Networks vs. market methods in high-tech venture fundraising: the impact of institutional environment

This study examines how institutional environmental factors, including cultural norm, state regulatory system and venture capital market, influence the high-tech entrepreneur's choice for using network vs. market methods when approaching prospective investors at the early stage of their new venture creation. We collected comparative data through on-site interviews and questionnaire survey with 128 high-tech entrepreneurs in Singapore (a newly industrialised economy) and 250 in Beijing, China (an emerging economy). Our findings suggest that a culture emphasising the value of social obligation, the under-development of the legal/regulatory system and the immaturity of the venture capital market increased the proclivity of entrepreneurs to use network methods. Moreover, entrepreneurs who value networks higher in social obligation than in information transfer are more likely to choose personal ties instead of business ties. This study enhances our understanding of how high-tech entrepreneurs in emerging economies choose between networks and market methods in venture fundraising, and offers suggestions on how public policy makers in these economies can improve the institutional environment of their regions to promote high-tech new venture creation.     

Alacrity: a new model for venture acceleration

As research on venture accelerators develops, different models have emerged in the literature. These focus on the goals of the accelerator, which range from creating profit for managers and building support for business platforms to promoting regional economic development, as well as on its organizational form based on its for-profit or non-profit status. This article examines a novel model, the networked venture builder model, which offers an alternative perspective on the acceleration process. Using the example of the Alacrity Global Ecosystem (AGE), this article explores how the venture builder model includes characteristics of multiple accelerator types, which has helped it both rapidly grow new ventures and achieve substantial economic development goals. Synergies between the different aspects of the AGE’s organizational design help it support multiple missions. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders and entrepreneurs within the AGE, this article describes the history of the AGE and its present form, providing new insights into a novel, but increasingly common, accelerator design and laying the basis for further research on its emerging organizational form.

     

Technology transfer through international joint ventures: the case of gamma

Technology transfer through international joint ventures is considered important to enhance competitiveness, exploit opportunities and boost economic growth. A common observation is, however, that such ventures often fail. Present insights regarding transfer processes, influencing factors, and relationships between technology transfer and venture success — if any — are modest. This paper reports on a failing German–Russian joint venture established to exploit new business opportunities, where transfer of technology was perceived crucial to success. It was observed that the technology transfer as such was successful, even though the transferring firm sustained monetary loss and worsened its competitive situation.     

In Pursuit of Time: Business Plan Sequencing,Duration and Intraentrainment Effects on New Venture Viability

In this study, we examine three under‐explored dimensions of the temporal relationship between formal written business plans and the achievement of new venture viability. First, we theorize and investigate the effects of plan sequencing; arguing that a business plan written early on in new venture development increases the prospects of venture viability. Second, we examine plan duration effects, and argue that there is a curvilinear relationship between spending time on a plan and achieving venture viability. Finally, we investigate plan intraentrainment effects (synchronization with other gestation activities). We theorize that if plans are synchronized with other gestation activities, venture viability is more likely. Using longitudinal data and controlling for truncation and endogeneity issues, we find that it is beneficial to plan early but that this is contingent on how long a founder spent on a plan and whether or not a plan is intraentrained with other gestation activities.     

Startup team contributions and new firm creation: the role of founding team experience

The likelihood of nascent entrepreneurs making the transition from a new venture idea to a profitable business is argued to be contingent on the breadth of the resources available within the startup team. Team industry and startup experience are deemed to influence the entrepreneurs’ ability to profitably establish the venture in the market via the mobilization of team resources. Using a sample of nascent entrepreneurs in the USA, we show that team resource heterogeneity has a positive impact on profitable firm creation. Moreover, this positive effect is greater as the team has more experience in the industry in which the new business will compete.     

