Small Business Economics最新文献

Digital transformation introduces a new set of parameters for firm innovation. Existing literature has found that family firms vary on their willingness to innovate. However, explanations of the factors that lead to a family firm’s (un)willingness to act remain scarce. Even more scarce are studies exploring the family firm’s (un)willingness in the digital transformation. The digital transformation is a promising environmental stimulus to unpack family firm (un)willingness due to its disruptive nature. This research uses a comparative multiple case study of 14 manufacturing family firms. The novel findings identify a variety of dispositions that can be divided into willingness-enabling and willingness-suppressing. Willingness affects how family firms potentially (do not) take advantage of the opportunities provided by the digital transformation. The contributions are twofold. First, the importance of considering the heterogeneity of family firms’ willingness toward digital transformation is highlighted. Second, by identifying the role of dispositions and related mechanisms we unpack the heterogeneity of the willingness. In sum, we provide a much-needed explanation of family firms in the digital transformation.

This paper examines whether family-owned SMEs differ from non-family SMEs in their adoption of circular economy (CE) practices, with a focus on how these differences are shaped by socio-spatial contexts. Specifically, we investigate the role of a firm’s rural or urban location and the level of country environmental awareness. Using a sample of 13,319 SMEs, we find that family ownership increases the probability of adopting a higher number of CE practices. Furthermore, we find that the positive effect of family ownership on the adoption of CE practices is stronger in rural areas. Finally, while both family and non-family SMEs are more likely to adopt CE practices in countries with greater environmental awareness, non-family SMEs appear to be relatively more influenced by this factor. These findings offer new insights into the intricate interplay of ownership and the socio-spatial context as determinants of the adoption of CE practices in SMEs.

Climate impact, which refers to the losses resulting from climate change-related events, is one of the most pressing challenges for societies worldwide. Contributing to the climate impact–entrepreneurship nexus, we assess how climate impact affects individual engagement in opportunity entrepreneurship. Drawing on the attention-based view (ABV) and on socio-cognitive theory (SCT), we hypothesize that climate impact increases opportunity entrepreneurship, and that this effect is moderated by individuals’ socio-cognitive characteristics. Combining data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and the Climate Risk Index (CRI), we conduct a multilevel analysis that involves 964,440 individuals from 94 countries from 2010 to 2018. In support of our hypotheses, our results suggest that climate impact is positively related to engagement in opportunity entrepreneurship. We also find that this association is negatively moderated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness, and positively by entrepreneurial fear of failure. We conclude by discussing the implications of our attention-based understanding of climate impact as a catalyst for opportunity entrepreneurship.

We analyze the continuing role of prior technical experience of top-management team (TMT) members for opportunity recognition beyond the initial market entry choice in young ventures. We are drawing on and extending the theory of opportunity recognition by studying continuing opportunity recognition and by distinguishing the roles of founders and joining TMT members. Specifically, we investigate the recognition of digital opportunities by young ventures initially focused on a non-digital offering for a sample of 6672 firms. First, our study shows that founders’ prior technical experience influences opportunity recognition beyond the time of founding. Second, whereas founders contribute to opportunity recognition with both general and specialized prior knowledge, joining TMT members have a narrower role because for them just specialized prior knowledge is relevant. We contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of the role of prior knowledge for opportunity recognition.

Recent literature highlights heterogeneous spatial patterns in entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), traditionally viewed as territorially bounded phenomena. However, growing evidence suggests that EEs possess complex spatial topologies. Existing research, primarily at the EE level, lacks insights into how individual entrepreneurs navigate these spatial structures. This study takes a microfoundational approach to examine why and to what extent entrepreneurs engage with EEs at regional, national, and international levels to generate value. Our analysis focuses on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurs from the Innovative Research in Small Enterprises program, managed by the São Paulo Research Foundation, Brazil. Using a regression analysis of survey data from 146 entrepreneurs and insights from 17 semi-structured interviews, we explore how entrepreneurs actively configure their own EE across geographical scales. Findings reveal that entrepreneurs leverage EE resources differently based on the type of value they seek to create—economic, social, or environmental. Four key drivers explain these spatial configurations: (i) configurational voids, (ii) configurational inefficiencies in regional EEs, (iii) the pursuit of configurational diversity, and (iv) configurational upgrading. These dynamics give rise to “spatial mosaics,” wherein entrepreneurs perceive and assemble EEs as complex, multi-level structures. We propose a novel illustrative framework integrating entrepreneurial agency and spatiality as core components of EE dynamics, offering fresh insights into how entrepreneurs construct and navigate EEs beyond territorial boundaries.

