DSpace Repository :: Browsing by Author "Lecuna, Antonio"

Browsing by Author "Lecuna, Antonio"

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Can entrepreneurial orientation improve sustainable development through leveraging internal lean practices?
(2020) Chavez, Roberto; Yu, Wantao; Sadiq Jajja, Muhammad Shakeel; Lecuna, Antonio; Fynes, Brian
This study aims to examine the mediating role of internal lean practices (ILPs) on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and triple bottom line performance (i.e. environmental, social, and operational performance). We examine Chile, which represents a vibrant economy and one of the world's most productive entrepreneurship ecosystems but with a history of socio-economic inequalities and strong profit-driven pressures to overextract natural resources. The study is based on a questionnaire related to manufacturing sent to 112 companies in Chile. The proposed relationships are analysed through structural equation modelling. The results indicate that ILPs fully mediate the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on environmental performance and social performance and partially mediates the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on operational performance. Our study extends the literature by explaining that entrepreneurial orientation builds and strengthens ILPs for creating triple bottom line competitive advantage.
Characteristics of high-growth entrepreneurs in Latin America
(01/05/2016) Lecuna, Antonio; Cohen, Boyd; Chavez, Roberto
Scholars and governments presumed that growing the rate of entrepreneurs would naturally result in economic and job growth, and entrepreneurship has widely been viewed as an important tool for developing economies. Yet recently scholars have questioned the empirical evidence regarding the actual contribution of entrepreneurship to economic development. Recent contributions to the field suggest that not all entrepreneurial activity has a positive effect on economic growth in developing regions. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provides a unique lense in assisting the predictive capability of entrepreneurial motivation. In this research, we focus on what factors influence the motivation of some entrepreneurs to seek a high-growth model as these growth oriented entrepreneurs, usually associated with opportunity-motivated firm founding, are the most likely to actually create jobs in developing countries. We utilize motivation for founding, five entrepreneurial competencies and three firm characteristics to predict growth expectations of entrepreneurial growth expectations. Leveraging responses to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from more than 100,000 entrepreneurs in 19 Latin American countries, we discovered the existence of a triple interaction effect amongst opportunity-based entrepreneurs with higher levels of education and an export orientation and their growth expectations. In discussing the results, we reflect on the public policy implications for promoting the desired types of entrepreneurship in developing regions
Corruption and bureaucracy in entrepreneurship
(School of Business and Economics, Universidad del Desarrollo, 2014-12) Lecuna, Antonio
Entrepreneurship has been associated with three categories of factors: (1) macroeconomic factors, such as unemployment and income; (2) factors related to government institutions, such as corruption and political stability; and (3) competitiveness-related factors, such as the capacity for innovation and the number of procedures required to start a business. In this study, I find that all three categories are equally significant and that a combination of these three categories generates the most significant statistical results. The findings also reveal that two specific indicators are consistently more significant than the others. I posit that better control of corruption and a lower unemployment rate are associated with increasing levels of entrepreneurial activity as measured by business registrations and entrepreneur participation rates. Furthermore, interaction tests between the control of corruption and competitiveness-related factors found that simultaneous decreases in corruption and the number of procedures required to start a business provide added value, jointly boosting entrepreneurial activity. Panel data from 55 nations for the 2004–2009 period support these findings
Corruption and Size Decentralization
(2012) Lecuna, Antonio;
Statistical tests based on newly collected cross-sectional data suggest that countries which have more first-tier subnational governments relative to their population are more corrupt. I measure the strength of association between "corruption" and the variables "population per regional government" and "average area of first-tier unit," both individually and combined as the interaction effect " size decentralization," in 100 randomly selected countries. Two theoretical arguments may explain these associations: (i) the greater the quantity of first-tier subnational units with monopolistic powers, such as legal and regulatory sanctions, the greater the incentives for bribery and extortion; and (ii) elected authorities and public servants of smaller regional governments are more vulnerable to capture by a corrupt private elite, especially when control and accountability mechanisms are weaker than national ones. This paper also provides some support for existing corruption theories, namely that wealthy countries with Protestant societies use democratic systems more effectively to control corruption.
