QCA Approach Research Articles

Family Business Succession in Different National Contexts: A Fuzzy-Set QCA Approach

Family business succession is a key topic that has attracted considerable attention from researchers, especially in the last decade. Most research, however, is based on case studies with limited applicability and fails to present comparisons across international contexts that highlight differences in succession processes. We apply expectation states theory to analyze a sample of 128 observations in two Southern European countries, Portugal and Greece. We study configurations of successors’ characteristics, family business characteristics, the existence (or absence) of a succession plan, and successors’ motivation to succeed. Our aim is to reveal how these issues affect successors’ perceptions of preparation for succession using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Family businesses are a dominant organizational form all over the world, and succession issues are critical for the sustainability of family businesses. Our findings suggest that different configurations of conditions influence successors’ perceptions of preparation for family business succession. Moreover, we verify the influence of cultural differences on these processes. This research helps fill a gap in the literature, showing the role of a set of characteristics in successors’ perceptions of preparation for family business succession. Our conclusions provide insight into the types of policies that can promote successful family business succession.

Novel Design of Full Adders using QCA Approach

Novel Design of Full Adders using QCA Approach

An alternative update of the two-step QCA procedure

In a recent contribution to Quality and Quantity, Carsten Schneider (Qual Quant 1–18, 2018b) presents an updated version of the two-step QCA approach. Although Schneider (2018b) raises a lot of relevant issues, his revised procedure has three important disadvantages. First of all, the procedure sets the bar higher for remote conditions to be considered causally relevant than for proximate conditions. Second, the procedure makes it very difficult to find combinations of remote conditions. Third, the first step of the revised procedure does not build on a truth table, which makes it difficult to redesign the research if no meaningful results are found. This article proposes an alternative revision to the two-step approach, which aims to combine the best aspects of the original two-step procedure with the strengths of the revised procedure. In line with the original two-step approach, the first step of the procedure builds on a truth table. A new measure is added to the truth table of the first step, which provides an important parameter for coding the outcome column: cumulative coverage. The proposed procedure uses the same criteria for assessing the causal relevance of remote and proximate conditions, allows to straightforwardly uncover combinations of relevant remote conditions and helps researchers go back and forth between cases and evidence.

Identifying women’s entrepreneurial barriers and empowering female entrepreneurship worldwide: a fuzzy-set QCA approach

Barriers faced by women entrepreneurs have always been a hot topic in women’s entrepreneurship research. However, existing studies have often adopted either explanatory/descriptive approaches or conventional quantitative methods, thereby limiting our understanding of gender specificity and complexity in terms of women’s entrepreneurial barriers. The present work begins with the adoption of a post-structural feminist perspective to examine women’s entrepreneurial barriers, and it identifies four gender inequality barriers, namely motherhood, entrepreneurial cognitions, norms, and finance. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study first investigates how the four barriers combine to explain the low level of female entrepreneurship across 28 countries and thus confirm, rather than exaggerating, the real barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. We further take advantage of the asymmetric thinking of fsQCA to explore the causal recipes for achieving a high female entrepreneurial rate. On the one hand, the findings indicate that poor female entrepreneurial cognitions together with a high initial funding requirement constitute women’s entrepreneurial barriers, leading to the low level of female entrepreneurship. On the other hand, the findings provide four causal paths, including not only favorable but also unfavorable conditions, to achieving a high level of female entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the findings also emphasize a low initial funding requirement as a critical incentive for an increase in female entrepreneurship. These findings provide a series of implications at the academic level, as well as the policy level.

Two-step QCA revisited: the necessity of context conditions

The so-called two-step QCA approach as formulated by Schneider and Wagemann (Eur J Polit Res 45(5):751–786, 2006) proposes a separation of conditions into two distinct groups—remote and proximate—and to analyze the impact of these conditions on the outcome in a stepwise manner. While the general logic of the two-step protocol seems to resonate with a broad range of scholars, it, so far, has been only rarely (successfully) applied. This paper argues that this discrepancy between theory and practice is due to the ill-defined nature of the first step. Schneider and Wagemann propose step 1 to be an analysis of inconsistent sufficiency. This has always stood on shaky set-relational grounds. I therefore argue that the first of the two steps in the protocol should be redefined as an analysis of necessity and only step 2 understood as an analysis of sufficiency. While already implicit in its original formulation, this crucial feature of the two-step QCA approach has largely been overlooked. This paper proposes an updated two-step QCA approach that rests on recent innovations in set methods and spells out the advantages of this new protocol.

