Refugee-entrepreneurship: a social capital perspective

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify the characteristics of refugee-entrepreneurial startups, which distinguish them from other immigrant entrepreneurial ventures. The author employed a single case analysis as a means of qualitative research into the phenomenon under study, from the perspective of social capital theory. A typical case of a refugee entrepreneur was selected based on his propensity to tell his story in a way that transparently reveals the various peculiarities of his entrepreneurial behavior. The case study involved the use of interviews with key individuals, the review of printed materials, and member checking. The findings revealed five distinctive attributes that characterized that startup and which corresponded to the three dimensions of social capital. Those attributes were: a ‘one-way-ahead’ attitude, a pseudo family business perception, collective bootstrapping, a distinct network structure, and opportunity-seizing proliferation, thereby depicting how social capital is used by refugee-entrepreneurs to maximize the pool of opportunities in their host nations.     

The symbiosis of entities in the social engagement network: The role of social ventures

Social entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as a mechanism for creating social and economic value. By applying population ecology, resource dependency and resource-based view perspectives, this paper develops a conceptual model to provide greater insight into how social entrepreneurship ventures collaborate with other organizations in a network to fulfill resource requirements. Through this process social ventures address unmet social needs to create value which leads to the development and growth of individuals, communities, and regions. Using a large city's economic development actors involved in small business promotion as test cases, this exploratory study illustrates that social ventures effectively acquire resources from the primary social engagement network actors: corporations, governments, and other social ventures. The framework introduced in the paper provides a means by which to better understand the context in which relevant social engagement players in a network exist and the synergies that they can develop.     

Entrepreneurial versus cooperative social capital: The impact on operational performance

Research has extensively focused on how firms can become more competitive, by discovering new knowledge domains while exploiting current ones. Prior research has shown the positive impact of social capital on performance; however, there have been no empirical studies that distinguished between the architectures of social capital and how they impact the operational performance dimensions. Building upon the knowledge-based theory, we propose a model to examine the effects of the two architectures of social capital (entrepreneurial and cooperative) on individual dimensions of operational performance (quality, delivery, flexibility and cost). The hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling and data collected from 182 companies in Ireland. The results show that the cooperative social capital archetype supports the operational performance dimensions, while the entrepreneurial social capital archetype only impacts the cost dimension. The findings extend the current understanding about the complex relationships among the architectures of social capital and provide guidance for managers on how to leverage their investments in social capital to enhance specific operational performance dimensions.     

Balancing dual missions for social venture growth: a comparative case study

ABSTRACT

Balancing social and economic missions in the pursuit of growth is one of the greatest challenges faced by social ventures. Although social ventures strive for growth to scale their social impact, pursuing growth often results in mission drift and the sacrifice of social objectives, which in turn eventually undermine the ventures’ raison d’être. In this study, we investigate how and with what outcomes social ventures that pursue growth can manage the balance of social and economic missions. Through a comparative case study of six for-profit social ventures, we find significant differences in how dual missions are selected, connected, and intertwined, leading to varying degrees of mission spillover effects between social and economic missions. Our findings show that two-sided mission spillover effects are a central mechanism in dual mission management, enabling social ventures to pursue balanced growth, avoid mission drift, and achieve social impact. With these findings, this study adds to the emergent literature on social entrepreneurship, dual mission management, and social venture growth.     

Effective entrepreneurial narrative design in reward crowdfunding campaigns for social ventures

One of the most important challenges for social venture entrepreneurs is acquiring resources. Reward crowdfunding is considered a suitable tool for meeting the financing needs of social ventures, whose backers are particularly interested in firm ideas and core values rather than in collaterals or business plans. A strategic factor that is able to influence the outcome of crowdfunding campaigns is the entrepreneurial narrative. Very few scholars have examined the key factors that support a crowdfunding campaign, particularly those on reward-based crowdfunding platforms, and the effects of entrepreneurial narratives on investors’ decisions. Aiming to fill this research gap, this paper investigates how entrepreneurs in the technology industry describe their social ventures and projects on Eppela, an Italian reward-based crowdfunding platform. Thematic analysis was applied to detect the five following key factors of effective entrepreneurial narratives in reward-based crowdfunding campaigns for social ventures: 1) problem/need; 2) project; 3) product; 4) team; and 5) venture. Each key factor includes specific subfactors. Lexical data analysis was then performed to identify the following expected effects of the examined entrepreneurial narratives on potential investors, leading these investors to understand, trust, and approve the project proposal, and thus, finance the social venture’s project: 1) reassurance, 2) reliability, and 3) credibility. Based on these results, this study proposes an explanatory model about how to design effective entrepreneurial narratives to be presented to contribute as much as possible to the success of projects in crowdfunding platforms.

