一心创业,一路坚持:青年创业者创业韧性影响因素的扎根研究

近年来,国家不断部署深入推进"大众创业、万众创新",重点支持高校毕业生等青年群体就业创业。然而,创业是一项高风险活动,我国青年创业平均成功率仅有约2%。创业韧性有助于青年创业者在创业过程中应对各种困难和挑战,从而获取创业成功。尽管如此,"青年创业者的创业韧性如何产生,受哪些因素影响,其形成机理是什么"这一问题还少有考察。本研究以我国青年创业的主力军大学生创业者为研究对象,运用扎根理论方法 ,通过对30个青年创业大学生的深度访谈,构建出"重大事件激活—动机形成—动态能力形成"的理论模型,包括重大事件等13个子范畴以及创业期望的形成等7个主范畴,并运用事件系统理论、自我差异理论、社会转型理论和场理论分析形成此模式的深层次原因。在此基础上探讨促使其增强创业韧性行为的外部干预措施,研究结论对发展创新创业教育的理论和实践都有一定的促进作用。     

The role of equity financing to support entrepreneurship in Asia—The experience of Singapore and Thailand

This paper is concerned with the role of equity financing to support entrepreneurship in Asia with a particular focus on venture capital (VC) financing policies of Singapore and Thailand. Although Singapore and Thailand adopt the government intervention approach in VC financing, the analysis has shown that Singapore is more successful due to effective use of innovation financing policies in the catch-up process to develop its economy and strong network linkages with US Silicon Valley. The case of Thailand has shown poor network linkages with redundant organizations/agencies competing on offering similar innovation financing schemes. The study offers effective innovation financing policy recommendations to support the national economic development. The research provides useful insights and lessons for other economies aimed at strengthening the entrepreneurial financing system.     

Innovation by design: SPARK and the Overcoming of Stanford University's Translational “Valley of Death” in Bio-Medicine

Stanford University's world leadership as an entrepreneurial university induced a “paradox of success,” inhibiting further development of its organizational infrastructure for entrepreneurship support. Nevertheless, some prospective academic entrepreneurs realized that there were invisible persisting gaps in the university's innovation system. We discuss the role of the entrepreneurial university and provide a case study of SPARK, an organizational innovation, created to address Stanford's translational research gap, that was then spread to other universities. The creation of a support structure to encourage students and faculty to define entrepreneurial projects as part of their education and research revealed a novel organizational change dynamic.     

Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid: A Recipe for Inclusive Growth or Social Exclusion?

Policy makers often see entrepreneurship as a panacea for inclusive growth in underdeveloped ‘Base of the Pyramid’ (BOP) regions, but it may also lead to unanticipated negative outcomes such as crime and social exclusion. Our objective is to improve the understanding of how entrepreneurship policies can lead to socially inclusive growth at the BOP. Drawing on data collected from Brazilian tourism destinations with varying entrepreneurship, innovation, and social inclusion policies, we argue that weak institutions coupled with alert entrepreneurs encourage destructive outcomes, especially if entrepreneurship policies are based solely on economic indicators. Policies addressing both economic and social perspectives may foster more productive entrepreneurial outcomes, albeit at a more constrained economic pace. The study extends the related BOP, entrepreneurship, global value chain, and sustainable tourism literatures by examining the poor as entrepreneurs, the role of local innovation, and how entrepreneurship policies generate different social impacts within poor communities.     

Creating space for play/invention – concepts of space and organizational entrepreneurship

This paper focuses on how one can relate management thinking/practices to entrepreneurial processes in the context of formal organization. In order to do this we develop a number of related ‘spatial concepts’ providing us with the possibility of describing entrepreneurship as a ‘creation and use of space for play/innovation’. Using concepts of space, the managerial and the entrepreneurial dimensions and perspectives on organizing creativity become highly visible in the case studied. This is a field study (within the ethnographic tradition) focusing on an organizational transformation of a former public authority into a competitive limited company. A distinction between managerialism and ‘entrepreneurship as event’ is proposed as conceptually fruitful as well as useful for discussing recommendations to managers for how to handle entrepreneurial processes. A minimal and contextual role for management is suggested when aspiring to support the creations of space for play/invention, for example, for entrepreneurship as forms of organizational creativity.     