Empirical research on small ventures’ coopetition is scant, and little is known about trust in between small venture coopetition partners. We examine both proactive and reactive motivation for coopetition and the role of partner trust among 527 small ventures from multiple industries. We find both types of motivation to be directly and significantly related to mutual benefits and no difference in strength between the two relationships. We find that trust in coopetition partners as a moderating factor acts in interesting ways. We illustrate how these findings add new insights into and enhance our understanding of competition among small ventures.

We develop a path-centric account that explains how action-oriented entrepreneurship training translates into self-employment. The path-centric account suggests that action-oriented entrepreneurship training positively impacts self-employment through entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial action, which form a reciprocal and mutually stabilizing relationship after training. Randomized controlled trials with a baseline (N = 1156), a short-term (N = 872), and a 1-year follow-up measurement (N = 622) supported the hypotheses. The path-centric account describes post-training processes that explain the transfer of action-oriented entrepreneurship training. Furthermore, we address a grand challenge by demonstrating how action-oriented entrepreneurship training can reduce unemployment among young adults in low- and middle-income countries.

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) is a phenomenon that offers significant opportunities for financing growth and supporting business success. However, its effectiveness in fostering firm performance remains ambiguous, particularly in the presence of financial constraints. This article explores the relationship between ECF and firm performance through the lens of financial constraints. Our findings suggest that ECF alone does not directly enhance performance; instead, financial constraints play a critical role in shaping its effects. We observe that financially constrained SMEs mainly use ECF funds for rebalancing their capital structure rather than growth-oriented investments. This misallocation of funds contradicts backers’ expectations and may result in weakened performance. Our study reveals a potential dark side of ECF, where financially constrained firms prioritize financial stability over long-term value creation. These findings have implications for investors, policymakers, and crowdfunding platforms, emphasizing the need for greater transparency and due diligence in assessing firms’ financial constraints before funding. Regulators and platforms should implement stricter oversight mechanisms to ensure that ECF fulfills its intended purpose, supporting innovation and business expansion rather than merely alleviating financial distress.

This study advances resource-based theorizing of venture growth by examining how strategic resources, particularly intellectual property (IP), interact with versatile resources like human and financial capital across different environments. Using a configurational approach and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a four-year longitudinal dataset of 825 ventures, the research identifies four distinct pathways to growth, demonstrating that IP alone is insufficient for success. Instead, growth depends on the complementary use of strategic and versatile resources. The study also highlights the critical role of environmental munificence, such as the support provided by accelerators, which can compensate for a lack of internal resources, particularly financial capital. This research reconciles inconsistencies in prior studies by showing that the interaction between different types of IP and versatile resources is essential for venture growth. It also contributes to the understanding of how environmental factors influence the effectiveness of resource portfolios. These findings offer significant implications for both entrepreneurs, who must strategically combine resources; educators, who should emphasize the importance of these resource interactions and environmental contexts in entrepreneurship curricula; and accelerator managers, who should assess ventures based on their resource portfolio and tailor support based on their specific resource needs.

Decentralization of decision-making in interfirm networks (such as franchise networks, strategic alliances, or joint ventures) requires successfully transferring knowledge from headquarters to local network partners using appropriate knowledge transfer mechanisms. This study examines the relationship between the franchisor’s choice of knowledge transfer mechanisms and the decentralization of decision rights in franchise networks. Specifically, we test the facilitating effect of three types of knowledge transfer mechanisms—high, medium, and low information-rich media—on decentralization of decision rights by using data from 168 franchise networks in four European countries. Our findings show that the use of high information-rich media increases the decentralization of decision rights by facilitating the transfer of tacit system knowledge, and the use of medium information-rich knowledge transfer mechanisms increases decentralization by facilitating the transfer of system knowledge with both explicit and tacit components. Thus, the design of knowledge transfer mechanisms plays a critical role in transferring tacit and explicit knowledge from headquarters to local franchisees and is a prerequisite for the decentralization of decision-making in franchise networks. Overall, we contribute to the literature on franchise and interfirm networks by highlighting that network governance based on the allocation of decision rights is closely intertwined with the choice of knowledge transfer mechanisms.