149913861
Toward a taxonomy of entrepreneurship education research literature: A bibliometric mapping and visualization
Abstract The retrospective amount of research literature dedicated to entrepreneurship education (EE) is overwhelming, which makes producing an overview difficult. However, advanced bibliometric mapping and clustering techniques can help visualize and structure complex research literature. Thus, the objective of this mapping study is to systematically explore and cluster the EE research literature to deliver a taxonomic scheme that can serve as a basis for future research. The analyzed data, which were drawn from the Web of Science and Scopus, consist of 1773 peer-reviewed documents published between 1975 and 2014. On the one hand, this taxonomy should create stronger ties to educational research; on the other, it can foster international research collaboration to boost both interdisciplinary EE and its impact on a global basis. This work reinforces our understanding of current EE research by identifying and distilling the most powerful intellectual relationships among its contributions and contributors. Consequently, this study addresses not only the academic community but also entrepreneurship educators and policymakers in an effort to boost entrepreneurial spirit, design effective policy instruments, and, ultimately, improve societal welfare.
156198488
Youth Entrepreneurship Education and Training for Poverty Alleviation: A Review of International Literature and Local Experiences
Abstract 
Entrepreneurship education and training are an increasingly widespread component of governmental and nongovernmental efforts to address the interrelated challenges of youth unemployment and poverty reduction. In the absence of consensus regarding how best to design learning opportunities that effectively prepare youth to improve their livelihoods, this chapter explores the central debates surrounding three components that are integrated into most entrepreneurship training initiatives: learning, earning, and saving. Drawing on existing literature and considering three entrepreneurship training programs underway in East Africa, the authors argue that the effectiveness of any particular youth entrepreneurship program is highly dependent on a variety of contextual considerations, many of which are beyond the control of individual youth and program managers. Implications of this are that (a) program managers need to be modest in their expectations of program effects and avoid overpromising, (b) training is needed to help prepare youth to recognize, understand, and cope with various contextual factors that impact their livelihoods, and (c) NGOs and other private organizations that implement such programs are in a position to address certain contextual factors. By highlighting key debates relevant to the design of entrepreneurship training programs, this chapter contributes to the development of entrepreneurship training initiatives that are responsive to contextual realities, thereby increasing the potential effectiveness of entrepreneurship training as a poverty alleviation strategy.
153650845
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE METHODS IN IMPACT STUDIES
The majority of studies that analyze the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions, and venture activities report positive influences. However, several scholars have recently cast doubts about research methods and the generalizability of entrepreneurship education impact studies. In this study, we conducted a systematic literature review of the methods used in entrepreneurship education impact studies. Our results uncover significant methodological deficiencies and question the overwhelmingly positive impact of entrepreneurship education. Based on this evidence, we propose a series of recommendations to improve the reliability and validity of entrepreneurship education impact studies and we outline promising topics which are currently under-researched.
144228646
Entrepreneurship Education
The purpose of this article is to explore different themes within entrepreneurship education via the use of a systematic literature review (SLR). Systematic literature reviews are recognized methods for conducting evidence-based policy. The particular approach to the SLR used in this study is explained and the article explores the findings outlining a thematic framework drawn from narrative coding. The findings support the conclusion that entrepreneurship education has had an impact on student propensity and intentionality. What is unclear is the extent to which such education impacts on the level of graduate entrepreneurship or whether it enables graduates to become more effective entrepreneurs. The findings also highlight a lack of consensus on what entrepreneurship or enterprise education actually `is' when implemented in practice.
145507341
Does Entrepreneurship Education Really Work? A Review and Methodological Critique of the Empirical Literature on the Effects of University‐Based Entrepreneurship Education
Does entrepreneurship education (E‐ed) really work to create business enterprise? We conducted a comprehensive review and methodological critique of the empirical research on the outcomes of university‐based E‐ed. We identified every empirical study conducted over the past decade, and found 12 that minimally met our methodologically “robust” (Storey Steps 4–6) standard. Our systematic critique of the studies' research methods found a variety of methodological weaknesses, undermining confidence in the belief that E‐ed can produce entrepreneurship. The implications for both practice and policy are discussed, and recommendations are made for conducting future E‐ed outcome research.
153953820
The Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Meta–Analytic Review
The research on entrepreneurship education–entrepreneurial intentions has yielded mixed results. We meta–analyzed 73 studies with a total sample size of 37,285 individuals and found a significant but a small correlation between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions ( ρ ^ ). This correlation is also greater than that of business education and entrepreneurial intentions. However, after controlling for pre–education entrepreneurial intentions, the relationship between entrepreneurship education and post–education entrepreneurial intentions was not significant. We also analyzed moderators, such as the attributes of entrepreneurship education, students’ differences, and cultural values. Our results have implications for entrepreneurship education scholars, program evaluators, and policy makers.
12197182
Examining the formation of human capital in entrepreneurship: A meta-analysis of entrepreneurship education outcomes
Effective human capital formation through the medium of entrepreneurship education and training (EET) is of increasing concern for governments, as EET is growing rapidly across the world. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consistent evidence showing that EET helps to create more or better entrepreneurs. We undertake the first quantitative review of the literature and, in the context of human capital theory, find that there is indeed support for the value of EET. Based on 42 independent samples (N=16,657), we find a significant relationship between EET and entrepreneurship-related human capital assets (rw=.217) and entrepreneurship outcomes (rw=.159). The relationship between EET and entrepreneurship outcomes is stronger for academic-focused EET interventions (rw=.238) than for training-focused EET interventions (rw=.151). We find evidence of heterogeneity in many of our correlations, and recommend that future studies examine potential moderators to more clearly delineate EET effect sizes. We also find a number of methodological weaknesses among the studies analyzed and that those studies with lower methodological rigor are overstating the effect of EET. Recommendations to improve the quality of future work in the field are provided.
55208757
Toward a set of trainable content on entrepreneurship education: a review of entrepreneurship research from an educational perspective
This is article is a literature review of four entrepreneurship journal published between 2000 and 2008. A content analysis of the literature review is categorized in four competencies to be included in entrepreneurship education processes. The article use Pratt (1998) teaching model to identify the teaching perspective that best fit each competency. The article elaborate teaching content from empirical research and suggest a sequence of how to present entrepreneurship content to new students.
150635560
Entrepreneurship education and training programmes: A review and evaluation - Part 2
Considers six entrepreneurial education and training programmes and in particular the development of high‐technology/knowledge‐based venture entrepreneurs. Examines the design features of entrepreneurial programmes and the outcomes which accrued in terms of new projects, new ventures and employment. Suggests a number of predictive hypotheses.
62772174
Socially-Oriented Ventures and Traditional Entrepreneurship Education Models: A Case Review
As an academic area of study, entrepreneurship has become institutionalized and now includes students from a diverse range of disciplinary fields (M. M. Mars, 2006, 2007). Consequently, students' range of entrepreneurial interests has also become more diverse in scope and nature. Specifically, more students studying entrepreneurship are expressing interest in socially-oriented ventures, which challenge the established instructional methods and strategies that faculty have used in teaching entrepreneurship courses. The present article outlines such challenges that a professor faces in teaching a venture finance course that includes entrepreneurship students pursuing a socially-oriented venture as part of a year-long experiential project. The authors also provide 2 complementary cases to more adequately frame recommendations for practice.
144290811
Some Research Perspectives on Entrepreneurship Education, Enterprise Education and Education for Small Business Management: A Ten-Year Literature Review
GARY GORMAN IS AN ASSOCIATE DEAN AND associate professor and Dennis Hanlon an assistant professor at the Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University ofNewfoundland, Canada, and Wayne King is director of the P. J. Gardiner Institute for Small Business Studies as well as an assistant professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. This paper reviews the literature in the areas of entrepreneurship education, enterprise education and education for small business management. The review covers the period from 1985 to 1994 inclusive and is limited to mainstream journals that focus on entrepreneurship and small business. Theoretical and empirical papers are examined from the perspective of content and market focus. The paper also suggests directions for future research.
157387407
Taxonomy of the Determinants of Entrepreneurial Activity
INTRODUCTION A strong positive relationship has been found to exist between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth (Kirzner, 2009; van Stel, Storey, & Thurik, 2007). Indeed, all major theories of entrepreneurship view entrepreneurs as creators of new economic activity, which leads to wealth creation (1). Moreover, while creating new economic activity, entrepreneurs also create jobs and bring about innovation (2) (Amoros, 2009; Dennis, 2011; Dyck & Ovaska, 2011; Ramos-Rodriguez, Medina-Garrido, Lorenzo-Gomez, & Ruiz-Navarro, 2010). As policy makers are often required to show economic growth and job creation, most see entrepreneurship as a key issue (N. Ahmad & R. G. Seymour, 2008; Macerinskiene & Aleknaviciute, 2011). In addressing this issue, however, policy makers are faced with entrepreneurship research which is dynamic, vast, and multidisciplinary (Klein, 2010). The result is a research environment that appears disorganized. This paper contributes to entrepreneurship research literature by formulating a taxonomy allowing both scholars and the general public to better understand various factors impacting entrepreneurship. The taxonomy may also help researchers to engage in more focused or specialized efforts and thereby become more efficient. The paper offers a multidisciplinary, but not necessarily comprehensive, perspective on factors deemed most important in affecting entrepreneurship. Importance of a particular factor is based on either the test of time or current degree of research effort. Due to the extensive nature of entrepreneurship literature, this study cannot discuss nor even mention all entrepreneurship determinants previously examined by researchers. What it does do is identify classes and subclasses of determinants that may be used as a starting point toward a more organized approach to entrepreneurship research. Entrepreneurship is first defined and presented as a field of study. A discussion of factors affecting entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activity, as well as an approach toward organizing these factors into classes of entrepreneurship determinants, follows and comprises the major portion of the paper. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief summary and proposals for further research. ENTREPRENEURSHIP Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Activity The definition of entrepreneurship is still a matter of debate (Ahmad & Hoffman, 2008; N. Ahmad & R. Seymour, 2008; Anderson & Marzena, 2008; Bygrave & Hofer, 1991; Freytag & Thurik, 2007; Klapper & Love, 2010; Long, 1983; McKenzie, Ugbah, & Smothers, 2007; Spencer, Kirchhoff, & White, 2008). Despite this debate, entrepreneurs tend to be viewed in similar (but by no means identical) ways by researchers. Three common components of entrepreneurial activity have emerged to dominate the entrepreneurship literature: opportunities, uncertainty, and innovation. For example, Kirzner's (2009) entrepreneur (or "arbitrageur") lives in a state of uncertainty and constantly changes this uncertain environment by finding opportunities (Douhan, Eliasson, & Henrekson, 2007). Some authors believe that entrepreneurs simply identify these opportunities, while others believe that at least some entrepreneurs also create opportunities (Venkataraman et al., 2012). Not surprisingly (3), Kirzner's entrepreneur is similar to von Mises's "speculator." Emerging from the Austrian school of economics, the emphasis here is on individuals being able to identify opportunities and who, by doing so, change the status quo and move the economy forward. This link between entrepreneurial activity, uncertainty, and opportunities can also be found in the writings of scholars such as Cantillon and Knight (Ahmad & Seymour, 2008). Given that all people face uncertainty (even bureaucrats), this approach to entrepreneurship recognizes that the degree of uncertainty may be more important than the fact of uncertainty in distinguishing between entrepreneurs and other decision makers. …
153957646
The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Education: Development, Trends, and Challenges
Entrepreneurship has emerged over the last two decades as arguably the most potent economic force the world has ever experienced. With that expansion has come a similar increase in the field of entrepreneurship education. The recent growth and development in the curricula and programs devoted to entrepreneurship and new–venture creation have been remarkable. The number of colleges and universities that offer courses related to entrepreneurship has grown from a handful in the 1970s to over 1,600 in 2005. In the midst of this huge expansion remains the challenge of complete academic legitimacy for entrepreneurship. While it can be argued that some legitimacy has been attained in the current state of entrepreneurship education, there are critical challenges that lie ahead. This article focuses on the trends and challenges in entrepreneurship education for the 21st century.
62167006
Co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and direct citation: Which citation approach represents the research front most accurately?
In the past several years studies have started to appear comparing the accuracies of various science mapping approaches. These studies primarily compare the cluster solutions resulting from different similarity approaches, and give varying results. In this study we compare the accuracies of cluster solutions of a large corpus of 2,153,769 recent articles from the biomedical literature (2004–2008) using four similarity approaches: co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, direct citation, and a bibliographic coupling-based citation-text hybrid approach. Each of the four approaches can be considered a way to represent the research front in biomedicine, and each is able to successfully cluster over 92p of the corpus. Accuracies are compared using two metrics—within-cluster textual coherence as defined by the Jensen-Shannon divergence, and a concentration measure based on the grant-to-article linkages indexed in MEDLINE. Of the three pure citation-based approaches, bibliographic coupling slightly outperforms co-citation analysis using both accuracy measures; direct citation is the least accurate mapping approach by far. The hybrid approach improves upon the bibliographic coupling results in all respects. We consider the results of this study to be robust given the very large size of the corpus, and the specificity of the accuracy measures used. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
31851716
Author cocitation: A literature measure of intellectual structure
It is shown that the mapping of a particular area of science, in this case information science, can be done using authors as units of analysis and the cocitations of pairs of authors as the variable that indicates their “distances” from each other. The analysis assumes that the more two authors are cited together, the closer the relationship between them. The raw data are cocitation counts drawn online from Social Scisearch (Social Sciences Citation Index) over the period 1972–1979. The resulting map shows (1) identifiable author groups (akin to “schools”) of information science, (2) locations of these groups with respect to each other, (3) the degree of centrality and peripherality of authors within groups, (4) proximities of authors within group and across group boundaries (“border authors” who seem to connect various areas of research), and (5) positions of authors with respect to the map's axes, which were arbitrarily set spanning the most divergent groups in order to aid interpretation. Cocitation analysis of authors offers a new technique that might contribute to the understanding of intellectual structure in the sciences and possibly in other areas to the extent that those areas rely on serial publications. The technique establishes authors, as well as documents, as an effective unit in analyzing subject specialties.
54127881
Bibliometrics, Citation Analysis and Co-Citation Analysis: A Review of Literature I
Although the coinage of the term Bibliometrics is fairly recent, its usage and practice can be traced back to the 1890's. Bibliometrics has been used vastly äs a quantitative method for evaluating the literature in different disciplines, particularly in the last two decades. This artide is intended to review bibliometrics and one of its major methods citation analysis in two different parts: the ftrst part of this artide aims to present a background of the bibliometrics and citation analysis. The applications of dtation analysis are also studied in this part. In the second part of this article: document and author co-citation analysis äs well äs journal-by-journal and country-by-country citation analysis are studied. Mapping science äs an application of co-citation analysis is also studied. finally the limitations, problems and reliability and validity of dtation analysis äs a research method will be considered.
154227214
Management of technology: themes, concepts and relationships
Abstract In this paper, bibliometric (co-citation analysis) and social network analysis techniques are used to investigate the intellectual pillars of the technology management literature as reported in Technovation. Network analysis tools are also used to show that the research agenda of scholars from different parts of the world differ substantially from each other, and it is argued that such differences may have exacerbated the delays experienced in developing technology management as a respected academic discipline.
2749053
Co-citation analysis and the search for invisible colleges: A methodological evaluation
After 30 years of research, co-citation analysis has become the dominant method for the empirical study of the structures of scientific communication. There is a considerable variety of methods and, at the same time, a lack of methodological evaluation. This paper summarizes the present state of co-citation analysis and presents several methods of clustering references. The database used is a selection of 2,114 documents in the field of organization studies from 1986-2000. The evaluative study shows that the choice of methods has a strong impact on the results created. It also shows that the methods of cluster and factor analysis hitherto used have only a limited value in differentiating clearly between schools of scientific research - the 'invisible colleges'.
145284638
Is There Conceptual Convergence in Entrepreneurship Research? A Co–Citation Analysis of Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 1981–2004
Conceptual convergence is often seen as a holy grail in entrepreneurship research. Yet little empirical research has focused specifically on the extent and nature of this convergence. We address this issue by content–analyzing the networks of co–citation emerging from the 20,184 references listed in the 960 full–length articles published in the Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research series between 1981 and 2004. Our results provide evidence for the varying levels of convergence that have characterized entrepreneurship research over the years, as well as the evolution of the conceptual themes that have attracted scholars’ attention in different periods. In addition, we provide evidence that the field relies increasingly on its own literature, something that points toward the unique contribution that it makes to the management sciences.
113611859
The entrepreneurial marketing domain: a citation and co-citation
Purpose – Entrepreneurial marketing (EM) is at the brink of becoming an established discipline. To advance the field further and to better guide research efforts in different sub categories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the field’s intellectual structure with the help of citation and co-citation analysis. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a two-stage research design. First a citation analysis is carried out through which thematic clusters are identified. In a second step a co-citation analysis is conducted to determine the intellectual structure of EM research. Findings – This study exposes the most influential authors and publications and emphasizes conjunctions among scholars and their findings. Results show three streams that are the foundation of EM research: theoretical foundations of management, entrepreneurship, and marketing; the research interface of marketing and entrepreneurship; SME and new venture marketing. Research limitations/implications – The results of a bibliometric analysis are limited by the publications that have been selected as a starting point. However, through the selection criteria chosen to identify the database for analysis, the authors are confident that the results illustrate the intellectual structure of EM research in its entirety. The authors recommend that future research should be conducted in one of the three sub-fields identified in this study. Practical implications – By laying out different research streams within EM it is hoped that future research will be guided in different directions. “Fine-tuning” of research efforts will benefit small, new, and entrepreneurial firms. Originality/value – The analyses conducted in this paper draw a picture of the field that is based on a quantitative approach and therefore sets itself apart from other literature reviews that have a qualitative core.
10396025
Towards a Methodology for Developing Evidence-Informed Management Knowledge by Means of Systematic Review
Undertaking a review of the literature is an important part of any research project. The researcher both maps and assesses the relevant intellectual territory in order to specify a research question which will further develop the knowledge hase. However, traditional 'narrative' reviews frequently lack thoroughness, and in many cases are not undertaken as genuine pieces of investigatory science. Consequently they can lack a means for making sense of what the collection of studies is saying. These reviews can he hiased by the researcher and often lack rigour. Furthermore, the use of reviews of the available evidence to provide insights and guidance for intervention into operational needs of practitioners and policymakers has largely been of secondary importance. For practitioners, making sense of a mass of often-contrad ictory evidence has hecome progressively harder. The quality of evidence underpinning decision-making and action has heen questioned, for inadequate or incomplete evidence seriously impedes policy formulation and implementation. In exploring ways in which evidence-informed management reviews might be achieved, the authors evaluate the process of systematic review used in the medical sciences. Over the last fifteen years, medical science has attempted to improve the review process hy synthesizing research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducihie manner with the twin aims of enhancing the knowledge hase and informing policymaking and practice. This paper evaluates the extent to which the process of systematic review can be applied to the management field in order to produce a reliable knowledge stock and enhanced practice by developing context-sensitive research. The paper highlights the challenges in developing an appropriate methodology.
8629930
A comparison of two techniques for bibliometric mapping: Multidimensional scaling and VOS
VOS is a new mapping technique that can serve as an alternative to the well-known technique of multidimensional scaling. We present an extensive comparison between the use of multidimensional scaling and the use of VOS for constructing bibliometric maps. In our theoretical analysis, we show the mathematical relation between the two techniques. In our experimental analysis, we use the techniques for constructing maps of authors, journals, and keywords. Two commonly used approaches to bibliometric mapping, both based on multidimensional scaling, turn out to produce maps that suffer from artifacts. Maps constructed using VOS turn out not to have this problem. We conclude that in general maps constructed using VOS provide a more satisfactory representation of a data set than maps constructed using well-known multidimensional scaling approaches.
9551684
CitNetExplorer: A new software tool for analyzing and visualizing citation networks
We present CitNetExplorer, a new software tool for analyzing and visualizing citation networks of scientific publications. CitNetExplorer can for instance be used to study the development of a research field, to delineate the literature on a research topic, and to support literature reviewing. We first introduce the main concepts that need to be understood when working with CitNetExplorer. We then demonstrate CitNetExplorer by using the tool to analyze the scientometric literature and the literature on community detection in networks. Finally, we discuss some technical details on the construction, visualization, and analysis of citation networks in CitNetExplorer.
18484716
A smart local moving algorithm for large-scale modularity-based community detection
Abstract
We introduce a new algorithm for modularity-based community detection in large networks. The algorithm, which we refer to as a smart local moving algorithm, takes advantage of a well-known local moving heuristic that is also used by other algorithms. Compared with these other algorithms, our proposed algorithm uses the local moving heuristic in a more sophisticated way. Based on an analysis of a diverse set of networks, we show that our smart local moving algorithm identifies community structures with higher modularity values than other algorithms for large-scale modularity optimization, among which the popular “Louvain algorithm”. The computational efficiency of our algorithm makes it possible to perform community detection in networks with tens of millions of nodes and hundreds of millions of edges. Our smart local moving algorithm also performs well in small and medium-sized networks. In short computing times, it identifies community structures with modularity values equally high as, or almost as high as, the highest values reported in the literature, and sometimes even higher than the highest values found in the literature.

62219468
Evolution of research activities and intellectual influences in information science 1996–2005: Introducing author bibliographic-coupling analysis
Author cocitation analysis (ACA) has frequently been applied over the last two decades for mapping the intellectual structure of a research field as represented by its authors. However, what is mapped in ACA is actually the structure of intellectual influences on a research field as perceived by its active authors. In this exploratory paper, by contrast, we introduce author bibliographic-coupling analysis (ABCA) as a method to map the research activities of active authors themselves for a more realistic picture of the current state of research in a field. We choose the information science (IS) field and study its intellectual structure both in terms of current research activities as seen from ABCA and in terms of intellectual influences on its research as shown from ACA. We examine how these two aspects of the intellectual structure of the IS field are related, and how they both developed during the “first decade of the Web,” 1996–2005. We find that these two citation-based author-mapping methods complement each other, and that, in combination, they provide a more comprehensive view of the intellectual structure of the IS field than either of them can provide on its own. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
16120953
Bibliometric Mapping of the Computational Intelligence Field
In this paper, a bibliometric study of the computational intelligence field is presented. Bibliometric maps showing the associations between the main concepts in the field are provided for the periods 1996–2000 and 2001–2005. Both the current structure of the field and the evolution of the field over the last decade are analyzed. In addition, a number of emerging areas in the field are identified. It turns out that computational intelligence can best be seen as a field that is structured around four important types of problems, namely control problems, classification problems, regression problems, and optimization problems. Within the computational intelligence field, the neural networks and fuzzy systems subfields are fairly intertwined, whereas the evolutionary computation subfield has a relatively independent position.
