Narrow Results

The goal of this paper is to identify the factors that precede and may cause sudden changes in the pace of growth of high-growth SMEs or gazelles. A retrospective longitudinal case study of seven high growth SMEs that had undergone a total of 14 sudden shifts in growth reveals that a number of events caused the changes of pace. Some were triggered by the entrepreneur's decisions while others resulted from events beyond his/her control. Management's motivation for growth was an important element and this motivation changed over time, being influenced by both success and problems associated with actual growth. The success of growth strategies also appears to depend on the firm's proximity to its client base and its ability to obtain the information required for sound decision-making. Lastly, the availability of tangible and intangible resources was found essential in allowing the company to seize growth opportunities and proximity to the business milieu may help accessing these resources.

The entrepreneurship literature teaches us that the aspirations and competence of SME owner-managers as well as their strategic management behaviour can influence both the development and performance of their firm. However the research issues that surround the owner-manager's business venturing mode, that is, whether he or she has created a new firm, acquired an already existing firm, or acceded to a family firm's leadership and ownership by succession and/or inheritance, have rarely been addressed in an integrated manner. Now, founders, acquirers and successors may have fundamentally different strategic profiles, that is, in terms of the strategic capabilities they aim to develop and the type of performance they seek for their firm. In aiming to identify individual correlates and organizational effects of the entrepreneur's business venturing mode, an empirical study of 357 Canadian and French SMEs was thus undertaken. The results reveal significant differences between the three groups of owner-managers, that is, between the 196 founders, 96 acquirers and 65 successors with regard to their competence and motivations and with regard to the strategic capabilities and business performance of their firm. The results also reveal the owner-manager's business venturing mode to be a significant predictor of the firm's market and HR capabilities as well as its growth, productivity and profitability.

Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) suggests empirical implications to promote students' entrepreneurial intentions. In the course of an empirical study with 208 German students, regression analyses confirm that attitude, social norm, and perceived behavioural control contribute substantially to the prediction of start-up intentions. The use of index based measurements shows that entrepreneurial intention is significantly influenced by all three constructs (R² = 0.446). As beliefs based on information and experiences are decisive in order to emerge an intention, a promoting approach should start here. Following the TPB, changes at singular points are not sufficient. A discussion of concrete beliefs provides implications for future research as well as for practical interventions.

Solopreneurs, i.e. entrepreneurs who run their businesses alone, are surprisingly common constituting some 15% of the work force in Europe and the United States. This study aims to clarify solopreneurs’ relationship to growth by analyzing the daily work of established solopreneurs from two different perspectives; how they perceive their well-being at work and how they perceive the development of their businesses. This research objective is addressed by using grounded theory methodology and thematic interviews. According to the findings of this study, solopreneurs follow a specific pattern in their activities that differentiates them from other entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur’s position as a solopreneur encourages him or her to continue alone. The feedback that solopreneurs receive from the environment directs them to focus on their personal professional skills rather than on business and growth. In addition, solopreneurs do not use networks to develop their businesses even though entrepreneurship literature highlights the importance of networks for business development. However, solopreneurs acknowledge the importance of networks for their personal well-being.

Business transfers are linked to both the beginning and the end of entrepreneurial processes. A person can become an entrepreneur by acquiring an existing business instead of starting one, and exit from entrepreneurship can occur through selling the business. Business transfers are gradually becoming more common among small businesses, largely due to entrepreneurs’ aging, and thus deserve attention from entrepreneurship scholars. In particular, the issue of why and how business transfer negotiations fail without achieving a transfer has received little research attention. The purpose of this paper is to explore this phenomenon from potential buyers’ and sellers’ perspectives. The findings are based on a sample of 156 responses. The results suggest that the problems occurring in unfinished business transfers are quite numerous and the gaps between the views of the two negotiating parties are wider than in cases where business transfer negotiations are concluded successfully, indicating that the initial negotiation positions can be crucial. This research proposes some key elements to consider when planning an exit by business transfer and highlight the importance of unfinished small business transfers as an essential element of a dynamic business transfer market; a substantial proportion of the potential buyers and sellers are satisfied with the outcome even though the transfer did not occur.

When involved in entrepreneurship activities, the competencies of entrepreneurs are made tangible as entrepreneurs interact with their environment. This study focuses on a framework for entrepreneurial competencies. The entrepreneurial competencies held by entrepreneurs are explored from the perspectives of conative, social, and cognitive competencies. The multidimensional construct of entrepreneurial competencies is extended based on these perspectives, past studies, and an empirical study that uses data concerning entrepreneurs in China. This study contributes to science by developing a three-component construct of entrepreneurial competencies that has four elements (cognitive–education, cognitive–experience, conative, and social).

Crowdfunding (CF), a new funding channel, is prompting more research on the non-financial determinants of its adoption. This paper is part of this emerging current and aims to explain using the logic of entrepreneurial action, the entrepreneur intention to adopt CF. The binomial logistic regression test on a simplified intention model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (UTAUT) reveals that the intention to adopt CF varies according to the entrepreneur’s commitment to entrepreneurial act logic and his management logic. These results reveal the validity of the pecking order theory and highlight the importance of incitation to risk-taking and entrepreneurial transparency, catalyst factors for participation in CF.

