International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research最新文献

Purpose

Extant studies in entrepreneurship have explored factors that influence the birth and growth of start-up firms; however, there appears to be a dearth of studies examining the influence of founders' ambidextrous orientation on start-ups' success, especially their speed of attaining the coveted status of a “unicorn start-up” – which is considered a mega success in practice. This study examines whether and how founding teams’ collective ambidextrous orientation influences their respective start-ups’ pace of becoming a “unicorn”.

Design/methodology/approach

This study empirically analyses 220 interviews by the founders of 83 Indian unicorns in examining the influence of the founding teams’ collective exploration-exploitation capability on their firms' speed to achieve the “unicorn” status. The Cox Hazard model was used to test the hypothesized relationships, and linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to test the robustness of the results.

Findings

The authors find a strong positive relationship between founding teams’ ambidextrous skills and the speed of becoming a unicorn. The study results suggest that the founding teams’ collective exploratory skills may be more influential in their start-up’s speed to unicorn status vis-à-vis their exploitative skills.

Originality/value

This study finds that the founding teams’ ambidextrous orientation and exploratory skills accelerate their start-up’s speed to becoming a unicorn, contributing to the academic discourse on the “unicorn” phenomenon, which is widely acknowledged as a grand success status for start-ups—especially technology and venture capital funded start-ups—among the practitioners. This study contributes to the academic discourse on firm capabilities and founding-team-related antecedents of start-up success by raising a new dimension of the founding team’s ambidextrous orientation.

Purpose

How does the interplay between entrepreneurship policies and both formal and informal gender equality affect women’s inclination towards self-employment in contrast to men?

Design/methodology/approach

This study introduces and validates a comprehensive multi-level model underpinned by symbolic interactionism, institutional theory, and the nuances of gendered institutions. Employing innovative analytical techniques and leveraging data from 66 countries, we scrutinize how formal and informal gendered institutional arrangements either inhibit or facilitate an environment favorable to women’s entrepreneurial activities.

Findings

Significantly, our research delves into the nuanced effects of specific entrepreneurship policies across diverse nations. While these policies can bridge the gendered resource gap, a profound understanding of broader gender dynamics is crucial for fostering an inclusive entrepreneurial landscape.

Originality/value

Our insights advocate for a more integrated approach to bolster women’s participation in entrepreneurship, thus furthering their socio-economic progression.

Purpose

Previous studies investigating the effects of using social media in the innovation processes of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) yield mixed results, and the conditions for achieving innovation benefits from social media are unclear. The present study seeks to contribute to the understanding of this topic.

Design/methodology/approach

With a basis in the literature on open innovation and SMEs, this study develops a model that explains the role of social media in product innovation processes where technological focus and abilities are converted into product innovations. The model is tested through a survey of 305 Danish manufacturing SMEs.

Findings

Findings show that SMEs with higher technological orientation (TO) are more inclined to use social media in their product innovation processes and that social media use explains 22.4 percent of the relationship between TO and product innovation performance. On the other hand, the data did not support the assumption that SMEs with high TO achieve higher product innovation benefits than low TO SMEs for similar levels of social media use.

Practical implications

The results suggest that SMEs with lower levels of TO could increase their product innovation performance through increased use of social media in their innovation processes.

Originality/value

The study provides new knowledge on the role of social media in SMEs’ product innovation processes. As the level of TO increases, the use of social media in the innovation process becomes an increasingly important mechanism for deriving the full innovation potential from technological focus and abilities.

Purpose

Despite the importance of foreign market entry mode (FMEM) decisions for the internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), there is insufficient understanding of the knowledge types and sources necessary for such decisions. This study addresses this issue by investigating the knowledge configurations that underpin FMEM initial choices and subsequent changes in SMEs.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted an interpretive approach and analysed empirical data from 37 in-depth interviews with decision-makers in internationalised SMEs from the United Kingdom.

Findings

The findings reveal that different knowledge configurations drive FMEM decisions in SMEs. Based on the analysis conducted for this study, initial FMEM choices draw on prior experiential knowledge combined with knowledge from desk research and knowledge acquired from peers, competitors and international partners. However, unlike many previous contributions, this research shows that foreign market experiential knowledge does not influence mode changes. Within-mode changes rely mainly on mode-specific knowledge and on knowledge about exploiting the benefits of the internet and digital platform ecosystems. Conversely, between-mode changes draw on diverse knowledge that is frequently created in interaction with international stakeholders or acquired externally.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the SME internationalisation literature by highlighting the knowledge configurations that inform not only initial choices but also between- and within-mode changes. Moreover, it reveals the importance of distinct types of digital technology-based knowledge for facilitating mode changes. It also adds to the knowledge-based perspective by underscoring that dynamic and heterogenous knowledge configurations, often created in interaction with international stakeholders, promote firm internationalisation.

