The counter-conventional mindsets of entrepreneurs

These days, it seems, nearly everyone aspires to be an entrepreneur. But many entrepreneurs think and act differently than the way in which most other businesspeople do and the way much of today’s business education encourages them to think and act. My in-depth examination of dozens of entrepreneurs I’ve come to know well over the past 2 decades tells me that their unconventional—or, dare I say, counter-conventional—mindsets and behaviors are marked by six common patterns: (1) ‘Yes, we can;’ (2) beg, borrow, or steal; (3) think narrow, not broad; (4) problem-first, not product-first logic; (5) ‘No’ is something waiting to be turned into ‘Yes’; and (6) ask for the cash and ride the float. Thankfully, we now know that entrepreneurs are made, not born. These six patterns of entrepreneurial thought and action are eminently learnable. If you want to someday be an entrepreneur, or if you want the people in your company to become more entrepreneurial, then developing—or encouraging and incentivizing your people to develop—such a mindset might constitute a suitable first step toward preparing you to follow a more entrepreneurial path or to foster a more entrepreneurial culture in your company.     

Industry and startup experience on entrepreneur forecast performance in new firms

I theoretically develop and empirically investigate the role of industry and startup experience on the forecast performance of 2304 entrepreneurs who have started new businesses. Using the Kauffman Firm Survey I show that industry experience is associated with more accurate and less biased entrepreneur expectations. Further, the benefit of industry experience on entrepreneurial forecast performance is greater in high-technology industries. These findings are consistent with knowledge of the setting informing entrepreneurial decision making, especially in highly uncertain environments. However, in contrast to the prevailing view in the literature, I find no significant evidence that startup experience improves entrepreneurial forecast performance.     

A theoretical analysis of optimal financing strategies for different types of capital-constrained entrepreneurs

In this paper, we compare two alternative financing strategies that capital-constrained entrepreneurs can adopt: they can either wait until they raised enough money to complete their project (the more conservative strategy) or use limited resources to achieve some intermediate milestone before contacting large outside investors such as venture capitalists (the more adventurous strategy). We examine how the choice of financing strategy is affected by entrepreneurial types (life-style, serial and pure profit-maximizing entrepreneur). We show that specific entrepreneurial characteristics may ultimately affect the shape of firms as they may pursue different strategies to achieve similar goals. The paper generates a number of empirical predictions on security design, the interplay between angel and venture capital finance, and the professionalization of the venture capital market.     

The new generation of millennial entrepreneurs: A review and call for research

Entering the third decade of the new millennium, the millennial generation is stepping into their most productive stage of life. We have witnessed a number of exemplary millennial entrepreneurs, such as Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. The world’s economy is evolving fast and presenting distinct entrepreneurial opportunities to millennials across the globe. It is critical that scholars of international entrepreneurship explore the new breed of millennial entrepreneurs and contrast them across generations and countries. Regrettably, the extant literature comes up short in fully addressing the new generation of entrepreneurs. We call for immediate scholarly attention on millennial entrepreneurs as they are in substantive ways unlike all earlier generations. We urge researchers to explore the unique characteristics of millennial entrepreneurs, their influence on entrepreneurial motivation, orientation, opportunity discovery and exploitation process, and the global ambition of their entrepreneurial ventures.     

The responsiveness of entrepreneurs to working time regulations

In this article, we analyse the impact of enforcement practices (proxied by judicial formalism) and the regulation of working time on entrepreneurial activity by opportunity. We find that higher enforcement formalism mitigates the negative impact exerted by rigid working time regulations on the number of entrepreneurs. While it is agreed that regulatory rigidities may increase labour transaction costs, we show that entrepreneurs are less sensitive to labour regulations the higher the level of enforcement formalism in which they operate. Higher formalism is associated with lower enforcing efficiency and lower probability of being punished for transgressing laws. A policy implication is that encouraging labour flexibility might not improve conditions for entrepreneurial activity in procedurally formalist countries. This is due to the fact that, in those countries, flexibility de facto characterises employment relations, no matter what the law says.      

Outward foreign investment by transnational entrepreneurs: Insights from emerging economies

This research considers how transnational entrepreneurs in emerging economies identify and develop opportunities for investment into international ventures. Specifically, this study seeks to identify common drivers for outward investment by transnational entrepreneurs from their country of origin (Brazil and India) to their adopted country (the US). Findings indicate three common drivers of this type of internationalization: formal education, effectual logic, and the leveraging of perceived market differences. Furthermore, the data show that entrepreneurs prefer a gradual process of investment rather than a large-scale initial investment during the exploitation of international opportunities in the adopted country. The results of this study have important practical implications and are valuable additions to the scholarly understanding of the growing field of transnational entrepreneurship.     