123350066
Modern Multidimensional Scaling: Theory and Applications
Fundamentals of MDS.- The Four Purposes of Multidimensional Scaling.- Constructing MDS Representations.- MDS Models and Measures of Fit.- Three Applications of MDS.- MDS and Facet Theory.- How to Obtain Proximities.- MDS Models and Solving MDS Problems.- Matrix Algebra for MDS.- A Majorization Algorithm for Solving MDS.- Metric and Nonmetric MDS.- Confirmatory MDS.- MDS Fit Measures, Their Relations, and Some Algorithms.- Classical Scaling.- Special Solutions, Degeneracies, and Local Minima.- Unfolding.- Unfolding.- Avoiding Trivial Solutions in Unfolding.- Special Unfolding Models.- MDS Geometry as a Substantive Model.- MDS as a Psychological Model.- Scalar Products and Euclidean Distances.- Euclidean Embeddings.- MDS and Related Methods.- Procrustes Procedures.- Three-Way Procrustean Models.- Three-Way MDS Models.- Modeling Asymmetric Data.- Methods Related to MDS.
1054844
Analysis of weighted networks.
The connections in many networks are not merely binary entities, either present or not, but have associated weights that record their strengths relative to one another. Recent studies of networks have, by and large, steered clear of such weighted networks, which are often perceived as being harder to analyze than their unweighted counterparts. Here we point out that weighted networks can in many cases be analyzed using a simple mapping from a weighted network to an unweighted multigraph, allowing us to apply standard techniques for unweighted graphs to weighted ones as well. We give a number of examples of the method, including an algorithm for detecting community structure in weighted networks and a simple proof of the maximum-flow-minimum-cut theorem.
15412738
Detecting community structure in networks
Abstract.There has been considerable recent interest in algorithms for finding communities in networks--groups of vertices within which connections are dense, but between which connections are sparser. Here we review the progress that has been made towards this end. We begin by describing some traditional methods of community detection, such as spectral bisection, the Kernighan-Lin algorithm and hierarchical clustering based on similarity measures. None of these methods, however, is ideal for the types of real-world network data with which current research is concerned, such as Internet and web data and biological and social networks. We describe a number of more recent algorithms that appear to work well with these data, including algorithms based on edge betweenness scores, on counts of short loops in networks and on voltage differences in resistor networks.
197314
Finding and evaluating community structure in networks.
We propose and study a set of algorithms for discovering community structure in networks-natural divisions of network nodes into densely connected subgroups. Our algorithms all share two definitive features: first, they involve iterative removal of edges from the network to split it into communities, the edges removed being identified using any one of a number of possible "betweenness" measures, and second, these measures are, crucially, recalculated after each removal. We also propose a measure for the strength of the community structure found by our algorithms, which gives us an objective metric for choosing the number of communities into which a network should be divided. We demonstrate that our algorithms are highly effective at discovering community structure in both computer-generated and real-world network data, and show how they can be used to shed light on the sometimes dauntingly complex structure of networked systems.
13526273
Studying Information Technology in Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions
We examined 155 information systems research articles published from 1983 to 1988 and found that although this research is not rooted in a single over-arching theoretical perspective, it does exhibit a single set of philosophical assumptions regarding the nature of the phenomena studied by information systems researchers, and what constitutes valid knowledge about those phenomena. We believe that a single research perspective for studying information systems phenomena is unnecessarily restrictive, and argue that there exist other philosophical assumptions that can inform studies of the relationships between information technology, people, and organizations. In this paper, we present two additional research philosophies for consideration-the interpretive and the critical-and for each we provide empirical examples to illustrate how they are used. We conclude by suggesting that much can be gained if a plurality of research perspectives is effectively employed to investigate information systems phenomena.
64392497
Citation Indexing Its Theory And Application In Science Technology And Humanities
Thank you very much for downloading citation indexing its theory and application in science technology and humanities. As you may know, people have search hundreds times for their favorite novels like this citation indexing its theory and application in science technology and humanities, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some infectious virus inside their computer.
20014905
The need for standards in bibliometric research and technology
The need for standardisation in bibliometric research and technology is discussed in the context of failing communication within the scientific community, the unsatisfactory impact of bibliometric research outside the community and the observed incompatibility of bibliometric indicators produced by different institutes. The development of bibliometric standards is necessary to improve the reliability of bibliometric results, to guarantee the validity of bibliometric methods and to make bibliometric data compatible. Both conceptual and technical questions are raised. Consequences of lacking standards are illustrated by typical examples. Finally, particular topics of standardisation are proposed based on experiences made at ISSRU.
7478016
Bibliometric monitoring of research performance in the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A Review
SummaryThis paper addresses research performance monitoring of the social sciences and the humanities using citation analysis. Main differences in publication and citation behavior between the (basic) sciences and the social sciences and humanities are outlined. Limitations of the (S)SCI and A&HCI for monitoring research performance are considered. For research performance monitoring in many social sciences and humanities, the methods used in science need to be extended. A broader range of both publications (including non-ISI journals and monographs) and citation indicators (including non-ISI reference citation values) is needed. Three options for bibliometric monitoring are discussed.
7972085
A Google Scholar h-index for journals: An alternative metric to measure journal impact in economics and business
We propose a new data source (Google Scholar) and metric (Hirsch's h-index) to assess journal impact in the field of Economics & Business. A systematic comparison between the Google Scholar h-index and the ISI Journal Impact Factor for a sample of 838 journals in Economics & Business shows that the former provides a more accurate and comprehensive measure of journal impact.
22893379
Sources of Google Scholar citations outside the Science Citation Index: A comparison between four science disciplines
For practical reasons, bibliographic databases can only contain a subset of the scientific literature. The ISI citation databases are designed to cover the highest impact scientific research journals as well as a few other sources chosen by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Google Scholar also contains citation information, but includes a less quality controlled collection of publications from different types of web documents. We define Google Scholar unique citations as those retrieved by Google Scholar which are not in the ISI database. We took a sample of 882 articles from 39 open access ISI-indexed journals in 2001 from biology, chemistry, physics and computing and classified the type, language, publication year and accessibility of the Google Scholar unique citing sources. The majority of Google Scholar unique citations (70%) were from full-text sources and there were large disciplinary differences between types of citing documents, suggesting that a wide range of non-ISI citing sources, especially from non-journal documents, are accessible by Google Scholar. This might be considered to be an advantage of Google Scholar, since it could be useful for citation tracking in a wider range of open access scholarly documents and to give a broader type of citation impact. An important corollary from our study is that Google Scholar’s wider coverage of Open Access (OA) web documents is likely to give a boost to the impact of OA research and the OA movement.
10574859
A comparison of bibliometric indicators for computer science scholars and journals on Web of Science and Google Scholar
Given the current availability of different bibliometric indicators and of production and citation data sources, the following two questions immediately arise: do the indicators’ scores differ when computed on different data sources? More importantly, do the indicator-based rankings significantly change when computed on different data sources? We provide a case study for computer science scholars and journals evaluated on Web of Science and Google Scholar databases. The study concludes that Google scholar computes significantly higher indicators’ scores than Web of Science. Nevertheless, citation-based rankings of both scholars and journals do not significantly change when compiled on the two data sources, while rankings based on the h index show a moderate degree of variation.
144544884
The Social and Collaborative Nature of Entrepreneurship Scholarship: A Co–Citation and Perceptual Analysis
This article explores the structure of the “metafield” of entrepreneurship in two related ways. First, author co–citation analysis establishes a collective view of the structure of the entrepreneurship literature as perceived by its research–active members. The co–citation frequencies of 78 prominent entrepreneurship researchers were analyzed using multivariate techniques. Cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling were used to explore the intellectual structure of entrepreneurship research by identifying groups of scholars whose work falls into similar areas. Factor analysis was then used to identify the underlying themes that characterize and define the field. Finally, the scholars within these nominal groupings were approached using individualized questionnaires to explore what social interactions might parallel, reflect, or underpin the intellectual ones. The study has given empirical support to a number of oft–quoted beliefs about entrepreneurship as a field of study, such as: (1) the occurrence of fragmentation from an early stage in its development; (2) that the difficulty of categorizing subfields unambiguously mirrors that in the metafield itself; (3) that there is a relative paucity of scholarship cited across—as opposed to within—these subfields; and (4) that there is evolution within the meta–field of national differences in the topics studied and citation patterns thereto. In addition, the study demonstrates that there are real and robust social and collaborative networks underlying the generation of the work which is cited jointly by third parties. The latter authors may be unaware of these networks. Equally, the co–cited authors, while recognizing overlapping interests, may have difficulty in categorizing this commonality in their contributions. Entrepreneurship research is shown to be very much a social activity, although this may be invisible to outsiders or novitiates.
140432931
Social Networks Research in Higher Education
Susan Biancani - Research Fellow, School of Education, Stanford University. E-mail: biancani@standford.eduDaniel A. McFarland - Research Fellow, School of Education, Stanford University. E-mail: mcfarland@stanford.eduAddress: School of Education, Stanford University, 485 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.This chapter describes the literature on social networks in higher education from both an analytical and empirical perspective. The literature is organized in such a way: Descriptive work, work that uses networks as a dependent variable, and work that uses networks as an independent variable. Several important questions are investigated in this literature, including students attitudes on race, factors influencing student achievement, and the role online social networks play in students lives. Homophily and propinquity play important roles in promoting ties between individuals - here, friendship ties among students. At the same time, the effects of homophily can be overcome: additional exposure to classmates from different backgrounds makes students more likely to form friendships that cross racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic boundaries. Moreover, this additional exposure also may promote more open-minded attitudes among students toward classmates of different races than their own. Interestingly, one key mechanism in overcoming the effect of homophily is propinquity: Being roommates or dorm-mates with diverse others increases the likelihood of becoming friends with them. Scholarship has also demonstrated that a strong set of connections to classmates is important for students success and happiness in school. While the literature on student social networks in institutions of higher education provides numerous useful insights, the field remains fragmented. In part, this is because the field lacks broad, synthetic works that integrate these multiple perspectives.DOI: 10.17323/1814-9545-2013-4-85-126
145556558
Growth or steady state? A bibliometric focus on international comparative higher education research
The study combines a bibliometric approach with a content analysis of abstracts of articles to explore the patterns of international comparative higher education research in leading international journals. The overall data set covers 4,095 publications from the Web of Science for the period 1992–2012 and the amount of international comparative articles in this data set is analyzed utilizing a geographical coding. Contrary to a general proliferation of international and global trends in higher education, the results of the analysis most importantly reveal a relatively steady state of international comparative higher education research over the past 20 years. Further patterns examined show that international collaborative articles have a much higher share in international comparative research compared to non-comparative research, small-scale country clusters are preferred for comparison and there is a dense network of comparative clusters between Europe and the US. Finally, rationales for these patterns are discussed, as well as potential implications.
15455206
A scientometric analysis of the effectiveness of Taiwan’s educational research projects
The seeking of evidence for revealing the research performance of Education in Taiwan, in response to the stimulus by the national research projects, is presented and interpreted. More than 70,000 publication records over the years 1990–2011 from Web of Science were downloaded and analyzed. The overview analysis by data aggregation and country ranking shows that Taiwan has significantly improved its publication productivity and citation impact over the last decade. The drill-down analysis based on journal bibliographic coupling, information visualization, and diversity and trend indexes, reveals that e-Learning and Science Education are two fast growing subfields that attract global interests and that Taiwan is among the top-ranked countries in these two fields in terms of research productivity. Implications of the analysis are discussed with an emphasis on the subfield characteristics from which more insightful interpretations can be obtained, such as the regional or cultural characteristics that may affect the performance ranking.
143947473
A review of research on metacognition in science education: current and future directions
The goal of this study is to map the current state of research in the field of metacognition in science education, to identify key trends, and to discern areas and questions for future research. We conducted a systematic analysis of 178 studies published in peer-reviewed journals in the years 2000–2012 and indexed in the ERIC database. The findings from this analysis indicate that the field of metacognition in science education is in a state of growth and expansion, and that metacognition is increasingly integrated into research addressing the core objectives of science education. In contrast to the findings of previous reviews, conceptual understanding of science was found to be one of the central aims of current metacognition research. The studies employ a wide range of instructional practices for fostering learners’ metacognition. The most prominent practice is the use of metacognitive cues and prompts in the course of instruction. Several research gaps are identified: first, the development of learners’ metacognitive knowledge is receiving less empirical attention than the development of their metacognitive skills; second, there is a lack of studies that employ controlled research designs that can provide causal evidence regarding the effectiveness of metacognitive instruction for science learning; third, there is an insufficient number of studies of metacognition among young learners in preschool and the early years of elementary school; and fourth, there are very few studies of teachers’ knowledge and professional development regarding metacognition. The implications of these research gaps are explored and suggestions for future research are raised.
12620679
Interactive overlay maps for US patent (USPTO) data based on International Patent Classification (IPC)
We report on the development of an interface to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that allows for the mapping of patent portfolios as overlays to basemaps constructed from citation relations among all patents contained in this database during the period 1976–2011. Both the interface and the data are in the public domain; the freeware programs VOSViewer and/or Pajek can be used for the visualization. These basemaps and overlays can be generated at both the 3-digit and 4-digit levels of the International Patent Classification (IPC) of the world intellectual property organization (WIPO). The basemaps can provide a stable mental framework for analysts to follow developments over searches for different years, which can be animated. The full flexibility of the advanced search engines of USPTO are available for generating sets of patents and/or patent applications which can thus be visualized and compared. This instrument allows for addressing questions about technological distance, diversity in portfolios, and animating the developments of both technologies and technological capacities of organizations over time.
12039324
Radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging: a bibliometric study in Iran
Introduction: Nowadays, science mapping is considered an excellent technique for decision-makers to find solutions for problems in research planning and development. In this work, we aimed to depict a science map of “radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging” in Iran. Methods: All publications indexed in Thomson Reuters Web of Science database in the fields mentioned above with at least one affiliation corresponding to “Iran” were included in the study. “Visualization of similarities” (VOS) viewer software was then utilized to analyze the data for generating density maps and density cluster maps of organizations, authors, and journals based on bibliographic coupling and co-citation similarity measures. Results: Various maps were then formed and discussed. Tehran University of Medical Sciences in all fields of radiology, nuclear medicine, and medical imaging was proved to be the dominant organization in the country. Conclusion: Applying VOSviewer software, data was analyzed for extracting bibliographic coupling and co-citation relations and theirs corresponding science maps in terms of affiliated organizations, authors, and publishing journals. More comprehensive studies can be performed to obtain more mature science maps. Performing such analyses for other countries and then comparing with the internal science maps can be useful for decision-makers.
17112448
The life sciences in German–Chinese cooperation: an institutional-level co-publication analysis
This paper analyses the scientific cooperation between German and Chinese institutions in the field of the life sciences on the basis of co-publications published between 2007 and 2011 in Web of Science covered sources. After analyzing the global output of publications in the life sciences, and identifying China’s most important international partners on country level, this study focuses on a network and cluster analysis of German–Chinese co-publications on an institutional level. Cleaning and standardizing all German and Chinese addresses, a total of 531 German and 700 Chinese institutions were identified that co-published together in the period under analysis. Disaggregating the institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences made it possible to obtain more meaningful information on existing co-publication structures. Using VOSviewer the German–Chinese collaboration network in the life sciences is visualized and clusters of similar institutions identified. The seven most important clusters of German–Chinese co-publications partners are briefly described providing background information for funding agencies such as the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research or researchers in the life sciences, who wish to establish collaborations with German or Chinese institutions.
17000808
Careers in science: policy issues according to Nature and Science editorials
This study analyzes the editorials in Science and Nature published between 2000 and 2012 about careers in science. Of the total body of documents, 8.8 % dealt with science careers. The editorials were manually classified by topics and then mapped using the VOSviewer. This revealed six easily distinguishable clusters: career conditions in science, the attractiveness of science as a career, merit-based career policies, the effect of research funding on careers, specific groups underrepresented in science, and mobility of scientists. The paper summarizes the main thrust of the arguments in these editorials. There is strong agreement about the problems in scientific careers, but less consensus on the solutions to these problems. The paper also explores whether mapping on the basis of automatically identified terms could have provided adequate results, but concludes that manual classification is needed.
144941197
Learning from Levi–Strauss’ Legacy: Art, Craft, Engineering, Bricolage, and Brokerage in Entrepreneurship
Given the increasing attention to traditionally less “rational” entrepreneurial behaviors, such as bricolage, we used grounded theory techniques to study 23 diverse entrepreneurs. From this, we developed a five–category typology of entrepreneurial behavior that includes art, craft, engineering, bricolage, and brokerage. Themes such as self–perceived identity, organization of space, integration of materials, sense of personal limits, and responsiveness to changing market conditions were observed along categorical lines. We discuss the significance of the typology and each category's associations with venture longevity and financial performance for practitioners and for the study of entrepreneurship.
154013942
European governance and the transfer of ‘new’ environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) in the European Union
This article examines the use of 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), particularly market-based instruments (for example, eco-taxes) and voluntary agreements, in the European Union (EU). It focuses on the actor motivation behind the recent increase in the adoption of new and innovative instruments in EU (and member state) environmental policies while also taking account of the external international arena. The article assesses whether new ideas put forward by policy entrepreneurs, such as member governments, EU institutions, expert groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are main motivation behind the EU adoption of NEPIs, or whether market and harmonization pressures are the main driving forces. It concentrates on eco-taxes, voluntary agreements and eco-labels, using the following three theoretical perspectives: (1) policy learning and transfer/ideational; (2) garbage can; and (3) institutional approaches.
145540940
Advocacy networks, choice and private schooling of the poor in India
This article is about the flows of rhetorics and discourses, particularly those that advocate choice and private schooling, and the role that transnational advocacy networks played in managing and driving these flows. We explore a set of network relations between advocacy groups in the UK and the USA and local 'choice' advocates in India, and some of the emerging impacts of local and transnational advocacy on the politics of education and education policy in India. The network advocates school choice and private schooling as solutions to the problem of achieving universal, high-quality primary education. Individual policy entrepreneurs are active in making these connections and circulating ideas. A complex of funding, exchange, cross-referencing, dissemination and mutual sponsorship links the Indian choice and privatization advocacy network, and connects it to a global network for neoliberalism organizations in other countries.
154908489
Inclusion of Women Academics into American Universities: Analysis of Women Status Reports
American research universities play an important role in the ongoing campaign to improve the status of women academics. During the last four decades, the practice of producing ‘status of women’ reports has been widely developed as part of the policy and management repertoire to understand the barriers women academics may face in their institutions. In this study, we attempt to unfold the institutional determinants of producing such reports. The findings suggest that the most important determinant is the existence of a permanent and institutionally sanctioned commission on women at the university level. This type of institutional commitment to matters of women academics proves far more important than the presence of policy entrepreneurs or programme support such as the NSF ADVANCE initiative. The primary policy implication is that universities should invest in and maintain formal institutional structures that focus on the particular needs of women academics.
54492262
Framing and selling global education policy: the promotion of public–private partnerships for education in low-income contexts
Public–private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a ‘programmatic idea’ and, in particular, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communities by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts.
143964347
From academia to media: staging the public career of critical literacy
This paper explores some of the processes through which an educational policy agenda can be generated in the media sphere. It casts light on the roles of journalists and various types of expert in these processes as they pertain to critical literacy. I argue for the usefulness of cross-field performance as a concept which helps to illuminate the special place of individuals who position themselves across journalistic, academic and political fields. The analysis is supported by examination of patterns in newspaper reporting and academic publication, which suggests that contestation of critical literacy serves as a staging device for a team of policy entrepreneurs, whose performances work to discredit and exclude other players.
144712818
Teaching Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation From the Perspective of Place and Place Making
Business education for social entrepreneurship and innovation is an emerging area of study and practice. This article draws from literatures in geography and anthropology to offer a place-based perspective that we believe enriches our understanding of social context and provides new approaches to teaching the subject. We begin by considering the limitations of existing approaches to understanding social context and then present a four-frame model of place-based thinking (Gruenewald, 2003) with implications for teaching social entrepreneurship and innovation. Afterward we present a case study of a project-oriented, place-based learning approach to social entrepreneurship and innovation around water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) in the informal settlements of Cape Town, South Africa. We discuss how the use of place enriches our students' understanding of the WaSH-related innovations there. We also reflect on the successes, failures and place-based experiments. Implications for a new approach to teaching social entrepreneurship and innovation are also discussed.
145467607
Social Learning and Social Entrepreneurship Education
The complexities and uncertainties of social entrepreneurs' worlds require them to juggle social and business aims. Using social theories of learning, we provide a deeper understanding of learning within social entrepreneurship education. Programs aimed to develop reflective thinking and communities of practice to equip social entrepreneurs for their unique circumstances. Two programs are compared and the implications of social and commercial entrepreneurs learning together are examined. Challenges and successes in the cultivation of a community of practice reveal the importance of learner identity and psychological safety. The paper culminates with key principles for educators of social entrepreneurs.
395715
A Model of Social Entrepreneurial Discovery
Social entrepreneurship activity continues to surge tremendously in market and economic systems around the world. Yet, social entrepreneurship theory and understanding lag far behind its practice. For instance, the nature of the entrepreneurial discovery phenomenon, a critical area of inquiry in general entrepreneurship theory, receives no attention in the specific context of social entrepreneurship. To address the gap, we conceptualize social entrepreneurial discovery based on an extension of corporate social responsibility into social entrepreneurship contexts. We develop a model that emphasizes mobilization and timing as underpinnings of social entrepreneurial discovery and offer distinct conceptual aspects and theoretic propositions instrumental to future social entrepreneurship research.
145513613
‘I am much more than just a mum’. Social capital, empowerment and Sure Start
An earlier article published in this journal sought to recover the views of professionals concerned with the delivery and implementation of a ‘Third Way’ multiagency programme tackling the social exclusion of young children and their families known as Sure Start. The tentative findings suggested a ‘bottom‐up’ partnership perspective was held by professionals as they engaged in a process of ‘civic entrepreneurship’ to build social capital within the local community. This article tells a further part of that story as through qualitative data it recovers the views of local parents involved with the programme. The findings are important as they suggest a meaningful change in the power relationship between parents and professionals. The parents report how the project built holistically on existing strengths within the community, how professionals valued, listened to, and acted on their views, how the project changed them personally, and how collectively they became increasingly involved with the programme and empowered in the social capital building process. The concluding discussion draws on the work of Granovetter (1973) on social capital and Zimmerman (1995) on empowerment to theoretically locate and discuss the findings.
