Journal of Enterprising Culture

In this paper we review selected papers on entrepreneurship dealing with Granovetter's concept of strong and weak ties in order to systematically organize the articles according to the researchers' estimate of what ties are most important.

The aim is to find out what the existing research applying the entrepreneurship network approach says about the changing importance of strong and weak ties in different phases of the entrepreneurial process. Thus we investigate how different types of strong and weak ties change in importance according to, which phases of the entrepreneurial process the entrepreneurial act takes place within. Based on these findings, we develop a conceptual framework showing that strong ties, like family, friends and close business contacts, seem to play an important role in the emergence phase. Whereas in the phase of the newly established firm, a mix of strong and weak ties, including new and former business contacts as well as family and friends, seems to play an important role. Furthermore, in the phase of the mature firm a mix of strong and weak ties seem to play the most important role, although the composition of what constitutes this mix is different from the former phase. In the last phase, the mix of strong and weak ties includes special and close business contacts and one-shot deal business contacts. Accordingly, we have identified the changing importance of the strength of ties throughout the entrepreneurial process.

This study sheds light on the so-called 'entrepreneurial event' which is of utmost importance within the entrepreneurial process. We develop a framework describing the occurrence of such an event in terms of characteristics of the business opportunity as well as in terms of characteristics of the implementation process. Furthermore, possible entrepreneurial events and influencing factors are theoretically identified. To test our assumptions, a cross-cultural survey among 110 entrepreneurs from seven distinct cultural regions was conducted. Empirical results suggest there are primarily two classes of entrepreneurial events: One part of the entrepreneurial population perceives the moment of first entrepreneurial action as their entrepreneurial event, while the other part needs market acceptance to believe in the viability of the entrepreneurial project. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the existence of four venture archetypes which are related to the circumstances of the entrepreneurial event.

Diversification strategy is an important driver of organizational conduct and performance. Despite its recognized linkage to other strategy-making elements, such as corporate entrepreneurship, research has devoted minimal attention to explicitly investigating relationships among diversification, corporate entrepreneurship and performance elements. This study contributes to a better understanding of diversification strategy driven corporate entrepreneurship and performance by testing a normative model on a sample of 449 Slovenian firms. The findings demonstrate that single business and vertical diversification make some difference in organizational growth and profitability in terms of their direct effects, but not indirectly with the mediation of corporate entrepreneurship strategy-making elements, which can be independently of diversification important for performance improvement.

Success and failure of enterprise development is dependent on both the entrepreneur and the environment in which entrepreneurial activities take place. The entrepreneur is motivated to start an enterprise if the environment is supportive and is discouraged if the environment is not supportive. Only governments are better suited to influence the financial, education and training, legal and regulatory, political and economic environments, whose effects affect enterprise development. Failure by governments to address the environmental factors leads to failure in enterprise development. The paper argues the governments to ensure conducive environments for positive enterprise development.