Purpose

This paper examines the relationship between open innovation (measured by exploratory and exploitative linkages) and firm-level innovative activity in the offshore renewable energy (ORE) sector.

Design/methodology/approach

A unique, purpose-built survey that targeted firms operating in the ORE sector and its supply chain was used. The data provides novel insights into the research activities and networking capabilities of an industry in its infant stages of development. Regression models are used to estimate the relationship between firm-level external linkages and innovative activity.

Findings

Exploratory linkages are positively related to more innovative activity. This relationship is subject to diminishing returns, distinguishing the ORE sector from other sectors. Collaborating with suppliers and accessing scientific journals are conducive to research and development (R&D) activity and process innovation, whilst collaborating with customers is associated with the decision to introduce new products and processes.

Originality/value

This study provides evidence of a positive, but curvilinear, relationship between external knowledge linkages and innovative activity, adding novel insights into the relationship between open innovation (OI) strategies, research and innovation outcomes for firms predominantly in the introductory stages of the technological life cycle with limited commercialisation experience. The nuanced finding that specific linkages matter for certain research and innovation (R&I) outcomes adds deeper complexity to March’s (1991) framework, where tailoring certain exploratory or exploitative linkages to specific innovation activities is important.

Purpose

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) research has focused on high-growth scale-up entrepreneurship, whereas the role of EEs in nurturing the ventures of marginalised groups like migrant women entrepreneurs (MWEs) has often been elided from extant discussions. This research explores how the EE's structure, policies and programmes advance diversity, equity and inclusion to foster MWEs, and MWEs' contribution to the dynamics and sustainability of the host country's EE based on EE actors' perspectives. We contribute to EEs' diversity, equity and inclusion, which are important but neglected social aspects of sustainable EEs.

Design/methodology/approach

The qualitative data was collected through thematic interviews with EE actors, including NGOs and entrepreneurial support-providing organizations based in Finland. The collected data was complemented by interviews with MWEs, archival data and published supplementary materials on ecosystem actors.

Findings

EE structure, policies, programmes and individual agency, coupled with MWEs' proactivity in lobbying the necessary actors in the required places for their interests, enhance their businesses' development. There were both impeding and fostering dynamics, which may have idiographic and contextual features. Evidently, by being occupied in various sectors, from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to socially beneficial niche service sectors, MWEs contribute to the host country's EE dynamics not only through their productive entrepreneurship but by enriching the ecosystem's resource endowments and institutional arrangements.

Originality/value

We argue that exploring the gender and inclusivity aspects of EEs as the accommodating context is particularly relevant, given that the United Nation's sustainable development goals 5, 8 and 10 aim to improve women's empowerment at all levels, promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and ensuring equal opportunities and reduced inequalities within the population. Inclusion and embeddedness in EEs positively affect diversity and sustainability in the host country. Theoretically, our contribution is twofold. First, by exploring female migrants' entrepreneurial experiences within the EE based on EE actors' perspectives, we broaden the research on inclusivity in EEs and gender aspects and enrich the research on their societal impact, which has received scant attention from scholars. More specifically, we contribute to EE research with (1) a novel understanding of MWEs and EE elements, their interconnections and dynamism, (2) identifying previously ignored elements shaping MWE and (3) providing EE actor insights into the co-creation of EE for MWE. Second, by analysing the impact of MWEs' businesses on the host country's EE, we contribute to calls for research on MWE contributions to its economic

Purpose

Our understanding of the strategies that lead to the success of start-ups when they scale-up is limited when it occurs at the regional periphery. The main purpose of this study is to explore the specific strategies that start-ups employ to scale-up, specifically in contexts with high resource constraints at the regional periphery.

Design/methodology/approach

Analyzing the data from personal in-depth interviews with engineering and science start-up founders in peripheral regions of upstate New York USA bordering the Canadian Ontario, we explored a combination of internal and external strategies that start-ups employed to scale-up.

Findings

The study found that start-ups prioritize building internal scaling capacity in their human capital, organizational structure, scalable business model, finance and business ownership. To foster the scaling process further, start-ups develop new effective external strategies that target the business environment.

Practical implications

Policymakers and regional governments can use our research to develop more effective industrial policies for supporting start-ups’ growth and subsiding strategic industry clusters for rebooting new competition policy, which is a current debate in many industrialized economies including the US. This targeted regional industrial policy is specially needed when scaling-up at the regional periphery.

Social implications

Our study is specially need it when scaling-up at the regional periphery and with limited resources.