Toehold Artisans Collaborative (TAC) is a project launched by the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship Initiatives (ASCENT), a non-profit organization based in Bangalore, to build entrepreneurial capacity in a community of footwear artisans of the small southern Indian town of Athani. Prior to ASCENT's involvement, which began in 1998, the artisans of Athani were making a subsistence wage, which did not even guarantee them two square meals a day. They could not send their children to school and were thus suffering from economic stagnation.

TAC is an established Group Enterprise of 14 women Self Help Groups (SHG). Even though women's SHGs are the direct stakeholders, the men are not left out — they are treated as co-preneurs for all inputs, exposure to international fairs and production purposes. The front end of TAC is a customer-centric business enterprise that has taken the exquisite footwear brand 'ToeHold™' to challenging international mainstream markets. The backend is an artisan-centric social enterprise striving for improvement in the quality of life of about 400 artisans' families. The case documents how TAC was set up and evolved during the 1998–2006 period, the challenges it faced and continues to face, and the impact it has had on the artisan community. It is useful for examining the effective organization and running of social enterprises.

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This study explores African-American (AA) entrepreneurship through the lens of social capital. Using a foundation of social capital theory, this study attempts to validate the hypothesis that social capital is a determinant of whether AA entrepreneurs choose to function in the formal or informal economies. One hundred and sixteen African American entrepreneurs participated in the study, which utilized respondent driven sampling, a technique for studying hidden populations. Although the results for the study failed to confirm the hypothesis, they do offer some insight into the relationship between the informal and formal economies and minority entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs’ networks are important for resource acquisition during early venturing. Interestingly, resource needs rapidly change during early venture development, which may necessitate a change in entrepreneurs’ networks. This study examines how the size of an early-stage entrepreneur’s network affects the subsequent structural (e.g., size) and content (e.g., knowledge diversity) character of their network. Additionally, how the strength of an early-stage entrepreneur’s network ties affects the subsequent structural (e.g., size and tie strength) and content (e.g., knowledge diversity) character of their network is explored. Data from the PSED-I were used to analyze the relationships. Results suggest the relationship between network size at time one and network size at time two is positive. Results further suggest a negative relationship between the number of weak ties at time one and the number of strong ties at time two. In addition, a positive relationship was found between network size at time one and network knowledge diversity at time two. Overall, this study contributes by providing a replication of results from recent work examining dynamics of entrepreneurs’ networks and it extends research on the topic by testing proposals utilizing panel data and through integrating novel theoretical perspectives.

Entrepreneurial and business skills are generally considered key to microbusiness success, hence to Microfinance Institution (MFI) clients’ loan repayment as well. However, empirical evidence is largely lacking, and where present, it is inconclusive on the importance of these skills for microfinance success. The present paper uses objective MFI loan repayment data to empirically test whether loan repayment rates positively correlate with self-evaluations on entrepreneurial and business skills of loan clients. A survey was conducted among 235 loan clients of uniCredit — an MFI in Ghana. We establish that MFI clients’ self-evaluation of their entrepreneurial and business skills are not related to their loan repayment rates. However, we observe that women repay their loans better than do male microbusiness entrepreneurs, and loan repayment was also better for those entrepreneurs with more than 15 years of business experience.

Through the methodology of auto-ethnographical case study, this research includes a review of the entrepreneurial nature of the current U.S. workforce and explores the experiences and insights of a micro-entrepreneur to identify challenges faced by many freelance, gig workers, and other micro-entrepreneurs in the current economy. The study consolidates the challenges faced by the micro-entrepreneur into four key areas: formulating and executing strategy, constructing a value web, utilizing mentors and negotiating ambiguity in business. These unique challenges center on the start-up, development and operation of a small business, and are used to provide curricular and pedagogical recommendations for higher education to better serve this burgeoning sector of the workforce.

In most developing countries, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an essential segment of the economic composition and crucial players for fostering innovation, growth and prosperity. Despite wide agreement among researchers in entrepreneurship and SME management that entrepreneurial and general self-efficacy can positively impact business formation and growth, one aspect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, i.e., financial self-efficacy, has not been linked to SME performance in terms of SME profitability and growth, or satisfaction of the entrepreneur with their company. This study fills this research gap by uncovering new knowledge about the relationship between the financial self-efficacy of the entrepreneur and elements of SME performance. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire in one European country. Hypotheses were conceptually developed and checked using regression analysis. The results of this research reveal new knowledge about the relationship between financial self-efficacy and performance. The entrepreneur’s financial self-efficacy can matter for the profitability of SMEs, as well as for the growth and satisfaction of micro-SMEs and certain differently defined groups of entrepreneurs or companies.

