Event_
Entrepreneurship and Quality-Management Standards
Mar 12, 2026 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
AEDT
ABSTRACT
The impact of organizational innovativeness on quality-management standards (QMS) has received healthy scholarly attention; however, the relevance of organizational entrepreneurialness – a distinct organizational attribute – has received far less attention. We conjecture that QMS is somewhat incongruent with entrepreneurialness, as entrepreneurial organizations refrain from QMS certification and do not reap equivalent internal and external benefits when certifying. Compiling World Bank surveys from 2003-2023 – covering 67 countries and 115 industries – yields data on up to 15,063 facility-year level observations. Our econometric strategy involves a two-stage modelling approach estimated via two different procedures for two different operationalizations of an entrepreneurial organization. Empirical results indicate that entrepreneurial organizations less-likely adopt QMS certification; and those that do, generally obtain reduced productivity and sales benefits as compared to established organizations.
SHORT BIO
Joseph Clougherty is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an Area Editor with the Journal of International Business Studies. He was previously Senior Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), and faculty member at Tilburg University. He holds a PhD in Political Economy & Public Policy from the University of Southern California and completed dissertation research as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of British Columbia. Among other journals, he has published in Canadian Journal of Economics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, Journal of Management Studies, Organizational Research Methods, Research Policy, and Strategic Management Journal. His research interests are interdisciplinary (combining management, industrial organization, and political economy) and international in both scope and nature. He employs an applied economics approach to research questions in both business and economics, and much of his research attempts to understand the antecedents and consequences of M&A activity. Beyond his interest in M&A topics and antitrust policy, he has research that focuses on quality-management standards.