Using identity structure analysis (ISA) to investigate female entrepreneurship

The process of founding a business is for most people a period of transition entailing taking on a new role. Such a transition will often result in a change of values and beliefs. For some women, values ascribed to the entrepreneur will conflict with conventional feminine values. Previous researchers have classified women in accordance with their degree of attachment to entrepreneurial values and conventionally defined masculine-feminine values (Goffee and Scase 1985, Cromie and Hayes 1987), but to date there has been little attempt to examine the process of change in women's values and beliefs as a result of business start-up.

This paper reports on the first attempt to use Identity Structure Analysis (Weinreich 1980/1986/1988) to investigate entrepreneurship: in this case, specifically female entrepreneurship.     

Confucian Entrepreneurship: Towards a Genealogy of a Conceptual Tool

The concept of the ‘Confucian Entrepreneur’ is now used by many scholars to understand entrepreneurship in China and other East Asian countries. This paper traces the development of this concept from its roots in the writings of nineteenth-century Western authors to its use in modern management journals. We show that while this conceptual tool has been adapted over time, the claims associated with it have remained largely similar. Use of the term Confucian entrepreneur implies belief that Confucian ideas induce Chinese entrepreneurs to behave differently than their Western counterparts, a claim for which the empirical foundations are weak. We do not go so far as to say that those who research Chinese entrepreneurship should discard the concept of the Confucian entrepreneur simply because of its historical origins in colonialism. However, we do call on researchers to reflect on the historical origins of their conceptual tools. By historicising our theories of entrepreneurship, this paper should encourage greater scholarly reflexivity and thus the development of entrepreneurship and management theory with greater predictive power.     

Public policy recommendations for promoting female entrepreneurship in Europe

From 2021 onwards, female entrepreneurship is expected to grow very substantially as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The introduction of teleworking and staggered hours in many countries at national or workplace level will make possible the conciliation between labour and family life. The purpose of this paper is to identify the most influential explanatory factors in the behaviour of female entrepreneurship in Europe so as to subsequently propose efficient economic policy measures to promote it. The distinction between opportunity and necessity female entrepreneurs have been considered since both motivation and factors are different in each case. 15 econometric models using the panel data method for a sample of 20 previously selected European countries (grouped by their GDP level) during the period 2001 to 2018 have been estimated to determine which explanatory factors affect female entrepreneurship and necessity-based female entrepreneurship. The empirical analysis used demonstrates that more women enter into entrepreneurship due to necessity rather than in pursuit of opportunity for European countries both with higher levels of GDP and for countries with lower levels of GDP. In this context, the following policy measures should be implemented to promote female entrepreneurship in Europe: the optimization of government spending (training courses and mentoring, public procurement, stronger networks, support in reconciling business and family life, etc.), the government incentives for subsidizing high interest rates to support women in accessing financing, and the improvement of entrepreneurship education to increase the confidence of women in themselves in their own entrepreneurial capabilities.

     

Life-course and entry to entrepreneurship:embedded in gender and gender-egalitarianism

ABSTRACT

Prior research has suggested that low gender egalitarianism results in a gender gap in entrepreneurship participation, as it provides men and women with different opportunities and constraints. However, this research has primarily relied on an unrealistic assumption, namely that gender-related opportunities and constraints occur evenly throughout different life stages. This paper details an institutional life-course model that explains gender-related patterns in individuals’ propensity to enter entrepreneurship and contingencies related to the level of gender-egalitarianism in society and individuals’ life stages. We test our conceptual model on a unique integrated dataset from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the World Value Survey, encompassing a total of 672,781 adults in 71 countries.     

Community entrepreneurship - cases and conceptualization *

As starting and managing a small business means both social and economic risk taking so is building a robust community a social as well as an economic endeavour. Such a community is a most vital context for entrepreneurship. If located in a remote area and if the environment is hostile cooperation is stimulated between firms and other community groups. Their success is especially ascribed to qualified community entrepreneurship, i.e. personal and innovative ways of building support for local autonomous entrepreneurs. An integrative approach to local economic development is illustrated by two successful, albeit contrasting, Swedish cases.

The cases are reviewed with the help of a conceptual framework that particularly points out the importance of local and global networking in both community and autonomous entrepreneurship. In a mixed economy such networks must be carefully managed and encompass linkages on, beside the market, institutional and political arenas. The very role of the community entrepreneur is to bridge these different settings through alert leadership, if required organized as a team.     

