Endowment Of Capabilities Research Articles

Resilience in Family Businesses: A Systematic Literature Review

Resilience attracts increasing attention across scientific domains, particularly in the context of family businesses, for which the ability to navigate adversity is pivotal for transgenerational success. This systematic literature review investigates 87 publications on organizational resilience in family businesses. Our analysis highlights four distinctive themes of family business resilience: (1) defining family business resilience, (2) long-term orientation and family values, (3) resource and capability endowments, and (4) demonstration of resilience and learning. We contribute to family business research by providing a novel framework and integrated definition, accompanied by a future research agenda.

Organizing for Resilience: How to Organize in a World of Adversity and Flux

The aim of this symposium is to explore the concept of organizational resilience and ask what it means to organize resiliently. Researchers on four separate projects will present emerging empirical findings on how organizations in Africa, Europe, and North America organized in the face of significant adversities during Ebola and COVID-19 pandemics. The presentations included in this symposium promise to further understandings of organizational resilience by exploring how organizations emergently adjust in the face of unprecedented and long-lasted crisis and adversity. The projects also explore how capability endowments, including routines, staff, and other resources are made to work together in novel ways in response to dynamic unfolding situations. The role of temporal dynamics in resilience is also taken up by several projects. Kathleen Sutcliffe, a well-known expert on the topic of organizational resilience, will lead a group discussion not only of the four presentations, but also of her own thoughts about how future work could advance theory and practice of organizational resilience. Towards a Diachronic Perspective on Coordinating in Crises: Enacting Temporal Elasticity Presenter: Lisa Harborth; U. of Hamburg Organizational Resilience as a Function of Emergent Coordination: The Integration of Critical Care i Presenter: McKenzie Lloyd-Smith; Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) A Cornerstone of Organizational Resilience: Balancing Formal and Informal Practices During Crisis Presenter: Tuna Cem Hayirli; Harvard Business School Presenter: Masha Kuznetsova; - Presenter: Paul Biddinger; Harvard Medical School Presenter: Elizabeth Bambury; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Presenter: Mariam Krikorian Atkinson; Harvard U. Modes of Adjustment: There’s More Than One Way to Organize Resiliently Presenter: Brian Hilligoss; U. of Arizona Presenter: Jeff Larson; U. of Arizona Presenter: Alden Lai; New York U. Presenter: Elena Maria Wong; U. of Arizona Presenter: Matthew John DePuccio; Rush U.

Regions on course for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: the role of a strong indigenous T-KIBS sector

ABSTRACT From the perspective that a region’s industrial development mostly builds upon existing local capability endowments to form a trajectory of related diversifications, we argue that regions with a strong technology-based knowledge-intensive business service (T-KIBS) sector potentially have resource-based relatedness in their ‘knowledge space’ allowing their local manufacturing sector to diversify production more easily towards Industry 4.0. The study assays whether the internal configuration of the local KIBS sector contributes to the economic outcome of local industry by implementing spatial econometrics models on a regionalized database for 24 European Union countries.

Co-Operative Learning and Resilience to COVID-19 in a Small-Sized South African Enterprise

Constraints imposed by the shrinking resources and the climate change dynamics necessitate a behavioral change to increase knowledge exchange and optimize resource utilization. Existing entrepreneurship and innovation practices are therefore undergoing transformation to adapt production systems to the post-COVID-19 reality of increased risks of calamities within a context of shrinking resources. This paper uses a knowledge-centered crisis management framework to examine how enhanced knowledge sharing through co-operative learning can be applied to induce higher innovation performance and more efficient resource utilization structures during crises comparable to the current pandemic. Using the collaborative learning experiences of a small enterprise producing ecological fertilizers, this study was able to link crisis resilience enhancement to increased knowledge exchange between business entities connected through the agro-ecological value chain. New insights generated through the co-learning process were found to constitute a key input for strengthening the required capability endowments that enable the organization and its partners to weather the COVID-19 crisis and lay the foundation for the sustainability of post-COVID-19 operations.

