Founding Process Research Articles

Explaining Variations in the Nonprofit Founding Process

Although the organizational founding process is subject to various isomorphic pressures, significant variation is still found in the completion, ordering, and timing of founding events. Prior research on entrepreneurship suggests the importance of education and previous experience in determining who is best positioned to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities, which may explain some of the variation in the founding process. In this article the authors present an analysis of an original survey of recently founded religious nonprofits to better understand how founder, organizational, and contextual characteristics influence the founding process in this specific nonprofit context. Overall, the authors’ findings show that founder education and experience particularly affect the founding process as well as organizational characteristics; however, these effects vary across different dimensions of this process.

The Institutionalization of a Process

The Kimberley Process represents a new method of international cooperation between subjects of international law. It was named by its creators as a process, setting it apart from international organizations, and leading too to its consideration as informal international law-making or soft law. In this study we shall analyze the extent to which the Kimberley Process falls into these categories. Our main task, however, is to compare it to formal international organizations, with a view to establishing whether what really has been created is an institutionalization process that is like an international organization, but with a different name. To do this, we will analyze with reference to the Kimberley Process the various respective fields of international organizations, such as founding agreement, membership, structure, decision-making process and legal order.

Divine callings: religious sensemaking in the organizational founding process

Organizational scholars have not considered the potential power of religion as a sensemaking tool. Religion scholars have wondered whether religious sensemaking is simply a post hoc justification for behavior, or whether it can shape future actions. In this article, we present mixed methods research that gets at the intersection of these issues. In interviews with founders of religious nonprofit organizations, we find that many frame their founding experiences in religious terms, such as believing that God gave them the idea for their organization or attributing certain founding events to divine intervention. We then examine data from a survey of young religious nonprofits and find that reports of personal religious experiences are more common among primary founders compared to other leaders. We also find that those founders reporting certain religious experiences work more hours in the organization, suggesting that sensemaking strategies could have consequences for individuals’ behavior.

The Rise and Fall of Electricity Distribution Cooperatives in Germany

Rural electrification in Germany as in some other countries all over the world has been achieved to a large extent through and by electricity distribution cooperatives (e.g. contributions in Barnes, 2007). There are two main contexts where references are made to these electricity distribution cooperatives: first, as a pre-decessor of current energy cooperatives; second, in discussions about rural electrification in poor countries. In both cases the overall aim is some kind of “learning from history”.In Germany, there are 44 “old” electricity cooperatives which remained from a total of more than 6,000 in mid-1930s. Since 2006, there has been a steady growth in numbers of cooperatives in the energy sector (“new energy cooperatives”). While this recent phenomenon has gained some interest in the scientific community and in the political arena, work on old electricity cooperatives is scarce. Therefore, the paper aims at giving an overview of the development of the cooperative electricity sector in Germany, to explore the founding context and the role cooperatives played during early stages of development, and to discuss reasons for the dissolution or survival of the firms. The overall goal is to generate some general lessons for the role and limits or challenges of energy cooperatives. General statistics illustrating the development of the sector (1), an analysis of the founding contexts of electricity cooperatives in selected regions (2) as well as the reasons for the dissolution of these cooperatives (3), and a description of survival strategies of remaining electricity cooperatives (4) build the four parts of the empirical investigation, followed by a brief discussion of theoretical implications.There seems to be no comprehensive description of German electricity cooperatives in the literature, but rather a focus on specific firms (e.g. Leiner, 1982), certain regions (e.g. Konrad, 1936), or a mentioning of cooperatives in works with focus on the general development and political economy of the electricity sector in Germany (e.g. Zangl, 1989). Therefore, information is collected from various sources publicly available through libraries or on the internet. Data are interpreted against the background of theories on the formation of cooperatives, especially in the energy sector (Hansmann, 1988; 1996), and the cooperative evolution (Hanisch, 2006).Business histories of German electricity cooperatives show the high public influence exercised in the energy sector. The description of the function in the founding process fits quite well to Hanisch’s (2006) explanation of price detection and public budget restraints. Political influence and market power exercised by local power generation monopolists can be seen as main reasons for the dissolution of many electricity cooperatives in the 1930s and after the Second World War. Small sizes and therefore a lack of economies of scale can be used as an explanation for the last wave of dissolutions since the liberalization of energy markets starting in 1998. At the same time, studying strategies of remaining old electricity cooperatives, especially cooperation strategies, might give some useful insights for the further development of cooperative theory.