     

Sharing my way to success: A case study on developing entrepreneurial ventures using social capital in an OSS community

While Open Source Software (OSS) communities provide opportunities for knowledge creation, we have a limited understanding of how entrepreneurs leverage OSS communities for their entrepreneurial ventures. Using social capital theory in a mixed methods case study, we compare entrepreneur and non-entrepreneur behaviors to investigate how entrepreneurs build social capital within an OSS community. This study shows that entrepreneurs differentiate themselves from non-entrepreneurs by focusing on cognitive and relational capital building activities, which in return makes it possible for them to leverage their social capital to influence and shape the environment in which they are operating. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurs strategically select which activities within the community to expend their limited resources on (e.g., developing code over participating in email conversations) and build their social capital more through their actions than through their words (e.g., showing their commitment to the community through code commits, bug fixes, and documentation). Given the liabilities of newness and smallness as well as other challenges faced by entrepreneurs, applying an open innovation strategy in OSS communities could be one approach where entrepreneurs, by developing and freely revealing their intellectual property to the community, share their way to success via OSS-infused entrepreneurial business ventures.     

Entrepreneurship and mutuality: social capital in processes and practices

Social capital, which offers the broader theoretical construct to which networks and networking relate, is now recognized as an important influence in entrepreneurship. Broadly understood as resources embedded in networks and accessed through social connections, research has mainly focused on measuring structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of the concept. While useful, these measurements tell us little about how social capital, as a relational artefact and connecting mechanism, actually works in practice. As a social phenomenon which exists between individuals and contextualized through social networks and groups, we draw upon established social theory to offer an enhanced practical understanding of social capital – what it does and how it operates. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Robert Putnam, we contribute to understanding entrepreneurship as a socially situated and influenced practice. From this perspective, our unit of analysis is the context within which entrepreneurs are embedded. We explored the situated narratives and practices of a group of 15 entrepreneurs from ‘Inisgrianan’, a small town in the northwest of Ireland. We adopted a qualitative approach, utilizing an interpretive naturalistic philosophy. Findings show how social capital can enable, and how the mutuality of shared interests allows, encourages and engages entrepreneurs in sharing entrepreneurial expertise.     

Leveraging networks,capabilities and opportunities for international success: A study on returnee entrepreneurial ventures

By integrating social capital theory with a capability-based view on performance, this paper aims to examine the extent to which returnee entrepreneurial ventures (REVs) gain international performance advantages from the founding entrepreneurs’ experience with international networks. Using data on 200 Chinese REVs, the paper proposes and tests a structural model with a focus on the link between individual entrepreneurs and the subsequent development of firm capabilities. The results provide evidence that it is important that the returnee entrepreneurs have an international social network for the REV to develop an international network capability, which, in turn, mediates the effects on opportunity knowledge and the international performance of the REVs. The findings highlight the concurrent effect of the role of entrepreneurs and organizational learning in internationalization, and they provide an understanding as to the importance of the returnee-specific advantages for the international performance of these firms.     

Theories of economic and social exchange in entrepreneurial partnerships: an agenda for future research

Entrepreneurship research tends to focus on individuals and their actions. However, some entrepreneurial activities are borne and maintained through the efforts of several parties in entrepreneurial partnerships such as franchisor-franchisee relationships. Due to their very nature, these partnerships include economic and social exchanges. Such exchanges received limited attention in entrepreneurship literature. To address this omission, this study first delves into the theories of economic and social exchange to illuminate their relevance for entrepreneurial partnerships. Next, this paper puts forward an agenda for future research agenda based on the tenets of interdependent reciprocal exchange in entrepreneurial partnerships. This research effort has a potential to spur future studies on the use reciprocity in other areas of entrepreneurship such as social entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship.     

An empirical test of a decision theory model for entrepreneurial acts

A decision theory model is presented where the decision to start a firm is assumed to be a rational economic decision of a utility maximizer. The model is tested using data for business births in 82 Mississippi counties over the period 1979-1987. Results of the aggregated model are encouraging but suggest that the alternative to a risky venture is not riskless wage labour. Rather, wage labour also carries a risk which is important in determining whether to start a business. The results indicate that there is a strong economic motivation in entrepreneurial ventures which must be considered in addition to psychological factors. The model suggests that encouragement of entrepreneurial ventures can be based upon lowering thc costs of start-ups and policies that increase the probability of success.     

Special issue on “The role of networks in entrepreneurial performance: new answers to old questions?”

