While research has shown that persistence is an important predictor of entrepreneurial success, evidence also indicates that entrepreneurial persistence can lead to disastrous consequences. Therefore, it is crucial to manage entrepreneurial persistence to limit an entrepreneur’s exposure to failure and improve their likelihood of success. However, our current understanding of why entrepreneurs persist is fragmented, as the determinants of persistence have yet to be integrated in a meaningful way. As a result, our current understanding of entrepreneurial persistence lacks the clarity required to manage entrepreneurial persistence effectively. I propose that psychological ownership is a key variable that facilitates the integration of the four (psychological, project, social and structural) determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. I assert that psychological ownership can provide a psychological explanation for entrepreneurial persistence by positing that entrepreneurs persist in order to address the impairment of their self-concept that results from their venture’s failure. I then establish that psychological ownership can provide a link to project determinants by noting that psychological ownership enhances the expected utility of the course of action, which increases the likelihood of entrepreneurial persistence. Following, I articulate that collective psychological ownership can provide a social explanation for entrepreneurial persistence by arguing that a team of entrepreneurs persist to address the collective impairment of their identity that stems from receiving negative feedback. Finally, I demonstrate that psychological ownership can provide a link to structural determinants by noting that psychological ownership motivates entrepreneurs to increase their commitment to their venture following negative feedback in order to prevent investors from gaining control of their ventures. In order to test my hypotheses, I modified and extended Staw’s (1976) seminal research design on escalation of commitment to fit the entrepreneurial context and conducted mediated moderation tests on data collected from 229 entrepreneurs. The results of this study show that psychological ownership is positively related to commitment when controlling for the performance of the venture. Thus, the results indicate that psychological ownership predicts entrepreneurial persistence. In addition, the results suggest that there is tentative support for the notion that psychological ownership can link the four determinants of entrepreneurial persistence and provide a holistic explanation for why entrepreneurs persist. I conclude by highlighting the importance of psychological ownership in managing entrepreneurial persistence. I note that psychological ownership can be a useful criterion for investors to identify which entrepreneurs are likely to persist and go the extra mile to advance their entrepreneurial projects. In addition, I note that an effective measure to mitigate entrepreneurial persistence, when it is time to pull the plug on an entrepreneurial project, is to reduce an entrepreneur’s psychological ownership for their ideas or ventures. / Graduate

This study investigates the relationship between leadership styles (e.g., taskoriented, relationship-oriented and participative leadership style), perceived control, psychological ownership of the job and several volunteers' work attitudes. Particular attention is given to turnover intentions, psychological withdrawal and senses of responsibility. Research participants were 162 volunteer workers from diverse occupational groups across 19 non profit organizations. Results of Persons correlations and mediated regression analyses demonstrated that (a) psychological ownership did not have relationships with turnover intentions and sense of responsibility but was significantly related to psychological withdrawal; (b) task-oriented, relationshiporiented and participative leadership style were positively related to perceived control, (c) perceived control was positively related to psychological ownership; (d) psychological ownership did not have mediating effects between perceived control and the volunteers' work attitudes; (e) perceived control only had a mediating effect between task-oriented leadership and psychological ownership. Recommendations for further research and implications for management are discussed in the final chapter.

In recent years, attention has increasingly been given to the concept of psychological ownership in the work context. Psychological ownership can be seen as the development of feelings of possessiveness towards various targets in the organisation, therefore constituting an attitude towards, for example, emotional and cognitive rudiments. Psychological ownership can be identified in terms of the three routes or categories, namely control, knowledge and investment of self. These perceptions of ownership of something, leading to feelings of psychological ownership, formed the basis of this study. The main purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth description of the experience of ownership within the workplace, especially the routes to psychological ownership, namely control; knowledge and investment of self. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted around three themes, also called the three components of psychological ownership: control; knowledge; and investment of self. The methodology applied was a phenomenological approach. The experiences and perceptions of the middle managers of control and influence over targets or objects as well as the use of targets and objects were described as they pertain to the construct of psychological ownership. In addition knowledge of targets and objects as well as the investment of ideas, energies and time into targets and objects was described in order to arrive at a rich description of the construct for the specific sample. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

There has been nothing written, as far as we researched, about the decision-making when a family manager decides upon the advice of an external consultant. With this research we tried to build an understanding on the topic with a special focus to the role of emotions in the process. Five family managers of five different family businesses in Sweden were interviewed. The interviews were semi-structured so that the factors that play a role in the decision-making could be explored. The factors that were identified were coded and afterwards further analyzed, together with the help of new gathered theory. In other words an abductive approach was used. We found that emotions in the decision-making mainly arise when the advice is given in the field of expertise of the family manager concerned. The emotions arise from a psychological ownership of the family manager over a pre- formed solution or approach to the issue the consultant is hired for. In order for the advice to be accepted, the advice has to be in the line of the preformed solution or approach. We believe these findings to be valuable to encourage more research on the topic, but also the findings can contribute to the everlasting field of research to find the optimal technique to consult to family businesses.