Green or nongreen innovation? Different strategic preferences among subsidized enterprises with different ownership types

Abstract Governments often turn to subsidies to boost enterprises’ innovation activities, which gives subsidized enterprises room for allocating the subsidies among different innovation activities. Taking insights from institutional logic theory, this paper proposes that enterprises exhibit different subsidy-allocation behaviors between nongreen and green innovations and that the positive effect of subsidies on nongreen innovation is greater than that on green innovation due to the double-spillover problem that is pertinent to green innovation. Further, this paper argues that innovation intensity varies from privately-owned enterprises to local and central state-owned enterprises and that the underlying reason for this phenomenon is that enterprises with different ownership structures behave with different institutional logics, face different environmental and innovation pressures, and hold different innovative resource and capability endowments. We test these hypotheses by using longitudinal data (2010–2015) on 175 publicly-traded firms in the pharmaceutical industry in China. Overall, the results support most of the hypotheses.

The Role of Complex Analysis in Modelling Economic Growth.

Development and growth are complex and tumultuous processes. Modern economic growth theories identify some key determinants of economic growth. However, the relative importance of the determinants remains unknown, and additional variables may help clarify the directions and dimensions of the interactions. The novel stream of literature on economic complexity goes beyond aggregate measures of productive inputs and considers instead a more granular and structural view of the productive possibilities of countries, i.e., their capabilities. Different endowments of capabilities are crucial ingredients in explaining differences in economic performances. In this paper we employ economic fitness, a measure of productive capabilities obtained through complex network techniques. Focusing on the combined roles of fitness and some more traditional drivers of growth—GDP per capita, capital intensity, employment ratio, life expectancy, human capital and total factor productivity—we build a bridge between economic growth theories and the economic complexity literature. Our findings show that fitness plays a crucial role in fostering economic growth and, when it is included in the analysis, can be either complementary to traditional drivers of growth or can completely overshadow them. Notably, for the most complex countries, which have the most diversified export baskets and the largest endowments of capabilities, fitness is complementary to the chosen growth determinants in enhancing economic growth. The empirical findings are in agreement with neoclassical and endogenous growth theories. By contrast, for countries with intermediate and low capability levels, fitness emerges as the key growth driver. This suggests that economic models should account for capabilities; in fact, describing the technological possibilities of countries solely in terms of their production functions may lead to a misinterpretation of the roles of factors.

From Ignorance Map to Informing PKM4E Framework: Personal Knowledge Management for Empowerment

Aim/Purpose: The proposed Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) for Empowerment (PKM4E) Framework expands on the notions of the Ignorance Map and Matrix to support the educational and informing concept of a PKM system-in-progress. Background: The accelerating information abundance is depleting the very attention our cognitive capabilities are able to master, contributing to widening individual and collective opportunity divides. Support is urgently needed to benefit Knowledge Workers irrespective of space (developed/developing countries), time (study or career phase), discipline (natural or social science), or role (student, professional, leader). Methodology: The Design Science Research (DSR) project conceptualizing the PKM System (PKMS) aims to support a scenario of a ‘Decentralizing KM Revolution’ giving more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups. Contribution: The informing-science-related approach synthesizes and visualizes concepts related to ignorance and entropy, learning and innovation, chance discovery and abduction to inform diverse audiences and potential beneficiaries. Findings: see Recommendation for Researchers Recommendations for Practitioners: The PKM4E learning cycles and workflows apply ‘cumulative synthesis’, a concept which convincingly couples the activities of researchers and entrepreneurs and assists users to advance their capability endowments via applied learning. Recommendation for Researchers: In substituting document-centric with meme-based knowledge bases, the PKMS approach merges distinctive voluntarily shared knowledge objects/assets of diverse disciplines into a single unified digital knowledge repository and provides the means for advancing current metrics and reputation systems. Impact on Society: The PKMS features provide the means to tackle the widening opportunity divides by affording knowledge workers with continuous life-long support from trainee, student, novice, or mentee towards professional, expert, mentor, or leader. Future Research: After completing the test phase of the PKMS prototype, its transformation into a viable PKM system and cloud-based server based on a rapid development platform and a noSQL-database is estimated to take 12 months.

Firms' capability portfolios throughout international expansion: A latent class approach

Resource-based view suggests that heterogeneity in resource and capability endowments provides firms with a necessary advantage to compete on foreign markets. Separate discussions focus on different perspectives on capabilities, leaving room for a more comprehensive approach. This study is aiming at combining previous results and proposes that international expansion requires a bundle of key capabilities, a capability portfolio, in which capabilities' relative importance varies as internationalization proceeds. This study is also one of the first attempts to use a questionnaire in which only yes/no answer is possible. The authors develop a method to handle binary data and use finite mixture structural equation modeling (FMSEM) to reveal three differently behaving latent classes, the preparing international, the novice international, and the experienced international. Findings indicate that the time of initial entry is an important watershed in terms of how firms allocate their financial resources between key capabilities, a manifestation of higher-order capabilities.