Minimizing the risk of seaport operations efficiency reduction affected by vessel arrival delay

PurposeIn seaport industries, vessel arrival delay is inevitable because of numerous factors, e.g. weather, delay due to the previous stop, etc. The period of delay can be as short at 15 min of as long as a few days. This causes disruption to the planned sea operation operations, and more importantly, to the resources utilization. In traditional berth allocation and quay crane assignment problems (BA-QCA), the risk of vessel arrival delay has not been considered. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to employ a proactive planning approach by taking into consideration the vessel arrival delay into the optimization of BA-QCA problems.Design/methodology/approachIn the existing BA-QCA problems, vessel arrival time is usually deterministic. In order to capture the uncertainties of arrival delay, this paper models the arrival time as a probability distribution function. Moreover, this paper proposes to model the delay risk by using the period between the expected arrival time and the expected waiting time of a vessel. Lastly, the authors propose a new modified genetic algorithm and a new quay crane assignment heuristic to maximize the schedule reliability of BA-QCA.FindingsA number of numerical experiments are conducted. First of all, the optimization quality of the proposed algorithm is compared with the traditional genetic algorithm for verifying the correctness of the optimization approach. Then, the impact of vessel arrival delay is tested in different scenarios. The results demonstrate that the impact of vessel arrival delay can be minimized, especially in the situations of high vessel to potential berth ratio.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed vessel arrival modeling approach and the BA and QCA approach can increase the operations efficiency of seaports. These approaches can increase the resource utilization by reducing the effect of vessel arrival delay. In other words, this can improve the throughput of seaport terminals.Originality/valueThis paper proposes to minimize the delay risk based on the conditional probability of the vessel completion time based on the previous vessel at the assigned berth. This modeling approach is new in literature.

Perceived service quality and customer satisfaction: A fuzzy set QCA approach in the railway sector

This study investigates whether different combinations of service quality dimensions affect customer satisfaction. The study uses an extension of SERVQUAL with dimensions specific to the railway industry: comfort, connection, and convenience. We use a fsQCA to examine the responses from an online survey of 352 railway customers. The results show that three different combinations of the service quality dimensions lead to overall customer satisfaction. These combinations contain at least two of the three dimensions specific to the railway industry: comfort, connection, and convenience. Furthermore, the combination of comfort and connection alone captures higher customer satisfaction.

Does innovative effort matter for corporate performance in Spanish companies in a context of financial crisis? A fuzzy-set QCA approach

The aim of this paper is to examine whether innovative effort is a key driver of the financial performance of a set of 3860 Spanish companies in a context of financial crisis. For this purpose, we use contrarian case analysis and configural analysis using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to test the main tenets of complexity theory: (1) innovative effort, as a single antecedent condition, is not a sufficient or necessary factor of a high score in corporate performance; (2) a few possible configurations lead to high corporate performance (equifinality principle); (3) contrarian cases occur; and (4) causal configurations for high scores for corporate performance are not the mirror opposites of causal configurations for low scores for corporate performance (causal asymmetry principle). The findings suggest that innovative effort, as a single antecedent condition, is not a sufficient or necessary factor for a high score in corporate performance.

Effectuation and causation in science-based new venture creation: A configurational approach

Science-based entrepreneurship plays a central role in economic and technological development. The existing literature shows that the process of new venture creation differs between science-based and traditional ventures. Building on effectuation and causation literatures, we aim to explore the antecedent factors of the approach that science-based entrepreneurs follow in new venture creation. Using data from PSED II and a QCA approach, we identify two configurations of antecedent factors relevant for science-based founders to successfully launch their ventures, and two for nonscience-based founders. We contribute to entrepreneurship literature, as well as to effectuation and causation literatures, by looking at the antecedent factors characterizing the approach, followed by an examination of the specific types of entrepreneurs in the establishment of successful ventures.

