Living on the slopes: entrepreneurial preparedness in a context under continuous threat

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine how entrepreneurs living in communities under continuous threat prepare themselves to continue with their enterprising activities or engage in new ones after the expected crisis occurs. Most of the crisis literature on disasters and entrepreneurship focuses on aftermath responses, but the antecedents of such entrepreneurial behaviour and its connection to past and future crises remains largely unexplored. Based on a two-stage exploratory study pre and post the Calbuco Volcano eruptions in 2015 and 2016 in Chile, we introduce the notion of entrepreneurial preparedness in a context of continuous threat and elaborate on its four central attributes: anchored reflectiveness, situated experience, breaking through, and reaching out. Subsequently, our work develops a refined understanding of pre and post-disaster entrepreneurship and offers a novel base for theorizing on the relationship between entrepreneurial preparedness in contexts of continuous threat.     

Token entrepreneurs: a review of gender,capital, and context in technology entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the literature on gender and entrepreneurship in technology to explore individual and contextual factors maintaining the token status of women in this field. It examines how the intersection of gender and context influences participation rates in entrepreneurship, and suggests that the deeply embedded cultural and cognitive associations that frame both technology and entrepreneurship as masculine concepts create barriers for women when these contexts overlap. It offers a framework for research and practice that aids in the analysis of complex multi-level barriers that control access to the forms of capital necessary for initial and continued participation in technology entrepreneurship. Given calls for women to participate more fully in high-growth technology ventures, it highlights the need for research to incorporate broader analytical perspectives that simultaneously examine both the barriers faced by women in these contexts and the factors that systemically sustain them.     

Little victories local economic development in European regions

This paper analyses how different institutional frameworks condition the influence of selected social traits: the social stigma to entrepreneurial failure and the presence of entrepreneurial role models, over entrepreneurial activity levels in a rural area with strong industrial and entrepreneurial history versus those that are not necessarily characterized by such a tradition. To attain this objective we undertake a rare events logit model using a robust Spanish dataset from 2003. The main contribution of the study indicates that there is a significant difference between entrepreneurial activity levels in rural Catalonia as compared to rural areas in the rest of Spain. This difference is in large part explained by the distinct impact of the observed social traits, where the presence of entrepreneurial role models is a prominent explanatory factor favouring entrepreneurial activity in rural (Catalonia) areas with strong industrial tradition. The findings of the paper back the growing call for territorial specificity in the formulation and application of entrepreneurship support measures, distinguishing between rural and urban areas. Hence, and in accordance with the new rural paradigm, entrepreneurship promotion should take a more holistic character and become an integral part of any rural development plan. The paper's results imply that fostering business creation in rural areas is more often than not a generational process, where the search for short-term benefits can result in the mistaken impression that in rural areas entrepreneurship support policy does not work.     

Entrepreneurial action and the Euro-American social science tradition: pragmatism,realism and looking beyond ‘the entrepreneur’

Entrepreneurship studies are dominated by the disciplines of economics and psychology and work within a limiting methodological frame of reference; a ‘scientistic’ and individualistic framework that dominates the US-led mainstream of research. To achieve a more balanced scholarship, it is helpful to look at an alternative style of research and analysis which has deep and intertwined European and American roots. This looks to other social sciences such as sociology, as well as to history and the philosophy of science. Its adoption would encourage to shift the focus away from ‘entrepreneurs’ and onto the much broader phenomenon of entrepreneurial action or ‘entrepreneuring’ in its societal and institutional contexts. Such a shift would open up a greatly expanded range of research questions and enable a better balance to be achieved between attention to individual entrepreneurial actors and their organizational, societal and institutional contexts. A pragmatist and realist frame of reference, which recognizes both the importance of processes of social construction and the existence of a ‘real world’, has considerable potential to enrich and expand the scope of entrepreneurship scholarship.     

Entrepreneurial education and learning at universities: exploring multilevel contingencies

Abstract

Despite the worldwide increase in entrepreneurship education offered at universities, there is an ongoing debate whether and under which conditions this type of education contributes to students’ entrepreneurial learning. Building on human capital theory, we hypothesize that the exposure to various entrepreneurship education initiatives has an inverted U-shaped relationship with entrepreneurial learning outcomes. We also argue that this relationship is moderated by the entrepreneurial experience of the students, the teaching pedagogy applied in entrepreneurial initiatives offered at the university and the prevalence of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in the country. A multi-level analysis on a cross-country sample of 87,918 students resulting from GUESSS (‘Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey’) strongly confirms our hypotheses, and allows us to discuss implications for researchers, educators and policy makers with respect to the nature of entrepreneurial learning, the design of entrepreneurial education programs, as well as the contextual conditions that impact entrepreneurial learning outcomes.     

