Entrepreneurial Self-Leadership Education through Virtual Training

September 2020 until August 2023 (completed) Erasmus

Project Description

The spirit of entrepreneurship had been behind several European nations' economic surges during the two previous decades, with several individuals having developed innovative solutions to emerging problems. Inspiring entrepreneurship among the youth had become an essential component of several nations that had made it part of their growth plans. The ERASMUS project's objective was to inspire and develop entrepreneurial skills among high school and university students by teaching them mindfulness-based self-leadership skills. The University of Liechtenstein undertook the project with considerable input from its partner institutions across Albania, Finland, and Croatia. The participating establishments developed, implemented, and tested the training program. The initial phase involved developing a course manual that outlined the foundation of the theoretical concepts and the methods outlined in rolling out practical exercises among the students. The manual was then applied to develop an online video course that engaged the students through a multi-sensory approach. All the partner organizations then conducted an assessment of their students to determine their entrepreneurship proficiency and the extent to which they had acquired other complementing skills. The project was innovative, as it was one of the few projects aimed at enhancing students' entrepreneurial mindset by integrating mindfulness, social skills, and self-leadership. As observed over time, entrepreneurship had resulted in advancements across various industries. Not all the advancements had been positive, with individuals and the environment having been affected on a significant scale. Cultivating entrepreneurship facilitated through mindfulness-based self-leadership among the younger generation would present a wealth of benefits to them while further influencing their communities. Integrating mindfulness and self-leadership would ensure that their businesses were sustainable for the future. This was because mindfulness altered the manner in which students attended to their surroundings while self-leadership encouraged them to face the pressing challenges of society.

Participating Institutions

Chair of Entrepreneurship and Leadership / Project Lead

Project Participants

Dr. rer. oec. Sebastian Moder MSc

- Principal Investigator

Postdoc - Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Principal Investigator

Publications

Bogdanova, O., Brusila-Meltovaara, K., Moder, S., Tenschert, J., Stojcic, N., & Vojvodic, K. (2022). Developing an entrepreneurial self-leadership and mindfulness-based course in international collaboration. Paper presented at the Cross-Cultural Business Conference, Steyr, Austria.
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Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance: Antecedents, Moderators and Mediators

since February 2017 PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Due to fast changing conditions such as accelerated product and business model lifecycles, rapid environmental changes as well as the growing world economy, prospective profit streams from existing business activities are uncertain. Furthermore, companies have to deal with competition from all over the world. As a result of the external pressure by global competition, firms have to become more entrepreneurial to maintain competitiveness. Therefore, entrepreneurial activities can result in improved performance in established companies. Due to the expected performance improvements, the interest in the study of the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has increased over the last decades. Numerous studies have demonstrated that companies with a high level of EO have a significantly better performance than firms that do not engage in entrepreneurial activities. The investigation of the interplay between different strategic orientations as well as the examination of additional and/or various antecedents, moderators, mediators and performance outcomes play an important role in order to advance the current theoretical and empirical understanding of EO and EO-performance relationships. This dissertation aims to shed light on the antecedents of EO as well as the moderators and mediators of the EO-performance relationship. The research objective of this dissertation is to provide a better understanding of the factors which illuminate organizational genesis of the EO concept as well as factors which have an impact on or intervene in EO-performance relationships.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship organisational success Moderating variables Mediating variables

Project Participants

Jennifer Berchtold MSc

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Dr. Sascha Kraus

- Supervisor

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Pasi Syrjä

- Co-Supervisor

Co-Supervisor

Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance: Antecedents, Moderators and Mediators

February 2017 (completed) Preproposal PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Keywords

Entrepreneurship organisational success Moderating variables Mediating variables

Project Participants

Prof. Dr. Dr. Sascha Kraus

- Supervisor

Supervisor

Jennifer Berchtold MSc

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Entrepreneurial Orientation and Innovation success in SMEs

June 2018 until February 2019 (completed) FFF-Funding Project

Project Description

Innovation success typically leads to company success. That is, firms that successfully create and launch innovations often grow in terms of revenues, profits, and head count. Societies benefit not only from new products and services, but also from new jobs, as created through innovating firms. Thus, innovation success potentially leads to increased societal wealth. However, the question arises: What factors help companies to become successful innovators? Research shows that antecedents such as Entrepreneurial Orientation, Customer Orientation, or networking activities between firms and their stakeholders have an important impact on innovation success. This is particularly true for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that often lack crucial resources that enable them to innovate. Therefore, in this study, we analye how strategic orientations and resource-leveraging capabilities enable innovation success.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship SME Innovation Innovation for SMEs

Participating Institutions

Forschungsförderungsfonds der Universität Liechtenstein / Sponsor

Project Participants

Dr. Matthias Filser

- Principal Investigator

Principal Investigator

Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition and Business Ideation from a Cognitive Perspective

February 2015 until July 2018 (completed) PhD-Thesis

Project Description

The recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities is impetus for any entrepreneurial action, and thus builds the basis for entrepreneurial success. In this context, entrepreneurial opportunities represent situations, where new means-ends frameworks, e.g. game-changing business models, can emerge (Eckhardt & Shane, 2003).