Stereotypical Notions of the Entrepreneur: An Analysis from a Perspective of Gender

The principal objective of this paper is an analysis of the stereotypical figure of the entrepreneur in the Spanish context, from a perspective of gender. We provide evidence that the characteristics largely associated with an entrepreneurial individual are stereotypically male or androgynous, with a notable absence of female typologies. Our findings suggest that this relationship has an influence on the continued predominance of male entrepreneurial activity. This study contributes to the growing empirical literature on female entrepreneurship from an understudied perspective; gender stereotyping, demonstrating that socially constructed gender stereotyping persists in contemporary Spanish culture.     

Internet Technologies in China: Insights on the Morally Important Influence of Managers

Within Science and Technology Studies, much work has been accomplished to identify the moral importance of technology in order to clarify the influence of scientists, technologists, and managers. However, similar studies within business ethics have not kept pace with the nuanced and contextualized study of technology within Science and Technology Studies. In this article, I analyze current arguments within business ethics as limiting both the moral importance of technology and the influence of managers. As I argue, such assumptions serve to narrow the scope of business ethics in the examination of technology. To reinforce the practical implications of these assumptions and to further illustrated the current arguments, I leverage the recent dialog around U.S. Internet technologies in China. The goal of this article is to broaden that which is morally salient and relevant to business managers and business ethicists in the analysis of technology by highlighting key lessons from seminal STS scholars. This article should be viewed as part of a nascent yet burgeoning dialog between business ethics and Science and Technology Studies – a dialog that benefits both fields of study.     

Joint effects of prior start-up experience and coping strategies on entrepreneurs’ psychological well-being

Drawing on theories from the coping and entrepreneurship literatures, we investigated the relationship between the entrepreneurs’ active and avoidance coping on psychological well-being (PWB) and the moderating role of prior start-up experience on this relationship. Data from 156 entrepreneurs indicate that the use of avoidance coping positively predicted immediate PWB for entrepreneurs with more start-up experience. Notably, this relationship was negative for entrepreneurs with less start-up experience. We also found that over the extended period, entrepreneurs who used avoidance coping had improved PWB only if they also used active coping. Theoretical and practical contributions to the entrepreneurship and coping research are discussed.     

创业自我效能与企业家认知及创业行为关系研究

在对社会认知理论在创业研究领域应用新趋势及成果总结的基础上,对创业自我效能形成的认知因素及与创业行为的关联机制进行分析。提出了综合研究模型,提出沿着新创企业起源和发展历程中企业文化形成的脉络来考察创业自我效能对创业期企业家认知及创业行为的影响的研究思路,以及未来的研究趋势、研究重点与分析要点,为进一步深入到领导与学习过程,探索在此过程中企业家的认知发展,以及对创业绩效的影响奠定了理论基础。     

’E’ entrepreneurial SMEs: An Irish study of micro and macro influences

Internet-based technologies are strategically guiding the organisation of tradeable services through the development of flexible organisational structures at national and international level. Specifically for knowledge intensive business services, tasks can be mediated via technology rather than by direct physical engagement, providing enterprises with the opportunity for extensive market coverage. Many academic and political ideals thus assume that entrepreneurs have the ability to intuitively recognise technologically innovative opportunities and have the confidence to act on them. The main aim of the paper is to present the findings of a recent empirical study of Irish (Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) knowledge-intensive service sector firms and shed some light on recent thinking in relation to ‘e’ entrepreneurial micro and macro-level influences. The micro-level findings reveal a relatively high level of ‘e’ entrepreneurial orientation and motivation. However, from a macro-level perspective, the overall conclusion is that firms in both regions of Ireland could benefit from a system that cultivates a more inclusive, networked and balanced regional innovation system, to foster technology-innovation led enterprise.     

Self-regulation and moral awareness among entrepreneurs

Moral awareness underpins moral reasoning and ethical decision making. This mixed methods study investigates a critical feature of these phenomena among entrepreneurs, namely the influence of social cognitive self-regulation on moral awareness. Results suggest that entrepreneurs with stronger self-regulatory characteristics are more morally aware and relate such awareness to maintaining personal integrity and building inter-personal trust. In contrast, entrepreneurs with weaker self-regulatory characteristics appear less morally aware overall, and focus primarily on moral issues relating to failure and loss. I conclude the paper by discussing the implications for future research and practice.     

The time frames of entrepreneurs

This study investigated past and future temporal depths (distances into the past and future) of entrepreneurs. The results provide the first statistics describing these depths in a sample of entrepreneurs. A significant positive correlation was found between past and future temporal depths, and relationships were examined between both temporal depths and polychronicity, preference for working fast, perceived temporal flexibility of work, emphasis on schedules and deadlines, emphasis on punctuality, and general life stress. Entrepreneurs' ages, lengths of future temporal depth, and perceived temporal flexibility were all found to be negatively related to life stress in a hierarchical regression analysis.     