154819606
Business creation by immigrant entrepreneurs in the valencian community. The influence of education
The authors analyse the level of education and the attitude to education of immigrant entrepreneurs in relation to enterprise activity, the reasons for setting up businesses and the creation process. The main objective of this article is to discover the most important characteristics of immigrant entrepreneurs in the Valencian Community. In particular, it attempts to explain the influence of education on the setting up of businesses. To do so, 326 questionnaires have been analysed to undertake a study of the various immigrant communities in the Valencian Community that identify said factors. The hypothesis we put forward in this article is an attempt at relating the attitude to education of immigrant entrepreneurs, and its relation to business activity, the motivation for setting up businesses and the process for said business creation. As the most outstanding result, this article shows that the level of education of an entrepreneur is the factor on which the majority of business activity will depend. There is no factor of this personal dimension that relates to most aspects of motivation and business process. The study focuses on a particular geographical area. Consequently, the study helps to understand business activity by non-national entrepreneurs in a globalized economy and adds value to public policies for fostering business.
145658663
Self-Employment of Immigrants: A Cross-National Study of 17 Western Societies
This study examines the role of immigrants' country of origin, country of destination and combinations thereof (settings or communities) in the likelihood of immigrants being self-employed. I pooled census data from three classic immigrant countries (Australia, Canada and the United States) and labor-force surveys from 14 countries in the European Union for a cross-national data set. Using multilevel techniques, I find that (1) immigrants from non-Christian countries of origin have higher odds of self-employment, (2) higher levels of unemployment among natives increase the odds of self-employment, and (3) self-employment is more frequent among immigrant communities that are small, highly educated and have a longer settlement history.
151674020
The Social Dimensions of Entrepreneurship
Conventional ways of viewing the social aspects of entrepreneurship are considered unsatisfactory; hence, this emphasis is recast in terms of the "entrepreneurial event." The entrepreneurial event is shaped by groupings of social variables (such as ethnic groups) and the social and cultural environment. The entrepreneurial event is denoted by initiative-taking, consolidation of resources, management, relative autonomy, and risk-taking. The proposed paradigm attempts to include all versions of the entrepreneurial event and all variables (situational, social, and individual) identified with the event. The paradigm will answer two basic questions: what brought about the life-changing event? and why this particular event? Negative information, events, or displacements often lead to entrepreneurial events. The particular action taken depends upon (1) perceptions of desirability (values), and (2) perceptions of feasibility. The utility of the paradigm lies in its application to questions of policy, historical examples, and future research. (TNM)
53702537
The role of entrepreneurship education as a predictor of university students’ entrepreneurial intention
Using Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior and Shapero’s entrepreneurial event model as well as entrepreneurial cognition theory, we attempt to identify the relationship between entrepreneurship education, prior entrepreneurial exposure, perceived desirability and feasibility, and entrepreneurial intentions (EI) for university students. The data were collected from a survey of ten universities; we received 494 effective responses. We used probit estimation to show that perceived desirability significantly impacts EI whereas there is no significant impact from perceived feasibility. There is a significant negative impact from exposure (which is surprising) and a significant positive impact from entrepreneurship education. Males and people from technological universities and/or backgrounds have higher EI than females and people from other universities and backgrounds. There are also significant positive interactive effects by gender, university type, and study major on the relationship between entrepreneurship education and EI.
153848704
A Competency‐Based Perspective on Entrepreneurship Education: Conceptual and Empirical Insights
Competencies necessary for entrepreneurial action are investigated. Building on structuration theory, competencies are approached as an outgrowth of the learning of scripts deriving from interactions between the individual and environment. Managerial and entrepreneurial competencies are distinguished, with the latter helping to define the domain of entrepreneurship education. Employing a elphi methodology, evidence is provided of a core set of 13 entrepreneurial competencies. Measures are then developed with a pilot study involving students in an international education program. Based on pre‐ and post‐measures, findings demonstrate significant improvement on the competencies. Implications are drawn for the role of entrepreneurship education in competency development.
107014390
Knowledge Management, Learning Behavior from Failure and New Product Development in New Technology Ventures
This research examines how knowledge management influences new product development (NPD) in new technology ventures. Researchers demonstrate that knowledge management is a critical antecedent of NPD. However, few studies have explored the role of knowledge management in NPD from a behavioral perspective. By employing experiential learning theory, this research develops a conceptual model to study the relationships between knowledge management, learning behavior arising from failures, and new ventures' NPD performance. Using a sample of 176 new high-tech technology ventures, the theoretical model is examined. The findings show that, for new technology ventures, knowledge acquisition facilitates NPD performance positively and that the relationship is partially mediated by learning behavior from failures. In addition, it is demonstrated that knowledge application plays a moderating role between learning behavior from failure and NPD. Both the theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
143607558
The role of higher education skills and support in graduate self‐employment
This article examines the career progression of self‐employed graduates immediately following graduation and four years subsequently. Using a career socialization theory specific to entrepreneurial settings, it links the role of skills acquired in UK higher education courses and the use of support with self‐employment outcomes. Using a wide range of controls (e.g. individual background, prior education, career orientations), the article finds that higher education is initially important in supporting graduate self‐employment, but that this support decays in value.
151065320
The Business Model Transparency Paradox in Innovative Growth Ventures: Trade-offs between Competitive Advantages and Agency Costs
Abstract Innovative ventures aiming for rapid growth will require substantial financial capital. Accessing external financial capital requires a high business model transparency, potentially weakening the competitive advantages of the venture. The transparency of the business model can be better understood in terms of two complementary research paradigms: resource-based theory and agency theory. The theories drive transparency in opposite directions and produce a business model transparency paradox that explains the challenges of achieving growth.Acknowledging the implications from one theory can lead to harmful practical implications regarding the challenge of business model transparency and cause a risk of unintended consequence and in the worst case venture failure. A conceptual model and aligned propositions are outlined for comprehensive understanding of the trade-offs suggested by the two theories for ongoing venture exploitation of innovation and growth. An inverted u-shaped function on business model transparency based on a combination of the two theories is proposed for achieving optimal opportunities for venture growth. This conceptual article contributes with implications on financial gaps, business model management, and entrepreneurship education.
144951104
Trusting local translation: Experiences from transplanting a ‘Made in Britain’ entrepreneurship course in China
As export education is destined to be one of the new growth industries, an entrepreneurship course designed in the United Kingdom is exported to China. We reflect on the transplantation of entrepreneurship theory. Knowledge as it travels becomes decontextualised, but by relying on actor–network theory, we find that knowledge multiplies. Students in China were able to contextualise knowledge to fit with local circumstances. Relying on a single case study, narratives were shared by Chinese students exposed to the same entrepreneurship course. We identified artefacts, people, institutions and relationships in social-networks translating student realities of learning entrepreneurship. Their narratives revealed translation to be rooted in power struggles and historical and familial constructs. Contrary to the expectations of previous studies, there may be no need for teachers to contextualise course content. Students are capable of doing this. Teachers can therefore trust in local translation.
145143195
Sex business in the toy store: A narrative analysis of a teaching case
This article is a narrative analysis of an entrepreneurship case performed from a post-structuralist feminist perspective. Acknowledging the social construction of reality, gender is conceptualized as performed rather than as an essential quality attached to male and female bodies. The analysis finds that the case reproduces discriminatory gender relations. While using such cases in entrepreneurship training may teach pragmatic lessons, they also teach women that there is no place for them in business. Suggestions for improvement include cases with female protagonists, gender-inclusive language, stories that challenge received entrepreneurship ideas, and the introduction of narrative analysis to enrich students' learning opportunities.
143038718
`Toy Story': The narrative world of entrepreneurship and the creation of interpretive communities
Abstract Anyone involved in entrepreneurial learning, teaching and research will be aware of the power of a good story about business venturing. The continuous supply of personal stories and accounts of business venturing in bookshops, airport lounges, the business press, television dramas or documentary programmes is evidence of the popular readership of entrepreneurial topics sometimes inspiring people to ‘have a go’ for themselves. But narrative accounts are often maligned in entrepreneurship studies for their anecdotal character and inability to say anything significant beyond the person telling their personal story. In this article, the benefits of a narrative style of inquiry for entrepreneurship studies are considered. This is done with reference to the Marvel Mustang account of business venturing. By relating to narrative and reader response theory, consideration is given to the function that the (Marvel Mustang) text has for the reader and how the reader (and not the text) is the key source of meaning about the practices we associate with entrepreneurship. In taking this emphasis, it is possible to understand the processes that facilitate the ‘stretching away’ of little entrepreneurial stories into transforming relations that go beyond the producer of the story and which ‘pull in’ or connect other people that are unrelated to the story. Narrative analysis helps inquirers to move beyond the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of entrepreneurship and to be able to answer theoretically ‘why’ such processes migrate and stretch across different cultures and contexts.
152426891
A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: The Individual-Opportunity Nexus
In the first exhaustive treatment of the field in 20 years, Scott Shane extends the analysis of entrepreneurship by offering an overarching conceptual framework that explains the different parts of the entrepreneurial process - the opportunities, the people who pursue them, the skills and strategies used to organize and exploit opportunities, and the environmental conditions favorable to them - in a coherent way. Given the level of interest devoted to entrepreneurship in the economy and among academics at business schools, one would think that researchers would have deep insights into this phenomenon. However, those who look closely at academic investigations of entrepreneurship realize that scholarly understanding of this field is quite limited. Unlike its sister fields of accounting, marketing, finance, organizational behavior and strategic management, entrepreneurship is rather poorly explained by academics. Scott Shane resolves this by considering the nexus of enterprising individuals and valuable opportunities and by using that nexus to understand the processes of discovery and exploitation of opportunities, the acquisition of resources, entrepreneurial strategy and the organi
16902520
ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION
Discusses the notion that the ability to exploit external knowledge is crucial to a firm's innovative capabilities. In addition, it is argued that the ability to evaluate and use outside knowledge is largely a function of the level of prior related knowledge--i.e., absorptive capacity. Prior research has shown that firms that conduct their own research and development (R&D) are better able to use information from external sources. Therefore, it is possible that the absorptive capacity of a firm is created as a byproduct of the firm's R&D investment. A simple model of firm R&D intensity is constructed in a broader context of what applied economists call the three classes of industry-level determinants of R&D intensity: demand, appropriability, and technological opportunity conditions. Several predictions are made, including the notions that absorptive capacity does have a direct effect on R&D spending and spillovers will provide a positive incentive to conduct R&D. All hypotheses are tested using cross-sectional survey data on technological opportunity and appropriability conditions--collected over the period 1975 to 1977 for 1,719 business units--in the American manufacturing sector from Levin et al. (1983, 1987) and the Federal Trade Commission's Line of Business Program data on business unit sales, transfers, and R&D expenditures. Results confirm that firms are sensitive to the characteristics of the learning environment in which they operate and that absorptive capacity does appear to be a part of a firm's decisions regarding resource allocation for innovative activity. Results also suggest that, although the analysis showing a positive effect of spillovers in two industry groups do not represent a direct test of the model, positive absorption incentive associated with spillovers may be sufficiently strong in some cases to more than offset the negative appropribility incentive. (SFL)
140488095
Entrepreneurial Potential and Potential Entrepreneurs
Before there can be entrepreneurship there must be the potential for entrepreneurship, whether in a community seeking to develop or in a large organization seeking to innovate. Entrepreneurial potential, however, requires potential entrepreneurs. This paper discusses antecedents of such potential and proposes a model based on Shapero's (1982) model of the entrepreneurial event. We then discuss this model in light of supporting evidence from two different perspectives, corporate venturing and enterprise development.
167706570
Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Before technological change leads to new processes, products, markets, or ways of organizing, entrepreneurs must discover opportunities in which to exploit the new technology. To date, research has not explained adequately why entrepreneurs discover these opportunities, which creates several conceptual problems in the entrepreneurship literature. Drawing on Austrian economics, I argue that opportunity discovery is a function of the distribution of information in society (Hayek 1945). Through in-depth case studies of eight sets of entrepreneurs who exploit a single MIT invention, I show that entrepreneurs discover opportunities related to the information that they already possess. I use these findings to draw several implications that differ from those prevailing in the entrepreneurship literature, including: (1) entrepreneurs do not always select between alternative market opportunities for new technologies; (2) the source of entrepreneurship lies in differences in information about opportunities; (3) the results of prior studies of entrepreneurial exploitation may suffer from bias; and (4) individual differences influence the opportunities that people discover, how their entrepreneurial efforts are organized, and how the government can influence this process.
156585736
Captains of their Own Destiny? Toward a Theory of Entrepreneurial Agency in Firm Survival
Despite the growing importance of young, entrepreneurial ventures in modern economic systems, many such ventures fail quite early in their lifecycles. While both evolutionary theory and organizational learning theory yield important insights for the literature on young venture survival, questions remain as to why ventures facing similar environments experience differential rates of survival. In response, I propose a theory of entrepreneurial agency – defined as the emergence and/or transformation of firms, markets, industries governed by the evolving interaction of temporally situated, intentional strategic action with a malleable external environment – to complement prevailing viewpoints on the causes of young venture survival. My central thesis in this chapter is that to develop more comprehensive explanations of differential survival rates, a theory of entrepreneurial agency – illuminating the transformative potential of entrepreneurial action – is necessary to complement evolutionary perspectives in the literature on firm survival. With this objective in mind, I construct a theoretical model linking diverse perspectives on the duality of human agency and theories of environmental selection, and offer several theoretical and empirical suggestions to guide future research.
153911145
Opportunity Identification and Pursuit: Does an Entrepreneur’s Human Capital Matter?
Extending human capital approaches to entrepreneurship, an entrepreneur’s “inputs” relating to their general (i.e. education and work experience) and entrepreneurship-specific human capital profile (i.e. business ownership experience, managerial capabilities, entrepreneurial capabilities and technical capabilities) are presumed to be related to entrepreneurial “outputs” in the form of business opportunity identification and pursuit. Valid and reliable independent variables were gathered from a stratified random sample of 588 owners of private firms. Ordered logit analysis was used to test several theoretically derived hypotheses. With regard to the number of business opportunities identified and pursued, entrepreneurship-specific rather than general human capital variables “explained” more of the variance. Entrepreneurs reporting higher information search intensity identified significantly more business opportunities, but they did not pursue markedly more or less opportunities. The use of publications as a source of information was positively associated with the probability of identifying more opportunities, while information emanating from personal, professional and business networks was not. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.
167783427
Illegal Entrepreneurship Experience: Does it Make a Difference for Business Performance and Motivation?
Existing studies show a positive relationship between entrepreneurs’ business performance and their conventional human capital as measured by previous business experience and formal education. In this paper, we explore whether illegal entrepreneurship experience (IEE), an unconventional form of human capital, is related to the performance and motivation of ntrepreneurs operating legal businesses in a transition context. Using regression techniques on a sample of 399 private business owners in Lithuania, we find that, in general, IEE is significantly and positively associated with subjective measures of business motivation. Moreover, younger entrepreneurs benefit from their IEE in terms of business performance, indicating that they have been more successful than older entrepreneurs in transferring their IEE to a market oriented setting. In addition, IEE and business performance are positively related for entrepreneurs who started completely new legal businesses. Thus, our research partially supports the notion that prior experience in the black or gray market may signal and provide valuable human capital for legal enterprising.
10179351
How do entrepreneurs know what to do? learning and organizing in new ventures
Acquiring the knowledge they need to organize new businesses is a life-long learning process for nascent entrepreneurs, both before and during the organizing process. We argue that creating viable and profitable ventures depends not only on the habits, heuristics, and routines that nascent entrepreneurs have acquired from family, schools, and work careers prior to the startup stage, but also on what they can learn by doing, borrowing, and experimenting during the startup process. Entrepreneurs without effective habits or heuristics, or who have acquired less knowledge or fewer routines, may not be able to learn fast enough from feedback during the startup process to avoid being selected out. We conclude the paper by offering critical questions and a research agenda for learning and organizing in new ventures.
153712442
A Network-based Approach on Opportunity Recognition
This paper argues that individuals differ in terms of their perception of opportunities because of the differences between the networks they are embedded in. We focus on two aspects of individuals’ embeddedness in networks, that is, (1) individuals’ belonging to residential areas that are more or less likely to be characterized by network cohesion, and (2) individuals’ differential access to network contacts based on the level of human capital they hold. Our analyses show that the nature of one’s residential area influences the perception of entrepreneurial opportunities. Further, we find a positive effect for education, i.e., people with a higher educational level are more likely to perceive entrepreneurial opportunities compared to those with a lower educational level.
167491072
Self-employment entry across industry groups
Abstract Highly educated individuals possessing a net worth exceeding $100,000 are the most likely to enter self-employment. Recent studies have linked personal wealth holdings positively to self-employment entry, but educational attainment has been a weak and erratic determinant of self-employment status. Although barriers such as financial capital constraints clearly shape self-employment entry decisions, the nature of these barriers varies substantially across small business industry groups. The strong role often played by education and work experience in identifying self-employment entrants is often obscured by inappropriate aggregation across industries. Entry barriers shape not only the decision to enter self-employment but also the types of industries that potential business owners are likely to enter. The likelihood of self-employment in skilled services increases greatly as level of education rises, whereas the opposite situation prevails in construction. The major barriers to self-employment entry in manufacturing and wholesaling are clearly financial in nature. In contrast, the primary route to self-employment in the growing skilled services industries is the attainment of advanced educational credentials; personal wealth holdings are secondary. Several factors perform consistently in identifying self-employment entry across industries. The likelihood of entry increases with age, peaking as people approach age 40 and then leveling out. African-Americans are less likely to pursue self-employment than nonminorities. Factors associated with self-employment entry among women are quite different than those that predict male entry, but this partially reflects the differing industry concentrations among men and women. Women are more likely to enter self-employment in skilled services fields. Thus, advanced education and work experience—the human capital variables—are the strongest predictors of female entrants. Barriers to self-employment are most binding to those who possess neither the human capital nor the financial capital traits associated with entry. For others, barriers need not deny access to self-employment—rather, they may simply shape the industry choice. This study is based upon the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a longitudinal survey of households carried out by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Entry into self-employment was observed over a 32-month period for a sample of 24,428 adults.
167855610
Why Are Some People More Likely to Become Small-Businesses Owners than Others: Entrepreneurship Entry and Industry-Specific Barriers
Why are some individuals more likely to become owners of small businesses than others? We classify industries using measures of entry barriers and proceed to investigate how determinants of entry vary in high- as opposed to low-barrier fields. Claims that neither financial-capital constraints nor the educational backgrounds of aspiring small-business owners predict the likelihood of small-business entry are investigated in this context. These claims of irrelevance, we find, are inconsistent with the facts. The wealth and educational background characteristics potential entrepreneurs possess predispose them to make distinctly different industry choices, both because of the differing rewards available to them and the very different entry barriers they face. The characteristics of potential entrants, in other words, draw them toward some industries and away from others.
153967620
Entrepreneurs or employees: a cross-cultural cognitive analysis
This study examines the influence of the cultural-cognitive dimension - measured through creativity, risk taking and independence - on the probability of becoming an entrepreneur or an employee. Institutional economics is used as theoretical framework of the research. The empirical research uses binomial and multinomial probit models, when controlling for socio-demographic factors and macro variables. Data was obtained from the World Values Survey, for the period 2005-2008, considering a sample of 41 countries and 56,875 individuals. The main findings demonstrate that creativity, risk taking and independence increase the probability of becoming entrepreneur, and decrease the probability of becoming employee. Given that these characteristics facilitate the birth of new ideas, processes, products, and services, it is crucial to learn from entrepreneurs, and to foster such characteristics within organizations. The results have contributions for both researchers and policymakers on new firm creation (entrepreneurship) and on the generation of innovation within organisations (intrapreneurship).
167658673
Should I quit my day job?: : A hybrid path to entrepreneurship
Research suggests that the risk and uncertainty associated with entrepreneurial activity deters entry and contributes to the high rates of new business failure. In this study, we examine how the ab...
17870574
Self-Employment, Educational Attainment and Employment Protection Legislation
We analyse how educational attainment and employment protection influence an individual's decision to become self-employed. By altering expected income from dependent employment, employment protection is likely to affect an individual's choice of occupation, although such a link has not been established in the literature so far. We argue that an interaction between an individual's educational attainment and the institution of employment protection exists when it comes to the decision regarding whether to become self-employed. Based on survey data from OECD countries, we find evidence for a negative interaction, and conclude that only after taking this interaction into account can the effect of employment protection and educational attainment on self-employment rates be assessed.
44240211
Education and entrepreneurial choice: An instrumental variables analysis
Education is argued to be an important driver of the decision to start a business. However, the measurement of its influence is difficult since it is considered to be an endogenous variable. This study accounts for this endogeneity by using an instrumental variables approach and a dataset of more than 10,000 individuals from 27 European countries and the USA. The effect of education on the decision to become self-employed is found to be strongly positive, much higher than the estimated effect in case no instrumental variables are used. That is, the higher the respondent’s level of education, the greater the likelihood that they will start a business. Implications for entrepreneurship research and practice are discussed.
