Browsing by Author "Hussels, Stephanie"
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Item Open Access Competition is good for start-ups(2013-03-01T00:00:00Z) Burke, Andrew; Hussels, StephanieItem Open Access Do freelance independent contractors promote entrepreneurship?(Springer, 2019-09-03) Burke, Andrew; Zawwar, Imran; Hussels, StephanieWe investigate whether or not the level of entrepreneurial activity in an economy is determined by the availability of freelance independent contractors in the workforce. We develop hypotheses and test them through an analysis of 75 countries from 2002 to 2012 using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) database. We find freelance independent contractors promote entrepreneurial activity where typically a 10% rise in the freelance workforce causes about a 1% increase in entrepreneurial activity. The significance of this positive effect is robust for both necessity and opportunity-driven entrepreneurial types and across innovation-driven and efficiency-driven economies—but it is stronger in innovation-driven economies and also for necessity entrepreneurship. It implies that having a flexible workforce is a key ingredient to having an entrepreneurial economy. Furthermore, it indicates that orthodox research and public policy perspectives which overlook the importance of freelance independent contractors for entrepreneurship activity require a re-appraisal.Item Open Access The impact of deregulation on the German and UK life insurance markets: an analysis of efficiency and productivity between 1991-2002(Cranfield University School of Management, 2007-03) Hussels, Stephanie; Ward, Damian R.This paper provides an intra and inter-country assessment of deregulation and industry efficiency in the European insurance industry. The impact of deregulation is expected to be magnified within an analysis of the Continental maximal regulated German industry and the Anglo minimal regulated UK industry. Results suggest that while increased competition in the UK is reflected in higher intra-industry cost efficiency; an inter-industry analysis indicates that the German industry dominates UK cost efficiency both before and after deregulation. These results maybe explained by the efficiency enhancing nature of German regulation.Item Open Access Navigating non-family CEO succession in family businesses.(Cranfield University, 2023-10) Singh, Manish; Hussels, Stephanie; Reinmoeller, PatrickSuccession in family businesses poses unique challenges due to the overlap of ownership and leadership roles. The complexity of such challenges is heightened when considering a non-family member as a successor for leading the business. This thesis explores why family businesses hire non-family CEOs. The investigation unfolds across three papers, a systematic literature review and two empirical papers, each contributing to a comprehensive understanding of non- family leadership succession. The literature review paper presents that existing research primarily examines the outcomes of leadership successions and largely ignores the decisions behind these. The paper lays the foundation with a conceptual framework derived from a systematic review of 53 articles, which reveals a knowledge gap on non-family CEO succession decisions through a non-family CEO succession framework. This framework guides the subsequent empirical inquiry. The two empirical papers address this gap by adopting an interpretivist approach. The second and third papers draw on qualitative data from 29 interviews with UK-based family business owners. The second paper provides an in-depth examination of the factors influencing the non-family CEO succession decision and presents that it is not one but two decisions: (1) a decision to consider non-family candidates and (2) a decision to select a non- family CEO amongst the candidate pool. The third paper identifies and focuses on the influences of four distinct roles family owners play in making the decision to consider non-family CEO candidates for the CEO position. The conceptual and empirically grounded models developed in this thesis open the black box of non- family CEO succession and allow family businesses to explore non-family CEO succession opportunities.Item Open Access A qualitative inquiry into the accrual process of entrepreneurs’ social capital through their use of social media.(Cranfield University, 2022-11) Yaqzan, Syed; Hussels, Stephanie; Koryak, OksanaAim: To explore the accrual process of entrepreneurs’ social capital through their use of social media. Method: This study adopts a critical realist ontological position and applies a multi-method approach. Empirical data for the study is collected from 35 semi-structured interviews conducted with entrepreneurs in Pakistan. The qualitative data from the interviews was analysed using the Gioia methodology (Gioia et al., 2010). To triangulate the data and to bring additional rigor to the findings, netnography (Kozinets, 2015) was used to collect real-time data from the social media accounts (Facebook and LinkedIn) of respondents for a period of four months after the interviews. Findings: This study identified two key potential antecedents of accrual process of entrepreneur’s social capital that may influence their user behaviour: “privacy concerns” and “context of audiences”. The relationship between the two potential antecedents, privacy concerns and user behaviour, is likely moderated by the context of the audience on social media. If the audience is “targeted” (i.e., the entrepreneurs are aware of who the audience is), they will likely opt for a higher degree of self-presentation, self-disclosure, thereby