Imprinting and the progeny of university spin-offs

In this paper, we employ a genealogical imprinting approach to theorize that experiences incurred during the founding of a first-generation university spin-off will influence future spin-off activity from the focal firm. We propose that firms that secure equity investment during their founding process will have a higher likelihood of generating subsequent spin-offs, and that this impact is conditional on the human capital of the founding team. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 101 first generation university spin-offs around a large US research university and their subsequent progeny firms. This study develops a new understanding of multi-generational spin-off processes in a region.

Myth, Martyrdom, and the Many Deaths of José Martí

El mito de la muerte heroica de José Martí lleva tanta importancia para su posición de icono nacional cubano que hasta Abel Prieto—ministro de cultura de Cuba—se ha preguntado que nos quedaría del mito de martirio sin él. Pero sería difícil encontrar un evento histórico en la vida de Martí del cual sabemos menos en concreto, o que ha sido expuesto a mas especulación y hasta invención. Quizás el hecho del vacío histórico que envuelve la muerte de Martí ha inclusive habilitado fabricación: contingencia histórica moldeada en mito, endurecido con el tiempo en ortodoxia incuestionable. Este ensayo presenta la muerte de Martí como parte de un proceso discursivo de invención nacional, por el cual acontecimientos son transformados por el acto de narrar en un mito de orígenes. Un paso indispensable para esta naturalización de contingencia en mito manejable es la supresión de elementos que desafían la coherencia interna del mito, lo que amenaza con desatar el imaginario nacional en el momento crucial de la auto-creación. Este trabajo es parte de un proyecto mas amplio, que pretende demistificar a Martí al revelar la maquinaria narrativa que ata su mito al proyecto de construcción nacional.

Petra Kelly, International Green Leader: On Biography and the Peace Movement as Resources of Power in West German Politics, 1979-1983

This article uses the biography of the activist and Green Party co-founder Petra Kelly in order to rethink the Greens' founding process and to articulate a new conception of charismatic political leadership. It shows how Kelly used her activism in the new social movements as the basis for her leadership role in the Greens, and how her ongoing work in the peace movement provided her a means of maintaining power within the nascent party during the early 1980s. By examining Kelly's contributions to the Greens' approach to politics, the article shows that she was more than just a figurehead for the new party. Most importantly, the article shows that throughout her career as an activist and politician, Kelly used her biography to establish credibility and to support her unique style of charismatic leadership. The German public's response to Kelly reveals the influence of this charismatic leadership and shows how her movement-driven and biographically informed approach, which brought personal experiences and emotions into politics, was part of a larger transformation of the political in West Germany during the 1970s and 1980s.

THE IDENTIFICATION OF A GROUP OF SETTLEMENT KNOWN AS "HIRZŮV ÚJEZD" BY ČERNÁ V POŠUMAVÍ

Though small in area, Hirzův Újezd [1] was valuable, mostly because of its strategicallyimportant location on the Linec trail. From today’s point of view, its value lies in its compactness andin the fact that it was probably founded by a single locator – Hirzo, which is in this size rare in ourcountry.This paper consists of identifying the aggregate of Hirzův Újezd and its development fromits probable founding up to the present. The village identification method is based on the study ofaccessible historical records, which were partly uncovered by Jiří Kuthan. The method used for thedetermination of the presumed original founding concept is predominantly grounded in the researchof Z. Pešková and J. Škabrada and is accepted among proffessionals.The survey of the area identified all thirteen settlements, twelve of them were still wellpreservedshortly after the end of the World War II. Unfortunately, only three of the settlements werepreserved to the present day in a good condition and another three only as fragments.This information will be used as a base for further study of the settlement-founding systems in theexamined area (dissertation on the topic of Identification of surveying methods of locator Hirzo). Bybetter understanding of the founding process of a settlement, we can obtain materials for protectionof valuable and in many places still visible original structure, for example by projecting it into Spacialplanning.