154104402
Does money matter?: Wealth attainment as the motive for initiating growth-oriented technology ventures
Abstract The desire to attain personal wealth has long been regarded as the foremost motive for entrepreneurship. Other goals and values, however, may also contribute to entrepreneurial motivation. Thus, the extent to which money matters relative to other motives is an empirical question. In this study we examine the role of wealth as the motive for the decision to found new ventures. Three focal questions guide our research: 1) does money matter more relative to other decision dimensions in deciding to start a new high-technology venture? 2) does money matter more to entrepreneurs compared to non-entrepreneurs? and 3) does money matter in absolute terms, that is, does a decision model that focuses solely on the motive of wealth attainment parsimoniously predict entrepreneurs' start-up decisions? We conducted in-depth interviews with 51 entrepreneurs and a control group of 28 senior managers who decided not to start ventures (non-entrepreneurs) in the high-technology industry in British Columbia to address our research questions. The motives we examined are wealth attainment and an aggregate of other dimensions identified by entrepreneurs and managers. We considered three components of values: participants' ratings of the importance of various decision dimensions, their rating of the salience of these dimensions, and their satisfaction with prior levels of attainment on those decision dimensions. We assessed beliefs as participants' perceived probability of attaining their desired level of a particular decision dimension in each of three alternatives: the position held at the time the venture decision was made, the venture itself, and the next best career alternative at that time. The data were analyzed to compare entrepreneurs' values and beliefs regarding wealth with an aggregate of other decision dimensions (our relative hypotheses), and with those of non-entrepreneurs (our comparative hypotheses). Our findings do not support the common perception that money is the only, or even the most important, motive for entrepreneurs' decisions to start new ventures. Wealth attainment was significantly less important to entrepreneurs relative to an aggregate of 10 other decision dimensions, and entrepreneurs did not rate wealth as any more important than did non-entrepreneurs. Non-entrepreneurs rated wealth as no more important than other motives. Wealth attainment was also significantly less salient to entrepreneurs' decisions to venture than were other motives. Non-entrepreneurs reported that wealth was significantly more salient to their decision against founding a venture than other dimensions. In fact, non-entrepreneurs rated wealth attainment as significantly more salient to their decision against founding than entrepreneurs rated it for their decision to proceed with starting a high-technology business. A significant number of entrepreneurs started businesses even when they believed that doing so offered them a lower probability of obtaining their most desired level of wealth than did one of their other alternatives. Satisfaction ratings and stated beliefs also dispute classical predictions. Just prior to making the decision to venture, the entrepreneurs in our study were as satisfied with wealth as they were with other decision dimensions. The non-entrepreneurs were actually more satisfied with wealth attainment than with other dimensions. A comparison of the groups revealed no difference in satisfaction with wealth attainment levels. Entrepreneurs did believe that their chances of attaining their desired level of wealth were much greater through founding a new high-technology venture than through their other alternatives. This difference in beliefs, however, was not significantly greater than their optimistic beliefs about chances of attaining desired levels of other dimensions. It was significantly higher compared to the non-entrepreneurs' belief difference measures for wealth. In fact, the entrepreneurs' stated beliefs regarding the chances of attaining their desired levels of all dimensions were higher than those of the non-entrepreneurs, suggesting that entrepreneurs were simply more optimistic at the time of their decision than non-entrepreneurs.Salience findings suggest that these optimistic beliefs about wealth did not motivate the founding decision alone. We can distinguish those people who successfully started ventures by their regard for wealth as a less salient factor, and their beliefs in higher chances of a venture producing monetary and other returns. Other motives, such as innovation, vision, independence, and challenge were more important and much more salient to this sample of entrepreneurs. Our findings have implications for practice, teaching, and research. Venture capitalists who partially base their assessment of entrepreneurs on the extent to which they are motivated to make a great deal of money may benefit from reconsideration of this criterion. We have evidence of one group of high-technology entrepreneurs who achieved success without placing much decision weight on attainment of personal wealth. Nascent entrepreneurs and those who teach entrepreneurship can use this empirical finding to argue two main points: 1) not all entrepreneurs found a business for personal wealth reasons, and 2) one need not be motivated by personal wealth attainment to be a successful entrepreneur. Similarly, theoretical models that assume money is the primary motive for entrepreneurial activity require re-examination. Future research in entrepreneurship should focus less on wealth attainment and more on other motives for the venturing decision. A multiple-attribute decision model may be able to more fully explain venturing decisions.
154547644
Human Capital and Search–Based Discovery: A Study of High–Tech Entrepreneurship
What types of knowledge and experience enable those who have the desire to start a venture find an appropriate opportunity? To respond to this question, a human capital perspective is used with a sample of 166 founders of new technology ventures in university incubators. General human capital is assessed using experience depth and formal education. Specific human capital is measured using prior start–up experience as well as Shane's knowledge framework of markets, customer problems, and ways to serve markets. Findings reveal key aspects of human capital vital to explaining search–based discovery. Implications for research and entrepreneurship education are drawn.
154601617
Technology Entrepreneurs’ Human Capital and Its Effects on Innovation Radicalness
Radical innovations transform existing markets, create new markets, and stimulate economic growth. This study investigates how the experience, education, and prior knowledge of technology entrepreneurs relate to innovation radicalness. Findings from a sample of 145 technology entrepreneurs operating within university–affiliated incubators suggest that general and specific human capital are both vital to innovation outcomes. Innovation radicalness was positively associated with formal education and prior knowledge of technology, but negatively associated with prior knowledge of ways to serve markets. This suggests a counterintuitive conclusion—the less technology entrepreneurs know about ways to serve a market, the greater their chances of using technology knowledge to create breakthrough innovations within it. Finally, we discuss configurations of human capital that are likely to bestow unique advantages in the construction of radical innovations.
146337146
Life After Business Failure
Where there is uncertainty, there is bound to be failure. It is not surprising, therefore, that many new ventures fail. What happens to entrepreneurs when their business fails? People hear of highly successful entrepreneurs extolling the virtues of failure as a valuable teacher. Yet the aftermath of failure is often fraught with psychological, social, and financial turmoil. The purpose of this article is to review research on life after business failure for entrepreneurs, from the immediate aftermath through to recovery and re-emergence. First, the authors examine the financial, social, and psychological costs of failure, highlighting factors that may influence the magnitude of these costs (including individual responses to managing these costs). Second, they review research that explains how entrepreneurs make sense of and learn from failure. Finally, the authors present research on the outcomes of business failure, including recovery as well as cognitive and behavioral outcomes. They develop a schema to organize extant work and use this as a platform for developing an agenda for future research.
155034787
Founders’ human capital and the performance of UK new technology based firms
This paper investigates the role of entrepreneurs’ general and specific human capital on the performance of UK new technology based firms using a resource based approach to the entrepreneurship theory. The effect of entrepreneurial human capital on the performance of NTBFs is investigated using data derived from a survey of 412 firms operating in both high-tech manufacturing and the services sectors. According to the resource based theory it is found that specific human capital is more important for the performance of NTBFs in relation to general. More specifically individual entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams with high levels of formal business education, commercial, managerial or same sector experience are found to have created better performing NTBFs. Finally it is found that the performance of a NTBF can improve through the combination of heterogeneous but complementary skills, including, for example, technical education and commercial experience or managerial technical and managerial commercial experience.
167926468
Reconceptualizing Entrepreneurial Exit: Divergent Exit Routes and Their Drivers
We develop a conceptual model of entrepreneurial exit which includes exit through liquidation and firm sale for both firms in financial distress and firms performing well. This represents four distinct exit routes. In developing the model, we complement the prevailing theoretical framework of exit as a utility-maximizing problem among entrepreneurs with prospect theory and its recent applications in liquidation of investment decisions. We empirically test the model using two Swedish databases which follow 1,735 new ventures and their founders over eight years. We find that entrepreneurs exit from both firms in financial distress and firms performing well. In addition, commonly examined human capital factors (entrepreneurial experience, age, education) and failure-avoidance strategies (outside job, reinvestment) differ substantially across the four exit routes, explaining some of the discrepancies in earlier studies.
153885288
Failure factors in small and medium-sized enterprises: qualitative study from an attributional perspective
The objective of this study is to identify factors for poor performance and failure faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and to investigate a potential bias between real causes and attribution for stranding. In order to achieve this objective, we have adopted entrepreneurial personal story explorations in eight Portuguese SME. Our research reveals that the most important factors are limited access to finance, poor market conditions, inadequate staff, and lack of institutional support, as well as co-operation and networking. Hereby, at a first glance, external factors were more often cited, but qualitative analysis revealed that internal factors are imminent and not satisfactorily recognized. Even though some owner–managers showed a certain awareness regarding their internal weaknesses, many problems such as lacking strategy and vision, low educational levels, and inadequate social capital are not sufficiently recognized. Therewith, we found a strong attribution error when SME owner–managers judge the causes of their ventures’ unsuccessful performance and failure. Finally, we draw conclusions and suggestions for policymakers, small business owners, consultants, and researchers.
167144140
Learning strategies of nascent entrepreneurs
This research utilizes a longitudinal methodology to study the entrepreneurial learning strategies of a representative sample (n= 173) of nascent entrepreneurs in Sweden. We examine Sarasvathy’s theory of effectuation with respect to six different learning strategies and their effect on the progression of start-up processes. The results show that the progression of the start-up process, as represented by the number of gestation activities undertaken during each time period, is systematically related to the nascent entrepreneur’s learning strategy. The analysis covers 24 months, and findings indicate that learning strategies associated with effectuation processes have positive effects on the progression of the start-up process. We also found positive effects from persistent learning strategies in the progression of the start up process.
152934683
Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship
About 4.2 million men and women operate businesses on a full-time basis. Comprising more than a tenth of all workers, they run most of our nation’s firms and employ about a tenth of all wage workers. The fraction of the labor force that is self-employed has increased since the mid-1970s after a long period of decline.1 This paper examines the process of selection into self-employment over the life cycle and the determinants of self-employment earnings using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men (NLS) for 1966–1981 and the Current Population Surveys for 1968–1987.
153785727
An Estimated Model of Entrepreneurial Choice under Liquidity Constraints
Is the capital function distinct from the entrepreneurial function in modern economies? Or does a person have to be wealthy before he or she can start a business? Knight and Schumpeter held different views on the answer to this question. Our empirical findings side with Knight: Liquidity constraints bind, and a would-be entrepreneur must bear most of the risk inherent in his venture. The reasoning is roughly this: The data show that wealthier people are more inclined to become entrepreneurs. In principle, this could be so because the wealthy tend to make better entrepreneurs, but the data reject this explanation. Instead, the data point to liquidity constraints: capital is essential for starting a business, and liquidity constraints tend to exclude those with insufficient funds at their disposal.
143510712
Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency
In economics and management theories, scholars have traditionally assumed the existence of artifacts such as firms/organizations and markets. I argue that an explanation for the creation of such artifacts requires the notion of effectuation. Causation rests on a logic of prediction, effectuation on the logic of control. I illustrate effectuation through business examples and realistic thought experiments, examine its connections with existing theories and empirical evidence, and offer a list of testable propositions for future empirical work.
153937351
The Relationship between Resource Acquisition Methods and Firm Performance in Chinese New Ventures: The Intermediate Effect of Learning Capability**
Despite the omnipresent popularity of the resource‐based view of the firm, our understanding of how firms convert resource acquisition into performance returns remains something of a black box. We seek to unpack this problem in this study. Building on the resource‐based view and combining insights from organizational learning theory, this paper develops a theoretical model consisting of seven hypotheses in which resource purchase, resource attraction, and resource internal development are positively related to new venture performance, and in which learning capability mediates these relationships. We also posit that resource acquisition methods augment the learning capability of the firm en route to securing superior new venture performance. We test these hypotheses using survey data from new ventures in China. The results indicate that all three methods of resource acquisition have positive effects on new venture performance, that resource attraction and internal development have positive effects on learning capability in new ventures, and that learning capability mediates the relationship between these two resource acquisition practices and new venture performance. We put forward implications for theory and practice to close the work.
206675205
The Relationship Between Innovation and Diversification in the Case of New Ventures: Unidirectional or Bidirectional?
The present study examines the relationship between innovation and product diversification as growth strategies for new ventures. Specifically, it considers whether the relationship between these growth dimensions is unidirectional, with one preceding or following the other, or bidirectional, with both dimensions developing simultaneously. To develop theoretical arguments, we draw upon the divergent assertions of two theoretical traditions: the resource-based view and sociocognitive theory (SCT). The results show strong evidence of simultaneity and endogeneity between innovation and diversification. This finding strengthens the interpretation provided by SCT, suggesting that new venture strategies are extensions of an entrepreneur's ability scripts. They point to the prominent role of an entrepreneur's self-efficacy and education-related knowledge. Implications are discussed.
17042049
A dynamic model of growth phases and survival in international business-to-business new ventures: The moderating effect of decision-making logic
Abstract The growth and survival of international new ventures (INVs) has not been the subject of extensive in-depth qualitative study and our understanding of their decision-making is deficient. On the basis of empirical analyses in a small and open economy, a dynamic model was developed that explains the growth phases through which INVs pass as they mature in the high-technology business-to-business field. The model also recognizes rapid advancement, survival crises, and retrenchment. Propositions were devised regarding the impact of opportunities, resources and capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation, and learning on growth phases and survival. A novel finding is that the decision-making logic moderates the impact of these factors. These findings have important implications for industrial marketing scholars and practitioners.
154380122
New venture creation in the farm sector – Critical resources and capabilities
Abstract New venture activities and diversification at farms seem to be perceived as inherently beneficial both to farmers and to rural development. However, the benefit of such efforts and the critical resources and capabilities leading to them seem not to be well understood yet. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore critical resources and capabilities for farm businesses engaged in entrepreneurial activities through on-farm diversification. The theoretical framework builds upon the resource-based view (RBV) and the dynamic capability (DC) perspective which have emerged as significant research streams within entrepreneurship and strategic management literature. A longitudinal study of three Norwegian farms engaged in on-farm diversification was undertaken through farm visits and in-depth interviews. Analyses show that the farm setting, its traditional production, its relative location, buildings and landscape might all be important resources which add value and uniqueness to the final product that is not easily copied by others. However, in order to reconfigure their resource base and perform necessary changes these farm businesses also rely heavily on developing appropriate dynamic capabilities. The farm businesses appear active in learning and integration of external resources and knowledge, but seem to struggle on building appropriate networks and strategic alliances. Implications for policy makers and practitioners are discussed.
168099806
Entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations and international entrepreneurial business venture performance in South African firms
Purpose – This study examines the interrelationships between aspects of entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations, and international entrepreneurial business venture (IEBV) performance.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 396 entrepreneurs and 143 senior managers from early stage, growth‐oriented firms in the Republic of South Africa. These firms had an international focus in that 20 per cent began exporting from their inception and the remaining 80 per cent either began exporting within three years of inception or planned to export within three years of inception. Given the multidimensional nature of IEBV performance, structural equation modeling (AMOS) was used to test the measurement and substantive models.Findings – Results indicate that IEBV performance is positively related to the innovativeness component of an entrepreneurial orientation (EO), a market orientation, and a learning orientation. Contrary to expectations, the communications aspect of EO is inversely related t...
168015350
Quality performance of SMEs in a developing economy: direct and indirect effects of service innovation and entrepreneurial orientation
Article deposited according to publisher policy posted on SHERPA/ROMEO, Oct. 31, 2014.Publisher doi 10.1108/JBIM-07-2013-0146
34932139
International entrepreneurship in emerging economies: the role of social capital, knowledge development and entrepreneurial actions
Increasingly, emerging economies are surfacing value-creating entrepreneurial opportunities for firms committed to entrepreneurship as a path to firm growth. However, these opportunities are recognised and exploited only when the firm entrepreneurially manages its resources. Herein, we adopt a contextual approach and integrate resource-based theory, organisational learning theory, social capital theory and strategic entrepreneurship in order to present a theoretical analysis of the means firms employ to create and exploit competitive advantages in emerging economies. We emphasise strategic alliances as the most suitable entry mode for a foreign firm to use to enter an emerging economy successfully. In addition, we use social capital theory to describe the actions the partners of an alliance (a foreign firm and a local emerging economy firm) take to develop a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship and to establish an effective, continuous learning process.
153613731
Entrepreneurial Orientation and Organizational Learning: The Impact of Network Range and Network Closure
This study develops theoretical propositions regarding the role that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) plays in enhancing an organization's level of acquisitive and experimental learning. It also develops propositions concerning the manner in which a firm's ability to directly link itself to disparate sources of knowledge (network range) impacts the relationship between EO and acquisitive learning, as well as how a firm's ability to maintain a series of strong ties within a network (network closure) impacts the relationship between EO and experimental learning. Finally, propositions are developed regarding how firms can most effectively utilize EO and network participation to maximize levels of organizational learning while conserving their limited resources.
153871860
The Nature of Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Understanding the Process Using the 4I Organizational Learning Framework
In this article, we drew upon insights from two rather disparate streams of literature—entrepreneurship and organizational learning—to develop an informed understanding of the phenomenon of entrepreneurial opportunities. We examined the nature of entrepreneurial opportunities from two contrasting views—Schumpeterian and Kirznerian—and delved into their ontological roots. By applying the 4I organizational learning framework to entrepreneurial opportunities, we were able to not only resolve the apparently conflicting explanations of opportunities arising out of the contrasting ontological positions but also to achieve a level of pragmatic synthesis between them. In highlighting the article's contributions to theory and practice, we suggest that just as research on entrepreneurial opportunities benefits from applying organizational learning theory, so is organizational learning informed by research arising within the field of entrepreneurship studies.
114210194
Knowledge Flows and Constraints to the Entrepreneurial Process
Abstract 
As a critical component in the entrepreneurial process, knowledge is essential to the study of how entrepreneurs compete under constraints. Research in this area is challenged by the unobservable and imprecise nature of knowledge which inhibits advanced theory building and testing, and we explore this problem by analyzing the relationship between the entrepreneurial process, constraints to the process, and knowledge flows. We apply and extend a systems-theoretic framework that identifies the knowledge system in entrepreneurial organizations, and develop an integrative model to guide future research.
154075885
From Entrepreneurial Orientation and Learning Orientation to Business Performance: Analysing the Mediating Role of Organizational Learning and the Moderating Effects of Organizational Size
Following the organizational learning theory and the knowledge-based view approach, this contribution aims to study the influence of entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation on organizational learning, considering the latter as a mediating variable in the relationships between both antecedent cultural values and business performance. We also analyse the moderating role of organizational size on these previous relationships. The hypotheses proposed in our research model are tested on a sample of 140 Spanish industrial companies, applying variance-based structural equation modelling: partial least squares. In order to assess the moderating effects of organizational size, we adopt a multi-group approach using two subsamples with large firms and small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs). Our findings indicate that organizational learning partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance and fully mediates the link between learning orientation and performance. Likewise, the results reveal that the relationship established between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning is more intense for the group of large firms than for the group of SMEs. Moreover, the influence of learning orientation on organizational learning is greater in SMEs than in large firms.
167685342
Entrepreneurial networks across oceans to promote international strategic alliances for small businesses
Abstract Alliances with Japanese corporations are generally regarded as difficult and demanding and the literature suggests that there are four reasons for this—general cultural differences; perception and understanding of the legal contract and differences in attitudes to the ways in which this form of arrangement can contribute to organizational learning; the placing of the locus of activities on the value chain; and the effects of global versus multidomestic differences. The article suggests that for small independent firms, the creation of alliances across national boundaries is a social event that relies upon the building and nurturing of a series of entrepreneurial networks. In countries as culturally diverse as Japan and the U.S.A., this may be realized through the use of gatekeepers who facilitate the creation of a “network-of-networks.” The authors analyze the creation of a successful international strategic alliance between the technology-based companies of Kinkel in Japan and three companies in Silicon Valley, U.S.A. None of the four companies are major corporations. From analysis of the case study, the following conclusions are made: 1. 1. International strategic alliances between small firms can be more symmetric than those between large and small firms. 2. 2. Even if national cultures are starkly different, there are common features that characterize technology-based businesses regardless of their country of origin. 3. 3. Accepting a fit of organizational culture, patience is a key factor of success. 4. 4. The key to success is a “networker of networks,” a key person or company whose role is to create a global network of local networks. 5. 5. Social events, such as international symposia, exchange programs, or conventions are important mechanisms for identifying potential partners. 6. 6. The most important implication of this case study is that the nature of the project will usually require a network of small businesses with different resources.
153670930
The innovativeness effect of market orientation and learning orientation on business performance
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative analysis, in which learning orientation, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, and innovativeness function as key success factors in technology‐intensive firms. The authors formulate a structural equation model to examine the relationship among these constructs.Design/methodology/approach – A structural equation model was designed to examine the relationship. To test the model, the authors conducted covariance structural analyses of data collected from 333 venture companies, including innovation companies, in Taiwan.Findings – The central finding is that learning orientation plays a full mediating role in the relationship between market orientation and innovativeness. The results indicate that organizational structure (formalization and decentralization) does not play a moderating role in the relationship between innovativeness and business performance; however, the extent of formalization of an organizational structure negatively...
154647196
Drivers of innovativeness and performance for innovative SMEs in South Korea: Mediation of learning orientation
Abstract This study aims to investigate the relationships between drivers of innovativeness and the mediation effects of learning orientation. A conceptual model is designed and hypotheses are constructed. In order to test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling is performed for the data collected from 333 technology-innovative small firms in South Korea. The results reveal that market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation significantly influences learning orientation, respectively. Additionally, learning orientation significantly affects innovativeness, and sequentially innovativeness has a significant effect on performance. The most notable of these is that learning orientation performs a mediating function in the relationships between market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation and innovativeness. The findings imply that managers with entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation should place much emphasis on learning orientation in order to boost innovativeness and ultimately achieve performance. Limitations include a limited number of predictors and possibility of generalizability of the results.
17093248
Learning from experience and learning from others: how congenital and interorganizational learning substitute for experiential learning in young firm internationalization
This article addresses a critical issue for entrepreneurs and managers pursuing internationalization strategies: how firms can accumulate the knowledge and skills required for successful international expansion. Specifically, we examine how young firms may compensate for their lack of firm-level international experience by utilizing other sources of knowledge. Drawing on organizational learning theory, we develop an integrative framework that looks at the joint and interactive effects of experiential learning by the firm, the management team's pre-start-up international experience (i.e., congenital learning), and interorganizational learning from key exchange partners (customers, suppliers, investors, etc.). Utilizing empirical data on 114 young, technology-based firms in Flanders, Belgium, we find that a firm's level of international experience negatively moderates the effects of congenital and interorganizational learning on the extent of internationalization. That is, the lower a firm's experiential learning, the more significant the effects of the start-up team's prior international knowledge base and the knowledge and skills acquired through key partners. These results make important theoretical and empirical contributions to the international entrepreneurship and organizational learning literatures by highlighting some of the factors underlying learning advantages of newness that facilitate the internationalization of young firms and by explicating substitutive interrelationships among different learning mechanisms. Copyright © 2010 Strategic Management Society.