Even if creativity is an essential part of innovative work, surprisingly, little is known about the creativity of employee-experts and entrepreneur-experts. Awareness of the motivations that enhance creativity are important for any innovative company, because entrepreneurial motivations are likely to drive innovative individuals’ creativity and performance. We take the entrepreneurial motivation dimensions of achievement, materialism, flexibility and power into examination. We argue that there are differences in the motivations of employee-experts and entrepreneur-experts in relation to their creative performance. We use survey data from 423 expert respondents to analyse the relationships between these different motivations and creative performance. Our results indicate that there are both similarities and differences between the employee-experts and entrepreneur-experts in terms of their drivers of creativity. Entrepreneur creativity is driven by the motivations of materialism, achievement and power; for entrepreneurs, flexibility is not important. Meanwhile, employee-expert creativity is driven by achievement and power motivations; for this group, neither flexibility nor materialism are not important.

Investigation of the role of angel investing in financing private businesses in the US is important. Many observers consider angel investments to be one of the key drivers behind the startup and growth of new businesses (Council on Competitiveness, 2007), despite a paucity of information to confirm whether or not this is true. Unlike venture capital investments, angel investments are made by individual investors who do not make up a known population. Therefore, much of what is reported about angel investing comes from anecdotes and surveys of convenience samples, which are prone to biases and inaccuracies. Moreover, research on this topic is plagued by definitional confusion, in which different investigators confound informal investors, friends and family who invest in startups, accredited and unaccredited angel investors, and individual and group investing; this confusion makes it difficult to compare findings across studies. This report seeks to provide an accurate understanding of the role of angel investing in the entrepreneurial finance system. It defines angel investing and reviews the current state of understanding of the phenomenon, focusing on answering four questions: (1) How large is the angel capital market? (2) How much demand is there for angel capital? (3) What are the primary characteristics of angel investments? (4) What do the companies that receive angel financing look like? It answers these questions by reviewing the literature, providing a statistical evaluation of data sources drawn from representative samples of known populations, examining new non-representative surveys of angel investors, and comparing the results of these new analyses to previous studies of non-representative samples of business angels.

Startups play an important role in creating job opportunities and promoting economic stability, growth, and development. However, it is noted that most startups collapse within the first decade of operation, and those that continue to survive will remain small. The major cause of large-scale failure is primarily the difficulty in predicting the internal and external risk factors that influence the startups’ potential success. The techno-economic feasibility study in startup financing is an effective method to safeguard against such risks preventing startup failures and the wastage of valuable investment resources. This study aims to explore the significance and the essence of the techno-economic feasibility study in stepping up the growth and advancement prospects of startups. The study findings promote useful insights into the value of techno-economic feasibility methods in startups by scholars, professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, banks, and financial institutions and provide some policy recommendations.

Using a social constructionist frame, Boyce-Tillman historically examines the dominant and subjugated ways of knowing in Western musical culture. She argues for the need to re-balance, drawing on feminism, sociology, anthropology and musicology, while also incorporating poetry. The chapter begins by interrogating the role of masculine Western Christianity and the development of new feminist spiritualities. It then turns to examine a place for entrepreneurship in a Christian university by revisiting its values through the integration of the feminine. This process is described through the entrepreneurial journey of composer/conductor, Boyce-Tillman. Her initiation and organization of Foundation Music in Winchester University is described through two case studies of musical events — presenting examples of social and spiritual change, particularly in the area of inclusion and the role of music in peace-making linked with Wisdom traditions. The virtual Zoom Choir for Peace is accessible on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LVQlNRAz28.

The dairy sector is undergoing huge changes in the present times. On the one hand, consumers are demanding wider choices of milk and milk products, and on the other, the dairy industry at the grassroot level is standing at a threshold between two generations, where the newer generation would take up dairying as a livelihood when it sees in it profit and promises of a better life. In India, dairying, as a small/medium-scale enterprise, has been instrumental in bringing socio-economic change by ensuring year-round income, self-employment options, enhancing nutrition status, and providing platform for developing leadership and managerial skills. However, in many areas, milk producers still face challenges of getting timely and quality input services.

The backbone of this highly complex industry is the milk producer. It is important to encourage young dairy entrepreneurs who could take up dairying as a profession and command a better life for self as well as facilitate growth for the society at large. The smart entrepreneurs can provide innovative and cost-effective solutions in a decentralised value chain. This can be an alternative to currently functional centralised value chain. It can be achieved by establishing a system to identify, groom, and handhold the aspirants in ventures in well-researched and localised business propositions which are cost-effective, efficient. An enterprise cannot be just perceived as an income-generation activity. It is far more-reaching than just earning money. The dairy entrepreneurship needs to thrive as an ecosystem where an individual or a group can play important roles in various units of the system and support each other in backward and forward linkages with innovations and services in breeding, feed and fodder, use of ICT in the value chain, tools and implementations, and decentralised quality-complied dairy product manufacturing. The enterprises, especially social enterprises, are vehicles of change where the social entrepreneurs can lead the society by taking the development process in their own hands and not depending merely on benefactors.