Red Cross Society in Imperial China, 1904–1912: A Historical Analysis

The Red Cross Society was introduced to China in the 1900s, when the nation was under the authoritarian reign of Qing dynasty. Famines and rebellions, along with the invasion of foreign military forces, created tremendous humanitarian crises that the corrupted imperial government was incapable to address. The Red Cross model was found to be a pragmatic solution by Chinese philanthropists. Using archived press releases, correspondences, and government statements, the study reconstructs the founding process of the first Chinese Red Cross organization from 1904 to 1912. The analysis reveals that the organization reflected the congruent interest of the imperial court and social elites in preserving the sovereignty and was therefore promoted by key players from both political and civil spheres. The trajectory of Red Cross movement in imperial China supports the synergism perspective of institutional theories. It demonstrates how micro-level factors such as leadership ties and alliances contribute to the interdependence of public and private sectors and facilitate the transformation of traditional charity to modern philanthropy.

Population genetic structure in wild and hatchery populations of white cloud mountain minnow (Tanichthys albonubes): Recommendations for conservation

We used mitochondrial (mt) cytochrome b gene (cyt b) to compare the genetic variability in three hatchery broodstocks of white cloud mountain minnow with the variability in six wild populations sampled in two river drainages. A total of 43 haplotypes in 102 specimens were observed, with no haplotype shared between wild and hatchery populations. The nucleotide diversity of the wild samples (0.048) was significantly higher than that of the hatchery ones (0.007), but the haplotype diversity was almost similar between them. Two major phylogenetic haplotype groups were revealed and estimated to diverge about 6.531 myr (million years) ago. Significant genetic differentiation was revealed between wild and hatchery populations as well as among nine sampled populations, suggesting at chance effect during the founding process for the hatchery population and a subsequent genetic drift. According to the network, the connection between wild and hatchery populations indicates that present hatchery populations originated from single wild population. We suggested that two regions (Pearl River system and Lu River) identified by reciprocal mtDNA monophyly and SAMOVA should be regarded as three different ESUs and two different MUs in South China, respectively.

Early stage technology investments of pre-seed venture capitalists

Although technology transfer offices at universities are widely installed, in many cases, inventions made in academia still struggle to be commercialised. This so-called technology transfer gap can be overcome by professionalised pre-founding activities. Whereas prevailing investment models, like business angels or traditional venture capitalists, usually tie up their business activity on already founded companies, pre-seed venture capitalists (PSVC) attempt to align inventions made at academia with entrepreneurship by founding start-ups. Against this background, this study aims at examining the perceptions of deficiencies of the prevailing investment models and the role of the PSVCs in the pre-founding phase. PSVC companies operating in the biotechnology and nanotechnology area and with a broader technology approach have been analysed within a multi case study research. The results show that based on the technological scope and the financial source of the investment activity, four different types of PSVC business models can be identified and described. Technology transfer offices at universities and research institutions supporting the founding process of start-ups can use the findings to develop and execute specific partnership strategies with these PSVC types.

Dâr-ı Sulehâ'da Nesl-i Sulehâ Özlemi

Ülkemizde son yıllarda akademik dünyaya kazandırılan çok sayıda üniversite ve fakülte bulunmaktadır. İşte bu fakültelerden biri olan Aksaray Üniversitesi İslami İlimler Fakültesi’nin kuruluş sürecinde yaşananlar tarihe bir not olarak kaydedilmek üzere bu yazıda kaleme alınmıştır. Bilimsel ve akademik kuruluşların doğuşu gerek ilmi gerekse toplumsal alanda bir takım etkilere sebep olur. Ancak zamanla bunlar unutularak geçmişin karanlıklarında yok olur. Farklı ve farkedilir olmayı arzu eden Aksaray Üniversitesi İslami İlimler Fakültesi’nin bu sürecini Dergimizin ilk sayısında kaleme alarak en azından hatırasını sürekli kılmak istedik. Burada anlatılmayanlar elbette anlatılanlardan çok daha fazladır. Ancak amaç sürece olumlu katkıları bulunanların hatırlanması ve duaya vesile olmasının sağlanmasıdır. Hayırlı ve bereketli olması dileklerimizle…

The Doctrine of Contradiction and the Political Philosophy of Mao Zedong

The present research explores the connection between Mao's philosophy and his political ideas. Taking as the point of departure the innate contradiction implicit in the founding process of the People's Republic of China and its state system, I argue that in addition to the unity of the discourse on people and on class in Mao's political thinking there is also an opposition, and that this opposition can be traced back to his philosophy. After reaching a number of conclusions of significance for Mao's doctrine of class, conclusions that relate to the very approach involved in his ideas of contradiction, we set out to enrich and develop these ideas, with the final goal of providing a new philosophical fulcrum for explaining and regulating the polity of the post-Mao era.