154075885
From Entrepreneurial Orientation and Learning Orientation to Business Performance: Analysing the Mediating Role of Organizational Learning and the Moderating Effects of Organizational Size
Following the organizational learning theory and the knowledge-based view approach, this contribution aims to study the influence of entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation on organizational learning, considering the latter as a mediating variable in the relationships between both antecedent cultural values and business performance. We also analyse the moderating role of organizational size on these previous relationships. The hypotheses proposed in our research model are tested on a sample of 140 Spanish industrial companies, applying variance-based structural equation modelling: partial least squares. In order to assess the moderating effects of organizational size, we adopt a multi-group approach using two subsamples with large firms and small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs). Our findings indicate that organizational learning partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance and fully mediates the link between learning orientation and performance. Likewise, the results reveal that the relationship established between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning is more intense for the group of large firms than for the group of SMEs. Moreover, the influence of learning orientation on organizational learning is greater in SMEs than in large firms.
167998357
Antecedents of international and domestic learning effort
We examine the antecedents of international and domestic learning effort in independent firms. We combine learning theory and the â€œattention-basedâ€ view to examine how firmsâ€™ degree of internationalization, the age at international entry, and entrepreneurial orientation are associated with the extent to which they engage in foreign and domestic learning activities. In particular, our study shows that early entry in foreign markets and an entrepreneurial orientation are positively related to a culture that promotes learning effort in international and domestic markets. On the other hand, whereas a firmâ€™s degree of internationalization does not have a significant association with international learning effort, the degree of internationalization is negatively related to domestic learning effort. We discuss the implications of our study for theory, practice, and future research.
153715724
Organizational learning and entrepreneurship in family firms: exploring the moderating effect of ownership and cohesion
Organizational learning can significantly improve family firms’ ability to counter by stimulating entrepreneurship. Applying the behavioral theory of the firm, this study empirically examines the effect of family ownership on the breadth, depth, and speed of organizational learning. Each of these dimensions can influence entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the effect of ownership on organizational learning depends on family cohesiveness, the extent to which members of the owner family feel closeness, mutual solidarity, and the desire to stick together. Data from 741 firms show that family ownership is positively associated with the breadth and speed of learning but is negatively associated with the depth of learning. Though cohesiveness does not alleviate the negative effect of family ownership on the depth of learning, it amplifies the effect of family ownership on the breadth and speed of learning. Organizational learning, especially its breadth and depth, positively influences the pace of family firms’ entrepreneurship.
144657089
Using Cognitive Theory to Explain Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking: Challenging Conventional Wisdom
Uses social cognition as a framework for differentiating entrepreneurial behavior, centering on the cognitive processes involved in what is commonly considered to be the entrepreneur's core trait: risk-taking behavior. Results of a risk propensity survey of 92 members of a business organization show that while entrepreneurs did not consider themselves more apt to take risks than others, they did perceive more strengths than weaknesses, more opportunities than threats, and more potential for improvement than for deterioration. Thus, entrepreneurs should not be characterized by their risk-taking behavior, but by their likelihood to cognitively assess business situations as positive opportunities. In other words, the research supports Weick's (1979) theory that, when it comes to entrepreneurs at least, "believing is seeing." These results suggest that potential entrepreneurs may benefit by training in cognitive approaches to better assess risk-taking opportunities. A cognition-based classification system could also be created for firms to assess individuals' potential entrepreneurial behavior. (CJC)
154636746
When do incumbents learn from entrepreneurial ventures?: Corporate venture capital and investing firm innovation rates
In this paper, we focus on the potential innovative benefits to corporate venture capital (CVC), i.e. equity investments in entrepreneurial ventures by incumbent firms. We propose that corporate venture capital programs may be instrumental in harvesting innovations from entrepreneurial ventures and thus an important part of a firm's overall innovation strategy. We hypothesize that these programs are especially effective in weak intellectual property (IP) regimes and when the firm has sufficient absorptive capacity. We analyze a large panel of public firms over a 20-year period and find that increases in corporate venture capital investments are associated with subsequent increases in firm patenting.
143067557
The Impact of Accumulating and Reactivating Technological Experience on R&D Alliance Performance
Drawing on organizational learning theory, we distinguish the entrepreneurial processes of experience accumulation (i.e. gaining technological experience), and experience reactivation (i.e. leveraging the accumulated experience), as two essential stages of knowledge retention. While controlling for alliance experience, we further use new data of 196 biopharmaceutical R&D alliances to examine the effects of the technology recipient's accumulation and reactivation of technological experience on R&D alliance success. The patent‐based experience measures at the level of specific technology fields provide strong support for distinguishing experience accumulation and reactivation, which positively interact in interorganizational learning. Experience reactivation strengthens the positive effects of experience accumulation on alliance performance, and it contributes to avoiding organizational inertia in intertemporal knowledge transfer. In particular, our newly developed technology‐specific measures help to explain inconsistent findings of earlier studies, which often relied on firm‐level R&D expenditures to capture the level of prior technological knowledge and absorptive capacity.
54795687
Social Capital and Learning Advantages: A Problem of Absorptive Capacity
Theoretically, social capital allows entrepreneurial firms to capitalize on learning advantages of newness and gain access to knowledge as the foundation for improved performance. But this understates its complexity. We consider whether learning through social capital relationships has a direct effect on performance and whether absorptive capacity mediates and moderates this relationship. We find that network-based learning has no direct relationship with performance, but this is mediated in each instance by absorptive capacity and is moderated twice. Our findings challenge the learning advantages of newness thesis and reveal how absorptive capacity can enable business performance from a firm's network relationships.
154696809
The Evolving Firm: How Dynamic and Operating Capabilities Interact to Enable Entrepreneurship
In this study, we expand our understanding of firm evolution by focusing on how operating and dynamic capabilities interact through endogenously led changes. The focus on endogenous change complements the current emphasis in the literature on how dynamic capabilities help firms cope with the risk of core rigidities following an exogenous shock. Our comparison of two collaborating firms shows that, at the operating capability level, firms build absorptive capacity in value networks during their product development experiences and this learning needs to be captured at the product portfolio planning level. When this learning is captured and transformed, product portfolio planning acts as a dynamic capability reconfiguring operating capabilities based on beliefs about follow-on entrepreneurial opportunities. Under conditions of endogenous change, dynamic capabilities are guided by a proactive entrepreneurial logic, complementing the need for reactive adaptive responses in circumstances of exogenous change. A key implication is that dynamic capabilities have a more expansive and critical role in the adaptation of firms than previously considered. Our theorizing shows how interactions between dynamic and operating capabilities build the adaptive capacity of the organization.
55571756
The role of an entrepreneurially alert information system in promoting corporate entrepreneurship
ARTICLE I NFO The literature has suggested that an entrepreneurially alert information system may be a salient driver of corporate entrepreneurship, even though this role has been neither theoretically articulated nor empirically substantiated. Building upon the organizational learning, information orientation, and entrepreneurial awareness literatures we identify three key elements of a firm's entrepreneurially alert information system, and then develop a parsimonious model that examines the impact of these elements on corporate entre- preneurship. Using both single- and multi-source survey data from 495 small- to medium-sized firms, we test our model and find that each element individually and collectively imparts significant positive influence on corporate entrepreneurship.
143743717
A Simulation of Strategic Decision Making in Situational Stereotype Conditions for Entrepreneurial Companies
Entrepreneurship is concerned with pattern recognition of situations and information by entrepreneurs. Simulation methods represent an attractive venue for exploring pattern recognition and information interpretation issues. A computerized decision-making simulation was developed and run to test hypotheses concerning interpretation of stereotypical situational cues to which new ventures are subject. Partial support is found for the existence of classes of situations to which entrepreneurs and managers respond. Stereotypical views of situations may develop quickly and be acted on easily in critical decision making. Future simulation research on cognition issues in entrepreneurship may enable entrepreneurs to better learn how to learn.
20533927
Predicting order and timing of new product moves: the role of top management in corporate entrepreneurship
Abstract In this study, we focused on new product move as a form of corporate entrepreneurial activity. We developed hypotheses relating the characteristics of the top management team (TMT) to the order and timing of new product moves made by firms. We analyzed 223 new product introduction moves from the personal computer, long distance telecommunication, and brewing industries from the period of 1975–1990. We found that firms with larger TMTs were more likely to be first movers. The hypothesis that firms with larger TMTs are more likely to respond quickly to new product moves received marginal support. The hypothesis that TMTs more heterogeneous in terms of organizational tenure of executives are more likely to be first movers as well as earlier in the order of new product moves received marginal support. We found contradictory results with TMT organizational tenure and TMT educational background heterogeneity as predictors of order and timing of new product moves. Subsequently, we conducted industry-wise analysis that revealed important differences in this new product entrepreneurial activity across the three industries.
145116477
The nature of information and overconfidence on venture capitalists' decision making
Previous research has overlooked the possibility thatoverconfidence, cognitive differences, and personal biases may significantlyimpact the decisions that venture capitalists (VCs) make. This study examinesthree questions: (1) Are VCs overconfident? (2) Does overconfidence influencedecision accuracy? and (3) Under what circumstances would we expect VCs toexhibit greater levels of overconfidence? The judgment/decision-makingliterature is reviewed and applied to the nature of the venture capitalinvestment decision. A policy capturing experiment was used to examine the investment decisionprocess of 53 venture capitalists from the Denver/Boulder area and SiliconValley. Findings indicated that VCs' investment decisions are biased byoverconfidence. Specifically, this overconfidence increases with moreinformation, unfamiliar framing of information, moderate performancepredictions relative to more extreme predictions, and with failure predictionsrelative to extreme success predictions. This can have a negative effect ondecision accuracy. VCs can use counter factual reasoning, the "humblingeffect," and actuarial decision aides to deal with overconfidence.(SFL)
154024433
The founder's self-assessed competence and venture performance
Abstract A large body of recent research seeks to understand organizational founding and the performance of emerging businesses. Although much of this research has focused on the characteristics of the business founder, there is only mixed support for relationships between founders' characteristics and venture performance (Begley and Boyd 1987; Gartner 1988; Low and MacMillan 1988: Sexton and Bowman 1984). This study is based on research that identifies the entrepreneurial, managerial, and technical-functional functions as three roles that founders must competently enact in order to be successful (Hofer and Sandberg 1987; Mintzberg and Waters 1982; Pavett and Lau 1983; Schein 1987). Effective performance in the entrepreneurial role requires the founder to have the ability to recognize business opportunities and the drive to see firm creation through to fruition (Hofer and Sandberg 1987; Timmons et al. 1987). Effective execution of the managerial role requires conceptual, interpersonal, and political competence (Pavett and Lau 1983). To be competent in the technical-functional role, founders must be able to use the tools or procedures required in their specialized field (Pavett and Lau 1983). To measure the competencies necessary for effectiveness in the entrepreneurial, managerial, and technical-functional roles, we developed a questionnaire to allow founders to provide self-evaluations of their competencies. The results provide strong evidence for the reliability of measurement and the validity of the constructs. The relationships revealed in this study suggest some preliminary recommendations for potential entrepreneurs, career counselors, and educators. The number of businesses previously initiated and the years spent as an owner manager do not appear to be strongly related to the performance of the venture; however, the most successful entrepreneurs are strongly convinced of their ability to recognize business opportunity. They believe that they have the drive to see the venture through to fruition and report that they subjugate outside interests to the demands of their businesses. Thus, although self-assessed proficiency in the entrepreneurial function does not appear to be contingent on the length of previous experience as a founder; it does appear to be a necessary component in the development of high-performance companies. Founders of the most successful firms also gave themselves high ratings on the abilities associated with effective performance in the managerial role. They had high self-evaluation scores on the items measuring organizational and interpersonal skills. Competence in the managerial role appears to be enhanced by business education and the years of general managerial experience. The founders of highly successful firms also evaluated their technical skills highly. They believed they were experts in their fields and could use the specialized tools and procedures to produce high-quality products and services. Thus, the results indicate that the most successful founders—those whose firms show higher levels of growth and earnings—rate themselves as competent in the entrepreneurial, managerial, and technical-functional roles; they see themselves as competent generalists. And, in a result that is most gratifying for those in higher education, it appears that a business education and experience in general managerial positions lays the ground work for a successful entrepreneurial career.
128357040
Unlocking Founding Team Prior Shared Experience: A Transactive Memory System Perspective
Although new ventures are often started by founders with prior shared experience, which has been shown to benefit new venture performance, the mechanisms underlying this effect remain under examined. It therefore becomes challenging to exploit this entrepreneurial resource in practice. Drawing insights from the team familiarity and cognition literatures, I posit that the prior shared experience effect is partially mediated by a team-level cognitive process — transactive memory system that enables founding teams to effectively and efficiently integrate their members' expertise and skills. Two team-level factors — task similarity and intra-team trust further strengthen the effects of transactive memory systems because they provide golden opportunities and strong motivation for team members to utilize their transactive memory systems. Analyses using survey data collected from approximately 100 start-ups in four regions of China largely support these hypotheses. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
6262446
The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and
Abstract The Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts. Communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements. The institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system. For example, the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition. Reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states, however, are induced by new technologies (biotechnology, ICT). The consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of (neo-)evolutionary mechanisms. University research may function increasingly as a locus in the “laboratory” of such knowledge-intensive network transitions.
145381004
Entrepreneurial Architecture: A Blueprint for Entrepreneurial Universities
Universities are increasingly challenged to become more socially and economically relevant institutions. While this phenomenon has prompted a growing literature documenting the evolution of the contemporary university, it remains at once both too broadly conceptualized and overly fragmented. Thus, while these literatures continue to grow, they remain largely undertheorized. This paper employs the concept of “entrepreneurial architecture” as a more nuanced perspective to understand this new mission of contemporary universities. This newly emphasized mission has been politically driven through public policy and funding. While providing a theoretical contribution to the study of the entrepreneurial university/university entrepreneurship, the paper also has broader implications for institutions and policymakers as a pragmatic approach. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
50721426
Understanding the concept of the entrepreneurial university from the perspective of higher education models
Over the last few decades, globalization and ever-increasing demands of the knowledge-based economy have caused higher education in most countries around the world to undergo significant transformation. Notwithstanding the dramatic changes in higher education, it is clearly noticed that the influence of the European higher education models is still present despite the fact that the American model has then become dominant on higher education in Europe or even worldwide. The changes have been seen in the evolutionary roles of universities, which share the common trend from traditional missions of teaching and research to the third mission for economic development. Despite various viewpoints about the third mission, the common one concerns the entrepreneurial role of university for socio-economic development, underlying the concept of entrepreneurial university in which the collaboration between university and external stakeholders is emphasized. This paper is aimed to present a review of the taxonomy of the three European higher education models, namely the Humboldtian, Napoleonic, and Anglo-Saxon model, which is followed by a discussion on the emergence of the Anglo-American model of higher education. The paper then presents the third mission in relation to the roles of a university in developed countries, which is followed by the elaboration on the transformation from mode 1 to mode 2 in knowledge production, and a pathway toward entrepreneurial universities.
144546996
Higher education system and the ‘open’ knowledge transfer: a view from perception of senior managers at university knowledge transfer offices
Higher education institutions (HEIs) have become increasingly entrepreneurial. Such a shift is highly dependent on the managers of university knowledge transfer offices whose perceptions can be critical in this transformation. This study examines such senior managers' perceptions concerning the ‘open’ paradigm in relation with the management aspects of university knowledge transfer (UKT). Using the Q method based survey of senior UK practitioners the study discovered patterns of perspectives in the knowledge transfer management. Four shared perspectives of management towards ‘open’ (versus ‘closed’) UKT were found including: (A) interconnectivity oriented management; (B) performance led management; (C) internal focused management; and (D) reconciliation oriented management. Despite each perspective's distinct stance, the perspectives share a central concern that interconnectivity and flexibility are the key characteristics of the future university knowledge transfer office management, and that business model based approach to the management of UKT is critical to a successful transformation to entrepreneurial university.
153569763
From Human Capital to Social Capital: A Longitudinal Study of Technology–Based Academic Entrepreneurs
This article develops theory relating to how differences in the human capital of academic entrepreneurs influence their ability to develop social capital that can address the barriers to venture development. We examine the development of social capital by three types of academic entrepreneurs with differing levels of entrepreneurship experience: nascent, novice, and habitual entrepreneurs. Using a longitudinal study, critical differences are observed between the structure, content, and governance of their social networks. We propose that entrepreneurs with prior business ownership experience have broader social networks and are more effective in developing network ties. Less experienced entrepreneurs likely encounter structural holes between their scientific research networks and industry networks. Support initiatives help attract industry partners for novice entrepreneurs from engineering and the material sciences but academics based within biological sciences encounter greater difficulties building such ties. Regardless of academic discipline, business ownership experience appears essential to learn to build relationships with experienced managers and potential equity investors.
154436738
The role of incubator interactions in assisting new ventures
Abstract Past literature on the development of new technology-based firms (NTBF) within business incubators suggests that the incubation process of these ventures includes both business and technical assistance. In addition, past literature suggests that this assistance is accessible through direct and networking interactions with the incubator management. However, research on the influence of each of these types of interactions on the types of beneficial assistance gained by ventures is unclear. Drawing predominately from social capital theory, this study examines the role of counseling and networking interactions with incubator management on both beneficial business and technical assistance for NTBFs. Results of this study suggest that business assistance, in the form of venture learning about buyer preferences, is best enabled through counseling interactions with incubator management. Learning buyer preferences was not enabled through networking interactions. Technical assistance, in the form of venture learning technological know-how skills, is best enabled through networking interactions with incubator management. Learning technological know-how skills was not enabled through counseling interactions. This study, therefore, highlights the importance and a clearer distinction of how both counseling and networking interactions with incubator management enable the incubation process of new ventures.
153970913
The development of an entrepreneurial university
An entrepreneurial society refers to places where knowledge-based entrepreneurship has emerged as a driving force for economic growth, employment creation and competitiveness. In this context, entrepreneurial universities play an important role as both knowledge-producer and a disseminating institution. In the literature, several studies contributed with relevant findings. Most of these studies reveal a tendency to use case studies to explain this phenomenon justified by the embryonic nature of the topic field, and with the lack of a robust theoretical framework to understand it. No empirical study, however, has highlighted the interrelations among environmental and internal factors that conditioned the development of entrepreneurial universities with the teaching, research and entrepreneurial missions that they need to achieve. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of these interrelations identifying the most critical factors that conditioned these missions and to this end brings a proposal model to measure this phenomenon empirically in the light of the Institutional Economics and the Resource-Based View. The methodology adopted is integrated by the Spanish Entrepreneurial University Scoreboard to identify this phenomenon and Structural Equation Modeling to analyze the relationships among independent and dependent variables that integrate the proposal model of entrepreneurial university. This research could cover invaluable strategies to bring further benefits to society (in terms of the creation of new business and employment) and, in particular, to educational institutions.
56214536
University Start-Up Formation and Technology Licensing with Firms that Go Public: A Resource-Based View of Academic Entrepreneurship
A resource-based view of the firm is used to examine the effects of particular resource sets on two separate measures of university technology transfer performance.These measures include the number of startups formed and the number of initial public offering firms (IPOs) to which a university has licensed a technology. Taken together, the study's hypotheses suggest that universities that possess considerable industry research funding, high-quality faculty, impressive patent portfolios, experienced technology transfer offices, and support from local venture capitalists are likely to form more startups and to license more technologies to IPO companies than other universities do. Data from multiple archival sources of 120 research-intensive universities are used to test these hypotheses.According to the data, the quality of an institution's patent portfolio is not a predictor of startup formation and the frequency with which technologies are licensed to IPO firms. The other four resources, however, are significant predictors of technology transfer performance. (SAA)
168100861
A process study of entrepreneurial team formation: the case of a research-based spin-off
This study explores how the team managing a start-up evolves and copes with and learns from crises during the start-up phase. Shocks in the founding team and the position of its champion co-exist with shocks in the development of the business. The research is a case study of CINE, a pseudonym for the spin-off, technology transfer company owned by the Universite Catholique de Louvain la Neuve, the largest French-speaking university in Belgium. The longitudinal approach was adopted alongside business history approaches; the tracing of historic company documents and project data is central, and is often complemented with extensive interviews about the company's history and current options. Members of the management team were observed and interviewed during 2000 and 2001. It is observed that, in practice, the "champion" of a venture automatically evolves into the CEO position. The role of the coach is explored, as the coach is the intermediary person between the financial investor and the entrepreneurial team, translating business expectations of the investor into strategic choices. The findings also suggest the difficulties of a large start-up team; entrepreneurial start-up teams that are larger than four persons may be hard to run in practice. Four major implications of the investigation are presented: (1) it may seem that obtaining a start-up team with previous experience may be the most attractive option, but if this can only be accomplished by hiring external business people, it can become a disadvantage; (2) the champion of a business idea is seldom the best manager but often the most immediate solution to manage the team at start; (3) entrepreneurs that come out of a research environment only gradually learn how to adapt their ideas to business needs; (4) a gradual investment through various capital increases may be better than a large investment at start. Only after members of the team accept their strengths and weaknesses and agree with the structure, is the company is ready for a venture capital injection.(CBS)
168129849
Entrepreneurship and female youth: knowledge, attitudes, gender differences, and educational practices
Abstract Rapid expansion of creative opportunity recognition and business venture development suggests that the United States is experiencing a sea change with respect to entrepreneurship. Although trends and projections indicate that women will play an increasingly important role in the entrepreneurial development of the economy, little is known about what female youth either understand or think about entrepreneurship. Prompted by these underlying considerations, this study investigates survey data from a national sample of female and male high school students concerning their entrepreneurship knowledge and attitudes—and whether there are any significant gender differences in these areas. The Gallup Organization collected the study data from a sample that included approximately 1,000 males and females. The results derived from logit analysis of the data suggest that there are many similarities between females and males with respect to their knowledge of and opinions about entrepreneurship; however, they also exhibit significant gender differences in several areas. The study's findings lead to important curricular implications for entrepreneurship education in the nation's schools, especially in relation to females. Both males and females exhibit a low level of entrepreneurship knowledge. Females, however, are more aware of their deficiencies in this knowledge area than are their male counterparts. Both sexes believe that further education can correct the knowledge problem. Although very interested in starting a business, females still are significantly less likely than males (62% vs. 72%) to want to start a business of their own. Both females and males overwhelmingly believe in the importance of giving back to the community—which goes beyond providing jobs. The findings of this study also suggest a significant paradox in the “pre-entrepreneurial” characteristics of female and male youth. Whereas the majority of students aspire to start their own businesses, they hold certain views that could be detrimental to entrepreneurial success. For example, more than half of the youth sampled believe that price changes are objectionable business responses to shifts in the cost of production or to changes in market demand. This pattern of response, moreover, is significantly more apparent in females than in males. The results of this study provide compelling evidence in support of the need to initiate or improve the entrepreneurship education of our nation's youth. Their contributions may be strongly influenced by the foundation for entrepreneurship that is provided in the formative years of their education. Entrepreneurship education should focus on key entrepreneurship concepts, as well as the fundamental linkages between the dynamics and assumptions of a competitive market system and the concepts and practices of entrepreneurship. Two examples of educational programs that meet the particular needs of female youth with respect to these issues, as well as other key requirements for entrepreneurship education, are described in the final section of the study.