The technology is changing fast in current business environment, today¡¦s success maybe will be gone by tomorrow. Therefore, the organization needs to keep learning and innovating to survive. To become a willing sharing and creation organization, the firm needs to gather all the knowledge in department, group and each employee. The key success of knowledge sharning is the employee¡¦s willingness of sharning knowledge. The knowledge is created through people¡¦s interation and the knowledge sharing is built on people¡¦s relation. The purpose of this rearch is to explor the employee¡¦s knowledge sharing willingness through social network approach. In the other hand, the psychological ownership could bring positive work attitude. Therefore the moderating effect of psychological ownership to social network and knowledge sharing willingness will be discussed as well. The target groups of this study are production or technology related departments of high technology companies. The samples are engineers, deputy engineers and supervisors. The total valid samples are 7 companies, 13 departments and 159 employees. Research method includes social network analysis software Ucinet and Hierarchical Regression Analysis. The result shows psychological ownership could raise the engineers¡¦ knowledge sharing willingness and moderate the relationship between in-degree centrality of advice network and knowledge sharing willingness. The findings are as follows: 1. Network degree centrality of internal advice network does not affect knowledge sharing willingness. 2. Psychological ownership positively and significantly affected knowledge sharing willingness. 3. Psychological ownership as the moderator positively and significantly affected the network degree centrality of internal advice network and knowledge sharing willingness partially.

Employee ownership describes the situation where employees own an equity stake in an employing organisation. Psychologists have found that employee ownership positively relates to several attitudes that contribute to organisational effectiveness, including: Organisational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, Organisational Justice, and Psychological Ownership. Contrarily, economists point out that employee owned firms exhibit reduced value maximisation compared to investor owned firms, and suggest that employee influence in decision making produces suboptimal outcomes. This thesis investigated whether the psychological effects related to employee ownership are affected by the level of employee control over the organisation. Experiment 1 investigated if individuals display differing preferences for three factors related to formal and psychological ownership: equity, control, and information, and it was found that greater levels of each factor were preferred. Experiment 2 investigated which of two types of control, operational control or governance control, were preferred for different employee ownership conditions. Higher levels of control were preferred in all cases with governance control preferred overall. Experiment 3 investigated if the preference for governance or operational control changed as the at-risk component of employee remuneration changed. As at-risk remuneration increased, greater levels of control were preferred, and perceptions of organisational justice decreased. Overall it appeared that full organisational control produces the best outcomes in terms of organisational commitment, satisfaction, organisational justice, and psychological ownership, although acceptable outcomes are still possible with decreased levels of control.

How consumers pay influences how they feel about a transaction. In particular, paying by card has been argued to have an effect on the perception of cost; making it less salient and painful. We propose and show that payment method also influences how consumers feel about the acquired good. Specifically we focus on effects of the payment method on psychological ownership, i.e. the perception of an object as "mine". We propose that cash payment results in stronger psychological ownership because it influences the extent of perceived investment in an object. We provide evidence for the proposed effect from field and laboratory settings. Results of a longitudinal exit-survey and an experiment show that cash payers report higher levels of immediate psychological ownership than card payers. However, this effect seems to depend on the meanings associated with a payment method. Asian students (who associate credit card payment with investment and debt) do not exhibit this effect. Moreover the initial boost in psychological ownership seems to be comparably shortlived. Whilst those paying in cash experience no further increase in psychological ownership over time, those paying by card do. (author's abstract)

