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- Genedy, Mohamed A.
(author)
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Beyond the bright side : Investigating dark aspects of independent entrepreneurship, family entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship
- 2024
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Entrepreneurship is often perceived as a driving force for employment, innovation, and knowledge creation and is linked to poverty alleviation and economic growth. While entrepreneurship is often seen as a pathway for economic development and societal welfare, it does not consistently deliver the expected outcomes and, in certain instances, may exacerbate poverty, impede development, and present challenges to societal well-being and equality. This paradox within entrepreneurship emphasizes the necessity of exploring the negative (dark) aspects pertaining to entrepreneurship. Neglecting these negative aspects can lead to an incomplete understanding of entrepreneurship. Accordingly, this dissertation challenges the conventional positive view of entrepreneurship by (1) investigating some negative (i.e., dark) aspects of independent entrepreneurship, family entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship and (2) what might potentially mitigate these negative aspects. This is essential for achieving a balanced and comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship’s role in the economy and society at large.I draw on the theory of entrepreneurial allocation, which posits that entrepreneurship can be productive, unproductive, or destructive, as the main theoretical perspective of this dissertation. This dissertation includes three empirical papers, each focusing on a distinct type of ownership: owner-manager ownership (independent entrepreneurship), family ownership (family entrepreneurship), and external investor ownership (corporate entrepreneurship). Together, they offer different insights into the potential negative aspects pertaining to entrepreneurship. Each paper draws on different theoretical perspectives and aligns with particular Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).In paper 1, we draw on the scale-up, firm growth, and well-being literature, taking an employee perspective to examine the impact of scaling on employee well-being. Using data from 10,908 employees in new Swedish ventures, we find a positive association between scaling and employee burnout, along with a negative association with job satisfaction. This emphasizes that scaling, often associated with a positive view, can also bring challenges to employee well-being. Meanwhile, we show that employees with managerial roles and prior new venture experience are two groups of employees who are less likely to experience the negative consequences of scaling. Paper 2 investigates how family dynamics (the upbringing environment) within entrepreneurial families can influence offspring career choices. In this paper, we draw on the birth order literature, which adopts an evolutionary theory perspective, to suggest that offspring are exposed to a different upbringing environment due to the unequal distribution of parental resources, potentially affecting their personality and behaviors and thus resulting in unequal career opportunities. In this paper, we use data comprising 205,247 offspring residents in Sweden to show that later-born offspring, though more likely to join the parent’s business, often have a higher tendency to leave compared to their early-born siblings. However, these later-borns can be particularly advantageous in competitive or challenging business situations. In an additional analysis, we show that earlier-born offspring are more inclined toward independent entrepreneurship. Lastly, paper 3 focuses on the negative aspects pertaining to corporate entrepreneurship. Drawing on agency theory, paper 3 shows that institutional investors (e.g., investment banks, insurance companies, etc.), while they are usually viewed positively because of their known sophisticated investment strategies and long-term horizons, induce negative effects and have a potential dark side on corporate entrepreneurs. Specifically, I argue that the extant literature views institutional investors as a homogenous group in terms of their innovation preferences. This oversimplified view overlooks the possible variations within these institutional investors. Following an empirics-first (EF) approach, I segment institutional investors based on their innovation preferences, using portfolio data and historical trading information. This analysis identifies three distinct segments: innovation-friendly, innovation-unfriendly, and innovation-investment-oriented. Using a sample of 6,438 U.S. publicly traded firms, I find that firms predominantly owned by innovation-unfriendly institutional investors experience a decrease in innovation productivity and overall firm value compared to those dominated by innovation-friendly investors. Moreover, I show that firms can strategically position themselves to attract innovation-friendly institutional investors in order to mitigate the negative effects enacted by innovation-unfriendly investors.This dissertation offers several contributions to the field of entrepreneurship. First, it contributes to the potential (social) costs of entrepreneurship by investigating some negative aspects pertaining to independent, family, and corporate entrepreneurship. Second, it adds to the ongoing discussion on how to mitigate these negative aspects. Third, this dissertation contributes to the theory of entrepreneurial allocation by revealing that beyond traditional institutional actors like governments, there are other influential forces, suh as the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial firm, and institutional investors, that can direct entrepreneurial activities towards productive, unproductive, or destructive paths. This dissertation provides implications for policymaking relevant to four specific Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 3 (promoting well-being), SDG 8 (fostering a decent work environment), SDG 10 (addressing inequalities), and SDG 9 (enhancing innovation). It also has implications for practitioners such as entrepreneurs and their followers (i.e., employees).
