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.

     

Propensity to firm creation: empirical research using structural equations

The identification of the entrepreneurs’ characteristics and the knowledge of the entrepreneurial profile of university students have been assuming a growing importance in the development of educational programs directed towards the entrepreneurship and start-up processes. This study aims to identify the factors that most contribute for the intention to start up a business. The research also tries to identify the profile of a potential entrepreneur student concerning several characteristics: personal attributes, family, demographic variables and motivations. Research findings include the idea that entrepreneurship education is the most relevant factor in what concerns the propensity to business creation. On the other side, personal characteristics have an important role in shaping motivation to start-up a business and perceived hurdles have a negative impact in the intention to start-up. The results may be relevant when developing an adequate educational program directed to the entrepreneurship education and start-up processes.     

Entrepreneurship education: the role of local business

Entrepreneurship education is high on political agendas for its contributions to cultural change and economic growth. Scholars have suggested that the local context may influence the results of entrepreneurship education, and have recommended that educators strengthen their relationships with local businesses and help students learn from actual business settings. By combining policy analysis with empirical data, the present qualitative study explores two issues. First, we look at how the role of local business is expressed in entrepreneurship education policy documents. Second, we explore how local entrepreneurial activity and culture may influence how policies are understood and translated into practice at the local level. The findings indicate that collaboration between schools and business life may strengthen, rather than change, existing local development paths. The present paper contributes to the literature and understanding of the interplay between entrepreneurship education policy and the local context and proposes several policy recommendations emerging from the empirical study.     

Innovative outcomes from migrant entrepreneurship: a matter of whether you think you can,or think you can’t

The entrepreneurship literature has exposed some of the most influential antecedents of innovative entrepreneurship. Prior research has also identified crucial features of migrant entrepreneurship. This article employs lessons from these two areas and draws on social cognitive theory to explore the main drivers of innovative ventures among migrants. We center the attention on entrepreneurs, differentiating them between two management strategies: imitation or innovation; and we study the role of perceived self-efficacy, prior entrepreneurial experience, and social capital into the likelihood of acting innovative. For our empirical analysis, we primarily use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for three years covering 2016–2018 and gathering 5713 observations of early-stage entrepreneurs from Chile. Our estimations show that being a migrant is in itself an insufficient condition to influence seeking substantial differentiation from what is traditionally offered in the local market; instead, we confirm that a migrant who feels capable of successfully starting a business will be likely to conduct innovative entrepreneurship. Contributions of these findings for theoretical and practical advances of the field are discussed.

     

Female entrepreneurial leadership factors

This article presents the foundations, current structure and trend of academic research into leadership factors in female entrepreneurship to provide scholars in the field with an overview of the followed research directions and to explore whether the same traditional patterns are reproduced in gender studies on entrepreneurship and leadership. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis of the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2020 was used. With a performance analysis of variables (e.g. authors, publications, journals and countries), and thanks to scientific mapping, the links among these variables were studied. The results show that the trend of publications increased from 2015, but with little influence and output. The most influential and productive countries are the USA and Spain. 35% of the journals are based in the USA and 25% in England. The most influential ones deal with entrepreneurship, business, management and leadership. Although the foundational base is influenced by the author Ahl, known for calling for new research directions related to women entrepreneurs from a social construction perspective, the most influential articles continue to investigate gender with a dominant male bias. The network analysis reveals cooperation between different countries and authors with the USA dominating. The ambiguity of entrepreneurial leadership field due to the overlap of entrepreneurship and leadership disciplines reveals through the co-citation of journals different specialisation areas: business and entrepreneurship, management and psychology, organisational behaviour. This work provides researchers with an overview that encourages them to overcome the dominant male normative lens from new epistemological perspectives.

     

Influence of institutional environment on entrepreneurial intention: a comparative study of two countries university students

Institutional environment influences the perceptions of desirability and feasibility, society’s social and cultural environment, such as beliefs, values and attitudes, conditions behaviour and decisions made by individuals. This research evaluates the influence of institutional environment on entrepreneurial intention using a comparative analysis of different attitudes among university students in two countries: Portugal and Spain. In particular, this study aims to examine the perceptions of desirability, feasibility and intention toward the creation of one’s own business and how that variables influence the entrepreneurial intention as compared these two different institutional contexts. Results revealed difference among attitudes toward entrepreneurship in both countries. With respect to the perception of feasibility, the majority of students in Extremadura (Spain) consider that it is easier to create a business in nowadays than it was several decades ago. However, from the students of Beira Interior (Portugal) consider that it is more difficult. Furthermore, in Extremadura, the entrepreneurial intention is higher than in Beira Interior.     

