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Past research has neglected how small firms manage competence acquisition. Based on transaction cost literature, this article identifies competence acquisition management strategies and their implications for performance. We explore this issue using survey data from 842 small, knowledge-intensive firms. The results outline four aspects of competence acquisition management: (1) competence absorbers, (2) social acquirers, (3) market acquirers, and (4) nonacquirers. Furthermore, we hypothesized and found that market acquirers score higher in terms of financial performance than firms following the other strategies. The market acquirer strategy proved particularly effective under conditions of high dynamism.

This study suggests that stressors can be productive for self-efficacy and that the influence of stressors on self-efficacy is nonlinear. Analyses were conducted with ordinary least squares regression on a dataset covering responses from 311 deans in Swedish secondary schools. Results support the hypothesized U-shape relationship between role conflict and self-efficacy and the inverted U-shape relationship between role ambiguity and self-efficacy. Thus, findings offer evidence for nonlinear effects of stressors on the level of incumbents' self-efficacy. This research has implications for further research focused on the association between role stressors and self-efficacy.

This study highlights how smaller firms gain advantages through exchange strategies in alliances. Based on a sample of 141 firms involved in multipartner alliances governed by cooperative exchange norms, our findings support the hypothesis that smaller firms are more likely than larger firms to comply with cooperative exchange norms. This finding is especially valid for firms in manufacturing industries and can positively influence new product development. This study is a starting point for additional research investigating how, when, and why firms can benefit from engaging in multipartner alliances, even if they are a relatively small player.

In efforts to promote better realization of business opportunities, government support of formal policy led learning networks among entrepreneurs has been a popular approach world-wide. This article uses survey data from 109 entrepreneurs who took part in formal learning networks to examine how trust in network partners influences the capacity to act upon business opportunities for entrepreneurs. Further, we examine how this influence is moderated by the entrepreneurs’ own self-efficacy. Our results support a positive relationship between developing trust in other networking entrepreneurs and the capacity to act upon business opportunities. Self-efficacy was found to moderate this relationship. For entrepreneurs with low self-efficacy, results support an inverted U-shaped relationship, with the greatest outcomes reached with an intermediate level of trust. For entrepreneurs with high self-efficacy, a positive linear relationship is supported. We discuss implications for further research on trust and realization of opportunities, and for learning network policy.

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of customer-employee rapport and employee role behavior on the development of B2B brand equity. The process of brand equity development is captured in this study through the hierarchical effects between the dimensions of brand equity. The interaction between the customer and the employee is reflected by customer-employee rapport, employee role ambiguity and role overload. The results of the structural equation modeling show the positive effect of customer-employee rapport and the negative effects of role ambiguity and role overload on the development of B2B brand equity.

The study examines whether factors related to customers' perception of employees' behavior in terms of customer perceived role ambiguity, role overload and customer–employee rapport influence the development of brand equity in the professional service context. 632 customers of one of the Big Four auditing companies participated in the study. The results of structural equation modeling show negative effects of role ambiguity and role overload on brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty, which constitute brand equity. The findings indicate a positive effect of customer–employee rapport on the enhancement of B2B brand equity. However, the negative influences of role ambiguity and role overload on customer–employee rapport transfer detrimental indirect effects on brand equity. The study contributes to an understanding of how the real interaction between service providers and customers can influence brand equity in the professional service setting.

This longitudinal, qualitative case study examines trust-building processes and learning outcomes among entrepreneurs who participated in formal networks designed to develop competence and knowledge. This study is built on rich data collected through observation and video recordings made during network meetings and get-togethers. Additional data was gleaned from personal interviews with participating entrepreneurs. All data sources reveal on how trust develops and how entrepreneurs can use networks to learn and improve their capacity to exploit business opportunities. Studying how trust is built over time among entrepreneurs who demonstrate a low level of trust when they join the network, this study provides insights into micro-processes and important components of building trust. Findings suggest three processes that build commitment, companionship, and competence trust. Moreover, acknowledging the notion of social learning, the findings suggest that when entrepreneurs build trust with one another they can experience cognitive, emotional, and social changes by participating in a network. This may bring potential consequences for their exploiting opportunities. Implications for academics and managers are discussed.

This study integrates the goal-commitment and role-stress literatures in a model to reveal functional and dysfunctional influences of goal commitment on role performance. In a sample of headmasters, we found empirical support for a role-clarifying process suggesting that high commitment reduces role ambiguity and is ultimately positive for role performance. Our model also supports the dysfunctional effect of commitment through a role-complicating process in which commitment drives role overload, which is negative for role performance. By including self-efficacy in our model, we were better able to understand the positive and negative experiences of highly committed individuals. Contributing to the existing literature on role stressors, this study's results indicate that self-efficacy mediates the influences of role stressors on role performance.

This conceptual paper extends research on the downsides of developing trust to partners in interorganizational relationships. The idea developed captures that, although interorganizational trust generates benefits, a parallel process also produces undesired rigidities. Firms' flexibility in meeting a changing environment may thus be hampered rather than enabled by the created interorganizational relationship. First, we theorize on the micro-processes of how and why such rigidities develop already at low levels of trust and accumulate in parallel to the positive trust effects as trust builds stronger over time. Second, we propose that the trust dysfunctions can be distinguished and moderated separately from trust benefits. In doing so, we identify and discuss the moderating potential of a set of handling tactics when trust develops rigidities in the relationship: competing, accommodating, avoiding, collaborating and compromising tactics. We discuss implications in relation to research on trust, inertia and interorganizational governance.

This article illustrates how opportunities for regional renewal in a peripheral region may be reduced by rigid threat responses undertaken by established firms operating within traditional regional industry. In an inductive case study of new biorefinery industry initiatives in a region where traditional pulp-and-paper and forestry industry was in decline, we used primary and secondary data to outline how a set of new industry players who created innovative ways of using existing regional infrastructures and resources sparked rigid threat responses among established firms from the struggling traditional industry. Established industry firms framed new industry initiatives as threats, and responded by (1) reducing new industry actors' possibilities for new business development, (2) engaging in entrenched resistance, (3) creating collaborative illusions and (4) undermining the fundamentals of the new industry. Consequently, this study contributes to existing literature by proposing the potential of applying the threat-rigidity thesis on a regional level. This is achieved by illustrating that conflicting behaviours between new and established regional industry actors constrain opportunities for regional renewal in a peripheral region. As such, relevant directions for future research and policy implications are outlined.