Small Business Economics最新文献

Abstract

We investigate the prevalence of capital staging (sequential infusion of capital) in the IPO markets in 47 countries between 1991 and 2019. Our evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that investors provide funds to IPOs in stages to mitigate costs associated with firm-specific uncertainty about future prospects and information asymmetry. Going public firms with more intangible assets and greater R&D intensity raise less money relative to financing needs at the time of the IPO and are more likely to return to capital markets for subsequent financing and do so more frequently. We also document that the evidence of staged financing is stronger in countries that provide better legal protection to investors.

We investigate the narcissists’ response to failure and whether narcissists effectively learn from this negative experience. To address this, we leverage data from a leading crowdfunding platform, and analyze 116,981 failed crowdfunding attempts. Our analysis shows a positive relationship between narcissism and the probability of relaunching which is negatively moderated by the degree of failure. Indeed, due to their fragility, narcissistic entrepreneurs are more likely to engage in ego-defensive behavior, and thus, they are less likely to relaunch following high degrees of failure. Moreover, narcissistic entrepreneurs exhibit poorer performance in their subsequent endeavors. This underperformance is driven by external attribution of failure and lower levels of pro-activity. In fact, following failure, narcissistic entrepreneurs are less likely to change internal factors that might contribute to their previous failure and they are more likely to respond to failure by reattempting in a different context. Managerial and policy implications are discussed.

While private entrepreneurial activity has been at the core of entrepreneurship, nonprofit ventures still need to be explored in the literature. Using norm-activation theory (NAT) and resource-based view (RBV) lenses, we explore the antecedents of undertaking nonprofit entrepreneurial activity. By examining 8544 entrepreneurs’ decisions about the type of entrepreneurship to engage in, we find that not all human capital has a similar influence on people’s decisions regarding the types of formation of their venture. The results suggest that entrepreneurs' job-related experiences and social orientation are significantly linked to nonprofit entrepreneurship. The results of our study contribute to the human capital theory by demonstrating that people’s value influences how they use their knowledge resources.

The study presented in this paper sets out to identify the presence of a forgetting curve decaying the experiential learning benefits of serial entrepreneurs. To reach this objective the study applies a Zero-Inflated Poisson regression to a database of 518 Costa-Rican entrepreneurs with information covering the period from 2016 to 2019 that allows the analysis of the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and export market expansion through the lens of the forgetting curve. Findings confirm the presence of a forgetting curve and indicate that the slide down the forgetting curve is halted by entrepreneurial re-entry. The contribution of this study not only comes from the introduction of the concept of the forgetting curve to the study of the cognitive benefits of entrepreneurial experience, but also contributes to practice by highlighting potential advantages of encouraging the rapid re-entry into entrepreneurship of those facing an entrepreneurial exit.

Family businesses are typically characterized by the presence of co-founders of the same family at the start of the businesses, which helps keep ownership within the family. We studied 1000 randomly selected U.K. novice entrepreneurs and compared effects of initial co-founding team composition on entrepreneurial outcomes 10 years later. We find that, unlike non-family co-founders, family co-founders in the first company do not increase the possibility of novice entrepreneurs becoming habitual (either serial or portfolio) entrepreneurs in their early entrepreneurial careers. Although family co-founders have less entrepreneurial experience, as evidenced in our data and consistent with the resource-based view, family co-founders contribute significantly to the birth of high-growth entrepreneurs, in the same magnitude as non-family co-founders do. The findings show that both family and non-family co-founders help finance novice entrepreneurs’ activities through equity contribution, while lowering their leverage.

In this study, we examine the effect of cultural long-term orientation on the likelihood of adopting more family-intensive governance arrangements (FGAs) and the impact on firm performance. FGAs may impose various costs on the firm, including the extraction of private benefits, conflicts with professional managers, paternalistic human resource management practices, and lower legitimacy. Drawing on institutional economics, we theorize that cultural long-term orientation reduces some of these costs, thereby increasing the relative efficiency of FGAs as a governance option. Thus, we expect FGAs to be adopted more frequently in countries with a more long-term orientation. We also expect FGAs to have a less negative impact on performance in these countries as a result of these lower costs. The results of mixed-effects regressions on a cross-sectional sample of 3221 listed family and nonfamily firms in 19 countries confirm that FGAs are more likely to be adopted in more long-term oriented countries. We also find that FGAs have a negative effect on firm performance, but not that cultural long-term orientation weakens this relationship. However, an interesting mediating effect emerges whereby cultural long-term orientation increases the likelihood of adopting FGAs but negatively affects firm performance.