The nature and extent of relationships between entrepreneurial networks and entrepreneurial performance are old questions. Scholars have explored the nature of entrepreneurial networks and have focused on their relationship with, and effects on, performance, which is viewed in this special issue in terms of the strategic development of established businesses and new ventures. However, while much is now known about the origins and effects of social networks there continues to a paucity of research on how social networks are used in various organizations, and when one or more networks are drawn upon for what specific purpose. Each article in this special issue addresses one or more of these questions in a range of industries and environments, namely poor village entrepreneurs who have to work in a highly challenging financial and social environment in Bangladesh, “early internationalizing small firms” in South Africa, high technology “early-stage ventures” in Hong Kong, 3-D technology ventures that operate with an “open” business model, and the “multi-rational” nature of networks in family businesses in and beyond the UK. In all, this collection of papers comprises a body of scholarship with fine-grained studies on how and when specific social networks are drawn on in various forms of organization. The subsequent discussion of these issues extends knowledge of the various ways in which entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial businesses advance their interests by leveraging familiar business and social networks.     

The construction of opportunity entrepreneurship function

This paper interprets opportunity entrepreneurship, within the framework of Solow—Romer model and the characteristics of society’s entrepreneurship capital, as it is expressed by cultural background, transaction characteristics and economic institutions, using the principal components and regression analysis. It extends the concepts of growth theory to the entrepreneurial determination framework, based on the assumption that growth is generated by entrepreneurship. Τhe paper accomplishes to organize an integrated model of the actual opportunity entrepreneurship determination where the cultural variables play a predominant role. From the variables used to express entrepreneurial economy and its effects on the levels of opportunity entrepreneurship, only the variables expressing cultural background seem to have an effect, and more specifically a promoting one. It is established that for the configuration of opportunity entrepreneurship, the effect of cultural background is more serious than that of the Solow-Romer factors. Furthermore, the institutions and the transactions characteristics are purely endogenous formations.     

企业成长中的企业家社会资本研究

在企业持续成长的过程中,企业家行为是企业经营的决定性因素,而其中企业家社会资本是决定其成功的重要因素。在企业持续成长的不同阶段,企业家社会资本对于把握市场机会、降低经营风险、推动组织创新都起到重要作用。为了培育企业家社会资本,必须提升企业家信用水平,扩大企业家关系网络并构建信任的制度环境。     

How did you get up and running? Taking a Bourdieuan perspective towards a framework for negotiating strategic fit

This article suggests a theoretical framework for illustrating significant iterative processes that need to be strategically managed when entering a new field or changing a social position within a field. Applying a process-relational perspective, the framework theoretically underpins what propels individuals to change their behaviour conceptualized as constructing a strategic fit between personal structure and fields. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and capitals as a lens the analysis reveals how capital transformations eventually can lead to a social construction of this temporary strategic fit. The article argues that the performance of habitus expresses temporary field specific social positioning as a social materialization of macrostructures (gender, age, class, etc.). This suggested framework is applied to conceptualizing how nascent entrepreneurs successfully negotiate entrepreneurial processes. It is concerned with a small aspect: how to physically start a business (its registration and the start of trading). In this context, the article unpacks how the transformation of capitals mediates nascent entrepreneurs’ social positioning. This article contributes to the growing ‘social turn’ research situating entrepreneurial processes within social relations and context and the emerging Entrepreneurship as Practice field. It offers practical implications for business support and research directions.     

Does entrepreneurial activity matter for economic growth in developing countries? The role of the institutional environment

The discussion on which institutions determine entrepreneurial activity – and the role of institutions in the aggregated output for developing countries – is as yet unresolved. The extant literature about entrepreneurship recognizes new ventures as potential mechanisms for long-term development. Yet, there is a consensus on the lack of evidence, particularly for these countries. Drawing on institutional economics, this article explores the interrelationships among institutional environment, entrepreneurial activity, and economic growth. To this end, we use simultaneous-equation panel data models for a sample of 14 developing countries (78 observations) over the period of 2004–2012. The main findings suggest a causal chain running from institutions to opportunity entrepreneurship, which is linked to the economic growth of emerging economies. In particular, we find that institutional factors – such as the number of procedures to start a new business, private credit coverage ,, and access to communication– influence entrepreneurial activity driven by opportunity. Policy implications for developing countries could be derived in order to enhance their economic performance through entrepreneurial activity.