positively influencing the accrual of social capital. Furthermore, this research finds that in the online context, large and diverse networks of entrepreneurs tend to comprise collapsed audiences. This is likely to limit the expressive behaviour of entrepreneurs, which possibly limit the overall accrual process of social capital in social media. Hence, a large and diverse online network may become a “vanity fair”, with limited mobility of resources between the connections. Moreover, this research highlights the difference between entrepreneurs’ reported privacy concerns and their actual user behaviour to protect their privacy online. Although, participants reported interest in protecting their privacy and maintaining a positive attitude towards privacy-protection behaviour during the interviews. But the findings from the netnography suggested that this reported interest rarely translates into actual privacy- protective behaviour. Finally, this research underlines the importance of "engagement with others' content" in social media for the accrual of bridging social capital. Such engagement with others in public plays a role of "reaching out to new people" by publicly engaging with others' content; likely help generate visibility for entrepreneurs to ties outside their network. Hence, the findings of the study may help entrepreneurs connect with weak ties which are source of bridging social capital. Avenues for future research: This research paves the way for a better understanding of the interplay of entrepreneurs' social capital online and offline. Do network development and management efforts that include offline and online social networks foster the accrual of social capital for entrepreneurs? The second avenue for the future research may pursue an in-depth understanding of the social capital accrual on different social networking platforms. For example, do interplay between antecedents is different on Facebook or LinkedIn than Instagram and Twitter?Item Open Access The role of entrepreneurial activity in economic catch-up.(2017-12) Zawwar, Imran; Burke, Andrew; Belghitar, Yacine; Hussels, StephanieAccording to an estimate, in the year 1820, the difference in per capita income between the richest and the poorest country was no more than 3:1. However, with the industrial revolution, some countries experienced a significant shift in their economic growth and the gap in per capita income between the countries started to widen up. This process resulted in increasing global inequality as some countries progressed rapidly, while others remained behind and could not catch-up with the developed world. Nevertheless, with the increase in productivity given the rapid advances in technology, the developing countries have started to catch-up and most of them are growing faster than their developed counterparts. The process of catching up by the individual countries implies a reduction in the gap in productivity and per capita income with the developed world and collectively if all the countries start to catch-up it is referred to as convergence. The phenomenon of convergence has received much attention in the literature on economic development and the potential causes of convergence have intrigued several debates. The neoclassical growth theory provides the theoretical construct to explain this process of convergence and the role of capital, labour and technology is argued to be fundamental. In this regard, the basic premise of this research is that although technology is an important determinant for economic convergence, it cannot be implemented without the entrepreneurs in the economy. The role of entrepreneurial activity is considered to be significant in economic growth, but it has not been explored in the models of economic convergence. Utilising the GEM data on total entrepreneurial activity this PhD thesis addresses this gap and building on the economic development and entrepreneurial literature it explores the role of entrepreneurial activity in economic convergence under varying business contexts. More importantly, it tries to ascertain what type of entrepreneurial activity assists the catching up countries to progress and reduce their gap in productivity and income with the developed world. As the first step in this research, a systematic review of the literature was conducted resulting in a theoretical framework which uncovered the gaps in the existing knowledge. This informed the respective research questions and provided the design for the empirical research that followed. The first empirical paper showed that the impact of entrepreneurial activity in catching up economies, is only significant in the presence of a feedback loop, i.e. as improved entrepreneurial activity from one year feeds into another, helping the catching up countries to grow faster and reduce the gap in productivity and income with the higher incumbent economies. The second empirical paper showed that in the presence of a feedback loop it is only the opportunity entrepreneurial activity that has a significant impact in reducing the GDP gap, while necessity entrepreneurial activity is insignificant. In a world which is characterised by resource constraints, the biggest public policy issue is effective utilisation of resources. To this end, this research has great insights for public policymakers who are interested in formulating policies for impactful entrepreneurship which can expedite the process of economic development. It shows the importance of entrepreneurial activity in economic catch-up, provides insights into entrepreneurial motivation and at the same time emphasise the value of a feedback loop.