Development of academic entrepreneurship in a non-mature context: the role of the university as a hub-organisation

This paper focuses on how the evolving roles of a university and its Technology Transfer Office (TTO) are stimulating academic entrepreneurship in a non-mature entrepreneurial ecosystem. A more mature entrepreneurial ecosystem was built gradually by these actors through their progressive creation of innovation intermediaries and coordination among the local players involved in the creation of start-ups. We analyse how the university became a hub organisation. We use the case of the University of Strasbourg to show that the university contributed to the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem by acting as a boundary spanner and by building and orchestrating the network of the stakeholders in the local system of innovation. This ‘hub’ university became a leading regional organisation at the political level. The TTO played a central role in supporting academic entrepreneurship at the operational level based on its evolution from a revenue maximising model to a model that takes account of social and economic regional development. The progressive adoption of a more selective model of start-up creation requires good coordination among the local actors. Over time, the TTO’s boundary spanning function increased to encompass the development of operational network building and orchestrating functions.     

The versatile role of sustainable market entrepreneurs in market transformation: An intervention framework for institutional change

This article investigates in which way sustainable entrepreneurship can generate institutional change that transforms markets towards sustainability. A transformation of models of economic organization and market structures through sustainable entrepreneurship fosters the path towards sustainability. Institutional change involves sustainable market entrepreneurs as institutional entrepreneurs that operate in an effectual manner in different market transformation phases. Sustainable market entrepreneurs while seeking entrepreneurial opportunities simultaneously shape existing market structures and market conditions in different sustainable market transformation phases thereby creating new opportunities. Accordingly, a framework that explains institutional change prompted by sustainable market entrepreneurs in market transformation phases is developed. In this framework, various interventions which encourage sustainable market entrepreneurs to co-create with the stakeholders of their choice are strategized. The provided framework enhances the understanding of the versatile role of sustainable market entrepreneurs and potentially the leverage of their actions towards institutional impact over time.     

Toward a sustainable conceptualization of dependent variables in entrepreneurship research

Entrepreneurship researchers have yet to explore the full range variance that occurs in entrepreneurial value creation because we have focused almost exclusively on financial performance as the dependent variable in our research. However, such arbitrary narrowness is not supported by research, which shows entrepreneurs to not focus exclusively on income maximization. Consistent with calls for an expanded view of the consequences of entrepreneurship, we develop a typology of entrepreneurship dependent variables that supports broadening the scope of entrepreneurship research to include economic, environmental and social value. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Assessing the impact of individual and context factors on the entrepreneurial process. A cross-country multilevel approach

This paper attempts to fill the gap on the existing entrepreneurship literature by empirically testing the influence of two groups of individual-level factors (socio-economic, demographic and perceptual characteristics) and two groups of country-level factors (both formal and informal institutional measures and macroeconomic variables) on three stages of the entrepreneurial process. We analyze the interplay between individual and context factors in nascent, young and established entrepreneurs across 49 different countries, mixing data from different sources and applying multilevel binary logistic regression models. Our results show that entrepreneurial activities are male headed, irrespectively of the entrepreneurial stage of their activities, and that highly-educated entrepreneurs are more oriented to start up new ventures. The existence of a wider network of people involved in entrepreneurship contributes to updating information on new markets and opportunities, leading to a more accurate entrepreneurial decision. The level of development of a country constitutes an important determinant of entrepreneurship but also moderates the relationship between entrepreneurship and institutional factors. In more developed countries, individual characteristics may be still determinant factors shaping the decision to become an entrepreneur, although their magnitude may depend on the stage of the entrepreneurial process. Finally, the key to entrepreneurship for both more and less developed countries seems to be their fiscal systems: a fair tax system that actively fights tax evasion and corruption seems to be essential to reducing the economic pressure associated with the creation and survival of ventures.