体育科学与体育科学体系新论

依据《辞海》中科学的概念,结合体育科学的性质和特点,重新定义了体育科学的概念。指出了体育学院通用教材体育概论中体育科学体系分类的不合理之处,提出了新的体育科学体系分类。     

从体育电视节目透视新时期大众休闲体育的新特点

本文通过对近期热播的体育节目《城市之间》与《智勇大冲关》的分析,探讨体育电视节目对大众体育的影响,及其所反映出的新时期内我国大众参与体育活动的新特点。     

VENTURE CAPITALIST RELATIONSHIPS IN THE DEAL STRUCTURING AND POST-INVESTMENT STAGES OF NEW FIRM CREATION

Entrepreneurs often turn to outsiders for financial assistance. Venture capitalists represent an outside source of finance that generally takes an active interest in managing the firm. Two common practices within the venture capital industry are co-investing and staged financing. Responding to the call for more process research which examines the deal structuring and post-investment stages of venture capital involvement, this research utilized a case study approach to explore salient features and themes that emerged in a relationship involving entrepreneurs and multiple co-investors in a new firm start-up. Central findings of the study included: penetrating the venture capital network is a significant first step in securing financial resources and, intriguingly, relationships supersede business plans in securing these resources; paradoxically, venture capitalists establish milestones and tight time-lines yet inadvertently contribute to many of the delays experienced by a start-up firm; the operating logic of venture capital networks, constrained by the hierarchical structures of their constituents, may be incompatible with the needs of a start-up firm; activities within the deal structuring and post-investment stages are more dynamic and iterative than current models suggest; and, staged financing, when combined with multiple venture partners, requires a clear understanding of each party's collaborative role in the enterprise.     

The determinants of business start-ups in tertiary education: evidence for Greece through a panel data approach

Up to now there is no consensus in the relevant literature on the exact factors that lead a student to entrepreneurship. In addition, evidence on differences in the entrepreneurial activity among regions and, even more, in the entrepreneurial education provided by individual universities, within the same region, call for context-specific longitudinal studies. The primary objective of this paper is to provide evidence on the determinants that influence the propensity of young students of a Greek University to establish a new business venture. The methodological approach employed is based on a questionnaire survey collecting data from 1,500 students, spanning the period 2005–2010. Data has been processed through the use of a panel cointegration and panel causality methodology. The empirical findings entail useful insights on students’ attitudes and perceptions of entrepreneurship.     

创业企业融资策略探讨

中小企业融资问题一直是理论界和企业界较为关注的话题。创业企业创立初期规模小、风险大和无盈利的特点造成了其融资困难重重。文中阐述了置身于当前中国风险投资热潮中的创业企业种子期的私募融资策略——吸引风险投资以及步入发展期和成熟期后的公开上市融资策略,并通过对比说明海外创业板市场是创业企业上市的最佳选择。     

Special Issue

The role of informal venture capital in entrepreneurial process and economic development is increasingly recognized by scholars and policy-makers around the world. Much of the attention that this form of financing has received during the last couple of decades is due to its potential to bridge the regional equity gap. This study is concerned with regional distribution of informal venture capital and factors explaining the allocation of informal investments, and it is based on a large random sample of informal venture capital investors in Sweden. The key findings are that the informal venture capital market in Sweden shows a considerable concentration in metropolitan areas and university cities. Further, investments conducted in these places are allocated in proportion to the new business formation rate and concentration of technology-based firms, while the only factor that provides some explanation for the location of informal investments in the peripheral regions is the proportion of the regional population that is considering starting their own business. Finally, there is a small but significant reallocation of informal venture capital from peripheral regions to metropolitan areas and university cities, which shows that the informal venture capital market in Sweden contributes rather to sustaining the regional equity gap than to bridging it.     

新创企业国际化：国际商务理论研究的新领域

新创企业国际化作为国际化经营中的新现象，伴随着创业型经济的兴起和经济全球化的深入发展日趋频繁和普遍，成为近年来国际商务理论研究的新兴领域和理论热点。本文在简要介绍新创企业国际化理论兴起与发展的基础上，围绕国际化动因、过程与战略选择以及国际化对新创企业成长和绩效的影响三个方面对新创企业国际化理论进行分析梳理和评述，以期为国内相关问题的研究提供一个清晰的研究脉络，并为我国企业国际化经营实践提供理论借鉴。     

探索WEB2.0孵化器公共服务平台

孵化器突破传统公共服务平台建设模式,基于WEB2.0技术和理念搭建全体孵化器网络成员参与建设,促进社会机构用户与企业用户之间服务对接,企业用户之间上下游资源对接的WEB2.0孵化器公共服务台。该平台真正将孵化器网络具体化,为新生企业营造开放、共享、全面的创业生态系统。     