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| 2. |
- Karlsson, Johan, 1990-
(author)
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Essays on Family Firms and Firm Growth Barriers
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis concerns the implications of family ownership and perceived growth barriers for firm decision-making and performance. The first article examines the inclusion of family business in economics doctoral programs in the United States and Sweden, as well as the views of professors and textbook authors and research on family business. It is found that family business is not included in the examined curricula. Furthermore, professors and authors do not publish research on family business and generally do not see a need to incorporate it into economic theory. The article concludes by discussing the causes of this omission, as well as strategies to overcome them in order to further our understanding of economic action. The second article presents a novel strategy for identifying domiciled family firms using total population data. By applying this strategy to Swedish data, family firms are found to contribute to one-third of Swedish employment and gross domestic product, and a significant share of Sweden’s largest firms are family-owned. In general, family firms are found to be smaller than their non-family equivalents, although they are more profitable. Meanwhile, differences between family firms and nonfamily firms are found to diminish with firm size. The third article examines whether family firms have a comparative employment growth advantage over nonfamily firms in regions with relatively low population density. As a group, family firms are found to be the main source of job creation in rural regions, largely as a result of their large numbers. Nevertheless, the average family firm is found to grow more slowly than the average non-family firm. Meanwhile, in line with the study’s conjecture, this difference is found to decrease across the urban-rural context, i.e., across metropolitan, urban and rural regions. The fourth paper examines the representation of women in top management teams1 in family firms and non-family firms. Moreover, the share of women in a firm’s top management team is found to be positively associated with the additional appointment of female managers. Lastly, kinship bonds between the owning families and prospective managers are found to be positively associated with the appointment of women on top management teams. The fifth paper aims to capture the relationship between perceived growth barriers and firm size, which is achieved by developing a novel data-driven strategy for identifying firm size groups. It is found that smaller firms typically face accessibility constraints on equity financing, whereas larger firms generally face barriers related to competition and accessibility to qualified staff. These results are benchmarked against those using prevailing strategies for measuring firm size, whereby it is suggested that there may be a need for methodological rethinking in the field regarding its treatment of firm size.
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| 3. |
- Thulin, Per, 1963-
(author)
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Essays on Regional Growth, Comparative Advantages and Foreign Direct Investments
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays, covering four different topics. The first essay investigates the relationship between inter-firm labor mobility and regional productivity growth. Previous studies have shown that density is positively correlated with growth. I claim that it is not density in itself, but rather the attributes associated with it that drives economic growth. One such attribute is the increased possibility for labor mobility and knowledge diffusion that follows when firms and individuals locate in close proximity to each other. This hypothesis is tested using density as an instrument for labor mobility. The result shows that labor mobility increases regional growth rates. The second essay examines the relationship between agglomeration economies and relative wage costs in influencing location of multinational corporations. An inflow of firms to certain regions and industries is likely to increase demand for labor. If mobility of labor is low increased costs can be expected to deter additional inflows of firms, albeit agglomeration economies may compensate for higher wages. The empirical analysis finds that FDI has become increasingly sensitive to differences in wage costs across industrialized countries, but also that agglomeration economies related to knowledge externalities positively influences higher costs. The third essay looks at the impact of FDI on home country investments. Previous research has been inconclusive as regards the effects on domestic investments. In this article, we show that this inconclusiveness can be explained at a disaggregated level as a function of the way industries are organized. We argue that a complementary relationship can be expected to prevail in vertically integrated industries, whereas a substitutionary relationship can be expected in horizontally organized production. The empirical analysis confirms a significant difference between the two categories of industry as regards the impact of outward FDI on domestic investment. The fourth, and final, essay of this thesis analyses how increased R&D expenditures and market size influence the distribution of comparative advantage. Previous studies report ambiguous results and also refer to periods when markets were much more segmented and production factors less mobile. The empirical analysis comprises 19 OECD-countries and spans the period 1981 to 1999. It is shown how an increase in R&D-expenditures by one percentage point implies a three-percentage point increase in high-technology exports, whereas market size fails to attain significance. In addition, institutional factors influence the dynamics of comparative advantage.
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