An exploratory study of characteristics and attributes of Turkish entrepreneurs: A cross-country comparison to Irish entrepreneurs

There has been limited research on entrepreneurship in Turkey. Given the fact that globalization has rapidly been increasing, that foreign direct investment is spreading throughout the world, and that more and more foreign investors are seeking partners in emergent markets such as Turkey. One important reason for the interest in Turkish entrepreneurs is because they have many characteristics that are similar to entrepreneurs in Western markets. Even if there are many differences between Western entrepreneurs and Turkish entrepreneurs, it would be valuable to compare the characteristics of Turkish entrepreneurs with others. Moreover, a few cross-cultural studies have examined the similarities among entrepreneurs in various nations. Ireland and Turkey have many striking similarities despite varying cultural backgrounds. Hence, this empirical research was undertaken to investigate the characteristics and attributes of Turkish entrepreneurs and compare them to Irish entrepreneurs. The research design in this study focused on 161 Turkish entrepreneurs who were randomly selected from a list (obtained from local Chamber of Commerce) and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The questions assessed relevant areas, such as demographic and business information, motivations, entrepreneurial characteristics, business problems, personality characteristics, and management skills. Information on the Irish entrepreneurs was incorporated from a published study. Overall, in terms of entrepreneurial characteristics, Turkish entrepreneurs displayed surprisingly similar characteristics to the Irish. The implications of this study are discussed along with some recommendations.     

Investigating the impact of the technological environment on survival chances of employer entrepreneurs

Given the big employment losses in the current economic and financial crisis, not only the creation of new jobs is important for economic and social welfare, but also the conservation of existing jobs. In this respect, it is crucial that firms that employ personnel survive. In this article, we investigate the role of the technological environment in determining the survival chances of employer entrepreneurs, defined as owner-managers of firms that employ personnel. We estimate survival models to analyze durations as an employer entrepreneur, using micro-panel data from EU-15 countries drawn from the European Community Household Panel. As indicators for the technological environment, we use a country’s R&D expenditures, a country’s employment share of high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors, and a country’s number of patent applications to the European Patent Office. We find strong support for a positive relationship between these indicators of the technological environment in country j and year t and survival chances of employer entrepreneurs in that same country and year. Our analysis also suggests that a selection effect may be part of the explanation in the sense that in a more advanced technological environment, relatively more ‘high-quality’ individuals select into entrepreneurship.     

Time Allocation and Performance: The Case of Chinese Entrepreneurs

This paper analyses the effect of time allocation on the financial performance of entrepreneurial firms. We apply the Lewbel estimator to a pooled data set of Chinese private manufacturing firms that are managed by their owners. Time is allocated between management, networking, and study activities. After accounting for endogeneity, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between management hours and firm performance and between networking and firm performance. However, no relationship between time spent studying and firm performance is observed. We also find that the managing hours–performance relationship is particularly strong for companies managed by entrepreneurs who own more than 75% of share, for companies that are managed by owners with previous experience, for male entrepreneurs, and for smaller-sized firms.     

A fresh start and the learning experience of ethnic minority entrepreneurs

This paper focuses on ethnic minority entrepreneurs whose businesses failed within the first 3 years of trading, but were starting afresh with the help of the Brent Business Venture Fresh Start in Business programme. The paper aims to identify why the entrepreneurs had previously failed; what prompted them to start again; what was different about their business approach and practices second time around; and how key lessons had been learned as a result of their previous experiences that can improve their prospects for success in the future. The resultant insight derives out of an evaluation study of the Fresh Start programme, the methodology for which included initial telephone interviews with 20 ethnic minority entrepreneurs spread across eight business sectors, during which profile data were collected. The second phase of the study involved in‐depth face‐to‐face and semi‐structured interviews with the 20 entrepreneurs. The main findings suggest that failed entrepreneurs learn from their mistakes and actions embedded in the development processes and activities underpinning their first business venture attempt and are more successful second time around. The key learning processes and activities include learning from customer feedback, from interface with suppliers, from interaction with peers and from the fostering and facilitating inputs of provision such as the Fresh Start programme. The ability to learn by doing, problem‐solving and opportunity‐taking is important. The study concludes by highlighting key identified management capabilities which can improve the likelihood of new venture success, and in particular the value of giving future focus to the nature and form of effective strategic learning processes and activities that successful owner managers undertake and how these could be nurtured as part of the would‐be entrepreneurs’‘management capabilities tool box’.