Role stress and entrepreneurship research

Entrepreneurship as a domain of research has grown by benefiting from more established disciplines. However, a commonality in the early stages of applying established theories to entrepreneurship is the lack of grounded research frameworks. This paper reviews literature on role stress and develops a conceptual framework that illustrates how this construct can serve entrepreneurship research. Based on a review of psychological and sociological literature, the paper proposes a model of antecedents and consequences to entrepreneur role stress. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are also presented.     

Social entrepreneurship: towards conceptualisation

The marketing in strategy dialogue and the emerging marketing/entrepreneurship interface paradigm stress the need for marketers to research entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneur‐ship, the entrepreneurship leading to the establishment of new social enterprises and the continued innovation in existing ones, is much discussed but little understood and given the increasing importance of such organisations should be addressed. This paper conceptualises social entrepreneurship as a multidimensional construct involving the expression of entrepreneurially virtuous behaviour to achieve the social mission, a coherent unity of purpose and action in the face of moral complexity, the ability to recognise social value‐creating opportunities and key decision‐making characteristics of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk‐taking. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice and concludes with a consideration of theoretical issues and directions for future research. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Hong Kong's entrepreneurship: behaviours and determinants

It is widely known that Hong Kong's economic success is to a large extent attributed to its dynamic entrepreneurs. However, economic studies on Hong Kong's style of entrepreneurship are few. This paper attempts to throw light on this issue. It argues that Hong Kong is an entrepreneurial society. A unique feature of Hong Kong's style of entrepreneurship lies in its ability to conduct ordinary, rather than extraordinary, discovery. Through the use of guerrilla business strategy, imitation and regional arbitrageurship, entrepreneurial firms in Hong Kong are able to exploit narrow profit margins and to survive global competition. Moreover, the cultural, economic and political environments of Hong Kong are found to be favourable in incubating adaptive entrepreneurship. This paper concludes that, although Hong Kong's style of entrepreneurship emerges out of its unique environments, Hong Kong's experience can be useful to other developing economies. The critical issue is whether latecomer countries can successfully develop adaptive entrepreneurship compatible with their backgrounds so as to exploit international market opportunities.     

Bridging the disconnect: how network creation facilitates female Bangladeshi entrepreneurship

Networking has been suggested as a tool to address the challenges of social entrepreneurs in severely resource constrained environments. Especially in countries where women do not usually take part in economic activities, like in Bangladesh, stimulating networking and entrepreneurship among women could have a high impact. We use longitudinal data gathered over two years, to study how entrepreneurial networks are developed and used by female entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, and how a third party can stimulate network development. We followed 26 women from the start of their entrepreneurial development. Adopting a social capital perspective on network formation and development, we identified four essential strategies in building entrepreneurial networks: modifying and building on existing bonding networks, transferring linking ties, teaching how to build bridging networks, and the creation of a network of entrepreneurial peers. We found that a third party can successfully stimulate network development for the poorest in Bangladesh. We also found that the patterns of network development in this severely resource-constraint environment are remarkably different from those found in corporate studies. Our findings can contribute to developing new pathways to stimulate entrepreneurship in developing countries.     

Sustainable development of global entrepreneurship: infrastructure and perspectives

Development of the modern global entrepreneurship is one of the most perspective and promising means of overcoming the consequences of the global economic crisis, as well as prevention of future crises of economic systems, as it ensures full level of optimization of production and distribution processes. The purpose of the article is to determine perspectives of sustainable development of the global entrepreneurship. For determining the level of sustainability of development of the modern global entrepreneurship, the authors use the methods of statistical analysis of time rows (method of horizontal and trend analysis). The authors perform a complex analysis of dynamics of development of global companies and performed evaluation of their sustainability. Also, the necessity for changing the model of managing the development of modern global entrepreneurship for increasing its sustainability is substantiated. As a result, it is concluded that modern global entrepreneurship is developing in the unstable way, and practical recommendations are offered for solving this problem. A perspective model of sustainable development of the modern global entrepreneurship is developed and presented. A certain limitation of the results of the performed research is the framework character of the offered recommendations.

