Journal of Enterprising Culture

The rationale of this study was to gain meaningful insights into SME awareness, practices and the assumed impacts associated with environmental issues. Supported by the theoretic interpretation of stakeholder theory, the study employed a mailed survey to gain data from SMEs operating nationally across Australia. The findings flag a diversity of results across industry groups and also firm size, particularly in relation to their awareness of environmental and social issues. The results also identified the areas of business activity where firms focus their efforts to be environmentally responsible, together with the types of environmental costs they incorporate into their internal information system. The results also revealed their view on the impact flowing from adopting environmental responsibility.

This paper presents a dramaturgical approach to understanding the entrepreneur-investor charismatic relationship in the context of the entrepreneur's business plan presentation to outside investors. This approach highlights how entrepreneurs can behave in the presence of investors and how impression management tools can be utilized to develop a successful business plan presentation. Business plan presentations by winners of the 2008 Moot Corp Competition are used to illustrate the charismatic relationship and the impression management techniques that can be used by entrepreneurs in their efforts to project charisma.

This paper employs a novel method for assessing the appropriateness of different types of entrepreneurial education. With the help of cognitive mapping as a research tool, it visualizes entrepreneurship as a skill-and-attitude-demanding activity and compares a generated model of required entrepreneurship capabilities derived from cognitive mapping of engaged entrepreneurs, with mapping of three Scandinavian graduate programmes in entrepreneurship; at BI Norwegian Business School, University of Oslo and Lund University. The cognitive maps are discussed and compared, focusing on elements that are under- or over-represented in the programmes when compared to our model. Based on our findings, a number of recommendations to people involved in creating and managing entrepreneurship programs are proposed: More attention to selection of students with appropriate attitudes, increased attention to certain under-represented topics (employee management, social networks, marketing and sales skills), more application of experiential and networking approaches, and increased focus on self-learning.

Business incubators are intended to support startup and entrepreneurial businesses by providing a number of services and resources to clients. The effectiveness of the business incubation industry has been debated since the industry gained popularity in the 1990s. But up to now, there exists no commonly agreed model in theory and practice to measure the effectiveness of business incubation in a standardized way. The aim of this paper is to identify and to assess critical dimension of business incubation, which are suitable to measure the effectiveness of business incubation. This research is a multi-method approach combining desk-research, interviews and a multi-case study of five incubator organizations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. From these findings, a model for measuring the effectiveness of business incubation in a standardized way is developed. This model helps incubator manager, policy maker researchers, practitioners, stakeholders and government parties for successful implementation of business incubation initiatives. In addition, it increases new knowledge for academic literature incubators and economic development.