The research project deals with the question of how entrepreneurial opportunities are recognized and exploited by developing innovative business ideas and business models. In particular the aim is to clarify, how the "processes" of opportunity recognition and business ideation can be facilitated on an individual and organizational level.

It is postulated that the way of thinking is a pivotal aspect of opportunity recognition and business ideation. The theoretical foundation is rooted in two sub-disciplines of entrepreneurship research, "opportunity recognition" and "entrepreneurial cognition". Several cognitive explanation attempts have emerged, such as the entrepreneurial alertness schema (Gaglio & Katz, 2001) or the ability to recognize patterns (Baron, 2006).

The research project is built upon these findings and will examine which cognitive approaches are suitable to address the research problem by means of a mixed-methods research design.

Keywords

Business ideation Entrepreneurial opportunity Opportunity exploitation Business model innovation Opportunity recognition

Participating Institutions

Chair of Technology and Entrepreneurship / Doctoral instiution

Project Participants

PD Dr. habil. Christian Marxt

- Supervisor

Supervisor

Dr. rer. oec. Zorica Zagorac-Uremović MSc

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. David H. Cropley

- Co-Supervisor

Co-Supervisor

Publications

Zagorac-Uremovic, Z., Palmer, C., Marxt, C., & Kraus, S. (2018). Kognitive Prozesse der Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition: Eine Literaturanalyse. Zeitschrift für KMU und Entrepreneurship, 66(3), 185-210.
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Entrepreneurial Marketing als Erfolgsfaktor von KMU in Liechtenstein/Rheintal

October 2010 until January 2012 (completed) FFF-Funding Project

Project Description

Im Rahmen des geplanten Forschungsprojektes soll eine umfassende quantitativ-empirische Untersuchung von KMU aus Liechtenstein sowie im angrenzenden St. Galler sowie Vorarlberger
Rheintal zum Thema „Entrepreneurial Marketing“ durchgeführt werden. Den Kern stellt dabei insbesondere die Untersuchung der drei genannten Ansätze EO, CO und MO und deren möglichen Korrelationen untereinander sowie zum Erfolg der Unternehmen dar.

Dabei wird aus Gründen des höheren zu erwartenden Rücklaufs eine postalische Untersuchung mit vorfrankierten Rückumschlägen gewählt, um eine möglichst hohe Aussagekraft generieren zu können. Aus diesem Grund wird die Stichprobe auch branchenübergreifend bestimmt, wobei dies bei der späteren Auswertung kontrolliert wird. Als Interviewpartner werden gezielt die Gründer, Geschäftsführer oder obere Managementebene („key informants“) identifiziert und persönlich angeschrieben, um auch wirklich jene Personen zu befragen, die sich mit den entsprechenden Themengebieten auf strategischer Ebene beschäftigen und daher am Besten zur Beantwortung qualifiziert sind. Über dies hinaus werden ausgewählte Unternehmen im Rahmen von Workshops unter Mitwirkung des „KMU Zentrum Liechtenstein“ in diese Untersuchung miteinbezogen um schlussendlich die Umsetzbarkeit in der Praxis zu gewährleisten.

Das vorliegende Projekt fällt in den Bereich der sog. „Erfolgsfaktorenforschung“, die zwar zuweilen kontrovers diskutiert wird, dennoch aber innerhalb der Entrepreneurship- wie auch innerhalb der Strategieforschung aufgrund der erwarteten Praxisrelevanz der Ergebnisse eines der am meisten beachteten Forschungsgebiete darstellt. Dies wird sich ebenfalls positiv auf die wissenschaftliche Wahrnehmung sowie Publikationsmöglichkeiten auswirken.

Scientific, Economic and Societal Impact

Diese Forschung wird wertvolle Erkenntnisse für die Wissenschaft sowie die Wirtschaft geben – insbesondere in Bezug auf mögliche Unterschiede in den Orientierungen der Unternehmen im Rheintal welches sich über verschiedene Länder erstreckt, die es zu erarbeiten gilt. Dies unterstreicht nicht zuletzt auch die hohe Praxisrelevanz des vorliegenden Forschungsprojektes für die KMU in Liechtenstein/Rheintal.