Regional Effect Heterogeneity of Start-up Subsidies for the Unemployed

Caliendo M. and Künn S. Regional effect heterogeneity of start-up subsidies for the unemployed, Regional Studies. Evaluation studies have shown the high effectiveness of start-up subsidies for unemployed individuals to improve labour market outcomes of participants. What has not been examined yet are the potentially heterogeneous effects of start-up programmes across regional labour markets. Labour demand-side restrictions in deprived areas generally increase entries into start-up programmes as job offers are limited. However, the survival of firms in these areas is also lower, such that the overall effect remains unclear. Based on German data, it is found that the founding process, development of businesses and programme effectiveness are influenced by prevailing economic conditions at start-up.

A Delphi Study: The Characteristics of Democratic Schools

ABSTRACTThe authors aim to identify characteristics of democratic schools. The Delphi technique used in this study is based on attaining a consensus among a group of experts over 3 rounds with 22 experts from 9 countries participating in the first round. By the end of the third round, 339 items referring to democratic school characteristics were identified, categorized into values and philosophy, collaborative learning organization, founding process, decision-making model, policy forming, curriculum, learner, teaching staff, nonteaching staff, relations, physical properties, and financial resource management. The result shows that every single category bears importance in creating a democratic school.

A Cross Level Perspective on Individual Improvisation Within Founding Teams

Founding process hardly ever goes as planned. Uncertainties and complexities cause many novel challenges and opportunities for founding teams. Most often these unexpected events require immediate responses that may influence the whole venture creation process. Founding team members need to improvise solutions that could have lasting effects on future of the venture. The purpose of the present study is to develop a cross-level theory of the concomitant influence of individual characteristics and contextual factors on individual improvisation within founding teams. This conceptual study proposes two individual characteristics, creativity and goal orientation, and one team level factor, entrepreneurial orientation, and their cross-level interactions as antecedents to occurrence of individual improvisation within founding teams. The article suggests that the effects of individual characteristics on individual improvisation can vary within founding teams depending on contextual factors and clarifies the influence of team’s entrepreneurial orientation on team members’ individual improvisation through interaction with team members’ individual characteristics.

Why Do Cooperatives Emerge in a World Dominated by Corporations? The Diffusion of Cooperatives in the U.S. Bio-Ethanol Industry, 1978–2013

Given the strong economic disincentives that exist, why do cooperatives continue to emerge? And why is it that, in some communities, these cooperatives are collocated with their commercial counterparts, yet, in others, territorial partitioning occurs? In this paper, we develop a community ecology approach that integrates economic and sociological accounts of cooperatives, in an attempt to reconcile these contradictory observations. Using a detailed panel data set for the county-level founding process of cooperatives in the U.S. ethanol industry from 1978 to 2013, consistent with rational economic arguments, we find that the founding rate of cooperatives decreases in the presence of high, local, corporate ethanol production capacity. However, this negative competitive interdependence is attenuated in local communities where: (1) corporations represent a potential threat to the autonomy of local farmers, (2) there is a generally anti-corporate climate, and (3) there is a well-established organizational infrastructure supporting a cooperative ideology. Consistent with sociological theories that emphasize the mobilizing force of ideology, these local conditions spur and facilitate collective action among farmers to establish cooperatives in response to the local diffusion of corporations. We show further that the diffusion of plants owned by big business (oil and agribusiness) in communities characterized by a general anti-corporate climate especially promotes greater ideological contestation and the mobilization of resources to form cooperatives.

