Journal of Enterprising Culture

In today's hypercompetitive environment, the notion of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial leadership and entrepreneurial decision-making is receiving increased attention by citizens, academics, managers, and politicians on a global basis. The high failure rate of entrepreneurship of new ventures as well as new products indicates that many barriers to success exist; however, even entrepreneurship on a small scale can have great impact. A historical review reveals that entrepreneurs emerge from various backgrounds but have similar characteristics. The time is ripe for the acceleration of entrepreneurial behavior and leadership that will facilitate new venture creation that will in turn nurture the growth of jobs and the local economy.

Utilizing a case study methodology, this study investigates ways in which fast growth small-to-medium enterprises (FGSMEs) measure firm performance. This investigation, involving 21 interviews with 18 companies, revealed that FGSMEs seem to adopt a multi-level approach involving different sources and contexts to performance measurement. Apart from the application of standard financial performance measures such as profits and growth, FGSMEs also utilize measures of customer satisfaction, attainment of industry awards, receipt of client reports, website popularity, number and quality of successful innovations adopted, objective employee performance indices, and staff retention. Founders highlight the importance of providing employees with flexible environments and career opportunities as a way to reduce churn. These organizational characteristics signal non-financial benefits and incentives of working in these firms to potential employees and customers. These findings are in accord with extant literature and the balanced scorecard perspective, advocating associations between performance measurement systems and management strategies.

Social ventures are organized as nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid organizations whose primary purpose is to address unmet social needs and create social value. Partnerships are one of the key strategies employed by social ventures to gain resources. This study focuses on evaluating the role of partnerships on nascent social ventures participating in business plan competitions. The results suggest that partnerships are more important for nonprofit and hybrid social ventures than for for-profit social ventures. Findings also suggest that partnerships are more essential for social ventures operating in developing regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America where institutional constraints are greater than in the United States or Canada. This study provides some empirical insight into how partnerships impact nascent social ventures operating with distinct legal structures and in different locations of operation.

Successful entrepreneurial activities are a function of human venture and environmental conditions, since the key to improving entrepreneurial perceptions and attitudes within society and within Higher Education (HE) institutions lies in education.

The purpose of this paper is to address issues surrounding entrepreneurial education in HE in Greece, and describes the delivery and evaluation of two programs. The programs were offered by a public university and a public technological & educational institute designed to create opportunities for learning entrepreneurial capacities, in order to develop a framework for the design and implementation of such activities.

Research results, concerning (i) the programs' concept and (ii) the degree that the programs influence the students' knowledge, skills and attitudes towards the undertaking of entrepreneurial activities, provide useful information for academicians, educators, educational managers and policy makers, concerning the design of similar programs. The methodology used brings in the description of each program's structure (in terms of its formation, development, implementation and evaluation) and the evaluation of its effectiveness, based on a pre- and post-analysis of students' perceptions from each institution. Data were collected from 904 students, with both business and scientific-technological studies background.

The analysis of data provides useful conclusions in relation to (i) the design of entrepreneurial education, (i.e. emphasis should be placed on the networking with the business world, the laboratory assistance, the mentoring process, the participants' scientific background) and (ii) the accomplishment of the two programs' objectives in "developing potential entrepreneurs", which seems to be moderately positive.

The term emerging technology complex (ETC) is associated with companies that wish to diversify into a technology related business by setting up a new venture in parallel with their existing core business. ETC strategy has been widely adopted by many traditional companies due to the advance of technology and the changing market environment, but its resulting performance varies depending largely on how it is operated, i.e. the internal factors. This study explored which of these internal factors are important in affecting the development and growth of ETCs. Four companies with ETC setup were selected for the study; two were more successful while two were less successful. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings indicate that the success of ETC is due to internal co-operation in an entrepreneurial environment and the implementation of an organic organisational form. A development model for successful ETC is recommended in the conclusion of the paper.