Keywords

Marketing Entrepreneurship SME

Participating Institutions

Forschungsförderungsfonds der Universität Liechtenstein / Sponsor Competence Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business / Project Lead

Project Participants

Prof. Dr. Dr. Sascha Kraus

- Principal Investigator

Principal Investigator

Dr. Thomas Götzen

- Project Collaborator

Project Collaborator

Entrepreneurial Marketing

January 2007 (completed) Internal Project

Project Description

Marktbedürfnisse sind Grundlage für unternehmerische Aktivitäten. Diese wiederum bilden die Ausgangsbasis für die Marketing- wie auch für die Entrepreneurshipforschung, deren Schnittmenge – das Entrepreneurial Marketing – allerdings noch kaum untersucht und noch nicht ausreichend präzisiert wurde. Dies liegt u.a. daran, dass Entrepreneurship im Gegensatz zum Marketing noch eine verhältnismäßig junge Teildisziplin der betriebswirtschaftlichen Forschung darstellt. Das vorliegende Forschungsprojekt hat zum Ziel, eine konsistente Konzeption des Entrepreneurial Marketing voranzutreiben, welche die wechselseitigen Beziehungen und Überschneidungsbereiche beider Disziplinen sowie die inhaltlichen Aspekte des Entrepreneurial Marketing (z.B. Entrepreneurial Branding, Pricing etc.) abbildet.

Keywords

Marketing Entrepreneurship SME

Participating Institutions

Competence Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business / Project Lead Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien / Partner RWTH Aachen / Partner San José State University / Partner Leuphana Universtät Lüneburg / Partner University of Twente / Partner University of Illinois at Chicago / Partner Örebro University / Partner

Project Participants

Prof. Dr. Dr. Sascha Kraus

- Principal Investigator

Principal Investigator

Prof. (FH) Dr. habil. Christine Vallaster

- Project Collaborator

Project Collaborator

Entrepreneurial Behavior in Family Firms

June 2008 (completed) Internal Project

Project Description

Familienunternehmen gelten als die Ursprungsform jeglicher Geschäftsaktivität. Sie spielen eine bedeutende Rolle in den wichtigsten Volkswirtschaften weltweit und leisten einen bemerkenswerten Beitrag zu deren Wachstum und Stabilität. Damit sind sie ein unverzichtbares Fundament der Marktwirtschaft, und prägen diese seit Jahrhunderten durch ihre außergewöhnlichen Errungenschaften. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass mehr als zwei Drittel der Unternehmen weltweit von den Gründern der Unternehmen, deren Familie oder Erben geführt werden oder sich in Familienbesitz befinden. Familienunternehmen stellen 85% aller Unternehmen der OECD-Länder und machen auch in Zentraleuropa oder den USA den Großteil der Unternehmen aus.
Das vorliegende Forschungsprojekt untersucht, inwieweit Familienunternehmen - auch über verschiedene Generationen hinweg - ihr "unternehmerisches Verhalten" (entrepreneurial behaviour) inkl. der notwendigen ständigen Erneuerung und Innovationsfähigkeit aufrecht erhalten können. Dabei werden verschiedene Aspekte der Besonderheiten von Familienunternehmen im Zusammenhang mit Entrepreneurship untersucht.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship SME

Participating Institutions

Competence Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business / Project Lead Universität Innsbruck / Partner Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien / Partner University of Twente / Partner

Project Participants

Prof. Dr. Dr. Sascha Kraus

- Principal Investigator

Principal Investigator

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) - Adoption and Implementation of ECM Systems

October 2008 until May 2010 (completed) Preproposal PhD-Thesis

Project Description

The huge amount of content in today's working life brings up new challenges for Business Process Management (BPM). The right content has to be provided in adequate time, of proper quality, and at preferably low cost - by also fulfilling various legal requirements. So far, a remarkable number of software products have been developed for the administration of organisational content - commonly betokened as Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems. However, there is still a significant lack of knowledge on how to efficiently make use of these systems in a specific organisational context. A further drawback to a frictionless implementation of ECM results from the negligence of re-engineering affected business processes. Accordingly, the proposed dissertation considers that ECM and BPM represent strongly related research approaches and seeks for developing a conceptual framework for ECM adoption and business process (re-)design, reverting to established IS analysis and specification techniques. The proposed "ECM-Blueprinting" framework provides a basis for content analysis and ECM systems (ECMS) selection as well as implementation.

Keywords

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Business Process Management

Project Participants

Dr. Alexander Simons

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke

- Supervisor

Visiting Professor - Information Systems and Process Science

Supervisor

Publications

vom Brocke, J., Simons, A., Sonnenberg, C., Agostini, P., & Zardini, A. (2009). Value Assessment of Enterprise Content Management Systems: A Process-oriented Approach. In A. D'Atri & D. Saccà (Eds.), Information Systems: People, Organizations, Institutions, and Technologies (pp. 131-138). Berlin / Heidelberg: Springer.
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Enterprise Content Analytics

March 2015 until February 2018 (completed) FFF-Funding Project

Project Description

The aim of the project is to evaluate the applicability of data-analytics methods for analyzing unstructured content in enterprise contexts. As such, the project is located at the intersection of data analytics and enterprise content management. The project work focuses on text-mining methods and evaluates their applicability for describing, explaining, and predicting organizational activities using internal and external content.

Relevance to Liechtenstein

The project deals with enterprise content management and (big) data analytics, two topics of high relevance for the regional industry. The project is conducted in close cooperation with two regional companies, Hilti and Ivoclar Vivadent. The project results will be made available to other companies in workshops and presentations.