This paper investigates the learning patterns of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from heterogeneous work accidents (i.e., minor and severe and fatal accidents). Work safety cannot be overlooked, and the focus of this study on learning from failure allows to understand how SMEs match safety problems with solutions generated by past experience with work accidents and knowledge acquisition; while acknowledging that accident heterogeneity influences SMEs’ learning. The analysis uses a sample of 108 Spanish SMEs during 2006–2009. The results show that SMEs learn to modify safety practices, and that experience with both minor and severe and fatal accidents impact learning outcomes—measured as changes in the unit accident cost—through different mechanisms. Cumulative experience with past work accidents supports exploitative learning, but this effect was found only for minor accidents. Although the adoption of safety-enhancing tools (i.e., OHSAS 18001) does not affect learning, the findings reveal the value of ambidextrous learning: SMEs adopting the OHSAS 18001 learn more from severe and fatal accidents than from minor accidents by triggering drastic modifications in their safety practices.

Abstract

In the realm of academic engagement, this study directs its focus toward a policy instrument that has received surprisingly scant attention within the literature, despite its substantial investment: European Union-funded research projects. These projects are designed to foster collaboration and establish a framework that supports and fortifies the creation and dissemination of exceptional knowledge and cutting-edge technologies. These endeavors are anticipated to fuel economic growth, spur social development, and address global challenges. Within this study, we delve into the impact of team experience and diversity on the research performance of consortia — groups of organizations — that have been successfully awarded funding within the FP7 and H2020 funding schemes. In order to dissect the influence of learning, our analysis is confined to consortia that have collaborated on multiple occasions. Drawing from data sourced from Community Research and Development Information Service, our findings unveil that beyond the monetary allocation, an array of team attributes and environmental factors play a role in augmenting team performance.

The field of entrepreneurship has seen remarkable growth, increasing the expectations of academic audiences. Articles need to balance novelty with rigorous methodology, theoretical contributions, social implications, and coherent argumentation to succeed in the publication process. However, navigating these varied and sometimes conflicting expectations to achieve optimal distinctiveness in academic narratives is challenging for authors. To explore how authors can achieve optimal distinctiveness amidst these complex expectations, we studied academic narratives and related editorial decisions of two leading entrepreneurship journals, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice (ETP, 4,151 papers) and Small Business Economics Journal (SBEJ, 4,043 papers), using computer-aided text analysis. Our study debunks common assumptions about what makes a successful entrepreneurship paper, providing an empirical basis for understanding actual versus perceived publication requisites. Furthermore, we extend optimal distinctiveness theory by demonstrating that high distinctiveness is not uniformly advantageous, meeting numerous expectations is not necessarily beneficial, and clear language is crucial for complex narratives. Our study underscores that crafting narratives is more nuanced than traditionally believed.

This study examines the interaction between insolvency proceedings and strategic variables and their relationship with firm survival. Unlike previous research, this study considers the firm’s legal status, including insolvency proceedings, and fills a gap in the literature by considering legal considerations in business studies. Adopting a legitimacy perspective, we employ a Cox proportional hazards model to construct a survival model based on a theoretical framework encompassing insolvency proceedings retrenchment, firm age, and causes of financial distress. Our sample consists of French SMEs facing financial difficulties. The findings reveal that initiating insolvency proceedings is negatively associated with firm survival. However, retrenchment of employees or assets during insolvency proceedings is associated with a higher likelihood of survival. Contrary to expectations, firm age showed a negative association with firm survival during the insolvency proceedings. Moreover, the study revealed a positive association between insolvency proceedings and firm survival in cases of firm-specific financial distress. This research provides new insights into the relationship between insolvency proceedings and firm survival.