Drivers of growth expectations in Latin American rural contexts
(2022) Mahn, Daniel; Lecuna, Antonio; Chavez, Gonzalo; Barros, Sebastian
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 objective of this research is to determine how the drivers of growth expectations differ between urban and rural setiings.
Effect of corruption and crime on growth‑oriented informal firms
(2023) Heredia, Walter; Lecuna, Antonio; Heredia, Jorge; Geldes, Cristian; Flores, Alejandro
Traditionally, informal firms have been perceived to be unproductive, lacking skills, and static by necessity, while low institutional quality has been shown to increase their prevalence. However, this research draws on institutional theory to explain the effect of corruption and crime on growth-oriented informal firms that emerge due to opportunities and make decisions voluntarily rather than out of necessity. We construct a logistic regression model using a unique representative dataset of informal firms from the 2019 Zambia Informal Sector Business Survey (ISBS). We find that growth-oriented informal firms pay bribes to remain unregistered (i.e., engage in corruption) and that crime decreases the number of these firms. Our research suggests that policymakers consider the particularities of growth-oriented informal firms when designing policies for entrepreneurs. Growth-oriented informal firms are more likely to consider formalization if they perceive the benefits of formality, and policymakers should be aware that crime could push these firms to subsistence or surveillance, thereby increasing inequality among all firms. Furthermore, researchers should explore the development process of these growth-oriented informal firms, managers in legal firms should consider collaborating with these firms, and the government should support such collaboration.
Entrepreneurship and Weak Institutions in Latin America
(2018) Lecuna, Antonio; Chávez, Roberto
This paper seeks to explain how heterogeneity in governmental institutions across countries affects entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on insights from institutional theory and based on panel data from eighteen Latin American nations for the 2002–2014 period, the findings presented here suggest that (1) decreasing the number of days required to start a business increases the ratio of high-growth entrepreneurs; (2) corruption increases the number of newly registered corporations per 1,000 working-age people; and (3) increasing the time required to start a business decreases the growth expectation of early-stage entrepreneurial activity across nations.
From Chavismo to a democratic left in Venezuela
(School of Business and Economics, Universidad del Desarrollo, 2014-12) Lecuna, Antonio
Venezuela’s political institutions have mutated from a subsidised coalition that almost privatised the oil industry to a populist nationalism that is polarising society to the brink of civil war. In this paper, I examine chavismo in Venezuela as a new and unusual revelatory phenomenon and the most extreme case of leftwing populism in Latin America. The within-case analysis addresses the extreme polarisation of the political landscape and the consolidation of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Political Party of Venezuela, or PSUV) as a united leftwing redistributive party. The conclusions suggest that the PSUV would need to evolve into an institutionalised phenomenon –beyond the nominal leader– with a clear division of power and strong internal debate, and the diverse opposition would need to unite under one political organisation with a defined ideology that is more relevant than the single bonding effect of removing Chávez
High income inequality as a structural factor in entrepreneurial activity
(School of Business and Economics, Universidad del Desarrollo, 2014-12) Lecuna, Antonio
Statistical tests on a panel of data from 54 countries over the 2004–2009 period support the proposition that high income inequality and entrepreneurial activity share a positive linear relationship. In a novel approach, the dependent variable is defined from two independent and uncorrelated perspectives: (1) the World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Snapshot, which measures new business entry density based on secondary official sources; and (2) the Total Early Stage Entrepreneurial Activity of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project, which is a survey-based measure of formal and informal entrepreneurial participation rates. The empirical strategy is based on the logic that economies with increasing concentrations of wealth tend to encourage entrepreneurial activity because entrepreneurs accumulate more income than workers. Following the disequalizing model, once this inequality appears, it is reinforced in successive generations. The intuition behind this outcome is that a certain level of initial capital is required to establish a new enterprise, which implies that the probability of becoming an entrepreneur increases if an individual has inherited wealth
Income inequality and entrepreneurship
(Taylor & Francis, 2019) Lecuna, Antonio
Many scholars argue that entrepreneurship concentrates wealth not only because rich families choose entrepreneurial occupations more often but also because entrepreneurs tend to earn and save more income than workers. However, based on panel data obtained from 54 countries during the 2006–2012 period, this empirical study found that public policies targeting formal and informal entrepreneurs are associated with decreased inequalities in the distribution of income. The data reveal no significant effect of high-aspiration entrepreneurs or newly registered firms on income distribution, suggesting that the informal information captured in the ‘total entrepreneurial activity’ measurement is a crucial factor explaining the variations observed in income inequality. Because entrepreneurial activity could be particularly successful in decreasing income inequality if targeted at the informal segments of society, the novel findings presented here open a new theoretical perspective that contradicts the commonly used conceptual framework, which tends to associate entrepreneurial activity with higher income inequality.