     

Fostering entrepreneurship: impact of specialization and diversity in education

The present research aims to enhance our understanding of how prospective entrepreneurs benefit from specialized entrepreneurship education combined with a diversified educational experience. We find intriguing evidence that depth or specialization of entrepreneurship education is not enough for wealth creation from future entrepreneurial activities. Instead, it is breadth or diversity of educational experiences that positively influences future wealth creation, in terms of both the entrepreneur’s personal income as well as personal net worth. The results of the study have important implications for entrepreneurship educators and their students, researchers, policy makers, as well as nascent entrepreneurs.     

Leveraging entrepreneurial ecosystems as human resource systems: A theory of meta-organizational human resource management

Entrepreneurs require human resources to establish and scale their ventures; however, constraints often prevent entrepreneurs from investing in formal human resource systems. How entrepreneurs overcome human resource challenges by leveraging their entrepreneurial ecosystems as informal inter-organizational talent management systems has been overlooked by scholars. We propose a model of entrepreneurial ecosystem human resource management, theorizing that ecosystem participants collectively perform the human resource management function for entrepreneurship communities. Drawing from economic rents theory, we explain how entrepreneurial ecosystems encourage a form of meta-organizational human resource management that allows ecosystem participants to coordinate talent acquisition, learning and development, performance management and rewards, and retention. Coordinated entrepreneurial ecosystems improve entrepreneurial performance by sourcing talent, onboarding selected members, enculturating ecosystem values, developing entrepreneurial skills, and retaining human resources, which in turn generates rents. We discuss how our theory catalyzes research at the HR and entrepreneurial ecosystems interface and reveals insights for practitioners.     

Characteristics of high-growth entrepreneurs in Latin America

Scholars and governments presumed that growing the rate of entrepreneurs would naturally result in economic and job growth, and entrepreneurship has widely been viewed as an important tool for developing economies. Yet recently scholars have questioned the empirical evidence regarding the actual contribution of entrepreneurship to economic development. Recent contributions to the field suggest that not all entrepreneurial activity has a positive effect on economic growth in developing regions. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provides a unique lense in assisting the predictive capability of entrepreneurial motivation. In this research, we focus on what factors influence the motivation of some entrepreneurs to seek a high-growth model as these growth oriented entrepreneurs, usually associated with opportunity-motivated firm founding, are the most likely to actually create jobs in developing countries. We utilize motivation for founding, five entrepreneurial competencies and three firm characteristics to predict growth expectations of entrepreneurial growth expectations. Leveraging responses to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from more than 100,000 entrepreneurs in 19 Latin American countries, we discovered the existence of a triple interaction effect amongst opportunity-based entrepreneurs with higher levels of education and an export orientation and their growth expectations. In discussing the results, we reflect on the public policy implications for promoting the desired types of entrepreneurship in developing regions.     

Exploring creative entrepreneurs’ happiness: cognitive style,guanxi and creativity

Traditional economic theories generally assume that entrepreneurs’ satisfaction is largely affected by financial performance of their entrepreneurial business, while recent research suggests that entrepreneurs’ happiness is more important than financial success. Drawing upon the theories of entrepreneurial cognition and social networks, we develop a model to explore the factors influencing entrepreneurs’ happiness. A total of 270 creative entrepreneurs in Taiwan’s creative industries are studied. Results show that entrepreneurs’ creating cognitive style has a positive effect on both entrepreneurs’ creativity and firm creativity, but entrepreneurs’ planning cognitive style has a negative effect. Findings indicate that entrepreneurs with strong family ties and business ties have high level of individual creativity and firm creativity, which then have a positive influence on entrepreneurs’ happiness.     