73547648
A comparative study of new venture top management team composition, dynamics and performance between university-based and independent start-ups
The current study tests for differences in top management team (TMT) composition (education, functional expertise, industry experience, and skill), dynamics (shared strategic cognition, potency, cohesion, and conflict) and performance (net cash flow and revenue growth) between a sample of 102 high-technology university-based start-ups and an otherwise equivalently matched sample of 154 independent high-technology new ventures. The results find university-based start-ups to be comprised of more homogenous TMTs with less developed dynamics than their independent counterparts. Further, university-based start-ups are found to be significantly lower performing in terms of net cash flow and revenue growth than independent new ventures. © 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.
153876190
Transforming traditional university structures for the knowledge economy through multidisciplinary institutes
Within the UK considerable policy support has been provided to create multidisciplinary institutes that encourage academics to develop new knowledge for industry and societal problems. We consider four large traditional UK universities that have gained significant funding for such activities. We examine the changes in institutional structures necessary to enable universities to transform from single-discipline-based schools to multidisciplinary institutes. New incentives for working across schools, the cross-subsidy transfer of industry-funded research and teaching income, and senior role models are observed to enable the development of a multidisciplinary research capability. Yet, this capability is not easily sustained. It appears that for institutes to survive beyond the initial funding round, they regress towards traditional school activities of peer-reviewed research and teaching. We conclude that to transform academic behaviour, a fundamental shift in promotion procedures, which remain heavily weighted towards peer-reviewed journal publication within single disciplines, is required. Copyright The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.
154576683
Learning from own and others’ previous experience: the contribution of the venture capital firm to the likelihood of a portfolio company’s trade sale
The objective of this paper is to examine to what extent different venture capital firms contribute to the likelihood that the portfolio company in which they invested will realize a trade sale. We use arguments from learning theory to hypothesize the relationship between vicarious, experiential and congenital learning of the venture capital (VC) firm and the trade sale hazard of its portfolio companies. Based on our analysis of 206 VC-backed UK start-ups, we find that both trade sale experience of the VC and learning from syndicate partners with trade sale experience significantly increase the trade sale hazard. The routines and procedures learned from experienced syndicate partners complement experience accumulated through trial and error. Congenital trade sale experience of the investment managers on the contrary has no significant influence on the acquisition hazard.
145369215
The State-Sponsored Student Entrepreneur
This paper introduces the emergent role of the state-sponsored student entrepreneur within the academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime. Drawing on two clarifying cases of such entrepreneurship, the study explores the shifting boundaries between public and private sectors, the creation of new circuits of knowledge, and the entrepreneurial learning environments that are revealed. An important modification and extension of Slaughter and Rhoades' (2004) theory of academic capitalism is provided in casting students not simply as targets and victims of this trend but as active entrepreneurial agents who in important ways point to how deeply embedded the regime has come to be. Our cases reveal a situation in which students learn content and entrepreneurial strategies from faculty members, tap into university expertise and infrastructure in the form of important interstitial units and personnel, and become partners with faculty in commercial ventures.
156900344
Engineering Students and Entrepreneurship Education: Involvement, Attitudes and Outcomes*
Changes in the economy and workforce needs have driven many engineering schools to consider offering entrepreneurshipeducation to their students. Although entrepreneurship education is believed to be complementary to an engineering education,little is known about the degree to which it plays a role in contemporary students’ academic programs. The purpose of this studywas to explore a broad array of attitudes toward and outcomes of entrepreneurship education on engineering students in order tounderstand the characteristics of students participating in related courses and activities, the nature and extent of their involvement,entrepreneurship’s role in their career plans, and its impact on entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Survey data were collected from 501engineering students enrolled in senior-level capstone design courses at three institutions with established entrepreneurshipprograms. The study found that while two-thirds or more of engineering students intended to work for medium or large sizecompanies after graduation, a similar number felt that entrepreneurship education could broaden their career prospects andchoices. Less than one third of those surveyed felt that entrepreneurship was being addressed within their engineering programs orby engineering faculty. Students who had taken one or more entrepreneurship courses showed significantly higher levels ofentrepreneurial self-efficacy on a number of measures. Students in certain engineering disciplines such as electrical and mechanicalengineering were found to participate in entrepreneurship education at higher rates than others. The results of this study providevaluable baseline data that can be useful for program development and evaluation.
34172601
Learning entrepreneurship from a constructivist perspective
Abstract The aim of this article is to present a learning theory (constructivist theory) that supports and explains a lot of the requested changes in entrepreneurship education. It also explains how entrepreneurs learn and serves as a basis for designing entrepreneurship programs. If we look at the ‘skills’ and competencies of entrepreneurs from a constructivist's perspective we find most of them by observing children under the age of five or six: they are motivated to learn, they are interested in a variety of different topics, they ask excellent questions, they try many things to get insights, they are creative, they are impatient. In short, they create and govern their own learning process, which is open for any content, style, goal, experience, etc., and allows them to take every opportunity to answer the question in concern. In this sense it is similar to the entrepreneurial process where the entrepreneur tries everything and is ready to learn what is needed to be successful.
113903081
Building University 21st Century Entrepreneurship Programs that Empower and Transform
At its essence, entrepreneurship has the potential to empower and to transform. The key to both individual and organizational prosperity in a dynamic, threatening and complex world is the ability to think and act in more entrepreneurial ways. A new wave of economic development is sweeping the world, with entrepreneurship and innovation as the primary catalysts. Within the world of education, it can be argued that the at-risk student is the one not prepared for this entrepreneurial age. While every student has the potential, most lack the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and capabilities that define entrepreneurial competence. Over these past four decades, entrepreneurship has grown within universities faster than virtually any other area of intellectual pursuit. And it appears that the pace is accelerating with more universities seeking to develop programs and centers focused on entrepreneurship. Yet, understanding how to build entrepreneurship programs that empower and transform has remained challenging for some institutions. In this chapter, we investigate the development of entrepreneurship programs in universities. More specifically we contend that they should be created for empowerment and transformation across the campus. We describe some of the most common structural forms, outline the different degree programs, and emphasize the empowering and transforming effects of these programs for all the stakeholders of a university.
340218
An Insider’s Perspective on Entrepreneurial Program Development at a Small and a Large Institution
Entrepreneurship educators have an opportunity to learn from the entrepreneurship programs at both small colleges and large universities that have already sprouted up and experienced growth, challenges, failures, and ultimate successes. Programs that have contributed to the current entrepreneurship milieu can help leaders who are launching new programs or retooling existing ones, providing information to assist in defining their outcome objectives and refining their offerings. The development of new entrepreneurship programs, one at a private liberal arts institution and one at a large state-related research university, is evaluated. The common threads of “what worked” are identified, highlighting themes that other institutions of any size undertaking new initiatives can leverage. Themes discussed include the identification of institutional champions, communication with members of the “student supply chain,” and offering both non-credit, experience-based opportunities and dynamic for-credit courses. In addition, implementing a strategy that includes faculty partnerships, designated advisory boards, and refined bootstrapping skills helps to ensure that robust human and capital resources are available for program delivery, growth, and sustainability.
154687819
Potential entrepreneurs' assessment of opportunities through the rendering of a business plan
In the field of entrepreneurship and especially during start up, much emphasis is placed on the business plan with regard to entrepreneurship education and training, funding from external investors, business plan competitions and government development agencies in the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) sector. In many earlier studies of well-known entrepreneurship educators, the formulation of a business plan was identified as being the most important feature of any entrepreneurship programme or course. However, the relevance of a business plan has been a topic of intense and unresolved debates in more recent literature. This paper contributes to the literature with regard to the value a business plan adds to potential entrepreneurs.  Furthermore it increases the understanding of how a detailed business plan (such as the approved business plan template of the University of Pretoria approved business plan) can enable a potential entrepreneur to assess opportunities. The paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of business plans and the methods of assessing opportunities, in order to reveal similarities between the business plan and opportunity assessment. Based on descriptive statistics and inferential statistics such as ANOVA, and Kruskal-Wallis tests, the findings support the hypotheses that potential entrepreneurs distinguish between ideas and opportunities and develop opportunities through the formulation of a detailed business plan. The pertinent academic and practical significance of this paper is that it highlights statistically significant differences proving that a detailed business plan is a tool that enables potential entrepreneurs to assess opportunities. From a practical point of view, this should help potential entrepreneurs to establish more viable business ventures; however, this would have to be statistically tested in further research. Finally, the study re-establishes the importance and purpose of a business plan in the field of entrepreneurship.
110707274
The Effect of an Entrepreneurship Program on GPA and Retention
There is a small but growing body of evidence that entrepreneurship programs add value to students, the degree programs in which they are housed, and the institutions that host them. The Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at North Carolina State University, a program in which undergraduate students participate in design teams formed around technology start-up company themes, was started with funding from the NSF-sponsored SUCCEED (Southeastern Universities and Colleges Coalition for Engineering Education) Coalition primarily to improve the confidence and retention of engineering students. 
 
 
 
Multiple assessment approaches including surveys, focus groups, interviews, longitudinal assessment of retention and academic performance, and anecdotal evidence triangulate on the success of this program at meeting its primary objectives and others. Particularly, the longitudinal study revealed that program participants had higher engineering retention rates (70 percent vs. 51 percent) and GPAs (3.08 vs. 2.83) than a matched set of non-participants. The program and its rigorous assessment serve as models for the engineering entrepreneurship community.
156787926
Do University Entrepreneurship Programs Influence Students’ Entrepreneurial Behavior? An Empirical Analysis of University Students in Singapore
This paper investigates empirically the link between entrepreneurship education programs and students’ entrepreneurial behavior, with a particular focus on the distinction between experiential and classroom-based education. We introduce a more refined measure of entrepreneurial engagement that combines entrepreneurship intention and actual steps taken to realize that intention. Using data from a survey of 836 students at the National University of Singapore (NUS), we utilize linear regression models to examine not only the direct effect of entrepreneurship education program participation on entrepreneurial engagement, but also its possible interaction effect with several psychological constructs drawn from the Theory of Planned Behavior. The results show that participation in university entrepreneurship programs, especially experiential learning programs, has significant positive influence on students’ entrepreneurial engagement. Moreover, the effect of program participation is significantly moderated by the students’ attitudes and perceptions. The findings have important practical implications for universities in designing entrepreneurship programs on campus. The study supports the call to move towards hands-on experiential programs as a more effective way for educational institutions to influence students' entrepreneurial behavior and encourage venture creation activity on campus. We also contribute to the literature by confirming the impact of entrepreneurship education not only on entrepreneurial intentions but also on the concrete steps taken by students towards venture creation.
142107633
Toward a Dynamic Understanding of Entrepreneurship Education Research across the Campus – Social Cognition and Action Research
To date, there is little consensus about which types of educational methods, approaches, and support systems best facilitate entrepreneurial learning. By looking at entrepreneurship education through a socio-cognitive lens, this article presents a theory-based practical model that characterizes entrepreneurship education as a dynamic field of inquiry that considers the triadic reciprocal relationship of personal, behavioral and environmental factors of entrepreneurial learning. Based on this dynamic model and understanding of entrepreneurship education, action research is proposed as a new way of inquiry in order to facilitate the continuous improvement and evolution of educational methods and pedagogies across entrepreneurship programs in both academic and non-academic learning environments across the campus.
154572097
Overcoming the walls that constrain us: The role of entrepreneurship education programs in prison
Although research has shown that entrepreneurship education can help prepare and motivate people to act entrepreneurially, less is known about why some people who are most in need of such education programs drop out while others persist and generate benefits well beyond those that are solely career related. Using a longitudinal multiple case study method to analyze participants of a 20-week entrepreneurship program in prison, comparisons of successful program participants and drop-outs show, first, that making sense of one’s past and the motivation to move forward activate opportunity recognition processes that facilitate persistence in an entrepreneurship educational program. Second, those who persist with the entrepreneurship education program are transformed—not only are beliefs about their entrepreneurial abilities strengthened but we also find that the program changed their attitudes toward both imprisonment and others, both of which have implications beyond career-related outcomes. Finally, we discu...
155051237
The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education: Introducing the Entrepreneurship Education Project
The Entrepreneurship ducation roject (http://www.trepeducation.com) is a global, longitudinal research initiative through which university students offer entrepreneurship educators and researchers data‐driven insights into the impact of entrepreneurial education on (1) both the motivational processes underlying students' road to entrepreneurship and through the entrepreneurial process and (2) the process of identity transformation from student to entrepreneur. Rooted in ocial ognitive areer heory, the ntrepreneurship ducation roject data initiative is the largest, most comprehensive study of students across the globe. Phase data consist of over 18,000 student responses, spanning over 70 countries and 400 universities. This paper presents an overview of the data, study justification, and conceptual scheme. Initial studies provide results indicating the study measures met contemporary standards or reliability, exceed the average sample sizes of top‐tier entrepreneurship journals, and present some very interesting questions to be explored in future research.
145649759
Measuring and Understanding the Effects of Entrepreneurial Awareness Education
The widespread rise in entrepreneurship education at universities is frequently not accompanied by rigorous and sustainable program evaluations. Thus, the impact of these programs is still under dispute. In order to enhance this understanding, we derive an “entrepreneurship education model” () following iñán and hen's modification of jzen's theory of planned behavior and use it as a mixed methods evaluation tool in an awareness education setting at a large erman university. We find support for the proposed causal link from awareness education to students' entrepreneurial attitudes derived in the and that perceived control over entrepreneurial tasks is not a relevant predictor of start‐up intentions in an awareness setting. Further, we observe two course‐induced effects on students' belief systems determining their personal attitude: the corruption effect of extrinsic motivation and a shift in locus of control.
155065238
Promoting entrepreneurial mindsets at universities: a case study in the South of Spain
This study analyses an entrepreneurial learning initiative developed in the south of Spain through a partnership approach between a high-level educational institution - the University of Huelva, located in a rural area of the south of Spain - and the business community. Using a case-study approach and taking the institutional economic theory as a theoretical framework, the influence of the initiative on stimulating the students' entrepreneurial mindsets is examined. The main findings reveal that, in areas with low levels of entrepreneurial activity such as some rural areas of the south of Spain, additional actions to promote entrepreneurship would be necessary. This research also has several practical implications for policy makers in terms of designing governmental initiatives to promote entrepreneurship education and, consequently, entrepreneurial mindsets.
143483423
Increasing Personal Initiative in Small Business Managers or Owners Leads to Entrepreneurial Success: A Theory-Based Controlled Randomized Field Intervention for Evidence-BasedManagement
We seek to contribute to evidence-based teaching for management by providing an example of translating a theory into an evidence-based intervention by developing action principles; moreover, our wo...
144884266
Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development, David A. Kolb, Prentice-Hall International, Hemel Hempstead, Herts., 1984. No. of pages: xiii + 256
@book{kolb84, AUTHOR = {D.A. Kolb}, TITLE = {Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development}, YEAR = {1984}, ADDRESS = {Englewood Cliffs, NJ}, PUBLISHER = {Prentice Hall}, URL = {http://www.learningfromexperience.com/images/uploads/process-of-experiential-learning.pdf ! (date of download: 31.05.2006)},
59059777
Experiential Learning within the Process of Opportunity Identification and Exploitation
The article uses experiential learning theory to magnify the importance of learning within the process of entrepreneurship. Previous research details the contributions of prior knowledge, creativity, and cognitive mechanisms to the process of opportunity identification and exploitation; however, the literature is devoid of work that directly addresses learning. The extant research assumes learning is occurring but does not directly address the importance of learning to the process. To fully understand the nature of the entrepreneurial process, researchers must take into account how individuals learn and how different modes of learning influence opportunity identification and exploitation. This article makes connections between knowledge, cognition, and creativity to develop the concept of learning asymmetries and illustrates how a greater appreciation for the differences in individual learning will fortify entrepreneurship research.
154804441
Exploring the resource logic of student entrepreneurs
This study responds to the call in recent research for comparative studies examining whether student entrepreneurs are different to other kinds of entrepreneurs. Based on institutional theory, the specific question we ask in this study is whether student entrepreneurs who start up their firms in close relation to the university have a different resource logic compared to entrepreneurs who start their firms outside the university context. We define resource logic as the individual’s set of ideas for how to secure and use resources, and we link this concept to theories of effectual reasoning and bootstrapping to develop our argument. Moreover, we identify two different viewpoints about the effects of the university milieu on the resource logic of student entrepreneurs and we develop hypotheses to test the different viewpoints. The findings give overall support for the view that student entrepreneurs have developed a resource logic that favours both effectual reasoning and the use of bootstrapping methods.
155079072
Searching for entrepreneurs among small business ownermanagers in agriculture
Highlights • We examined relationships between competence, its development and performance.• We compared in-depth entrepreneurial high- and low-performing firms in horticulture.• Performance and competence are influenced by business goals and awareness.• Competence development is associated with initial opportunity identification.• There is an interdependence between existing competence and competence development. Abstract The relationships between entrepreneurial competence, competence development and entrepreneurial performance in small firms represent an area that has fascinated researchers for decades. Identifying such linkages is also important for agricultural research and practice. In this study modern concepts of individual competence were integrated with entrepreneurship and organizational learning theory, leading to the following research question: How do high- and low-performing small agricultural firms differ in terms of the extent to which their owner-managers develop and use specific entrepreneurial competence? A multiple-source case study was conducted in which quantitative and qualitative data from 19 horticultural firms in the Netherlands were combined. Based on the differences between high- and low-performing firms, seven propositions were formulated that further specify the relationships between entrepreneurial performance, the owner-managers’ competence and the development of this competence. The results indicate that the relationship between entrepreneurial performance and competence is influenced by business goals and the owner-managers’ competence awareness. It is proposed that entrepreneurial performance is correlated with the development of competence associated with the first phase of the identification and pursuit of an opportunity. Furthermore, the results suggest interdependence between existing competence and competence development within competence domains (horizontal development), and between competence domains (vertical development).
145236223
Framing the Entrepreneurial Experience
Building on affective events theory (AET), an experiential perspective for conceptualizing entrepreneurship is introduced. As a “lived experience,” entrepreneurship represents a cumulative series of interdependent events that takes on properties rooted in affect and emotion. Unique characteristics of entrepreneurial experiences are examined. The entrepreneur is presented as actor in an unscripted temporal performance who continually encounters novelty. A model and set of propositions are presented linking pre–venture experience, key events, experiential processing, learning, affective outcomes, and decision making. It is argued that the entrepreneur and venture emerge as a function of ongoing experience, with the venture creating the entrepreneur as the entrepreneur creates the venture.
55808177
The Role of Chief Marketing Officers for Venture Capital Funding: Endowing New Ventures with Marketing Legitimacy
Research on new ventures has indicated that poorly conducted marketing is among the main reasons for new venture failure. To acquire urgently needed initial funding, new ventures strive to conform to investors’ expectations of appropriate marketing capabilities because these capabilities may endow them with legitimacy in the eyes of potential investors. Drawing on organizational legitimacy and human resource theory, the authors argue that the characteristics of the chief marketing officer (CMO) may endow new ventures with marketing legitimacy. Employing a two-stage selection hazard rate analysis to simultaneously account for potential selection bias and right-censored observations, the authors analyze a comprehensive data set of 2,945 high-technology new ventures. Bearing in mind that this research is a first exploratory attempt to illuminate the role of marketing for new venture funding using correlational secondary data, the results indicate that CMO education, marketing experience, and industry experience are positively related to the likelihood of funding. Moreover, the relationships between CMO characteristics and funding are contingent on task-related uncertainty and industry legitimacy. These findings provide initial insights for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and public policy makers.
54663835
Experiential learning and critical reflection as a tool for transfer of business knowledge : an empirical case study of a start-up simulation intervention for nascent entrepreneurs
This paper investigates the impact of venture start-up simulation on participants’ learning; it is concerned specifically with the relationship between experiential learning theory and critical reflection within venture start-up simulation. This was carried out in empirical investigation of a simulation training game used to train entrepreneurs in a formal setting. The findings show significant improvement in their knowledge of finance, marketing operations and information use. Participants reported increased skills and intended behavioural changes in their own ventures. Finally, there was empirical support for the fact that critical reflection during experiential learning can greatly improve the standard of learning and has an immediate effect on participants’ behaviour.
153421642
Creating tools for farmers' learning: an application of developmental work research
Abstract This paper describes how the methodology of developmental work research, originating from cultural–historical activity theory, was applied in an intervention study of organic vegetable farming. Analysis of disturbances occurring in practice and of the developmental histories of two farms served as basis for modeling organic vegetable farming as an activity system. Contradictions within the activity system revealed that sustainable use of natural resources on the one hand and entrepreneurial integration into society on the other hand were the two major learning challenges faced by the farmers. Learning tools created and used in the study are the special focus of this paper. These are the models of an activity system, the zone of proximal development, strategies for increasing product volume and three orientations towards farm workers. The methodology offers means for problem definition in research and development projects, and enables the formation of non-deterministic directions of development for organic vegetable farms.
108719620
Telework 96: an international collaborative learning package for information entrepreneurs
Describes the implementation of an international joint course developed by Queen Margaret College in Scotland and the Royal School of Librarianship in Denmark introducing undergraduate students to tools and issues relevant to teleworking, or working at home. Discusses course objectives, class assignments, student assessment, and program evaluation.