The determinants of venture creation time: a cross-country perspective

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of macro-institutional and macro-non-institutional factors on the new venture creation time across emerging as well as developed economies in Europe using panel data from 2003 to 2006 in 15 emerging and developed countries. This paper finds significant relationships between the venture start-up time and institutional factors that include lending interest rates, start-up procedures, and taxation and one non-institutional factor, GDP per capita. Additionally, we found differences in the factors between emerging and developed countries. Institutional factors, such as start-up procedures and trade opportunities, are important determinants of new venture creation time in emerging countries, consistent with the findings of recent studies. To encourage business formation, policy makers may need to revise policies concerning these factors which can facilitate or restrict new venture formation. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.     

Entrepreneur political skill and new venture performance: Extending the social competence perspective

Research on the social competence perspective holds that since operating high performing new ventures is dependent on entrepreneurs’ ability to influence stakeholder actions, entrepreneur social competence is likely critically important to new venture performance. Using a sample of 163 entrepreneurs throughout the USA, we extend such research by examining the entrepreneur political skill new venture performance relationship. Our results suggest that political skill, which is the component of social competence which specifically assesses an individual's ability to influence other's actions within the business environment, is positively associated with new venture performance. Study results provide additional support for the social competence perspective.     

构建创业实践体系,提高创业实践质量

高等学校积极构建创业实践体系,是培养高水平创新创业型人才的关键。本文提出了一个中心、一个平台,个性辅导与批量创业相结合,校、院、系三级创业指导网络的模式,以指导学生创业实践活动。     

数字时代企业集团内部结算中心建设的内在逻辑和管理策略

随着数字时代的到来,大型企业集团对集中资金、融资、结算、风险控制、运作和计划等管理需求愈加强烈,大多数建立了内部结算中心(或称内部网络银行系统),利用这一结算管理利器,强化财务管控职能。论文基于业务实践对企业内部结算中心建设的必要性、内在逻辑和后续管理策略进行探讨,提出建设性思路和探索性意见。     

The Multiple Effects of Business Planning on New Venture Performance

We investigate the multiple effects of writing a business plan prior to start‐up on new venture performance. We argue that the impact of business plans depends on the purpose for and circumstances in which they are being used. We offer an empirical methodology which can account for these multiple effects while disentangling real impact effects from selection effects. We apply this to English data where we find that business plans promote employment growth. This is found to be due to the impact of the plan and not selection effects.     

‘Who Knows What?’ in New Venture Teams: Transactive Memory Systems as a Micro‐Foundation of Entrepreneurial Orientation

The increasing importance of entrepreneurial behaviour has led scholars to embrace the idea that an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is an important predictor of firm performance. While EO occupies a central position in strategic entrepreneurship research, scholars have yet to explore its origins in new ventures. Drawing on the knowledge‐based and cognitive views, we theorize that a new venture team's transactive memory system is a cognitive mechanism that spurs the development of an EO. In a field study of high‐tech new ventures in China, we examined the relationship between venture teams’ transactive memory systems (representing the distribution, integration, and utilization of the teams’ knowledge) and EO and the moderating influence of team‐, firm‐, and environment‐level factors. We found that the transactive memory system of a new venture team enhanced their EO and that this relationship was positively influenced by intra‐team trust, the structural organicity of a venture, and environmental dynamism. Our findings provide novel insights into the micro‐foundations of TMS in developing an EO in new ventures.     

Building entrepreneurial inter-firm networks in an emerging economy: the role of cognitive legitimacy

We take an organizational legitimacy perspective and use data from a large-scale nationally representative study on the state of small business in Saudi Arabia, in order to explore the antecedents to the formation of entrepreneurial ventures’ inter-firm networks in the context of an emerging economy (n?=?331). We argue that entrepreneurial ventures need to overcome a threshold of cognitive legitimacy in order to develop inter-firm ties with a diverse set of large, established firms. Results indicate that having a written business plan and a formal organizational structure are positively associated with the diversity of the new venture’s inter-firm network, while the education level of the entrepreneur does not have a significant effect. In addition, the effect of having a formal organizational structure is stronger for younger ventures. Implications are discussed.