Research Outputs
Work-family interface during COVID-19: a sociolinguistic study of working mums’ identity and mental health
Background The dramatic reconfigurations of work-family roles and social boundaries resulting from the social restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic led working mums to look for online sites as spaces of emotional support and regulation where they could vent their emotions, share their concerns and griefs, and seek advice. They also became interactional spaces where mums’ relevant identities were reassessed and enacted as they aimed to balance work-family roles and improve their wellbeing. The paper explores how working mums discursively negotiated their multiple identities in an online support forum during times of global struggle, how these identity constructions reflect the domains of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and how working mums perceived these identities are related to their mental health. Methods 127 posts of Chilean working mums published in a public online support forum for working mums collected during the first half of 2020 were analysed in three phases. The first one involved a thematic analysis to identify themes and subthemes related to working mums’ identity construction in the data. The second phase involved conducting a narrative analysis of working mums’ microstorias in order to identify a master narrative crafted by these working mums, and contesting and conforming ideologies of motherhood, among others. Finally, the third phase involved a fine-grained discourse analysis of the most representative extracts illustrating working mums’ identity negotiation. Results The sociolinguistic analysis showed that working mums’ discourses displayed three themes of self-reflection, namely, diminishing self-care, reassessing their self, and enhancing self through self-care. Identity-related sub-themes for each main theme are discussed and discursively analysed. Two main points are emphasised: (1) the identity that was most salient in working mums’ discourse was their personal identity (rather than work-family roles and identities), and (2) microstorias allowed working mums to challenge the hegemonic power of dominant discourses around their identities and their work-family roles. Conclusions The study shows that a sociolinguistic approach to the exploration of working mums’ identity negotiation is useful to highlight the ways in which mums contest binary assumptions of work-family roles and the need to reconsider working mums’ life domains so that they reflect working mums’ actual identity needs and lived experiences. Future lines of research are outlined.
Drivers of growth expectations in Latin American rural contexts
Purpose Given the importance of growth-oriented entrepreneurship in the context of economic development and the need to understand how rural communities can be developed, the purpose of this research paper is to determine how the drivers of growth expectations differ between urban and rural settings. Design/methodology/approach The methodology is threefold: firstly, a descriptive analysis with non-parametric testing is conducted; then pooled regression model is used to analyse the predictors of growth expectations in both contexts, and finally, coarsened exact matching is used to identify possible self-selection bias. Findings In contrast to mainstream entrepreneurship theory, it is found that entrepreneurs’ intrinsic knowledge, skills and abilities are not significant in the rural-specific model. The only exception is entrepreneurs’ educational level, the importance of which is emphasised as a pivotal factor in increasing high-growth ventures in rural communities. Additionally, when self-selection is eliminated, rurality worsens growth intentions. Practical implications There is evidence that some growth-oriented entrepreneurs self-select into rural communities. Because the high-growth entrepreneurial dynamics in rural areas are unique, public policies should target purpose-driven entrepreneurial education. This includes encouraging “lifestyle entrepreneurship” (e.g. retirees returning to rural areas to become entrepreneurs), preventing entrepreneurial brain drain in rural areas and attracting highly educated urban entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities in rural areas. Originality/value This research attempts to contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the factors that drive high-growth entrepreneurs in rural areas by analysing rural entrepreneurs in the high-growth context of a developing economy. The focus is on Chile – a country that is rarely investigated compared to the USA or Europe – to extend the literature on high-growth ventures and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Winds of change due to global lockdowns: Refreshing digital social entrepreneurship research paradigm
Digital technologies have a significant potential for collaboration, designing, and implementing better business initiatives. COVID-19 global lockdowns have increased the emergence of the Digital Social Entrepreneurship (DSE) phenomenon, which has been key in responding to social needs using digital technologies. The DSE scholarly discussion has been limited to a few studies. Therefore, little is known about theoretical foundations that explain the intersection between digital, social, and entrepreneurship. Based on an integrative literature review and a thematic case study, this study theorizes the micro-foundations of digital-social value-creation and explores the flourishment of the DSE phenomenon during/after the global lockdowns. Our findings contribute to the literature by extending the DSE definition and identifying the fostering (micro, meso, and macro) conditions involved in the digital-social value-creation process. Several implications emerged from the DSE learning, adaptation, and co-creation strategies/practices.
Digital social entrepreneurship: the N-Helix response to stakeholders’ COVID-19 needs
This study explores the emergence of a new entrepreneurship phenomenon (digital social entrepreneurship) as a result of the collaboration among many agents (N-Helix), given the government’s limited capacity to respond to the stakeholders’ needs satisfaction related to an exogenous event (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic). Our theory development is based on three ongoing academic debates related to (a) the unrepresentativeness of the stakeholder theory in entrepreneurship research; (b) the emergence of digital social entrepreneurship (DSE) as a bridge between stakeholders’ needs, socio-economic actors, and digital-social initiatives; and (c) the role of N-Helix collaborations to facilitate the emergence of global knowledge-intensive initiatives and the rapid adoptions of open innovations. Our results support our assumptions about the positive mediation effect of DSE in the relationship between N-Helix collaborations and stakeholders’ satisfaction. Notably, results show how pandemic has intensified these relationships and how DSE in N-Helix collaborations can generate social impacts globally. Some implications for policy-makers have emerged from our results that should be considered during/post-COVID-19 pandemic.
Mapping the research about organisations in the latin american context: a bibliometric analysis
The Latin American region has attracted a great amount of interest among management and organizational scholars in recent years. The distinctive economic, social, and institutional features of the region represent a unique opportunity for theory building and testing in management and business research. This research answers the following overarching question: How the research about organizations in the Latin American context has evolved and how could it move forward? We perform an in-depth analysis consisting of a systematic review and bibliometric techniques (i.e., co-occurrence, co-citation, and co-authorship network analysis) of 1940 peer-reviewed articles published in the field during the 2004–2021 period. We examine the most influential publications, authors, journals, and research organizations. Building on our analysis and results, we describe current research hotspots and suggest avenues for future research. Our results contribute to a broad discussion relative to the relevance of context in the organizational research community, providing the first holistic analysis of it.