Enterprises' perception and practice of humane entrepreneurship

Abstract

PurposeAs a new concept for humane entrepreneurship (HumEnt) evolves, many new research questions arise. At the exploratory stage, the authors found it relevant to examine and discuss the perception of the fundamental assumptions of the HumEnt concept and activities undertaken in this area by business practice.Design/methodology/approachTo thoroughly understand the studied phenomenon, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used. An exploratory survey was obtained from 126 purposefully selected enterprises in Poland; then, a single case study was analysed.FindingsThe conducted analysis showed differences between the activities of enterprises and the perception of the HumEnt concept among employees that are especially noticeable at different levels of the management hierarchy.Research limitations/implicationsThe multifaceted nature of the results obtained is limited by the inability to infer international differences, to capture trends over time and to generalise to the total population of enterprises.Practical implicationsAlthough the surveyed companies recognise the importance of the HumEnt concept, it is not tantamount to its execution. The research results may be valuable, especially for smaller enterprises, where the business practice may require support in applying the HumEnt approach.Originality/valueThe research explored both the actual state confirmed by the actions taken and the perception of the importance of individual elements of HumEnt. A knowing–doing gap has been demonstrated between these planes. Moreover, thanks to a two-stage study, practices were selected that can be successfully implemented also in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Has COVID-19 pushed digitalisation in SMEs? The role of entrepreneurial orientation

“…The phenomenon of EO has become a central focus of the entrepreneurship literature and it is the subject of more than three decades of research (Chew et al, 2021;De ˛bicka et al, 2021;Covin and Wales, 2012;Nakku et al, 2020;Wales et al, 2019;Parente et al, 2018Parente et al, , 2021. In particular, EO is considered to be a driver of the competitive advantage and firm performance of SMEs (Karami et al, 2020).…”

“…The phenomenon of EO has become a central focus of the entrepreneurship literature and it is the subject of more than three decades of research (Chew et al. , 2021; Dębicka et al. , 2021; Covin and Wales, 2012; Nakku et al.…”

Bridging theory and practice in the humane entrepreneurship domain: insights from small and medium Italian enterprises

“…To the best of the authors' knowledge only three studies – the first focused on two social enterprises (Buratti et al. , 2022), the second investigating HumEnt employees' perception in one firm (Dębicka et al. , 2022) and the third centered on one educational institution (Anggadwita et al.…”

“…To date, although HumEnt is gaining momentum among scholars (Khurana et al, 2021a, b;El Tarabishy et al, 2022), it is still in its infancy and empirical evidence in the realm of business is strongly needed. To the best of the authors' knowledge only three studiesthe first focused on two social enterprises (Buratti et al, 2022), the second investigating HumEnt employees' perception in one firm (De ˛bicka et al, 2022) and the third centered on one educational institution (Anggadwita et al, 2021) have adopted the HumEnt framework. In addition, scholars De ˛bicka et al, 2022) have highlighted the fact that future research should develop around the measurement scale for HEO.…”

“…To the best of the authors' knowledge only three studiesthe first focused on two social enterprises (Buratti et al, 2022), the second investigating HumEnt employees' perception in one firm (De ˛bicka et al, 2022) and the third centered on one educational institution (Anggadwita et al, 2021) have adopted the HumEnt framework. In addition, scholars De ˛bicka et al, 2022) have highlighted the fact that future research should develop around the measurement scale for HEO. Thus, it seems particularly valuable to investigate whether, and which, trends related to the implementation of HumEnt and HEO can be detected.…”