User innovation and entrepreneurship in the virtual world: A study of Second Life residents

While prior studies have investigated factors, processes and pathways traversed in user innovation and user entrepreneurship within the real world, there is scant attention for user innovation and user entrepreneurship that take place within the virtual world. We report on an exploratory study of a select group of user innovators-entrepreneurs in Second Life, using virtual participant observation and in-depth interviews. Results suggest that the paths traversed by user innovators and user entrepreneurs in the virtual life broadly resemble those in the real life as reported in the literature. Interestingly, our study also suggests that Second Life as a virtual world breeds opportunities leading to entrepreneurial acts in the ‘real’ world as well as further opportunities in the Second Life. The virtual world itself, as a technological platform, also generates a range of opportunities. We formulate testable propositions and further link our insights to existing research on the drivers and pathways of user innovation and entrepreneurship in the ‘real’ world (i.e., the role of prior knowledge and networks), Austrian economics theory of entrepreneurial discovery, and creative collective theory.     

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.     

Why are some graduate entrepreneurs more innovative than others? The effect of human capital,psychological factor and entrepreneurial rewards on entrepreneurial innovativeness

This study investigates the innovation behaviour of graduate start-ups at the individual level. It bridges the graduate enterprise literature and innovative entrepreneurship literature to put forward three arguments that ascertain why highly educated graduate entrepreneurs are not always innovative in starting new businesses. First, anchoring on the individual opportunity costs–entrepreneurial rewards nexus, it argues that graduate entrepreneurs will exploit opportunities innovatively if they expect the levels of entrepreneurial rewards that match their high human capital and high opportunity costs. Second, it is argued that entrepreneurial innovativeness is conditional on psychological factors such as students’ managerial self-efficacy and overconfidence. Third, it is also argued that the nonlinear relationship between entrepreneurial innovativeness and entrepreneurial rewards will drive graduate entrepreneurs to exploit even riskier opportunities in search for high rewards. This study operationalizes the theoretical framework with an empirical model and estimates it using a graduate entrepreneur sample from a questionnaire survey in China. Our results suggest that innovation behaviour of graduate start-ups is influenced by the quantity of human capital, psychological make-up and expectations of entrepreneurial rewards.     

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.

     

Guest editorial: Female and ethnic minority entrepreneurship

There has been an increasing level of interest in diversity in small business enterprises. This diversity has been largely focused on female and ethnic minority entrepreneurs. Although there is evidence that female entrepreneurship can have a positive impact on economic prosperity, levels of earnings remain low. The articles in this special issue further our understanding of female and minority entrepreneurs. They examine important topics such as the differences between male and female entrepreneurs in terms of confidence, growth expectations, entrepreneurial orientation and social capital, developing management skills in female entrepreneurs, their management competencies and refugee entrepreneurship.     

Explorers of the twenty-first century? A systematic literature review of the scholarship on international entrepreneurs from developed economies

Throughout history, expeditionists and explorers have discovered foreign countries and new worlds, markedly influencing the lives of succeeding generations. However, as multinational enterprises have come to drive globalisation, the existence of entrepreneurial individuals without the resources of large corporations is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although research on migrant entrepreneurs demonstrates the positive impact that foreign entrepreneurial activity can have on job creation and innovation, a clear perspective on entrepreneurs from developed economies venturing abroad is lacking. The study aggregates evidence from 33 articles to establish a unifying framework that describes the foreign entrepreneurial process originating in developed economies. The framework proposes categorising foreign entrepreneurial activity according to social and economic dimensions and introduces four archetypes of foreign entrepreneurs, helping us understand the dynamics of the institutional context and the motivations for venturing into foreign environments. Finally, the study discusses the implications for foreign entrepreneurs and considers future research avenues.

     

CHALLENGES TO THEORY DEVELOPMENT IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH*

Why do some new ventures succeed while others fail? What is the essence of entrepreneurship? Who is most likely to become a successful entrepreneur and why? How do entrepreneurs make decisions? What market, regulatory, and organizational environments foster the most successful entrepreneurial activities? Entrepreneurship research is plagued by these and other fundamental unanswered questions, for which there does not exist a cohesive explanatory, predictive, or normative theory. In this article we identify major challenges for entrepreneurship theory development, and offer insights into promising directions for future research. Our conclusion suggests that it may be too ambitious to expect a complete and robust theory due to the interdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship. However, we show that by integrating perspectives and by applying analytic, empirical and experimental tools from a range of fields, some of the fundamental questions can be answered.