江苏农村电商创业环境优化研究

近年来,江苏农村电商创业方兴未艾,农村电商创业环境越来越受到人们的重视。江苏农村电商创业环境在服务环境、融资环境和人才发展环境等方面还存在着一些问题亟待解决。论文提出应采取建立相对应的配套服务体系、创新商业环境、改善基础设施条件以及培育成熟的人才发展环境等对策来优化农村电商创业环境。     

Opportunity identification for sustainable entrepreneurship: Exploring the interplay of individual and context level factors in India

Sustainable entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly established topic within the entrepreneurship literature. The phenomenon of businesses incorporating social and environmental agendas within their core activities has gathered an increasing academic interest. However, few empirical studies have explored the stage of opportunity identification in the sustainable entrepreneurship process in a more systematic manner, even more so in non-Western contexts such as India. We structure our analysis using a framework situated in the conventional entrepreneurship literature and the literature on National Business Systems (NBS). We conduct a qualitative study to explore the motivations of Indian sustainable entrepreneurs in two sectors: sustainable energy and ethical clothing. While we find that the conventional entrepreneurship based framework provides crucial insights to understand opportunity identification within sustainable entrepreneurship, we also observe a number of features unique to sustainable entrepreneurship in the Indian context—including the personal backgrounds of the participants as well as prioritization of motivational factors. Importantly, we find notable within-country variation in the contextual factors that appear to shape motivational dynamics. In the words of one participant, “there are many Indias” rather than one monolithic approach to sustainable entrepreneurship in India.     

Place in Entrepreneurial Storytelling: A Study of Cultural Entrepreneurship in a Deprived Context

We extend the cultural entrepreneurship perspective by investigating how entrepreneurs in deprived contexts gain legitimacy by leveraging proprietary and public places in their entrepreneurial storytelling. Inspired by the sociology of place, we present a longitudinal study of ten new venture journeys over four years in Kasoa, Ghana. We identify three distinct ways places are used in entrepreneurial narratives: projective significance of place, connective significance of place, and authoritative significance of place. We show how impoverished entrepreneurs construct and communicate places in diverse ways, not only as locations, but also as material and symbolic resources that provide legitimacy for their venturing activities. Drawing from our findings, we generate a model of place-based cultural entrepreneurship and elaborate place as a central resource in cultural entrepreneurship and new venture creation in deprived contexts.     

When an initiative promises more than it delivers: a multi-actor perspective of rural entrepreneurship difficulties and failure in Thailand

National governments invest in initiatives aimed at encouraging rural entrepreneurship on the assumption that it contributes to competitiveness and employment. Empirical findings about one such initiative in Thailand reveal the nature of entrepreneurship difficulties and the diverse expressions of entrepreneurship failure, not only in the sense of termination of activities and exit but also entrepreneurs’ inability to meet the objectives and aims of the initiative. Significant attitudinal inadequacies such as risk aversion, passivity and over-reliance on the public sector complement entrepreneurship resource weaknesses in explaining rural entrepreneurship difficulties and failure. Findings demonstrate inadequacies of one-size-fits-all policies seeking to encourage rural entrepreneurship by failing to address the needs and capabilities of the involved entrepreneurs. The discussion also extends current research, first, by studying rural entrepreneurship within an institutional framework in an emerging market context; second, by conceptualizing rural entrepreneurship failure and attitudinal drivers of such failure; third, by documenting and analysing the nature, sources and consequences of the distinct constructs of ‘rural entrepreneurship difficulties’ and ‘rural entrepreneurship failure’; and finally, by presenting a revised theorization of ‘failure’ in entrepreneurship research which recognizes the diverse forms that failure may assume.     

Three levels of culture and firms’ entrepreneurial orientation: A research agenda

Numerous studies examining the linkage between corporate entrepreneurship and performance resort to the entrepreneurial orientation construct to assess a firm's degree of entrepreneurship. Little conceptual and empirical research has been devoted to understanding the factors and conditions that produce Entrepreneurial Orientation. Generic explanatory variables such as environment, organization, strategy and culture have been mentioned in past research, but though a number of hypotheses have been proposed, few have been thoroughly developed and tested. In this article, we focus on one explanatory variable – culture – that we develop along multiple axes. We propose a conceptual framework that aims to provide a better understanding of how three interdependent levels of culture – national, industry and corporate – influence Entrepreneurial Orientation.     

