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How does the grand challenge of refugees influence nascent entrepreneurs in host countries? To explore this question, we build on social identity theory and analyse how the 2015 European refugee event is related to the strength of different founder social identities (i.e. Darwinian, Communitarian, and Missionary founder social identities) of nascent entrepreneurs in the countries accommodating the refugees. Using a dataset of 6,096 nascent entrepreneurs from 24 European countries, we reveal a positive relationship between the refugee event and the strength of the Communitarian founder social identity. This relationship is even stronger when the previous percentage of foreign migrants in a country is lower and is mediated by the human health and social work industry. Interestingly, we do not find significant relationships between the refugee event and the strengths of the Darwinian or Missionary founder social identity, respectively. Hence, refugees as a grand challenge are likely to have divergent influences on different types of entrepreneur- ship in society.

Mit der vorliegenden Studie, die quantitative und qualitative Daten berücksichtigt, möchten wir herausfinden, wie Expert*innen die gründungsbezogenen Rahmenbedingungen für Unternehmensgründungen durch Frauen einschätzen und inwiefern sie Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Rahmenbedingungen für Frauen im Vergleich zu Männern sehen. Anlass für die Studie ist die niedrigere Gründungsquote von Frauen. Gemäss des Global Entrepreneurship Monitors 2022 liegt die Gründungsquote von Frauen bei 7.2 %, jene der Männer bei 12.3 % (Baldegger, Gaudart & Wild, 2022). Bei innovations- und wachstumsbasierten Unternehmensgründungen sind die Unterschiede noch grösser. So sind beispielsweise nur knapp 7 % der im Swiss Start-up Radar aufgeführten Finanzierungsrunden von Unternehmen abgewickelt worden, die frauengeführt sind (Kyora & Rockinger, 2020).

In der Schweiz gründen Frauen seltener ein innovatives Unternehmen als Männer. Woran das liegt haben Forscher*innen der BFH Wirtschaft in ihrer Studie untersucht. So werden unter anderem unternehmerische Fähigkeiten auf den verschiedenen Bildungsstufen nicht ausreichend vermittelt und weibliche Rollenmodelle fehlen häufig. Auch soziale Normen und geschlechtsspezifische Vorurteile behindern die Firmengründung. Die Forscher*innen haben zudem fünf Bereiche mit hohem Verbesserungspotenzial ermittelt.

Individuals can exert strong influence on the fate of innovations. However, we know little about the most conspicuous market actors who resist innovations: innovation resistance leaders. We define innovation resistance leaders as figureheads in media and as active opponents who act against an innovation to exert influence at the societal level. To understand their role, we seek to answer the following questions: How do innovation resistance leaders engage in resistance, and who are these leaders? Our exploratory qualitative analysis of eight resistance cases reveals the following two behaviorally distinct resistance leader types. Initiators are among the first people to notice a problem after an innovation launch, and they scale up a resistance movement through the media (i.e., they organize a resistance initiation process), whereas Aggregators join an existing movement after a critical mass of negative voices has been reached (i.e., they organize a resistance aggregation process). Regarding resistance leaders’ self-identities, Initiators tend to have a missionary social identity while Aggregators tend to have a consumerist one. We contribute to innovation resistance and adoption as well as innovation diffusion literature by conceptualizing a new type of resister who, based on their self-identity, performs two distinct and newly identified resistance diffusion processes.

Conventional wisdom associates innovations and technologies with drivers of societal progress and promotes openness to change. However, many consumers respond with resistance to novelties. Previous literature describes resisters as passive laggards who are reluctant to change. Active opponents whoinitiate countermeasures are rarely the focus of research endeavours. We shed light on resistance leaders’ idiosyncrasies, motives and societal roles with multiple case study research, including eight cases, 21 interviews and more than 400 secondary data sources. Contradictory to conventional wisdom, we find that resistance leaders are not laggards – they have pro-societal motives, are innovative and can take two different roles to promote societal progress. Aggregators gather negative opinions of consumers and reflect the present consumer concerns about an innovation. Initiators are the first who recognize a potential problem and focus on uncertain wider implication of technologies. Our new theory leads to several managerial implications and provides avenues for future research.