Originality/value

This study enriches our understanding of the growth of start-ups and small ventures by providing context-based insights into how firms build the capacity to scale-up in highly challenging and uncertain business environments in a peripheral bordering region between the USA and Canada. It also offers useful managerial and policy implications.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to showcase how entrepreneurial opportunities can be contextually formed differently for women entrepreneurs concerning their relationship with religion. This article reveals the multi-level and nuanced relationship between religiosity and entrepreneurship through a contextual lens by studying the interaction in a specific national country, Turkiye.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses the life stories of 10 Turkish women entrepreneurs operating in Turkiye. Data were selected purposefully to conduct an in-depth analysis. Thematic content analysis with a discursive approach and deductive and inductive coding methods were performed.

Findings

The findings suggest that the relationship between religiosity and entrepreneurial opportunities is highly contextual and nuanced. Religiosity brings trust and provides access to religious networks which can lead to entrepreneurial opportunities, while leaving people outside of this network bereft of these benefits. The creation of a closed circle for its beneficiaries is a feature of a social network, yet the results show that contextual forces of politics and gender can lead women entrepreneurs outside of this religious network to limit their possibilities of accessing public funding and facilities based on their perceptions as well as negative experiences. It is also seen that religiosity at a certain level is necessary to operate in conservative settings and traditionally masculine business environments with patriarchal practices and norms, as well as due to the religious affinity of the ruling political party. However, because of perceptions and discursive meanings attached to religion and religiosity in the country, women entrepreneurs need to be cautious in expressing their religiosity and find a balance so that they are not seen as unprofessional, incompetent and unqualified as well as do not jeopardise their business due to a controversial religious affiliation.

Originality/value

This paper is of value as it studies religiosity from a contextual perspective enabling and constraining women entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurship in relation to gendered and political structures. In this way, it displays the multiple ways of limitation and support that religiosity can bring for them concerning entrepreneurial opportunities. Turkiye provides a rich context with its mixed religious and secular societal norms and values and neo-liberal institutions and policies to examine the so-far underexplored issue of religiosity in the field of entrepreneurship.

Purpose

The link between entrepreneurial intention and positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship for established and nascent entrepreneurs has been well documented in the extant literature, with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) viewing entrepreneurial intention as a pre-requisite for entrepreneurial pursuit. Whilst scholars generally agree on these insights, little empirical evidence exists on how marginalised social groups can convert their intentions into action. This study aims to understand to what extent the elements of TPB, the attitudes towards entrepreneurship, self-efficacy and subjective norms, help explain the emergence of entrepreneurial activity amongst marginalised demographic groups.

Design/methodology/approach

This research focuses on unemployed women residing in social housing located in a deprived urban area of the United Kingdom to empirically examine how multiple layers of disadvantage faced by this group shape their motivations and intentions for entrepreneurial pursuit. A multi-source qualitative methodology was adopted, drawing upon inductive storytelling narratives and extensive fieldwork on a sample of unemployed ethnic minority women residing in social housing in a deprived urban area of the United Kingdom. Community organisation representatives and housing association employees within the social housing system were included to assess the interpretive capacity of TPB.

Findings

The findings display that TPB illuminates why and how marginalised groups engage in entrepreneurship. Critically, women’s entrepreneurial intentions emerge as a result of their experiences of multiple layers of disadvantage, their positionality and the specificity of few resources they can activate from their disadvantageous position for entrepreneurial activity.

Originality/value

By illuminating the linkages between marginalised women’s positionality and their associated access to the limited pool of resources using the TPB lens, this study contributes to emerging works on disadvantaged populations and entrepreneurial intention-action debate. This work posits that despite facing significant additional challenges through their positionality and reduced ability to mobilise resources, women in social housing can defy the odds and develop ways to overcome limited capacity and structural disadvantage.

Purpose

Entrepreneurs are generally considered to be committed in order to strive for highly desirable goals, such as growth or commercial success. However, commitment is a multidimensional concept and may have asymmetric relationships with positive or negative entrepreneurial outcomes. This paper aims to provide a nuanced perspective to show under what conditions commitment may be detrimental for entrepreneurs and lead to overinvestment.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of entrepreneurs from incubators in France (N = 437), this study employs a configurational perspective, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to identify which commitment profiles lead entrepreneurs to overinvest different resources in their entrepreneurial projects.

Findings

The paper exposes combinations of conditions that lead to overinvestment and identifies five different commitment profiles: an “Affective profile”, a “Project committed profile”, a “Profession committed profile”, an “Instrumental profile”, and an “Affective project profile”.

Originality/value

The results show that affective commitment is a necessary condition for entrepreneurs to conduct overinvesting behaviors. This complements previous linear research on the interdependence between affect and commitment in fostering detrimental outcomes for nascent entrepreneurs.