     

The value of entrepreneurship by gender on regional behaviour

This paper examines how the value of entrepreneurship by gender is related to regional behaviour. Researchers have traditionally defined entrepreneurial organization as separate to gender and to economic growth. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) we complete a dataset of 50 countries using variables such as total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) and opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity (OPP). The methodology used proposes an analysis of regional convergence, comparing the evolution over time of both the rate of entrepreneurial activity and the ratios of opportunity-driven and need-driven entrepreneurial activity, distinguishing by gender. On the other hand, a regression model is proposed that explains the greater presence of female entrepreneurship. The results show that entrepreneurship by gender is an important factor to define different cluster of countries according to how men and women entrepreneurs create new economic opportunities.

     

Quantifying the relationship between entrepreneurship and competitiveness development stages in Latin America

This research aims to quantify the importance of a country??s entrepreneurship level in terms of its competitiveness rates. Our hypothesis is that those countries entrepreneurship growth rates increase their competitiveness indicators and that this entrepreneurial improvement could be a key factor in reaching the next stage of development. We establish this relationship using a longitudinal database of Latin American countries that participated in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and the Global Competitiveness Reports of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from 2001 to 2006. GEM and WEF construct aggregated indexes using several variables to rate each country??s entrepreneurship activity and competitiveness development. We use a discriminant analysis to identify various countries?? competitiveness subgroups and show how each country??s entrepreneurship rates have weight in different stages of competitiveness, placing a special emphasis on Latin America. Our results suggest that Latin American countries need to gain entrepreneurial dynamics and economic (and competitiveness) development by transforming their typical self-employment or low value-added new ventures for local markets into strong, innovative networked firms competing globally. Some management and policy implications are also discussed.     

Entrepreneurship and economic development: the EMPRETEC showcase

The hypothesis that entrepreneurship is linked to economic growth finds it’s most immediate foundation in simple intuition, common sense and pure economic observation: activities to convert ideas into economic opportunities lie at the very heart of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a source of innovation and change, and as such spurs improvements in productivity and economic competitiveness. The entrepreneur has been a fundamental agent in most production, distribution and growth theories. The role of entrepreneurship as the driving force of economic growth found its most explicit foundation. Empretec was established in 1988 to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries. Empretec’s programs have been initiated in 27 countries plus additional centers in Brazil, assisting more than 80, entrepreneurs through local driven business support centers. The information collected for this paper was secondary data rather than conducting survey. Therefore, one objectives of this paper is to examine the exact nature of entrepreneurship and its role in economic theory.     

Determinants of agricultural entrepreneurship: a GEM data based study

The aim of this study is to explain the determinants of entrepreneurship in agriculture industry. What are the drivers of early stage entrepreneurial activity of agri-business entrepreneur and how it is influenced by various cognitive and social capital factors? To answers these questions various driving factors of entrepreneurial activity have been explored from the literature. To achieve the objective, the study uses APS (Adult Population Survey) 2013 data of 69 countries provided by GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor). Total number of respondents 1470, those who are alone or with others, currently trying to start a new business, including any self-employment or selling any goods or services to others in Agriculture Industry, were selected from the data set. To measure the influence of cognitive and social capital factors on early stage entrepreneurial activity logistic regression was employed. The findings show that those who see entrepreneurial opportunities, are confident in their own skills and ability, having personal relationship or social networks with existing entrepreneurs, and have invested in others business as business angels are more likely to become an entrepreneur. Additionally, fear of failure or risk perception does not prevent people to become entrepreneur. Policy implications have been discussed. This is one the first study of its kind and contributes to the existing literature by explaining agricultural entrepreneurship through an integrated approach of entrepreneurial cognition and social networking.

     

The booster function and the entrepreneurial quality: an application to the province of Seville

The objectives of this paper are two-fold. First, to elaborate a theoretical model that shows the characteristics of an entrepreneur of quality and the factors that influence them. Second, to apply the model to entrepreneurs in the province of Seville, one of the least developed areas in the European Union. The purpose is to show the importance of entrepreneurship for business success and, more importantly, in economic development. In summary, the model shows that entrepreneurs of quality possess an intrinsic motivation and, as consequence of this, they adopt some energizer behaviours, such as the capacity for innovation, ambition and co-operation with others. The model also takes into account factors that influence these characteristics, including the personal context of the entrepreneur, such as experience, education and family, and the global context, such as productive opportunities, socio-cultural factors and political-institutional factors. In the analysis of the entrepreneurs of Seville, the paper mainly focuses on the motivation and the energizer behaviours and their interdependence. The empirical findings indicate that the model is valid.     

