How and why does an entrepreneur decide to embark in social entrepreneurship and/or in a sustainable business? While the existing literature suggests that social entrepreneurs tend to be females and/or seniors, our findings indicate that these two groups have important differences; based on the analysis of the verbatim of entrepreneurs, our findings reveal that seniors claim to enter social enterprises with a conscious willingness to help society, while female entrepreneurs are less focused on social implication.

Le rôle de l’âge dans l’intention entrepreneuriale. Quelles leçons sur les seniors ? Entrepreneurial intent and age. Which lessons for senior population?

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to focus on how entrepreneurs anticipate and change their company’s business process management after developing a radical innovation. The paper is based on a critical approach to business process modelling (BPM) that posits that – in spite of all the claims, guides and tools that companies employ to help them modelise their processes – business processes are developed and improved (or at least changed) by individuals who negotiate, anticipate and compromise to make these changes occur. Thus, BPM is more a matter of “bricolage” (Levi-Strauss) than an established and defined plan. Based on this position, the paper analyses how a business process model emerges in the early phases of a high-tech new venture when the entrepreneur lacks a valid template to form a conceptual representation of the firm’s business processes.Design/methodology/approach: – The authors adopt a perspective based on the concept of bricolage. By analysing and comparing the discourse of 40 entrepreneurs – involved in an activity based on a radical innovation and 20 involved in an activity based on a more incremental concept – the authors are able to answer the two research questions.Findings: – Entrepreneurs who develop a new activity based on any radical or incremental innovation generally base the BPM of their company and the evolution of this process on existing models. However, BPM generally differs based on the nature of the innovation. Thus, entrepreneurs who develop a new activity based on a radical innovation do not design a single BPM for their company but a portfolio of BPMs. The process by which such entrepreneurs develop such a portfolio is mainly conducted in a step-by-step and iterative approach that utilises “whatever is at hand” (Levi-Strauss, 1966).Originality/value: – First, this study extends existing methods for and approaches to considering BPM. Second, this research partly answers the call for integration among different theoretical backgrounds and approaches that consider BPM.

<!--field: Resume-->Cet article vise à contribuer à la littérature sur la mise en place des systèmes de contrôle de gestion. À cette fin, nous questionnons ce qui est discuté lors du choix d’un système de contrôle et sur quoi repose in fine la décision. Cet article est fondé sur une approche ethnométhodologique de l’Armée du Salut en France permise par notre double qualité de chercheurs mais également de conseiller auprès de la direction de l’organisation entre 2000 et 2007. Un accès illimité à des données internes nous permet ainsi de mettre en lumière les aspects méconnus et invisibles du contrôle de gestion : les discussions et interactions entourant le choix d’outils. Nous contribuons à la compréhension de l’émergence du besoin de contrôle, des étapes et du processus de choix d’outils et enfin du contrôle de gestion dans une organisation à but non lucratif. <!--field: -->

Opportunity identification is a key focal point of research in entrepreneurship (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Zahra and Wright, 2011) and gender variations in entrepreneurship still present an insufficiently tackled research area (DeTienne and Chandler, 2007; Gupta and Turban, 2012). This article sets the focus on the social networking approach to opportunity identification for entrepreneurship and examines variations across gender. A qualitative comparative study is adopted based on the in-depth interviewing of 30 Lebanese entrepreneurs operating in the services industry hence riding the wave of the call for more qualitative studies in entrepreneurship research (Dimov, 2011; Sarasvathy and Venkataraman, 2011; Smith et al., 2013). This study contributes to entrepreneurship and gender literature through revealing opportunity identification as a social gendered process that is strongly linked to the community the entrepreneur belongs to. Consequently it suggests that male and female individuals adopt different socialisation experiences and differently use their social networks for the development and validation of their business opportunities.