Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship

Applying social network theory to family business, founder centrality has been generally shown to positively affect top-management-team congruence and, as a consequence, firm performance. This study applies social network and strategic leadership theory to an examination of founder centrality in family businesses. It focuses on family businesses in Kenya, and examines the impact of the founder's influence on management team congruence in the three strategic areas of culture, vision, and goals. The discussion considers the research findings in Kenya of a negative influence of founder centrality on management team congruence and firm performance. The study concludes with a presentation of some possible reasons for this dynamic in developing countries like Kenya, where family business is prevalent, and in which the founder plays a central role.

We examine the effects of venture capitalist involvement and equity incentives for all employees on the performance of initial public offering firms. Data was collected from 402 IPO firms, representing 242 non-VC backed and 160 VC backed firms. Results indicate venture capitalists positively influence the likelihood the portfolio firm will offer equity incentives to all employees. Consistent with the agency theory argument that monitoring and incentives can behave as complements to one another, the results suggest venture capitalist backing and incentive stock options for all employees operate in concert to have a positive effect on stock price performance three years after the initial public offering.

The study investigates the prevalence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) amongst diverse South African firms (n = 315) in a multicultural environment. Through literary investigations innovation as an important predictor of competitiveness is emphasized and EO is validated as a multidimensional construct, acknowledging that in addition to individual and firm differences, forces operating within cultural contexts also influence levels of EO. Based on global competitiveness indices, the country level innovation index is interpreted in the context of a developing country. By addressing methodological concerns of sample representativeness and firm size, survey data is obtained at the firm level and analyzed using correlational analysis. The findings indicate that EO is positively associated with overall firm performance and the overall significance of the study emerges when links with South Africa's innovation levels are made.

Even though entrepreneurs are commonly depicted as risk takers, little evaluation has occurred on whether they weigh the costs of being caught and the level of punishments, and engage in off-the-books working practices. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the degree to which entrepreneurs engage in such off-the-books work. Reporting a survey conducted in Moscow during late 2005 and early 2006 of 81 entrepreneurs (defined here as individuals starting-up an enterprise in the past three years), just 3.7 percent are found to operate on a wholly legitimate basis. The remaining 96.3 percent have not registered their business, have no license to trade and conduct all of their trade on an off-the-books basis. The outcome is a call to move beyond the wholesome and virtuous ideal-type of legitimate super heroes that pervade textbook depictions of entrepreneurs and toward a fuller understanding of the lived realities of entrepreneurship.

This paper explores the phenomenon of Afro-Caribbean immigrant enterprise viability in two US counties heavily populated by Afro-Caribbean immigrants: Kings (Brooklyn), New York, and Miami-Dade, Florida. It aims to construct an understanding of enterprise viability as it is understood by local economic development agency (LEDA) directors by examining the meanings of their experiences and interactions with this particular group of immigrants. It posits that objectively studying empirical indicators of enterprise viability only from the scholar's or entrepreneur's perspective would not get at the essential structure of enterprise viability as experienced by providers of enterprise development services. Examining the meaning providers ascribe to their experiences lends to better understanding of how potentials and challenges to enterprise viability manifest on the ground. Opportunities, challenges, expectations and unmet needs are exposed. Progress can then be made to provide immigrant entrepreneurs with the quality of programs and policy that can make them viable. Findings suggest that understanding the "American system" and learning and applying basic modern business functions are essential elements in enterprise development and viability. Professionalization, formalization, and systematization effectuate migration from periphery to mainstream.

This article aims at contributing to a more profound understanding of the relationship between the developmental state and private entrepreneurial activity, in particular the internationalization of business ventures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Singapore, this article attempts to identify the role of the Singapore developmental state in orchestrating the strategies of domestic firms establishing themselves in foreign markets. From the 1960s, the Singapore government has neglected small domestic firms — its legacy of the colonial past — for diverse economic and political reasons. Initially offsetting the influence of Western culture through the establishment of foreign companies, the government changed its tune, harnessing 'Asian' values and institutional norms to facilitate ventures into China. Altering between different legacies created ambivalence and shifting coalitions with foreign economies. Striking divergence from government directives has been found in the ways in which Singaporean firms go about when venturing across borders and, in particular, when drawing on the city state's legacies to give their ventures legitimacy and meaning. This divergence raises questions about the role of the Singapore state as the paragon of institutional legacy for its domestic businesses.