Influences on students attitudes toward entrepreneurship: A multi-country study

Entrepreneurship has been emphasized in many countries as a way of boosting economic growth and job creation. As entrepreneurship is becoming popular around the world, its education should be customized according to each country’s unique cultural context. The purpose of this paper is to identify differences among the selected nations in terms of factors that are important to enhance the pedagogical effect of entrepreneurship education. This is an empirical study based on the data collected from university students in the US, Korea, China and Fiji representing nations with significantly different cultural contexts. The results imply that customized approaches based on unique cultural context are needed for effective entrepreneurship education in each country.     

Latent and Actual Entrepreneurship in Europe and the US: Some Recent Developments

This paper uses 2004 survey data from the 15 old EU member states and the US to explain country differences in latent and actual entrepreneurship. Other than demographic variables such as gender, age and education, the set of covariates includes the perception by respondents of administrative complexities, of availability of financial support and of risk tolerance as well as country-specific effects. A comparison is made with results using a similar survey in 2000. While a majority of the surveyed population identifies lack of financial support as an obstacle to starting a new business, the role of this variable in both latent and actual entrepreneurship appears to be even more counterintuitive in 2004 than in 2000: it has no impact on actual entrepreneurship and is positively related to latent entrepreneurship. Administrative complexities, also perceived as an obstacle by a large majority of the population, have the expected negative impact both for latent and actual entrepreneurship in both years. Country-specific effects are important both for latent and actual entrepreneurship and the comparison of 2000 and 2004 results suggests that, once all other factors are controlled for, an improvement in actual entrepreneurship in the EU relative to the US has taken place in the last four years. However, in terms of unweighted averages actual entrepreneurship remained about the same. Latent entrepreneurship dropped while this drop seems to have occurred evenly in the US and the EU member states.     

家族企业家精神与家族企业发展

家族企业家通常兼具家长、企业所有人及经营管理者三种角色,是家族企业的灵魂。他们身上表现的个性特质、行为特质在家族利益的影响下,在进行家族企业的生产经营管理活动中形成了独特的家族企业家精神。家族企业家精神会影响企业的绩效、寿命和家产的增长,从而影响家族企业的发展。在家族企业内外环境的影响下,家族企业家精神形成后仍具有可变性。因此,要特别注意家族企业家精神的异化对家族企业可持续性发展带来的伤害,以及家族企业家精神巩固、丰富、提升和传承这四个关键因素。     

Influence of a culture-based entrepreneurship program on student interest in business ownership

This paper reports the results of a study that examined the impact of a culture-based entrepreneurship study abroad program on student interest in business ownership. Ninety-six students were asked to complete a pre-and post-study abroad program questionnaire that asked about their understanding of a variety of program activities and to gauge their interest in starting a business. Little similar research has been reported in the literature. Pre- and post- program mean rankings of the variable are reported. The results indicated that post-program mean ranking of knowledge, understanding, and skill ability variables tend to be higher than pre-program mean rankings. Fifteen of the 22 post-program mean values of the measured variables are significantly different from pre-program mean values. Logit regression analysis indicated that the language and program structure variables were positively associated with interest in starting a business while the Spanish business and entrepreneurial skills were negatively associated with business ownership. The results of this study may be of interest to educators involved in developing entrepreneurship and study abroad courses and programs. The study may be of special interest to those involved in developing integrative entrepreneurship programs.     

