). This study examines the prevalence of these causes of business failure. Results indicate that the largest proportion of firm failures is explained by the integrative approach, although two other perspectives hold a prominent role also. Moreover, internal causes of failure are more frequent than external. The findings based on multinomial logistic regression revealed that the causes of failure also vary with the size and age of firms. The implications of the results for research and practice are discussed

Entrepreneurial knowledge, personal attitudes, and entrepreneurship intentions among South African Enactus students

Ndivhuho Tshikovhi,

Richard Shambare

Published: April 10, 2015

This paper investigates how action-based entrepreneurship training influences entrepreneurial knowledge and personal attitudes, which in turn reportedly develop individuals’ entrepreneurship intentions. A cohort of students who had undergone social entrepreneurship training under the auspices of Enactus South Africa was studied to determine the relationship between these three key variables associated with entrepreneurship tendencies. The study, in particular, addresses the question of whether practical entrepreneurship training bears any consequences on developing students’ personal attitudes, entrepreneurship knowledge, and entrepreneurship intentions. Stratified sampling techniques were utilized to collect data from 355 Enactus South Africa students from the constituent 27 colleges and universities that …