Effectuation and Causation in Science-based New Venture Creation: A Configurational Approach

Science-based entrepreneurship plays a central role for economic and technological development. The existing literature shows that the process of new venture creation differs between science-based and traditional ventures. Building on effectuation and causation literatures, we aim to explore the antecedents and specificities of the approach that science-based entrepreneurs follow in new venture creation. Using data from PSED II and a QCA approach, we identify two configurations of antecedent factors relevant for science-based founders to successfully launch their ventures and two for non science-based founders. We contribute to effectuation and causation literatures by looking at the approach followed by a specific type of entrepreneurs in the establishment of successful ventures.

Exploring the Causal Complexity using QCA approach: Case of CEO characteristics and Social Responsibility Ratings

Exploring the Causal Complexity using QCA approach: Case of CEO characteristics and Social Responsibility Ratings

Entrepreneurial attributes for success in the small hotel sector: a fuzzy-set QCA approach

By examining small hotels in Spain, this research contributes to understanding how human capital, social capital, and contingency factors interact to build a success model based on high hotel occupancy rates, profit, and profit per employee. Human capital theory, social capital theory, and multilevel theory provide the theoretical basis for this research. The study used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis applied to a sample of 51 small Spanish hotels. The results reveal the existence of different configurations that lead to the desired performance outcomes. Each configuration combines two or three causal conditions. The results also reflect the difficulties that small hotels may face in reconciling different performance objectives. This paper thus provides solutions for managers, who must make strategic decisions based on existing conditions both inside and outside their organisations. The findings discussed herein can thus help small hotels better define their performance objectives by considering their individual characteristics. The findings can also help new small hotel entrepreneurs better understand the conditions required for success in this highly competitive market.

Innovation among seaport operators : a QCA approach for determining success conditions

Innovation among seaport operators : a QCA approach for determining success conditions

Adder Design Using QCA Technique withArea Delay Efficient

In this paper, a new 128 bit QCA adder was presented. It achieved the speed performance higher than all the existing adders. It decreases the number of QCA cells compared to previously testimony design. The proposed QCA adder design is based on new algorithm that requires only three majority gates and two inverters for the QCA addition. The area necessity of the QCA adders is comparable cheap with the RCA and CFA established. The novel adder operated in the RCA fashion, but it could propagate a carry signal through a number of cascade MGs significally lower than conventional RCA adders. In addition, because of the adopted basic logic and layout approach, the number of clock cycles required of completing the explanation was limited. As transistor decrease in size more and more of them can be accommodated in on its own die, thus increasing the chip computational capabilities. On the other hand, transistors cannot find much lesser than their existing size. The QCA approach represents one of the probable solutions in overcome this physical limit, even though the design of logic modules in QCA is not forever uncomplicated.

Assessment of obstruction length and optimal viewing angle from biplane X-ray angiograms

Three-dimensional quantitative coronary angiography (3D QCA) has been encouraged by the increasing need to better assess vessel dimensions and geometry for interventional purposes. A novel 3D QCA system based on biplane X-ray angiograms is presented in this paper. By correcting for the isocenter offset and by improving the epipolar constraint for corresponding two angiographic projections, accurate and robust reconstruction of the vessel centerline is achieved and the reproducibility of its applications, e.g., the assessments of obstruction length and optimal viewing angle, is guaranteed. The accuracy and variability in assessing the obstruction length and optimal bifurcation viewing angle were investigated by using phantom experiments. The segment length assessed by 3D QCA correlated well with the true wire segment length (r 2 = 0.999) and the accuracy and precision were 0.04 ± 0.25 mm (P < 0.01). 3D QCA slightly underestimated the rotation angle (difference: −1.5° ± 3.6°, P < 0.01), while no significant difference was observed for the angulation angle (difference: −0.2° ± 2.4°, P = 0.54). In conclusion, the new 3D QCA approach allows highly accurate and precise assessments of obstruction length and optimal viewing angle from X-ray angiography.