A political ideology lens on social entrepreneurship motivations

ABSTRACT

The traditional literature regarding social entrepreneurship does not question the political dimension. On the contrary, it tends to de-politicize societal issues. A growing number of researchers underline how this perspective cannot address the complexity and the dialogical nature of social entrepreneurship. However, while there may be a case for incorporating a political perspective, there is currently no conceptual framework to systematically inform an empirical exploration of the role played by the political vision of entrepreneurs. In this paper, we use the concept of political ideology to offer a solid framework to show how politics can shape social entrepreneurs’ motivations. More precisely we identify three political profiles – anti-statist, reformist and neoliberal – which shape the motives to engage in social entrepreneurship. We take an embedded case study approach of 17 social entrepreneurs involved in a social innovation boot camp and reveal the existence of both, left and right-wing approaches in social entrepreneurship.     

Necessity entrepreneurship in Latin America: it´s not that simple

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship literature takes for granted the motivation dichotomy; however, this simplistic view have been criticised for several studies because it likely does an injustice to entrepreneurs, particularly Latin America (LA) entrepreneurs. This study seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge on entrepreneurs to better explain the process of entrepreneurs being motivated by necessity. We use the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) database for LA countries and develop an econometric model based on a set of variables, including contextual variables. First, we identify three types of entrepreneurial motivation: necessity, opportunity and transition. We then demonstrate that the motivation dichotomy does not represent LA entrepreneurship. Second, we find that necessity-driven entrepreneurship does not necessarily indicate the absence of high growth aspirations because some entrepreneurs in this category have such aspirations. Third, we observe that significant differences exist among entrepreneurs based on context, specifically among necessity-driven entrepreneurs. These findings have practical implications for research on entrepreneurship and for regional development.     

Entrepreneurship in the public sector: a framework of analysis in European local governments

In this paper we explore the potential role of entrepreneurship in public sector organizations. At first, we present a review of the entrepreneurship theme in the political science and public management research streams, comparing these ideas with the mainstream business literature on entrepreneurship. Thereafter, we illustrate empirically how Stevenson's classical framework of entrepreneurship can be applied in a European local government context to explain the recent initiatives to compete for and utilize European Union structural funds. The empirical basis of the study is comprised of ten in-depth case studies of local government organizations, five in the UK and five in Italy. Finally, we propose five distinct types of entrepreneurial agents in the public sector: professional politician; spin-off creator; business entrepreneur in politics; career-driven public officer; and politically ambitious public officer.     

The onto-politics of entrepreneurial experimentation: re-reading Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s understanding of ‘experimental systems’

ABSTRACT

In this article, we argue that there is a need to theorize the relationship between entrepreneurship and the political beyond the currently dominant neo-liberal and emancipatory narrative by turning to an onto-political conception of entrepreneurship based on the processes of entrepreneurial experimentation. In entrepreneurship studies, the relevance and the potential of experimentation for shaping new organizational realities has only been explored marginally. Through re-reading the thinking on ‘experimental systems’ by the science historian Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and connecting it to Annemarie Mol’s notion of ‘ontological politics’, we develop a conceptual framework for entrepreneurial experimentation which we document with the illustration of an art enterprise. The framework that we propose focuses on the interwoven embodied, material and processual dynamics of entrepreneurial experimentation and reframes entrepreneurial world-making as a speculative process driven by material reconfigurations and bodily connections. As a consequence, we argue that this model is able to emphasize the intricate political dimension inscribed in processes of entrepreneurial experimentation through their onto-political force of reconfiguring systems of ‘self-others-things’. Furthermore, the model highlights that this capacity of ‘world-making’ cannot be realized without articulating the tensions and resistances that entrepreneurial endeavours often need to navigate and negotiate while reconfiguring and challenging dominant socio-material orders.     

