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This article addresses three questions: (1) How has entrepreneurial outcome been measured? (2) How can these measurements be categorized? (3) What measures are most appropriate and when? It provides an inventory of the measures that have been used, and presents two frameworks through which to understand how they can be organized. The first framework organizes the various measures along the dimensions of time and performance. The second borrows the lifecycle approach to defining different outcomes as transition points between the stages in the lifecycle. Each framework is discussed in terms of its relevance to entrepreneurship researchers and policy makers.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the relationship between informality, innovation and firm survival. To do so, a study of a cluster of electrical fittings firms in Pakistan is reported. Reporting bivariate and multivariate probit models to analyze two surveys conducted between 2008 and 2017, the finding is that there is a significant relationship between informality and the extent of innovation, firm survival and firm performance. Informality has an adverse negative effect on firm-level innovation, firm survival and firm performance. Given that formal enterprises in this cluster are better performing in terms of innovation, survival and employment growth than informal businesses, the paper concludes by discussing the theoretical, policy and research implications.

This paper investigates the links between firm survival and three types of international trade activities — exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique new representative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actors in the world market for goods. The chapter contributes to the literature by providing the first evidence on the role of imports and two-way trading for firm survival in a highly developed country. The results indicate a strong positive link between firm survival on the one hand and imports and two-way trading on the other hand, while exporting alone does not play a role for exiting the market or not.

This is the first study of the link between internationalization and firm survival during the 2008–2009 crisis in Germany, a country which was hit relatively lightly compared to other countries. Moreover, it is the first study which looks at the role of importing, exporting and FDI simultaneously in the context of a global economic recession. We use a tailor-made representative data set that covers all enterprises from the manufacturing sector with at least 20 employees. Our most striking result is to demonstrate the disadvantage of exporting for the chances of survival of a firm during the crisis in Western Germany. Importing instead reveals a positive correlation with survival and firms that both export and import do not show a different exit risk relative to non-traders. A plausible explanation is that in a global recession, deteriorating markets abroad cause demand losses for exporters and improved conditions on factor markets which result in an advantage for firms sourcing from factor markets abroad. Two-way traders do not show a link with exit risk, supporting the idea that they were able to outweigh their losses from exporting with their gains from importing, in what could be called an export–import hedge. Furthermore, we cannot support the hypothesis that foreign multinationals are more volatile during times of economic crisis.