Employee ownership describes the situation where employees own an equity stake in an employing organisation. Psychologists have found that employee ownership positively relates to several attitudes that contribute to organisational effectiveness, including: Organisational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, Organisational Justice, and Psychological Ownership. Contrarily, economists point out that employee owned firms exhibit reduced value maximisation compared to investor owned firms, and suggest that employee influence in decision making produces suboptimal outcomes. This thesis investigated whether the psychological effects related to employee ownership are affected by the level of employee control over the organisation. Experiment 1 investigated if individuals display differing preferences for three factors related to formal and psychological ownership: equity, control, and information, and it was found that greater levels of each factor were preferred. Experiment 2 investigated which of two types of control, operational control or governance control, were preferred for different employee ownership conditions. Higher levels of control were preferred in all cases with governance control preferred overall. Experiment 3 investigated if the preference for governance or operational control changed as the at-risk component of employee remuneration changed. As at-risk remuneration increased, greater levels of control were preferred, and perceptions of organisational justice decreased. Overall it appeared that full organisational control produces the best outcomes in terms of organisational commitment, satisfaction, organisational justice, and psychological ownership, although acceptable outcomes are still possible with decreased levels of control.

Whether they are renting a neighbor’s used tools, using a bike sharing program to get to work rather than owning a car, or streaming a movie online through Netflix, consumers are forgoing traditional ownership of goods in favor of gaining mere access to them. This behavior reflects a change in the way consumers view possession and ownership. While it is known that consumers become attached to possessions and that possessions mean a great deal to the identities and lives of consumers, it is unclear how consumers feel about goods which they can possess and use but do not own. Specifically, it is unknown whether consumers perceive and become attached to accessed goods in the same way they do owned goods. The answer to this question has strong implications for marketing theory and practice. This study found no significant difference in the perceived value of the good or the perceived value of the possession experience between owned and accessed goods. However, psychological feelings of ownership were found to affect these measures both directly and as a mediating factor between the method of possession and the perceptions of value. This relationship was not found to behave in the same way for both hedonic and utilitarian goods. Utilitarian goods appeared to benefit slightly more than hedonic goods from feelings of ownership. This research has strong implications for theory, including the development of a new conceptual model that ties together disparate research areas, the lack of differences in ownership effects between owned and accessed goods, and the important role played by psychological ownership in shaping consumer perceptions. This research also has strong implications for managers relating to consumer perceptions of owned vs. accessed goods, the importance of generating feelings of psychological ownership within customers, and the differential effect this process has on the perception of utilitarian products.

This interpretive study explores the effect of employee share ownership (ESO) plans (SIP, EMI and SAYE) on employee attitudes and behaviours at work by taking into account the role of Psychological Ownership (PO), characterised by feelings of "mine" and "ours". The key concepts and relationships specified in positivist causal models of ESO and PO were translated into a set of interview questions and were used to explore with 37 ESO plan participants and 9 ESO plan managers whether the causal models fit with the way they explain for themselves their experiences of and reactions to employee share ownership. In doing this, the study has responded to suggestions made in the research literature to compare the attitudinal effects of different types of employee ownership, avoid the manipulation of large, readily available data sets, and to provide insights into the causal processes surrounding ESO. Overall, three main themes can be identified from employees responses, which appeared to have some influence on whether or not the share plan was felt to have an impact. First, employees interest in making money, and expectations of whether they would, played a large part in their explanations of ESO s impact. A number of employees felt the share plan helped retain them in the organisation. However, this did not appear to be because the plan was making then more committed, in the sense that they would feel more emotionally attached, or a greater sense of identification with the company. Instead, the plan was retaining employees by causing them to make an assessment of the costs associated with leaving (continuance commitment). Second, many of the ESO outcomes featured in the academic literature were already felt to be experienced by employees at work and ESO was felt to only be able to add in a small way to what was already being experienced. Finally, in some situations ESO represented something quite meaningful to employees. ESO was sometimes interpreted as being a sign that the company valued employees, wanted them to feel part of the company, or that the employees were important to the company. The offer to participate in ESO was interpreted in some cases as being an acknowledgement of hard work, and an indication of how the company wanted employees to feel. This was found to enhance ESO s capacity to impact how employees felt at work. However, with regards to most outcomes explored in this study, employees reported little or no impact from ESO. Findings suggested that the ESO plans, even when they were felt to lead to feelings of PO, provided little incentive to work harder. PO was also found to play little or no part in employees explanations of how share plans had an impact or why they did not. Employees felt they had a long wait before making a financial return and no tangible day to day benefits of ESO. This led the plans, and the potential gains that could be made, to be perceived as very long term, and easily forgotten. Finally, this study highlights a mismatch between the causal models of ESO and PO, the conventional wisdom of ESO, the views of the ESO managers, and the interpretations of the employees who were interviewed and raises the question of whether ESO achieves what it is intended (and often believed) to achieve.