Can digital financial inclusion promote female entrepreneurship? Evidence and mechanisms

Female entrepreneurship is important for business and economic development. However, women face greater obstacles than men in accessing financing and information, making it more difficult for them to engage in entrepreneurship. This paper examines the impact of digital financial inclusion on female entrepreneurship by using a national sample consisting of matched data from a digital financial inclusion index and a nationally representative survey. The results show that digital financial inclusion significantly promotes women’s entrepreneurial behavior. We find that digital financial inclusion can ease women’s financing constraints and provide business information to alleviate their information constraints. Furthermore, the development of digital financial inclusion improves women’s work flexibility, inspiring them to engage in entrepreneurship. In addition, digital financial inclusion has a greater effect on entrepreneurship among vulnerable women, such as those with less education or a lack of financial autonomy and those living in areas with high gender inequality, which supports the idea that digital financial inclusion can empower women.     

From admiration to abhorrence: the contentious appeal of entrepreneurship across Europe

Although entrepreneurship seems to offer a universal economic solution, there are some doubts about whether it is universally attractive. We argue that entrepreneurship is a socially constructed concept and consequently the meanings, and hence the appeal, of the enterprise will vary internationally. We argue that how entrepreneurship is understood affects how attractive it seems. Accordingly, we investigated the meanings of entrepreneurship by analysing a range of metaphors of entrepreneurship gathered from schools across Europe. We found that both the meaning and understandings of the practices vary considerably. For most, the concept of entrepreneurship as an engine of the economy is attractive, but for some, the practices of entrepreneurs were considerably less appealing. We find links between national socio-economic contexts and attractiveness. We argue that culture and context seem to influence the social constructions of entrepreneurship and hence the attractiveness of entrepreneurial options. We also find that the pedagogical national narratives of the entrepreneur stand in dynamic tension with the performative national processes of entrepreneurship.     

Refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium: Potential and practice

By promoting refugee entrepreneurship, both the integration of refugees in society can be aided and domestic entrepreneurship can be boosted. Refugee entrepreneurship has been an underdeveloped domain of scientific research though. There clearly exists a potential for refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium, but this is too seldom realized in practice. Male refugees who have been self-employed in the past and whose family is active as an entrepreneur have a higher appetite for entrepreneurship. Refugee entrepreneurs are mostly male, in their thirties and forties and active in ‘inferior’ sectors. It was also found that refugee entrepreneurs earn less than other entrepreneurs.     

Institutional entrepreneurship and permaculture: A practice theory perspective

Permaculture is a growing but little researched phenomenon emphasising care for the environment, equity, fair treatment of people and working with—and not against—nature. It thus represents a potential alternative to business as usual, capable of addressing fundamental challenges posed by human-made climate change. The paper examines a previously ignored site of entrepreneurship by taking a practice perspective, exploring connections between the practice and growth of permaculture and institutional entrepreneurship. It assesses practice-related and institutional factors affecting the start-up and operation of permaculture enterprises in the United Kingdom. The study maps and surveys UK Permaculture Association members who have started up their own business and reports on qualitative data from personal interviews with twenty of them. Data analysis employs NVivo software and involves thematic analysis pertaining to the practice, institutional biographies and institutional portfolios of permaculture entrepreneurs. The findings show the importance of permaculture activists' institutional biographies and institutional portfolios to the start-up and operation of permaculture enterprises and for shaping permaculture-related practice. The contribution of the paper lies in how it balances attention to individual agency with subfield-specific, organisational field and macrosocial factors in understanding ‘beyond profit’ entrepreneurship.     

Is entrepreneurship a virtue?

Entrepreneurship is rarely (if ever) discussed by virtue ethicists. And economists analysing entrepreneurship have rarely described it as a virtue. Entrepreneurship is indeed a virtue and the entrepreneur can be seen as the creative counterpart of Aristotle's ‘Magnificent Man’, the virtuous possessor of wealth. But entrepreneurship is also a virtue for anyone who is economically active. By reviewing analyses of entrepreneurship by economists such as Cantillon, Schumpeter, Knight, Baumol, Kirzner and Casson, particular features of entrepreneurial practice are identified from which characteristic virtues (and vices) are isolated and analysed. The characteristic features of the vicious Entrepreneur (or crooked businessman) are also described.