Family embeddedness and entrepreneurship experience: a study of Indian migrant women entrepreneurs in Australia

India has emerged as a major source of migrants for developed countries including Australia; yet, there is a dearth of research on Indian migrant entrepreneurs, particularly women. Using qualitative methods of enquiry, we explore the perceptions of Indian migrant women entrepreneurs (MWEs) and their partners in Melbourne, Australia, about their entrepreneurship experiences from a family embeddedness perspective. More specifically, we explore how family embeddedness of Indian MWEs is influenced by certain factors which in turn influence their entrepreneurship experience. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurship among Indian MWEs is a complex phenomenon influenced by their being an Indian, a woman and a new Australian, all of which interact and influence their family dynamics and entrepreneurial experience. Our findings shed light on the duality of Indian culture which exerts both an enabling and a constraining influence on the family dynamics of MWEs, the constraining role of gender and the positive impact of their integration into the host country’s sociocultural context which all influence their family embeddedness and entrepreneurship. Contributing to the discussion on ‘ethnic’ and ‘women entrepreneurship’ from a family embeddedness perspective, we offer policy implications for facilitating entrepreneurship in the growing but under-researched cohort of Indian MWEs.     

Business incubation models and institutionally void environments

This paper builds a conceptual framework of business incubation models in institutionally void environments, a relevant yet understudied topic in the extant literature. On the basis of a qualitative approach based on the analysis of five case studies drawn from a sample of business incubators in Egypt, and grounding on the literature on institutional voids, we posit that there is a necessity for two different incubation models in institutional laggard environments, typically found in, yet not limited to, developing countries. In particular, we show evidence that the two models supply and facilitate different needs of entrepreneurs, in different stages of entrepreneurial life cycle. We further argue that the incubation model choice is contingent on the incubator sponsors, i.e. affiliation of the incubator, mainly through available resources and imposed objectives. Finally, we offer implications for policy makers who can use the framework to design the regulations in a way that will stimulate appropriate incubator creation and hence sustain local entrepreneurship, as well as for incubator managers who can follow the findings to position their incubation model in line with their resources, capabilities and objectives.     

Conditioning factors for corporate entrepreneurship: an in(ex)ternal approach

In the last years, the business creation and management literature has paid increasing attention to the entrepreneurship that occurs within organizations. Most empirical studies show a positive relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and performance. The objective of this article is to identify which internal and external factors condition corporate entrepreneurship. The study uses two different theoretical perspectives: Resource-Based Theory (for internal factors) and Institutional Economics (for external or environmental factors). Both theories have been widely used in the strategic management and entrepreneurship literature, however, very few studies in the corporate entrepreneurship field are grounded on them together. The research applies negative binomial regression and uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for the period 2004–2008. Overall the sample has 339.071 observations and it provides information for 9 different European countries (Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Finland). Results reinforce the importance of internal factors (knowledge, personal networks and being able to identify business opportunities) compared to external (having fear of failure, media impact and the number of procedures to create a company). Contributions of the study are both theoretical and practical. On the one hand, it contributes to the development of the literature in the corporate entrepreneurship field. On the other hand, it provides useful insights for those companies that are interested in entrepreneurship within the organizations.     

Innovation-driven entrepreneurship in developing economies

The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) has recently emerged as an influential research stream that examines the origin, development and economic impact of innovation-driven entrepreneurship. While empirical evidence has shown that the main premise of the KSTE generally holds in most advanced economies, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which the ideas advocated by the KSTE are generalizable to different contexts in developing countries. On applying a logistic multilevel analysis to a sample of almost 250,000 individuals across 45 developing countries, the results show that the different context found in developing economies produces a limited connection between knowledge spillovers, innovation and entrepreneurship in comparison with the conventional linkage studied in the KSTE literature.     

Skill and value perceptions: how do they affect entrepreneurial intentions?

This paper starts from Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior to test the role of different perceptions on the individual’s intention to become an entrepreneur. Support has most often been found for this theory in the field of entrepreneurship. However, little is yet known about the way in which perceptions are formed. It may be argued that social values regarding entrepreneurship, and also personal skill perceptions, would both affect entrepreneurial intentions. Our objective, therefore, is testing the existence and reach of both effects. Empirical analysis has been carried out on a sample of 249 university students. Structural equations models have been used to test our hypotheses. Results generally confirm them, since values and skills do play a significant role in explaining intention. However, the role of perceived skills seems to be more relevant. Implications may be derived in several areas, and especially regarding entrepreneurship education.     