107876865
Developing Entrepreneurship In Small Enterprises – The Succession Process Supported By Apprenticeship Training As A Context For Learning
The aim of this chapter is to describe the ownership change process of an operating enterprise as an example of integrating work and learning. This topic is approached both from the perspective of the theories of entrepreneurship and learning and from the viewpoint of practical experiences (Cope, 2005). In recent studies concerning the development of entrepreneurship more attention has been paid than before to the close connection between entrepreneurship and learning (e.g. Minniti & Byrgave, 2001): Learning is at the centre of the entrepreneurship process (Smilor, 1997). Successful entrepreneurs are seen as exceptional learners: they seem to learn from everything. It has even been claimed that entrepreneurship itself is a process of learning. Thus, the theory of entrepreneurship would appear to be in need of a theory of learning which makes for entrepreneurial success (Minniti & Byrgave, 2001). Entrepreneurship can be defined as “the process of identifying opportunities for creating or realising value and of forming ventures which bring together resources to exploit those opportunities” (Rae, 2004). Thus, rather than a state, entrepreneurship is seen as a dynamic process. Some researchers have made a distinction between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship (Pinchot, 1986; Jarillo, 1988; Kyrö, 1997). The former refers to the actual running of a business, while the latter refers to a mental state needed in any successful activity. In this chapter we look at how expertise in entrepreneurship develops especially in the context of family business. A family business is a firm where the ownership changes by generational succession (Koiranen, 1998). Of special interest here are the factors connected with the change of ownership. An other central aim is to examine the transformation achieved through the succession process on the individual as well as group and organisation levels. The study focuses on the successor to the enterprise and the person giving it up, the process of transferring business operations and how the business develops from that point.
143942664
Entrepreneurial orientation: A psychological model of success among southern African small business owners
This study examines the relationship of the psychological construct Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) with business success in a sample of N = 248 southern African business owners. We reintroduce the individual in EO research and show the importance of the person of the entrepreneur for business performance: Hierarchical regression analyses revealed significant relationships between EO components (personal initiative, achievement-, and risk-taking orientation) as well as overall EO and business performance. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis supported a single factor construct of EO that consists of learning, achievement, and autonomy orientation, competitive aggressiveness, innovative and risk-taking orientation, and of personal initiative.  In this study, we develop an individual-based psychological concept of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and investigate the relationship between business owners' EO and business performance in southern Africa. EO has primarily been discussed from a firm-level perspective (e.g., Covin & Slevin, 1991; Lumpkin & Dess, 1996). It characterized businesses in their early years and was found to be important for firm success. In contrast, we apply a psychological approach with EO as an interindividual difference variable. Thus, our focus is the business owner and the general relationship between individual EO and performance of southern African small business owners.
59026498
Analysing, pursuing and networking: Towards a validated three-factor framework for entrepreneurial competence from a small firm perspective
Moving beyond general personal traits as predictors for success, a growing volume of research acknowledges that entrepreneurial core processes are enabled by specific competencies which can be learned, further refined and developed. The research objective of this article is to develop a framework for entrepreneurial competence in a well-defined small firm sector by elaborating and empirically validating an existing categorization of entrepreneurial competence. The dataset includes 348 small firm owner-managers who participated in an educational programme, established to pursue new business opportunities in the Dutch agri-food sector. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that three domains constitute the heart of entrepreneurial competence in this small firm context: ‘analysing’, ‘pursuing’ and ‘networking’. These three competence domains provide professionals active in sector development, small business support and (vocational) education with an empirically valid framework of clearly discernible elements of entrepreneurial competence. This framework also encompasses insights on education and learning.
143309499
The role of mentoring in the learning development of the novice entrepreneur
It has been recognized that learning outcomes can be divided into three general categories: Cognitive, skill-based, and affective learning. Moreover, public organizations offer mentoring-inspired support programs to novice entrepreneurs starting a business. This study explores entrepreneurial learning through mentoring. We have coded 53 learning outcomes acquired by novice entrepreneurs through their mentoring relationship. These learning outcomes were analysed using the three general categories and linked with the mentor’s way of promoting learning. Cognitive learning accounts for 62% of total learning outcomes and affective learning makes up 35.9%, which leaves skill-based learning in a marginal position. In addition, methods used by the mentor to ensure mentee learning affect learning content. Mentees were also asked to describe the benefits of their mentoring relationship through discussion groups. From a cognitive learning standpoint, benefits reported by entrepreneurs include an increase in management knowledge and skills, improved vision for their business venture and identifying new opportunities. Benefits resulting from affective learning include a greater sense of self-efficacy, validation of one’s entrepreneurial self-image and a lowered sense of solitude, all factors that could ultimately influence entrepreneur resilience. These results reveal the scope and limitations of mentoring as means to support learning.
62891972
Entrepreneurial learning from failure: An interpretative phenomenological analysis
This article develops a deeper conceptualisation of the process and content dimensions of learning from venture failure. I propose that recovery and re-emergence from failure is a function of distinctive learning processes that foster a range of higher-level learning outcomes. This qualitative research demonstrates that entrepreneurs learn much not only about themselves and the demise of their ventures but also about the nature of networks and relationships and the “pressure points” of venture management. This article also provides evidence that these powerful learning outcomes are future-oriented, increasing the entrepreneur's level of entrepreneurial preparedness for further enterprising activities.
28766811
Entrepreneurial learning: A conceptual framework for technology-based enterprise
Abstract Entrepreneurial learning has emerged as an important yet insufficiently understood area of enquiry. This paper develops new understanding in this area from a social constructionist perspective by using narratives elicited from technology-based entrepreneurs to explore their learning experiences and behaviours. The unit of analysis is the emergent entrepreneur in the technology-based enterprise. The paper develops a framework for analysing entrepreneurial learning through in-depth analysis of entrepreneurial experiences by using discourse analysis based on a social learning perspective. This conceptual framework includes three major themes of personal and social emergence, contextual learning and the negotiated enterprise, and 11 related sub-themes. These demonstrate connections between the emergence of entrepreneurial identity, learning as a social and contextual process, opportunity recognition, and venture formation as a negotiated activity.
54742962
Who Learns What?—A Study Based on Entrepreneurs from Biotechnology New Ventures*
Despite a proliferation of research in the field of entrepreneurship, our understanding of entrepreneurial learning remains limited. We do not have systematic answers to many key questions. To what extent does the context of the learning shape that learning? How does the prior experience of an entrepreneur influence what they learn in new ventures? Does the specific role that the entrepreneur plays in a new venture, and the characteristics of the venture team, influence learning? To address this gap, and to progress the broader program of empirical research into entrepreneurial learning, we need to more fully explicate both the context and the content of learning. That is the objective and contribution of this study. We find that prior experience, the “division of (decision‐making) labor” and the “knowledge” characteristic of the venture team shape learning. One implication is that future research will need to assess more carefully both the content of new learning from the new venture experience, and the context of learning.
144788297
A framework for entrepreneurial learning: A tribute to Jason Cope
This paper explains Dr Jason Cope's work on entrepreneurial learning, and illustrates his approach and how it can be applied to deepen understanding of, and practice in, entrepreneurship education. It begins with a biography of Cope, which summarizes his academic life and offers a timeline for his publications. This paper then explores his philosophical position, before dividing his research into three main phases. In the first, it examines and explains his early work into experiential learning; reflective learning; learning from crises and the role social influences play in entrepreneurial learning. In the second, developments stemming from his PhD are explored. Here, ideas in relation to entrepreneurial learning and the links he makes to transformative learning and double-loop learning are discussed. Finally, in the third part, Cope's entrepreneurial learning framework is explained and key contributing concepts are introduced. This part examines how Cope's theoretical framework was used to undertake research and subsequently to explain how entrepreneurs learn from failure. In the final sections of this paper, the practical implications of his contribution to entrepreneurship education are presented, in the contexts both of higher education and of the development of students, and then for entrepreneurs themselves.
55009457
LEARNING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HETEROGENEOUS GROUPS: EXPERIENCES FROM AN INTERNATIONAL, INTERDISCIPLINARY HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT PROGRAMME
Although entrepreneurship education (EE) has gained popularity internationally, empirical work is scarce on the factors which influence the underlying learning process. This article presents the experiences of a European summer school where factors which contribute to entrepreneurial learning in interdisciplinary, intercultural student groups were elicited and analysed via student reflection. A total of 35 professional and scientific bachelor students from the Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia worked together in groups of five to develop initial business plans at a 10-day summer school. Heterogeneity - including disciplinary and cultural differences - contributed to learning within the groups but also caused confusion and misunderstandings in the entrepreneurship education context. Particularly the factors embracing members' knowledge, experiences and skills, problem solving and decision making and leadership showed dynamics which appeared to be specific to the context of EE. The results contribute to a better understanding of student learning in EE settings.
144228669
The Influence of the Work Environment on Entrepreneurial Learning of Small-business Owners
Despite the widely acknowledged importance of entrepreneurial learning, research specifically addressing the question of what fosters this process is still in poor supply. In the present study, entrepreneurial learning was conceptualised as a distinct type of workplace learning, emphasising the role of the work environment in performing entrepreneurial tasks by owner/managers. A qualitative study was conducted among a specific sample of 25 small-business owners in an innovative, successful sector in the Netherlands: greenhouse horticulture. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held focussing on critical incidents as they arose around a pursued business opportunity. Four factors were identified as being crucial in the entrepreneurial learning process, namely: support and guidance, external interaction, internal communication, and task characteristics. Furthermore, the results showed that different types of business opportunities presented different dynamics for entrepreneurial learning. Finally, the results suggested a two-layered interaction between learner and work environment. Entrepreneurial learning is influenced by the work environment, which is in turn shaped and defined by the entrepreneur.
145558233
Simulating Entrepreneurial Learning
Theorizing about entrepreneurial learning is examined in this article to determine key learning processes within this body of research. It explores how these processes might be simulated in a student-learning environment and highlights the role of emotional exposure, situated learning, action-orientation and discontinuity. An argument is made for experiential, work-based learning when seeking to simulate contexts similar to those in which entrepreneurs learn. A conceptual framework is introduced that highlights a course design based on the factors identified. In the analysis, formal course assessments are reviewed and narrative coding based on student reflections is evaluated. The article illustrates that it is possible to simulate aspects of entrepreneurial learning, such as emotional exposure and situated learning, but not others. It also demonstrates a range of learning benefits linked to experiential learning. In conclusion, the article explains why entrepreneurship education can play an important role in encouraging management learning.
154943764
The role of entrepreneurship clubs and societies in entrepreneurial learning
This article focuses on the role of student entrepreneurship clubs and societies. It explores their impact on student learning in order to understand the extent to which such activities simulate entrepreneurial learning. The article reports three studies conducted between 2006— 2007, which explored three different forms of clubs: entrepreneurship clubs; SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) teams; and investment clubs. Data from 10 unstructured interviews, a series of telephone interviews and an e-mail postcard are reported. The results show that students’ motivations for engaging in clubs vary and that they differ between different types of clubs. In terms of entrepreneurial learning students’ engagement in clubs and societies provides enhanced opportunities for ‘learning by doing’ through action and experience. The data show that increased action leads to reflective practice and that social learning is important. The article highlights the capacity of entrepreneurship education to simulate entrepreneurial learning, illustrating the value of entrepreneurship clubs and societies and explaining why students engage in them.
144566086
Entrepreneurial Learning and Critical Reflection
The importance of ‘learning events’ has become an emergent theme within theorizing on how entrepreneurs learn. This article builds a deeper understanding of the learning outcomes triggered by significant, discontinuous events during the entrepreneurial process. It suggests that the domain of entrepreneurship represents a special and unique context in which to study management learning. It is argued that there is more to learning from discontinuous events than the incremental accumulation of more routinized, habitual, ‘lower-level’ learning. This article illustrates that these events have the capacity to stimulate distinctive forms of ‘higher-level’ learning—learning that is fundamental to the entrepreneur in both personal and business terms. It goes on to explore the concept of critical reflection and suggests that these learning outcomes are the result of what can be described most precisely as ‘inward’ critical self-reflection.
154332227
Moving beyond entrepreneurial skills: key factors driving entrepreneurial learning in multifunctional agriculture
It is widely acknowledged that, next to sound craftsmanship and management, farmers increasingly need entrepreneurship if they are to survive in modern agriculture. This is reflected by an increasing number of studies focusing on entrepreneurship in agriculture. While much work in this comprehensive body of literature focuses on entrepreneurial skills, relatively little attention has been paid to the learning process leading to the development of these skills. This paper therefore explores that learning process and focuses on the context of multifunctional agriculture. Our investigation was guided by the recently developed concept of entrepreneurial learning and particularly focussed on finding out which factors underlie the entrepreneurial learning process in this specific context. Empirical work done in six different multifunctional farms in the Netherlands revealed three major factors driving entrepreneurial learning: 1) re-developing an entrepreneurial identity, 2) crossing the boundaries of agriculture and 3) opening up the family farm. Crucial to understanding these factors is the challenging process of transition from production-oriented to multifunctional farming. A perceived productivist norm, created by decades of post-war agricultural modernisation, was found to make entrepreneurial learning in this context far from self-evident. This paper contributes by bringing the entrepreneurial learning process to light and demonstrating its complexity in a specific context. Based on our findings, we argue that the debate on entrepreneurship in agriculture needs to move beyond its current focus on entrepreneurial skills. The concept of entrepreneurial learning provides a useful framework in this respect. Further to its theoretical relevance, this paper ultimately supports practitioners in finding inroads into fostering entrepreneurship in multifunctional agriculture.
143948798
In Pursuit of a New 'Enterprise' and 'Entrepreneurship' Paradigm for Learning: Creative Destruction, New Values, New Ways of Doing Things and New Combinations of Knowledge
The paper argues for a new approach to the study of entrepreneurship and a new paradigm as a basis for entrepreneurship education. It also argues that such an approach is unlikely to come from university business schools. It needs an organisational revolution which, however, can be managed within a university as a whole. The paper is divided into two parts. The first explores the political imperative in Europe for development of the 'enterprise culture' and attributes this mainly to pressures for greater international competitiveness. The educational response is then examined and, with the help of a number of recent surveys, some of the key issues pertaining to the development of entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions in the UK and Europe are reviewed. The second part attempts to address the imperative at a more conceptual level. The pursuit of entrepreneurial behaviour is seen as a function of the degree of uncertainty and complexity in the task and broader environment and/or the desire of an individual, in pursuit of an opportunity or problem solution, to create it. It is argued that the key trigger for the growing interest in entrepreneurship is globalization. The way in which this has impacted on the role of the state, the organization of business activity and public services and on individuals to create greater uncertainty and complexity in the environment is explored. This leads to a conclusion that a wide range of stakeholders are being confronted with the need for entrepreneurial behaviour, for example, priests, doctors, teachers, policemen, pensioners and community workers and, indeed, potentially everyone in the community. Entrepreneurship is therefore not solely the prerogative of business. It follows that the traditional focus of entrepreneurship education on business, and new venture management in particular, provides an inadequate basis for response to societal needs. Moreover, the pervasive ideology of the 'heroic' entrepreneur can be seen as a dysfunctional when viewed against the needs of a wider community. The wider notion of 'enterprise' is therefore introduced as a means of moving away from the hitherto narrow paradigm. How this relates to the development of the individual and the design of enterprising organizations is explored. The paper explores the challenge of this broader context by reference to a number of issues central to the globalization debate including: culture, market liberalization, forms of governance and democracy. It then links these with the ontological and epistemological challenge to education. It concludes with discussion as to how this relates to the traditional concept of a university and argues that universities as a whole are in a much better position to respond to the challenge than are business schools.
16146157
Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions
Abstract Why are intentions interesting to those who care about new venture formation? Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking, a way of thinking that emphasizes opportunities over threats. The opportunity identification process is clearly an intentional process, and, therefore, entrepreneurial intentions clearly merit our attention. Equally important, they offer a means to better explain—and predict—entrepreneurship. We don't start a business as a reflex, do we? We may respond to the conditions around us, such as an intriguing market niche, by starting a new venture. Yet, we think about it first; we process the cues from the environment around us and set about constructing the perceived opportunity into a viable business proposition. In the psychological literature, intentions have proven the best predictor of planned behavior, particularly when that behavior is rare, hard to observe, or involves unpredictable time lags. New businesses emerge over time and involve considerable planning. Thus, entrepreneurship is exactly the type of planned behavior Bird 1988 , Katz and Gartner 1988 for which intention models are ideally suited. If intention models prove useful in understanding business venture formation intentions, they offer a coherent, parsimonious, highly-generalizable, and robust theoretical framework for understanding and prediction. Empirically, we have learned that situational (for example, employment status or informational cues) or individual (for example, demographic characteristics or personality traits) variables are poor predictors. That is, predicting entrepreneurial activities by modeling only situational or personal factors usually resulted in disappointingly small explanatory power and even smaller predictive validity. Intentions models offer us a significant opportunity to increase our ability to understand and predict entrepreneurial activity. The current study compares two intention-based models in terms of their ability to predict entrepreneurial intentions: Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) and Shapero's model of the entrepreneurial event (SEE). Ajzen argues that intentions in general depend on perceptions of personal attractiveness, social norms, and feasibility. Shapero argues that entrepreneurial intentions depend on perceptions of personal desirability, feasibility, and propensity to act. We employed a competing models approach, comparing regression analyses results for the two models. We tested for overall statistical fit and how well the results supported each component of the models. The sample consisted of student subjects facing imminent career decisions. Results offered strong statistical support for both models. (1) Intentions are the single best predictor of any planned behavior, including entrepreneurship. Understanding the antecedents of intentions increases our understanding of the intended behavior. Attitudes influence behavior by their impact on intentions. Intentions and attitudes depend on the situation and person. Accordingly, intentions models will predict behavior better than either individual (for example, personality) or situational (for example, employment status) variables. Predictive power is critical to better post hoc explanations of entrepreneurial behavior; intentions models provide superior predictive validity. (2) Personal and situational variables typically have an indirect influence on entrepreneurship through influencing key attitudes and general motivation to act. For instance, role models will affect entrepreneurial intentions only if they change attitudes and beliefs such as perceived self-efficacy. Intention-based models describe how exogenous influences (for eample, perceptions of resource availability) change intentions and, ultimately, venture creation. (3) The versatility and robustness of intention models support the broader use of comprehensive, theory-driven, testable process models in entrepreneurship research (MacMillan and Katz 1992) . Intentional behavior helps explain and model why many entrepreneurs decide to start a business long before they scan for opportunities. Understanding intentions helps researchers and theoreticians to understand related phenomena. These include: what triggers opportunity scanning, the sources of ideas for a business venture, and how the venture ultimately becomes a reality. Intention models can describe how entrepreneurial training molds intentions in subsequent venture creation (for example, how does training in business plan writing change attitudes and intentions?). Past research has extensively explored aspects of new venture plans once written. Intentionality argues instead that we study the planning process itself for determinants of venturing behavior. We can apply intentions models to other strategic decisions such as the decision to grow or exit a business. Researchers can model the intentions of critical stakeholders in the venture, such as venture capitalists' intentions toward investing in a given company. Finally, management researchers can explore the overlaps between venture formation intentions and venture opportunity identification. Entrepreneurs themselves (and those who teach and train them) should benefit from a better understanding of their own motives. The lens provided by intentions affords them the opportunity to understand why they made certain choices in their vision of the new venture. Intentions-based models provide practical insight to any planned behavior. This allows us to better encourage the identification of personally-viable, personally-credible opportunities. Teachers, consultants, advisors, and entrepreneurs should benefit from a better general understanding of how intentions are formed, as well as a specific understanding of how founders' beliefs, perceptions, and motives coalesce into the intent to start a business. This understanding offers sizable diagnostic power, thus entrepreneurship educators can use this model to better understand the motivations and intentions of students and trainees and to help students and trainees understand their own motivations and intentions. Carefully targeted training becomes possible. For example, ethnic and gender differences in career choice are largely explained by self-efficacy differences. Applied work in psychology and sociology tells us that we already know how to remediate self-efficacy differences. Raising entrepreneurial efficacies will raise perceptions of venture feasibility, thus increasing the perception of opportunity. Economic and community development hinges not on chasing smokestacks, but on growing new businesses. To encourage economic development in the form of new enterprises we must first increase perceptions of feasibility and desirability. Policy initiatives will increase business formations if those initiatives positively influence attitudes and thus influence intentions. The growing trends of downsizing and outsourcing make this more than a sterile academic exercise. Even if we successfully increase the quantity and quality of potential entrepreneurs, we must also promote such perceptions among critical stakeholders including suppliers, financiers, neighbors, government officials, and the larger community. The findings of this study argue that promoting entrepreneurial intentions by promoting public perceptions of feasibility and desirability is not just desirable; promoting entrepreneurial intentions is also thoroughly feasible.
143174048
Mediation and Moderated Mediation in the Relationship Among Role Models, Self‐Efficacy, Entrepreneurial Career Intention, and Gender
This paper addresses the effects of role models and self-efficacy on forming career intentions, and whether the effects vary by gender and process. Focusing on entrepreneurship as a career choice, we explored (a) the effect of exposure to entrepreneurial role models on entrepreneurial career intention; (b) the difference in effects between men and women; and (c) the mediating functionality of self-efficacy. Results indicate that role models have a significant and positive impact on intention, that gender moderated the effects, and that self-efficacy mediated it. A moderated mediation relationship was observed such that, for women, role models had stronger influence on self-efficacy, which, in turn, influenced entrepreneurial career intention. Results are discussed in terms of implications for theory and practice.
143936261
Entrepreneurial intention: the role of gender
There is general agreement in previous research, drawing on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, that attitudes towards entrepreneurship are determining factors on entrepreneurial intention and gender also seems to play a key role. This study supports the core entrepreneurial intention model and focuses on the role of gender in this process, showing that men are more likely to think about creating a firm than being determined to do it. However, of those men, the ones who perceive higher congruence between masculine and entrepreneurial attributes are more likely to have a firm entrepreneurial intention. Also, both men and women with a firm entrepreneurial intention perceive successful entrepreneurs to have feminine attributes. This, together with the characteristics of the sample, may explain the lack of a gender difference in entrepreneurial intention.
54693757
Work values in a changing economic environment: the role of entrepreneurial capital
Purpose - – The need for more flexible, dynamic and innovative firms is widely recognised nowadays. Entrepreneurial capital may contribute to a more entrepreneurial labour force with work values aligned to those needs, thus becoming one of the firm's strategic resources. But entrepreneurial capital is not evenly distributed between countries and regions. The purpose of this paper is to measure the importance of a region's cultural values in determining its level of entrepreneurial capital, and considers how this may affect the characteristics of the workforce. Design/methodology/approach - – Schwartz's (2004) approach to measuring cultural values will be followed. Entrepreneurial intentions will be used as a proxy for entrepreneurship capital, following Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behaviour. A representative sample of 2,974 adults with higher education was used in the empirical analysis. Findings - – Results show that the region's culture indirectly influences the entrepreneurial capital of its members. People in some regions are more pro-entrepreneurial, showing higher start-up intentions, due to their cultural characteristics. Research limitations/implications - – Results help explain why a larger share of the workforce in some regions presents work values facilitating flexibility, creativity and innovation. Similarly, they explain some of the difficulties faced when transferring human-resource practices that have been successful in one branch, to new branches in regions with lower entrepreneurial capital. Originality/value - – The paper is novel in that it contributes to explaining why the majority of firms in some regions enjoy a more flexible and innovative labour force than those in less entrepreneurial regions.
