Business Research Unit - BRU-IUL

Funder

Organizational Unit

Publications

Micro-firms way to succeed: How owners manage people

Publication . Rodrigues, Ana Sofia; Carvalho, Helena; Caetano, Antonio; Santos, Susana C.

This study explores the configurations of people management practices in micro-firms and their relation with entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in a four-year window. Based on the ability-, motivation- and opportunity-focused practices framework, we identify configurations of HRM practices used in micro-firms and, in conjugation with entrepreneurial orientation, how they affect employee growth and net income. We analyzed data collected from 114 micro-firm owners combined with firm objective performance measures using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. Results show a taxonomy of three configurations of HRM practices associated with different entrepreneurial orientation strategic postures in micro-firms: “Financial centric HRM practices”, “Operations centric HRM practices”, and “People centric HRM practices”. We assume that configurational methods can help uncover the complexity of the interplay between HRM practices and strategic postures on micro-firm performance. This study contributes to the literature in micro-firms by revealing effective people-related managerial practices on performance.

2022Journal article

Open access

Uncovering the affective turmoil during opportunity recognition and exploitation: A nonlinear approach

Publication . Santos, Susana Correia; Caetano, Antonio; Costa, Silvia; Lopes, Rita Rueff; Silva, Ana Junça; Neumeyer, Xaver

This study explores the affective turmoil experienced by nascent entrepreneurs during opportunity recognition and exploitation. Based on the affect circumplex model, we employed nonlinear methods to identify configurations of affect that emerge during these early stages of the entrepreneurial journey. We analyzed data from 50 nascent entrepreneurs using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) trained with twenty affect dimensions as input variables and opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation as outcomes. Results show that nascent entrepreneurs experience different affect configurations during opportunity recognition and exploitation. While four configurations of affect emerged associated with opportunity recognition and exploitation, their nature and importance to the experienced event are significantly different. Specifically, “active screening” is the most important configuration of affect during opportunity recognition, while “vigilant” is the most important during opportunity exploitation. We posit that nonlinear methods can help to uncover the affective turmoil experienced by entrepreneurs during a particular event. These findings provide new insights on how affect associates differently with cognition during the early stages of entrepreneurship.

2020Journal article

Open access

Development of the Referee Shared Mental Models Measure (RSMMM)

Publication . Sinval, J.; Pina, João Aragão E; Sinval, João; Maroco, J. P.; Santos, Catarina Marques; Uitdewilligen, Sjir; Maynard, M. Travis; Passos, A. M.

The concept of shared mental models refers to the shared understanding among team members about how they should behave in different situations. This article aimed to develop a new shared mental model measure, specifically designed for the refereeing context. A cross-sectional study was conducted with three samples: national and regional football referees (n = 133), national football referees and assistant referees and national futsal referees (n = 277), and national futsal referees (n = 60). The proposed version of the Referee Shared Mental Models Measure (RSMMM) has 13 items that are reflected on a single factor structure. The RSMMM presented good validity evidence both based on the internal structure and based on relations to other variables (presenting positive associations with team work engagement, team adaptive performance, and team effectiveness). Such promising psychometric properties point to an optimistic outlook regarding its use to measure shared mental models in futsal and football referee teams.

2020Journal article

Open access