Negotiating business and family demands within a patriarchal society – the case of women entrepreneurs in the Nepalese context

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of how women negotiate their business and family demands in a developing country context. The highest cited motivation for women’s pursuit of entrepreneurship has been their need to attend to these demands. Yet, empirically we know little about the negotiating actions taken by, and the business satisfaction of women in the context of both livelihood challenges and patriarchal contexts, despite several scholarly calls for contextualized accounts of women’s entrepreneurship. We explore these issues by employing a qualitative study of 90 women engaged in primarily informal entrepreneurial activities in three Nepalese regions. Our findings highlight three main and interrelated themes – negotiating consent, family resource access and gaining status. These themes allow us to contextualize the process of negotiating business and family demands by highlighting how women legitimize their business activities, respond to family/societal expectations and mobilize support for, and find satisfaction in their business. Overall, our study contributes towards accounts of business–family interface that incorporate the everyday practices of entrepreneurial activities amongst those less privileged in terms of resource access in particular sociocultural contexts.     

Entrepreneurship and embeddedness: dynamic,processual and multi-layered perspectives

ABSTRACT

Contemporary research has demonstrated that entrepreneurship is a fundamentally contextualized phenomenon and unfolds differently in different contexts. Despite the extensive coverage of the importance of embeddedness for entrepreneurial activities, the research predominantly relies on somewhat static, single layered, and binary notions of embeddedness. We argue that there is a strong need for studies that problematize embeddedness and the relationship between entrepreneur and context. This call for papers, thus invites contributions that explore embeddedness as dynamic, processual and multi-layered, as well as elaborate on the paradoxes of embeddedness?     

The role of regions for different forms of business organizations

Abstract

The evidence for associations between area characteristics and entrepreneurship is fairly consistent in most studies. These studies, however, have disregarded the fact that the areas might be constructs that have no effect on the individual differences in entrepreneurship and, furthermore, have conflated entrepreneurship and sole proprietorship, disregarding the impact of area constructs on different forms of business organizations. Therefore, we investigate and quantify, within a multi-level framework, the importance of municipalities and regions for understanding individual differences in entrepreneurship and self employment (defined as sole proprietorship). By using register data comprising the entire Swedish population for 2000–2010, we decompose the variation for the respective form of business organization into three levels: the individual, the municipality and the region. Our results show that about 10% of the total variation in entrepreneurship can be attributed to the municipality and region level. The corresponding numbers for self employment are 3–4%. Our results indicate that regions and municipalities differ markedly in area impact for entrepreneurs compared to self employed. The results from the present study show the importance of taking into account the form of business organization in economic analysis, and they can be used when considering whether it is appropriate to focus on specific municipalities and regions for policy interventions on self-employment.     

Student clubs: experiences in entrepreneurial learning

Student-led clubs that seek to enhance entrepreneurial learning can be found in many universities. Yet, like many areas of extra-curricular activity in entrepreneurship education, their role in supporting learning has not been researched widely. The paper introduces research that addresses this gap and investigates the nature of the learning process student's encounter when they take part in clubs. The study explores the literature on entrepreneurial learning; it examines the different concepts and considers their contribution to understanding student learning experiences. From the literature, a conceptual framework is presented, highlighting the key aspects of entrepreneurial learning relevant for the field research. The methodology is introduced, including a series of qualitative studies and a survey of students. The study focuses on two types of student-led clubs ‘entrepreneurship clubs’ and ‘Enactus clubs’ and provides a comparative analysis. The findings reported show a range of student learning benefits that simulate important aspects of entrepreneurial learning, such as learning by doing, learning through mistakes and learning from entrepreneurs. More nuanced findings are also presented showing differences in learning benefits between club forms and heighten benefits for students taking leadership roles. Ultimately, the paper contributes to research in entrepreneurship by illustrating how student clubs support entrepreneurial learning.     

Shaping the organisational context for corporate entrepreneurship and performance in Iran: the interplay between social context and performance management

Abstract

Prior research highlighted the importance of an organisational context stimulating autonomous behaviour when trying to increase levels of corporate entrepreneurship. From a social exchange perspective, we argue that firms in developing countries need to complement such supportive practices with performance-oriented practices. Our findings indicate that Iranian firms with an organisational context characterised by an interaction of social context and performance management have more engagement in corporate entrepreneurship, and that corporate entrepreneurship mediated the relationship between the organisational context and firm performance. This provides a better understanding of the way firms in developing economies can shape their organisational context to promote corporate entrepreneurship in order to achieve better firm performance.     

我国大学生创业教育问题及其对策探讨

我国创业教育始于20世纪90年代末,存在着创业教育体系不完善,创业教育课程体系不灵活、创业文化氛围不浓等问题,政府、学校、社会共同合作要营造良好的大学生创业环境、完善创业课程体系和扶持政策、培养创业导师等来加强大学创业教育。