Pair‐wise analyses of the effects of demographic processes, vital rates, and life stages on the spatiotemporal variation in the population dynamics of the riparian tree Aesculus turbinata Blume

AbstractPopulation growth rates (λ) of the riparian tree Aesculus turbinata varied from 0.9988 to 1.0524 spatiotemporally. We conducted a series of pair‐wise demographic and matrix analyses, including randomization tests, three types of life table response experiments (LTREs), analysis of variance and χ2 tests, to test which life stages had the greatest effect on this variation in λ. Randomization tests detected significant variations in λ between plots affected or not by typhoons in three habitats and between periods with high and low recruitment in one habitat. Mixed‐level LTREs identified that the demographic processes and life stages that had the strongest effect on the actual variation in λ were: (1) progressions of small and intermediate juveniles and (2) founding process from seeds to 1‐year‐old seedlings. These juvenile stages had medium sensitivities and variances that explained high upper‐level LTRE contributions. Lower‐level LTREs showed that the vital rates contributing the most were the growth rates of these juvenile stages. These findings demonstrate that progression from one stage to the next, growth rates of 1‐year‐old seedlings, and stunted aging juveniles are the most important stages in the population dynamics of this long‐lived primary tree species. Transition matrix elements with high elasticities had little effect on the variation in λ, indicating that high‐elasticity vital rates do not necessarily drive variation in population growth. As compared with the results of randomization tests, significant differences in vital rates examined using ANOVA or χ2 tests showed that typhoon disturbance had the greatest effect on the demographic parameters of individual trees.

New Construction Materials Based on Automobile Construction Sludge

This paper is devoted to the development of valuable new construction materials based on various ecologically burdensome galvanic wastes, namely industrial sludge from the RENAULT plant and metal cleaning glass waste. The only natural component used is local clay. Both of the wastes need significant financial investment and efforts for neutralization and subsequent disposal while they can be recycled into glass-ceramics or red ceramics (tiles, bricks, blocks, etc.). Mechanical properties of the ceramics of various compositions are as follows: flexion resistances are 4.8-9.2, 7.6-11.5 and 11.1-14.9 MPa (after calcination at 800°C, 850°C and 900°C, respectively); the dilatation coefficient values are normally 6.6 to 9.5% (up to 10% for certain materials); the water absorption values are between 19.7 and 23.9%. These values meet the Brazilian standards for ceramics production. Physicochemical interactions of initial components and new materials structure formation processes have been studied. The XRD data show the formation of new minerals in the process of baking: Na-Anortite (Ca,Na)(Si,Al)4O8, Thenardite Na2SO4, Mullite Al6Si2O13, Tamarugite NaAl (SO4)2 6H2O. Only two minerals are identified both before and after baking: Quartz SiO2 and Hematite Fe2O3. High X-ray background clearly visible on the XRD-pattern is an evidence of a highly amorphous glassy structure resulting from founding processes during the mixtures heating. The SEM and EDS studies of the ceramics strongly confirm the XRD results demonstrating fields of almost glassy morphology within the new material. These new-crystalline and new-amorphous structures can explain all the mechanical and chemical properties of the ceramic materials developed. Leaching and solubility studies of the new ceramics with Atom Absorption Analysis demonstrate that a great excess of heavy metals (Sn, Zn and Ni) from the industrial wastes is decreased in the baked ceramics achieving levels that meet Brazilian sanitary standards.

Regional Effect Heterogeneity of Start-Up Subsidies for the Unemployed

Recent microeconometric evaluation studies have shown that start-up subsidies for unemployed individuals are an effective policy tool to improve long-term employment and income prospects of participants, in particular compared to other active labor market programs (e.g. training, job search assistance or job creation schemes). What has not been examined yet are the potentially heterogeneous effects of start-up programs across regional labor markets. Labor demand side restrictions in areas with relatively bad labor market conditions generally increase entries into start-up programs as job offers are limited and starting an own business is an opportunity to leave unemployment. However, the survival of firms in deprived areas is also lower, such that the overall effect remains an empirical question.We use a combination of administrative and survey data and observe participants in two distinct start-up programs in Germany for five years after start-up as well as a control group of unemployed who did not enter these programs. We add information on unemployment rates and GDP per capita at the labor agency district level to distinguish regional labor markets. Using propensity score matching methods we find supportive evidence that the founding process and development of businesses as well as program effectiveness is influenced by prevailing economic conditions at start-up.