Internal lean practices and performance: The role of technological turbulence
(01/02/2015) Chavez, Roberto; Yu, Wantao; Jacobs, Mark; Fynes, Brian; Wiengarten, Frank; Lecuna, Antonio
Drawing upon resource dependence theory, this study investigates the linkages from supplier partnership and customer relationship to internal lean practices. Furthermore, this study investigates the linkages from internal lean practices (ILP) to operational performance and organizational performance, and assesses the contingency perspective of these relationships with respect to technological turbulence. The study is based on a questionnaire sent to 228 manufacturing companies in the Republic of Ireland, and the relationships proposed analyzed with structural equation modeling and OLS regression. The results reveal the importance of supply chain relationships, in particular through supplier partnership and customer relationship, in that they are positively associated with ILP. Further, the study finds that ILP are positively associated with both operational and organizational performance. This study also adds to the understanding of the circumstances under which ILP impact performance in that technological turbulence was found to negatively moderate the linkages between ILP and operational performance and ILP and organizational performance. While lean practices can stimulate improved operational and organizational performance, this relationship is not monotonic and is timely to consider the rate of technological change at the time of implementing lean manufacturing.
Opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs’ growth expectations in Latin America and the moderating effect of education and exports
(School of Business and Economics, Universidad del Desarrollo, 2014-08) Lecuna, Antonio
Scholars have articulated a number of arguments regarding the beneficial effects of opportunity-motivated (as opposed to necessity-driven) entrepreneurs, and this study delves somewhat deeper into this topic. First, this study uses the expectation of job creation over five years as a metric to measure the benefits of entrepreneurship and employs this metric as a dependent variable defined as growth expectation. Second, this study utilizes a sample of 111,194 entrepreneurs to estimate how growth expectation is affected by the interaction between opportunity motivation and five entrepreneurial competencies: opportunity-alertness, self-efficacy, networking, risk-willingness, and education. Third, because the most significant interaction effect resulted from the interaction between opportunity-motivation and education, this combination is further explored with respect to the additional effect of three firm characteristics: operational phase, export orientation and innovation orientation. In the context of a relatively homogenous group of 19 Latin American countries, the results suggest that opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs’ numbers of years of schooling and an export-oriented firm provides added value and jointly boosts growth expectations, as reflected in expected increases in the number of employees
Populism in Venezuela: The Nature of Chavismo
(2021) Lecuna, Antonio
The situation in Venezuela is spinning out of control. The economy is shriveling at double-digit rates, corruption is generalized, and the nightmare of hyperinflation has returned with a vengeance. What happened? The difficulties suffered during the Chavismo era were predictable consequences of the policy choices of the past six decades. These policy choices led to the populist principles underlying Chavismo, which prioritizes the struggle against individual poverty and social exclusion at the expense of institutionalization and fiscal discipline.
Understanding Imagination in Entrepreneurship
(2021) Lecuna, Antonio
Using interviews to explore the role imagination plays in the South American Nikkei phenomenon (a fusion of Japanese haute cuisine with Peruvian ingredients) and employing the alternate templates research strategy to analytically compare three entrepreneurial behaviors (adaptive bricolage, strategic planning, and transformative effectuation), this case study found that the current theoretical boundary conditions are insufficient to separate the three archetypes. Therefore, based on data, new concepts are proposed to explain entrepreneurial behaviors where they overlap (e.g., creative imagination as a bridging construct of the entrepreneurial process). A novel entrepreneurial trilemma and a behavioral model focused on the conceptual overlaps are introduced to frame the new concepts and to visually depict the relationships between them.

Browsing by Author "Lecuna, Antonio"

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