     

Telling their own stories: Māori entrepreneurship in the mainstream screen industry

We examined how factors from Indigenous entrepreneurship research (social capital, cultural capital, self-efficacy) help explain the high level of Māori entrepreneurial performance in the mainstream screen industry. Results, based on ten case studies and a one-year series of structured interviews, extend prior research by showing that these Indigenous entrepreneurs benefit jointly from two forms of capital: cultural and social. We found high levels of both forms to increase the desire for emancipation of cultural and community identity – not just individual identity – through entrepreneurship. Self-efficacy and storytelling helped ameliorate discontinuities across Indigenous and mainstream contexts. Our research sheds new light on how Indigenous ventures can pursue mainstream entrepreneurship while maintaining cultural identity. It also makes several distinct contributions to the Indigenous entrepreneurship literature. First, it provides an integrative theoretic review. Second, it illustrates a culturally appropriate methodology for researching Māori entrepreneurs with implications for other Indigenous communities. Third, it proposes cultural capital and social capital as a two-part framework for explaining Indigenous entrepreneurial action. Fourth, it shows how entrepreneurship can be empowering for Indigenous communities. Finally, our paper demonstrates that entrepreneurship is a promising mechanism for preserving and promoting the cultures of Māori and other Indigenous peoples.     

Gendered cognitions: a socio-cognitive model of how gender affects entrepreneurial preferences

ABSTRACT

This research explores the social-cognitive factors which lead both women and men to pursue ventures consistent with their gendered social identity, therefore, reinforcing the gender gap in entrepreneurship. We measured the self-assessments of individuals presented with experimentally manipulated entrepreneurial opportunities that were either consistent or inconsistent with their self-reported gender. A theoretical model derived from Social Role Theory is presented and tested. It posits that a gender match (mismatch) with the entrepreneurial opportunity results in higher (lower) reported self-efficacy, anticipated social resources, and venture desirability and lower (higher) venture risk perceptions. The experimental data are tested in a sequential mediation SEM model. We find evidence that self-efficacy and anticipated social resources mediate the effect of gender congruency on perceived risk and venture desirability. The results provide insight into the insidious barriers that play a role in reproducing a gender gap in entrepreneurial outcomes by ‘nudging’ women into lower-return ventures in less lucrative industries.     

Understanding relational qualities of entrepreneurial learning: Towards a multi-layered approach

The aim of this paper is to present a multi-layered relational framework of entrepreneurial learning by embedding the conceptual tools of a continental thinker, Pierre Bourdieu, in a social constructionist paradigmatic approach. Through a longitudinal study based on participant observation and in-depth qualitative interviews, entrepreneurial learning processes of five nascent entrepreneurs who have formed a venture team have been examined as a case study. Relational qualities of entrepreneurial learning can be illuminated by exploring dispositions and different forms of capital that nascent entrepreneurs hold at the micro-individual level, which are inextricably linked to the meso-relational level of developing an entrepreneurial habitus as they navigate through the process of business venturing. Such a multi-layered conceptualisation of entrepreneurial learning transcends individual-, team-, firm- and network-level analyses of the subject by generating insights from both micro- and meso-layers.     

Overcoming the liability of smallness by recruiting through networks in China: a guanxi-based social capital perspective

We investigate the role of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ recruitment practices in attempting to overcome the liability of smallness. Combining insights from the social capital and guanxi literature, we theorize the guanxi-based social capital perspective and use it to analysis 96 in-depth interviews with multiple members (entrepreneurs, senior managers and factory workers) from 15 die-casting entrepreneurial firms in Guangdong province, China. We find that the use of guanxi in recruitment practice can overcome the liability of smallness because it makes the hiring process more convenient, improves firms’ attractiveness to jobseekers and enhances the person-organizational fit between new hires and firms. We discuss how Chinese entrepreneurs and their senior managers use guanxi strategically to achieve these advantages. On the other hand, our findings suggest that jobseekers can also use guanxi to increase their options, improve their bargaining power and distract firms’ attention away from hiring the most appropriate candidate for the job in order to undermine the effectiveness of Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ recruitment procedures. We explore the implications of these findings for academic research and managerial practice.     

Collectively created opportunities in emerging ecosystems: The case of solar service ventures

This study suggests that in the entrepreneurial communities of emerging industries, individual entrepreneurs may simultaneously create opportunities that spill over to others and discover opportunities already created by others. Extant opportunity literature, focused on single actors and their personal networks or on the information function of market prices, is largely mute on the role of opportunities in value networks with distributed entrepreneurial efforts. Ecosystem theory, a literature stream that seldom intersects opportunity literature, contributes with a conceptual framework to study the question. The paper seeks to shed light on how opportunities are created or discovered by new ventures as they are involved in the interlinked endeavor of forming a new ecosystem.The study examines five case studies of US ventures in the early phase of the solar service industry, an industry in which entrepreneurs offer customers access to solar panels as a service rather than as a product. These ventures inadvertently created an industry ecosystem together, as they could not protect the value created by their business partners׳ new knowledge, or by the emerging social webs between partners. They shaped opportunities together, passing value back and forth amongst themselves. This paper offers fundamental observations on how opportunity creation and discovery is distributed among a community of entrepreneurs as a business ecosystem grows.