Book review of Economic Geography of Higher Education: Knowledge Infrastructure and Learning Regions. Edited by ROEL RUTTEN,FRANS BOEKEMA and ELSA KUIJPERS (London: Routledge, 2003). [Pp. 258]

This paper focuses on the growing aspect of entrepreneurship associated with lifestyle-induced migration from wealthy countries, through investigating self-employment among expatriates from northern Europe in rural areas of southern France and Spain. Most expatriates had no prior experience of entrepreneurship and typically established their business opportunistically and some time after arrival. Based upon interviews with 41 expatriate households (operating 70 business ventures), the study explores the characteristics of the individuals involved, the nature of their businesses, factors influencing start-up, and processes and patterns of business development. Self-employment is shown to be the most effective available mechanism for supporting lifestyle objectives of expatriates who vary greatly in their skills, experience and resources. The study identifies significant differences between the respective groups from the two countries, reflecting the spatially differentiated character of migration in terms of age, education, qualifications and capital resources. These appear to have given rise to a more sophisticated profile of businesses in the French areas. Sharp differences in language skills as between the different countries are seen as influencing the ability of entrepreneurs to network with, and market to, the indigenous population, with implications for the future development of the businesses, and their local impact. The study seeks to augment standard conceptual approaches to entrepreneurship, through taking account of the primacy of the migration decision and specific related processes, and proposes a model that advances our understanding of the phenomenon.     

Full circle support: unpacking the relationship between women entrepreneurs’ family-to-work support and work interference with family

With an anchoring in conservation of resources theory, this study examines the mediating role of women entrepreneurs’ work-related emotional exhaustion in the relationship between their family-to-business support and work interference with family, as well as the moderating role of the entrepreneurial character of their company’s strategy in this process. Survey data collected from women entrepreneurs in Argentina indicate that a notable reason that business support received from the family diminishes work interference with that same family is that it abates the sense of being overburdened by work. This benefit of reduced exhaustion is especially prominent to the extent that women entrepreneurs pursue an energy-consuming, entrepreneurial strategy for their business. For entrepreneurship scholars and practitioners, this research accordingly reveals a critical channel through which supportive family relationships can decrease the probability that women entrepreneurs bring work challenges home (i.e., diminished depletion of work energy), and it shows how this explanatory factor varies with the strategic profile they adopt for their business.

     

Business students’ attitudes toward innovation and intentions to start their own businesses

This research integrates perspectives from models of entrepreneurial intentions and attitude theory to examine the nature of the relationship between business students’ attitudes toward innovation and their intentions to start their own businesses. Multiple regression analysis revealed a positive association between attitude toward the distal and broad object of innovation and intentions of US business students to engage in the specific behavior of starting a business. Multiple mediation analysis revealed this association is partially mediated by attitudes toward the proximal and specific object of starting a business, operationalized as perceived desirability and feasibility of starting a business. As attitudes are open to change, opportunities exist for educators and practitioners to affect entrepreneurial intentions by affecting attitudes toward relevant, broad objects, such as innovation.     

The price of success: balancing the effects of entrepreneurial commitment,work-family conflict and emotional exhaustion on job satisfaction

This research explores job satisfaction among entrepreneurs to investigate two paths from entrepreneurial commitment to job satisfaction: the direct path and the family path that includes work-family conflict and emotional exhaustion. An empirical study of 232 small and micro firm business owners are used to test the hypotheses seeking to understand which path to job satisfaction has the greatest influence. The results indicate that although being committed to one’s own business increases job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion takes a greater toll. We conclude that negative aspects of entrepreneurship exert an important influence on entrepreneurs’ satisfaction with their job. These findings offer important theoretical and practical implications.

     

Entrepreneurship research in service industries: a literature classification and trend analysis

In this paper, the influence of entrepreneurship on service management research is examined. Entrepreneurship research occupies a central place in organizational theory and strategic thinking, but its theories and models have little influence on business management. Entrepreneurship research can have a better integration with other areas of management, but there is still certain isolation. This article reviews the emerging areas in entrepreneurship research that provides complementary theoretical framework to service business models. In order to determine the areas in service management research in which entrepreneurship theories can be useful, a classification of the papers published in the last 2 years in the JCR service management journals is carried out. The study concludes that innovation is the most outstanding priority in service management research that can be enriched by entrepreneurial theories. The entrepreneurial approach to networks and institutional environment are the theoretical frameworks that better suit to introduce entrepreneurship variables as antecedents in business innovation models.