An Overview of Chronic Poverty and Development Policy in Uganda

The paper highlights Uganda’s main antipoverty programs and uses consumption expenditure data of panel households to characterize chronic poverty by tracking households’ poverty statuses over time. Although the majority of households moved into and out of poverty during the 1990s, all the panel households that experienced persistent poverty for at least five years were engaged in agricultural self-employment as the main economic activity. This evidence underscores the importance of off-farm opportunities in poverty reduction. The results showing that households which are far below the poverty line (for example, the poorest 20%) are the most likely to experience extended duration of poverty suggest that the chronically poor may not benefit much from Uganda’s economic growth programs, which primarily aim at creating an enabling environment for economic agents to exploit using their initial endowment of capabilities.

The Concept of Abstract Labour in Adam Smith's System of Thought

This paper draws attention to the fact that in the Wealth of Nations Smith conceptualises labour as a malleable, adaptable resource, capable of undertaking whatever may be required of it as the economy evolves over time. This conception, equivalent to Marx's ‘abstract labour’, differs fundamentally from the neoclassical view of the labour force as comprised of individual agents, each with a given endowment of capabilities. In Smith's analysis, the flexible character of abstract labour is essential to allow the progressive extension of division of labour in the course of economic development. It is also an essential underpinning of Smith's explanation of how ‘natural balance’ is maintained within the economy; this implies an understanding of equilibrium values quite different from that of the later neoclassical conception. labour is furthermore a necessary element of Smith's claim that individual agents, pursuing their own ends, promote the general interest of society, understood not in terms of the attainment of an ‘optimal’, utility-maximising allocation of given resources, but in terms of the promotion of capital accumulation and economic development.

Who enters, where and why? The influence of capabilities and initial resource endowments on the location choices of de novo enterprises

Some geographical locations have characteristics that create opportunities for de novo enterprises, but not all new firms can access the benefits presented by a potential location. The ability of new firms to appropriate benefit and avoid risk depends on the resources that entrepreneurs can marshal for their enterprise. This article develops a model of the interplay between the attributes of de novo entrants and their founding locations. The model assumes that de novo entrants tend to appear in the region where their founders live, but that founders choose among locations within their regions.The test of the model, using data on all de novo entrants in the Canadian manufacturing sector during 1984—98, reveals that entrants with greater resource and capability endowments are more likely to locate in areas with an agglomeration of similar firms, but this effect reverses at high endowment levels. Additionally, larger entrants are less likely to locate in areas characterized by intense local competition and potential entry deterrence, while smaller and well-endowed entrants tend to locate in areas where entry barriers are lower and asset turnover higher. These findings suggest that entrants choose locations strategically within their founding regions.They also indicate that the strategic imperatives of de novo entrants differ significantly from those of geographically diversifying firms, and thus suggest amendments to theories of location choice when modeling the decisions of new ventures.

Strategic Heterogeneity and Firm Performance: A Coevolutionary View

This paper suggests a coevolutionary analysis of the relationship between heterogeneity and firm performance advocating a more dynamic view of the development of strategic heterogeneity. Drawing on previous enquiries in behavioral and evolutionary economics of heterogeneity and performance, it proposes a conceptual framework that explains how the coevolution of strategic heterogeneity and firm performance occurs over time. Moving from some basic definitional and measurement problems of heterogeneity, we argue that heterogeneity and performance coevolve with each other through strategic (temporal and spatial) interrelatedness, circular causality and feedforward processes. Looking beyond the static vision proposed by early studies in the resource-based view of heterogeneity, the study detects two main levels of heterogeneity sources within firms and between firms: (a) the first heterogeneity level heeds to the persistence of differences in strategic behavior and performance among competitors within an industry; (b) the second heterogeneity level applies to strategic diversity within the same firm and, more precisely, to the in-house variations (i.e., resource and capability endowments and/or structural forms and profiling) that a specific firm displays between a given time t0 and the subsequent time t1. We characterize and advance taxonomy of eighteen situations that may epitomize the causal relationships between heterogeneity and performance and eventually draw a few theoretical fallouts for prospective research in strategy.