Journal of Enterprising Culture

This paper reports the results of an investigation of the effect of Working Capital Management (WCM) practices on profitability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), from the perspective of financial directors. Specifically, I look at their WCM target level practices, WCM alteration frequency and WCM strategy practices. The analyses are based on questionnaire distributed to 248 AIM listed SMEs. The paper employs OLS regression on responses from 72 managers of AIM listed SMEs. The results show that the WCM practices of AIM listed SMEs managers have an effect on profitability. However, the results show that given the limited resources of SMEs, the main focus of managers should be on the setting of specific target level for WCM so as to increase profitability.

Family business (FB) scholars often criticize the fact that FB research has not yet developed a commonly accepted definition of what constitutes an FB. At the same time, the literature lacks empirical evidence for this claim. Hence, we collected all empirical FB research articles published between 2002 and 2011 in the five leading FB research journals to examine the types of FB definitions used in the literature and to determine how their usage relates to bibliographical and methodological contextual factors. The resulting 238 articles were analyzed in terms of their underlying approaches to defining FBs. Our paper provides empirical support for the notion that FB research has not yet found a commonly accepted definition of FB. Most definitions can be classified as being rooted in the components-of-involvement approach (44% of all evaluated articles), in the essence approach (21%), or in a combination of the two (33%). We also find that the type of FB definition used in empirical research in our sample is significantly associated with the publication outlet, the continent of data collection, the number of authors and the stock market listing status of analyzed firms.

In the new knowledge-based economy, the ability of both firms and regions to adapt to the changes in their external environment and to remain competitive is closely related to their capacity to innovate and continuously renew the existing structures and knowledge bases. With respect to this, dense concentrations of knowledge-intensive industries and related activities are usually considered to be propitious environments from which new innovations can emerge. In such environments, the ability to attract talented, highly skilled labor is crucial for the success of regions. Employees who possess and provide know-how and creativity play a leading role in knowledge-intensive production and innovation systems. For Florida (2002a), creativity and know-how are internalized in the creative class. In this paper, Florida's creative class thesis is applied to the context of the Nordic countries. The importance of location in attracting creative class members was studied. The empirical study also aimed at identifying the role of the creative class in supporting the birth of new high-tech firms in the Nordic countries. In addition, the relationship between high-tech intensity and the creative class is described. Our analysis indicates that the link between the creative class and high technology is strong with the share of high-tech employees, concentrations of high-tech industry, and the formation of new high-tech firms.

The experiences of the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union demonstrate that entrepreneurs can make important contributions in transition economies. The most notable include employment creation, the efficient utilization of human capital, and positive externalities resulting from the entrepreneurial drive to experiment, innovate, and adapt. In these countries, as well as in China and Vietnam, the transition from the classical socialist system facilitated the emergence of four types of entrepreneurs (agricultural entrepreneurs, informal sector operators, cadre entrepreneurs, and professional entrepreneurs), which mainly engaged in three principal entrepreneurial strategies: prospecting, networking, and boundary-blurring. The experiences of the former socialist countries offer valuable lessons for Cuba, as it continues to rely on the reduction of the State sector and the expansion of small-scale private entrepreneurial activities in the emerging non-State sector as one of the principal policy measures to gradually "update" its socialist economy.

The paper aims to review the current state of the knowledge in an attempt to renew the interest in studying cognitive side of entrepreneurial ethics. The paper explores how the two streams of the literature — entrepreneurial cognition and entrepreneurial ethics — can possibly be integrated to guide future research. It also reviews the literature at the intersection of entrepreneurial cognitions and ethics. In doing so, the paper draws upon the extant literature to propose a set of questions for future research. Given the ethical implications of entrepreneurial behavior, this paper calls for future interdisciplinary work among entrepreneurial cognition scholars and business ethicists. The extant literature has generally focused on exploring the linkages among entrepreneurial cognitions, moral awareness, and moral judgment. It appears that relatively sparse attention is paid to explore the underlying cognitive patterns of an entrepreneur's actions pertaining to unethical business practices. This gap in the literature at the intersection of cognitions and ethics holds significant potential for future research. The proposed questions for future research include the following: How do cognitive biases and heuristics make an entrepreneur more susceptible to immoral judgment and reasoning? Which of the cognitive schemas is more likely to enhance moral intentions of entrepreneurs? How does distributed cognition shape socially responsible entrepreneurial behavior? Do entrepreneurs prefer rule-based or cost/benefit-based reasoning approach while making moral judgment? Which of the cognitive dimensions of socially responsible behavior — utilitarianism, just, and rights — is more common among entrepreneurs in developed countries in comparison to the entrepreneurs in developing and emerging economies? Do immigrant and/or ethnic entrepreneurs experience identity ambiguity and how does it relate to their unethical actions? How does the level of motivation affect an entrepreneur's reliance on heuristics rather than employing a systematic response to process information for ethical judgment? The proposed questions potentially offer insights into the way in which entrepreneurial cognitions and entrepreneurial ethics are interconnected. Entrepreneurship scholars may enrich their future research efforts by exploring how might insights from entrepreneurial ethics better inform the theoretical developments of entrepreneurial cognitions.