54789117
Development and Cross–Cultural Application of a Specific Instrument to Measure Entrepreneurial Intentions
This article uses Ajzen's theory of planned behavior to build an entrepreneurial intention questionnaire (EIQ) and analyzes its psychometric properties. The entrepreneurial intention model is then tested on a 519–individual sample from two rather diverse countries: Spain and Taiwan. EIQ and structural equation techniques have been used to try to overcome previous research limitations. The role of culture in explaining motivational perceptions has been specifically considered. Results indicate EIQ properties are satisfactory and strong support for the model is found. Relevant insights are derived about how cultural values modify the way individuals in each society perceive entrepreneurship.
55352920
Universities as Suppliers of Entrepreneurship Education Services. The Cases of The University of Seville and The Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest
The paper advocates the role of universities in the knowledge-based economy as suppliers of entrepreneurship education in order to stimulate the emergence of entrepreneurs among their graduates. The paper presents the University of Seville (US) in Spain and the Academy of Economic Studies (AES) in Bucharest, Romania as two case studies. The first part of the paper describes and compares the offer of entrepreneurship education in both universities. This analysis reveals the increasing interest in introducing and promoting entrepreneurship education since the implementation of the Bologna educational process started. The second part of the paper investigates the entrepreneurial intentions among graduates at both academic institutions. This empirical research is based on two surveys carried out among 93 graduates of the US and 98 graduates of the AES in 2010. Following the hypotheses of Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour, Personal Attitudes towards starting-up and Perceived Behavioural Control -self-efficacy perception- are studied as primary antecedents of the entrepreneurial intention. The analysis reveals the existence of higher entrepreneurial intentions for the AES. This seems to be due to more positive personal attitudes towards entrepreneurship for the graduates at the AES, whereas no significant differences in self-efficacy can be appreciated.
154079748
University training for entrepreneurial competencies: Its impact on intention of venture creation
This study tests the effect of entrepreneurship education programmes on the entrepreneurial competencies and intention of university students in order to confirm (or disconfirm) conventional wisdom that entrepreneurial education increases the intention to start a business. We address the following research question: Do entrepreneurship education programmes raise the entrepreneurial competencies and intention of students? We used a pretest-post-test quasi-experimental design. Data were collected from 864 university students of Castilla & León (Spain), from 863 students (403 taking the programme and 460 in a control group). The results showed that students in the ‘programme’ group increased their competencies and intention towards self-employment, whereas students in the control group did not. The findings contribute to the theories of planned behaviour and to the literature of entrepreneurship education itself, by revealing the effect of specific benefits for the students derived from the entrepreneurship ‘programme’.
145620434
Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intent: A Meta–Analytic Test and Integration of Competing Models
Increasing interest in the development of entrepreneurial intentions has elevated the importance of theories that predict and explain individuals’ propensity to start a firm. The purpose of this study is to meta–analytically test and integrate the theory of planned behavior and the entrepreneurial event model. We summarize the findings of 98 studies (123 samples, n = 114,007) and utilize meta–analytic structural equation modeling to examine the empirical fit of the competing theories and the integrated model. Our results demonstrate support for the competing theories and indicate the moderating role of contextual boundary conditions in the development of entrepreneurial intent. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the integrated model provides additional explanatory power and a fuller understanding of the process through which entrepreneurial intent develops.
143754263
The interaction between culture and sex in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions
This study aims to reveal the effect of an interaction between culture and sex on the formation of entrepreneurial intentions, while building on notions of a cultural construction of gender. The study adopts the theory of planned behaviour as the setting for such exploration, as it has been proven to be robust across national contexts. The analysis is based on survey data collected from business students in Norway and Turkey. Both countries were selected as two distinct and opposite cultural constellations in accordance with the dissatisfaction approach to entrepreneurship. Turkey representing a relatively masculine, high power distance, uncertainty avoiding and collectivistic society; while Norway representing the opposite. Results show that Turkish students, regardless of sex, exhibit significantly higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions and self-efficacy. Male students, regardless of national background, exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions, self-efficacy and social norms. Finally, our study shows that the extent to which males differ from females in terms of their entrepreneurial intentions is contingent on the national cultural context from which they originate.
18214007
Do entrepreneurship programmes raise entrepreneurial intention of science and engineering students? The effect of learning, inspiration and resources
Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour, this study tests the effect of entrepreneurship programmes on the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of science and engineering students. This is necessary in order to confirm (or disconfirm) conventional wisdom that entrepreneurship education increases the intention to start a business. The results show that the programmes raise some attitudes and the overall entrepreneurial intention and that inspiration (a construct with an emotional element) is the programmes' most influential benefit. The findings contribute to the theories of planned behaviour and education and have wider implications for a theory of entrepreneurial emotions and also for the practice of teaching entrepreneurship.
5869070
Entrepreneurial Self–Efficacy: Refining the Measure
A growing number of studies on entrepreneurial motivation, intentions, and behavior include entrepreneurial self–efficacy (ESE) as an explanatory variable. While there is broad consensus among researchers on the importance of including ESE in an intentionality model, there remain inconsistencies in the definition, dimensionality, and measurement of ESE. This study takes an important step toward refinement and standardization of ESE measurement. Within a new venture creation process framework, a multi–dimensional ESE instrument is developed and tested on a diverse sample that includes nascent entrepreneurs. Implications for entrepreneurship theory and entrepreneurship education are discussed.
154026523
Enterprise Education: Influencing Students’ Perceptions of Entrepreneurship
This research examines the effect of participation in an enterprise education program on perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of starting a business. Changes in the perceptions of a sample of secondary school students enrolled in the Young Achievement Australia (YAA) enterprise program are analysed using a pre–test post–test control group research design. After completing the enterprise program, participants reported significantly higher perceptions of both desirability and feasibility. The degree of change in perceptions is related to the positiveness of prior experience and to the positiveness of the experience in the enterprise education program. Self–efficacy theory is used to explain the impact of the program. Overall, the study provides empirical evidence to support including exposure to entrepreneurship education as an additional exposure variable in entrepreneurial intentions models.
110667236
An exploratory study of entrepreneurial attributes among Malaysian university students
Entrepreneurial attributes motivate and enable individuals to enter into the challenging process of creating new ventures. A tremendous amount of research has been devoted to identifying these attributes and evaluating the impact of education and training programs on developing such attributes, particularly among university students. However, few researchers have examined a combination of students' entrepreneurial characteristics that can be developed through education and training. This study aims to determine a set of entrepreneurial attributes, including self-regulation, self-efficacy and intention, among Malaysian university students. A total of 722 students were randomly selected as participants. Our results indicated that these students have a moderate level of self-regulation and entrepreneurial self-efficacy but a high intention to become an entrepreneur. Furthermore, students are more prevention than promotion focused. We discuss the implications of these findings for entrepreneurship research, theory development and education. (Zaidatol Akmaliah, Lope Pihie, Bagheri, A. AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ATTRIBUTES AMONG MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. Life Sci J 2012;9(3):2358-2365) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 341
144342222
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.
145403399
Easy Now, Desirable Later: The Moderating Role of Temporal Distance in Opportunity Evaluation and Exploitation
How does the temporal distance between the phases of evaluation and exploitation alter entrepreneurs’ opportunity evaluation? Building on construal level theory, we argue that the impact of an opportunity's desirability and feasibility on evaluation and exploitation intentions varies systematically with temporal distance. We experimentally demonstrate stronger influences of desirability on evaluation when the exploitation phase is temporally distant rather than near, whereas feasibility more strongly affects evaluation when exploitation is near rather than distant. Using construal level theory, we explain empirical inconsistencies in previous research and demonstrate the usefulness of integrating the concept of temporal distance in entrepreneurship research and education.
143955912
Self‐regulation and decision heuristics in entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation and exploitation
Purpose – The paper seeks to explore the role of self‐regulation in the use of decision heuristics by entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory mixed‐methods study incorporating qualitative and quantitative data, and generating propositions to guide future research and practice.Findings – The findings suggest that entrepreneurs use heuristics frequently in relation to the evaluation of opportunities, but rely on more systematic decision means during the exploitation phase. In addition, entrepreneurs appear to employ heuristics in an effective fashion by using skills of self‐regulation. This finding questions widespread assumptions about the inherent bias and cognitive errors associated with this type of entrepreneurial decision‐making.Research limitations/implications – Being an exploratory study of a relatively small sample, the findings are tentative and not generalized to a wider population. However, the study implies that future researchers should explore these topics in greater depth...
143736372
Parental role models and the decision to become self-employed: The moderating effect of personality
This paper uses social learning theory to examine the influence of parental role models in entrepreneurial families. We distinguish between paternal and maternal role models and investigate how their influence on offsprings’ decision to become self-employed is moderated by personality, specifically the offsprings’ openness. We use data on 461 alumni from eight German universities. Our results show not only that the presence of a parental role model increases the likelihood that individuals become self-employed, but that the influence of role models also depends on the individual’s openness. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on entrepreneurial families, role models, and the psychology of the entrepreneur.
10798248
Business accomplishments, gender and entrepreneurial self-image
Drawing on Bem's psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial self-image and explores the definition of entrepreneurship according to Vesper's entrepreneurial typology. Regression techniques are used to identify those business accomplishments that university alumni associate with self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. Experience as a small business person (founding, running, and/or owning a small business) most clearly predicts entrepreneurial self-image. Results also support predictions of both direct and indirect effects of gender as well as direct effects of education and business degree. Results of a separate expert panel study are used to rank business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship. Results of both studies reveal stark contrasts in the implied definition of entrepreneurship between entrepreneurship experts (academic and practitioner alike) and the general business community (as represented by the alumni). This raises questions about the meaning of the term “entrepreneurship”, what the word “entrepreneur”, in particular, conveys to the general public, and the implications for practice and future research.
153458621
Still Searching (Systematically)1 for Entrepreneurial Discoveries
We examine how entrepreneurs can search deliberately for discoveries. We use consideration sets to impose constraints on how and where they search. A consideration set is a promising set of information channels, which entrepreneurs can select and search based on prior knowledge. To decide how to search the channels in a consideration set, we apply existing mathematical formalism to illustrate a maximal search sequence. Because there is some probability that a search sequence could continue indefinitely, we determine stopping rules. We argue that entrepreneurial search is more feasible within a consideration set than it is in the rest of the world.
168078530
Finding the right mix: franchising, organizational learning, and chain performance
Franchising provides an increasingly important vehicle for entrepreneurial wealth creation and accounts for a large and growing share of business in the retail and service sectors. Chains—which operate in dispersed markets—most frequently use this form of governance. These firms must balance the centralization and standardization required for efficiency with the adaptation needed for success in varied local markets. By adopting an organizational learning perspective, we argue that the mix of company-owned and franchised units affects this balance, thereby influencing chain performance. In particular, the different incentives facing company managers and the entrepreneurs that manage franchises encourage distinct patterns of organizational learning. Franchised establishments provide better opportunities for the firm to learn through experimentation; however, companies find it easier to diffuse this information and enforce standards through their company-owned units. Analyses of franchised restaurant chains in the United States provide empirical evidence of this trade-off. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
167578741
Spin-offs from research centers at a research university☆
Abstract Spin-offs are a means of technology transfer from a parent organization that represent a mechanism for creating jobs and new wealth. We investigated 6 of the 19 spin-offs from the 55 research centers at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 1997. The Albuquerque area in Northern New Mexico is rich in technology, thanks to the presence of three large Federal R&D laboratories and the University of New Mexico. University administrators and community leaders envision a future technopolis (technology city), but achieving this goal will be difficult, given the lack of needed infrastructure, entrepreneurship, and venture capital in the Albuquerque region. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s the amount of research funding at UNM increased at a faster rate than at other U.S. research universities (total research funding rose to $197 million in 1996). Most of this increase (about 85%) took place through the efforts of UNM's 55 research centers, which are multidisciplinary units supported mainly by funding from federal and state government agencies, private companies, and foundations. The research centers transfer technological innovations across the university's boundary via various mechanisms, including spin-offs. A spin-off is a new company that is formed (1) by individuals who were former employees of the parent organization (a UNM research center in the present case), and (2) a core technology that is transferred from the parent organization. A previous study by the present authors identified 71 spin-offs from the three federal R&D laboratories in New Mexico. The fact that high-technology spin-offs are occurring in New Mexico, and at an increasing rate, suggests that a technopolis may be getting underway. In recent years the University of New Mexico and the federal R&D laboratories have established organizational and procedural mechanisms intended to encourage spin-offs and other types of technology transfer such as patenting and technology licensing. An important factor in the success of a spin-off company is the degree of support that it receives from its parent organization. The six UNM spin-offs of study here experienced few conflicts with their parent, in each case a university-based research center. However, lengthy negotiations with university officials over intellectual property rights to a spin-off's core technology were often involved. The director of a spin-off's parent research center usually played a key role in the spin-off process. Often the university research center continued to provide laboratory facilities and access to research equipment to the spin-off. Generally, both the spin-off and the parent organization perceived of the spin-off process as a win-win situation (which might not be the case when the parent is a private company and the spin-off becomes a competitor). In the present investigation we identify two types of spin-offs: (1) planned , when the new venture results from an organized effort by the parent organization, and (2) spontaneously occurring , when the new company is established by an entrepreneur who identifies a market opportunity and who founds the spin-off with little encouragement (and perhaps with discouragement) from the parent organization. Both types of spin-offs were represented in the present study. UNM professors, directors of the parent research centers, and others played important roles in instigating three of the six spin-offs, while the other three were launched mainly by entrepreneurs. Spin-offs represent an important mechanism for technology transfer, as a spin-off is typically founded around a core technological innovation that was initially developed at the parent organization. One reason that a research university is a vital ingredient in a technopolis is because of the considerable role that university-based research centers play in spinning-off new ventures. Stanford University in Silicon Valley, MIT on Route 128, and the University of Texas in Austin are all examples of this important relationship. The University of New Mexico is a smaller research university than Stanford, MIT, or Texas, but it is beginning to play a similar role in the spin-off process. If indeed a technopolis eventually develops in Albuquerque, perhaps in 10 or 20 years, lessons may be learned about the roles of a research university and its research centers (and federal R&D laboratories), in contributing to regional economic development.
153350722
A tale of two exits: nascent entrepreneur learning activities and disengagement from start-up
This article explores entrepreneurial exit defined as disengagement from the start-up process. It addresses two questions: (1) is disengagement a negative outcome? and (2) are all cases of disengagement homogeneous? The literature identifies two types of disengagements based on the degree of learning by nascent entrepreneurs. Intelligent exit refers to proactive or strategic disengagement precipitated by entrepreneurs’ learning that concluded the business opportunity would not be successful. From this perspective, entrepreneurs could adopt discovering or enacting modes and their related causal or effectual approaches to learning. Reactive or uninformed exit results from lack of planning and an inability to solve problems. Results suggest two different disengagement clusters—the intelligent and reactive exit clusters—but the distinction between discovering and enacting approaches to learning is not supported. Cases of intelligent exit are found to be more similar to cases of operating businesses than they are to cases of reactive exit.
167445356
New venture teams' assessment of learning assistance from venture capital firms
Abstract Prior research examining whether venture capital firms (VCs) add value to the ventures in their portfolios by advising their new venture teams (NVTs) has led to inconclusive results. Whereas most prior studies have assumed that NVTs value VC assistance, this study tests for the possibility that they differentially value two different types of VC assistance-business management and operational. We collected data by surveying 837 firms identified in the Venture Capital Journal that had received financing from venture capital firms. Only firms that received first-round financing were included in our analysis, which reduced our sample size to 205 firms. Our central finding is that systematic differences exist among NVTs in their evaluation of learning assistance from VCs. Even though VCs can chose their own level of involvement with an NVT, successfully improving venture performance through nonfinancial assistance at least partially depends upon the extent to which the NVT values VC input. Our results indicate that NVTs with more industry experience and longer team tenure in the current venture are negatively related to both business management advice and operational assistance offered by their VCs. However, when an NVT has previously worked together and when its primary experience is from another industry, it tends to welcome business management advice from its VC. One interpretation of this finding is that an advanced level of operational specialization already exists in such a team, which reinforces established operating patterns. Changing established operating patterns could make it more costly to adopt VC input on operational issues. However, business management advice may be more welcome, because the NVT is still learning how to compete in a new industry. These findings add to the growing literature that suggests that VCs play a particularly important role in entrepreneurial ventures when they pursue the development of new technologies (Ehrlich et al. 1994; Sapienza 1992). However, business management advice is not highly valued by NVTs that pursue more technical innovations. These findings in combination with those of Sapienza and Amason (1993) suggest that conflict in the VC-NVT relationship may be the greatest when the parties attempt to resolve critical differences, which ironically appear to be the ones where the NVT could derive the greatest benefit from listening to its VC. Finally, current firm performance is not related to the NVT's evaluation of VC assistance. Although cross-sectional measures of performance have obvious limitations, particularly with new ventures, these results indicate that the NVT evaluation of VC assistance is not driven by short-term performance. Past research has shown that VCs vary widely in their preferred level of involvement with the managers of firms in their portfolio. Some VCs prefer a laissez-faire approach, whereas others think that they must be more involved if they are to ultimately receive high rewards. The central finding from this study is that significant differences exist among NVTs in their evaluation of business management and operational assistance. For VCs that are more involved, these findings suggest that the optimal level of involvement is also partially contingent upon the NVTs openness to learning. Ignoring the contingent nature of the VC-NVT relationship, VCs could reduce their influence as a tool to improve firm performance and to ensure the ultimate survival of the venture.
168047531
Agency Costs, Institutions, Learning and Taxation in Venture Capital Contracting
This paper introduces a dataset on forms of finance used in 12,363 Canadian and US venture capital and private equity financings of Canadian entrepreneurial firms from 1991 to 2003. The data comprise different types of venture capital institutions, including corporate, limited partnership, government and labour-sponsored funds, as well as US funds that invest in Canadian entrepreneurial firms. Unlike prior work with US venture capitalists financing US entrepreneurial firms, the data herein indicate convertible preferred equity has never been the most frequently used form of finance for either US or Canadian venture capitalists financing Canadian entrepreneurial firms, regardless of the definition of the term 'venture capital'. A syndication example and a simple theoretical framework are provided to show the non-robustness of prior theoretical work on optimal financial contracts in venture capital finance. Multivariate empirical analyses herein indicate (1) security design is a response to expected agency problems, (2) capital gains taxation affects contracts, (3) there are trends in the use of different contracts which can be interpreted as learning, and (4) market conditions affect contracts.
154475816
RISK AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES IN VENTURE CAPITAL MARKETS
This research compares risk avoidance strategies employed by business angels and venture capital firm investors. It finds that differences in their approaches to evaluating risk lead them to hold predictably different views of the dangers of market and agency risk. the former tend to rely upon the entrepreneur to protect them from losses due to market risk. Consequently, they are more concerned with agency risk than market risk. the latter are more concerned with market risk because they have learned to protect themselves contractually from agency risk using boilerplate contractual terms and conditions. A likely result of their different approaches to avoiding risk is a segmentation of venture capital markets, which has important implications for both entrepreneurs and future research.
168151064
Uncovering the value of planning in new venture creation: A process and contingency perspective
Researchers are engaged in a major debate on the value of business planning in new venture creation. This study suggests a potential resolution by applying a process and contingency perspective. The results indicate that planning is beneficial, yet planning processes need to be governed by different planning regimes depending on the type of founding environment. In highly dynamic environments, entrepreneurs will get most value from planning when they focus on select planning activities, and speed up the planning task. In less dynamic environments, they are better of pursuing a munificent approach to planning. The analysis thus reveals a major component of theorization on business planning that has been neglected in previous discussions. As for entrepreneurship teaching and practice, the findings suggest the importance of an adaptive, “toolkit” approach to business planning. Hypotheses were developed based on information-processing and decision-making theory and were tested with an ordered probit analysis on a sample of 100 start-ups backed by venture capital.
152358274
The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle
Schumpeter first reviews the basic economic concepts that describe the recurring economic processes of a commercially organized state in which private property, division of labor, and free competition prevail. These constitute what Schumpeter calls "the circular flow of economic life," such as consumption, factors and means of production, labor, value, prices, cost, exchange, money as a circulating medium, and exchange value of money. The principal focus of the book is advancing the idea that change (economic development) is the key to explaining the features of a modern economy. Schumpeter emphasizes that his work deals with economic dynamics or economic development, not with theories of equilibrium or "circular flow" of a static economy, which have formed the basis of traditional economics. Interest, profit, productive interest, and business fluctuations, capital, credit, and entrepreneurs can better be explained by reference to processes of development. A static economy would know no productive interest, which has its source in the profits that arise from the process of development (successful execution of new combinations). The principal changes in a dynamic economy are due to technical innovations in the production process. Schumpeter elaborates on the role of credit in economic development; credit expansion affects the distribution of income and capital formation. Bank credit detaches productive resources from their place in circular flow to new productive combinations and innovations. Capitalism inherently depends upon economic progress, development, innovation, and expansive activity, which would be suppressed by inflexible monetary policy. The essence of development consists in the introduction of innovations into the system of production. This period of incorporation or adsorption is a period of readjustment, which is the essence of depression. Both profits of booms and losses from depression are part of the process of development. There is a distinction between the processes of creating a new productive apparatus and the process of merely operating it once it is created. Development is effected by the entrepreneur, who guides the diversion of the factors of production into new combinations for better use; by recasting the productive process, including the introduction of new machinery, and producing products at less expense, the entrepreneur creates a surplus, which he claims as profit. The entrepreneur requires capital, which is found in the money market, and for which the entrepreneur pays interest. The entrepreneur creates a model for others to follow, and the appearance of numerous new entrepreneurs causes depressions as the system struggles to achieve a new equilibrium. The entrepreneurial profit then vanishes in the vortex of competition; the stage is set for new combinations. Risk is not part of the entrepreneurial function; risk falls on the provider of capital. (TNM)
153295958
Academic Entrepreneurship: Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth provides an annual examination of the major current research in the field of entrepreneurship, including firm emergence and growth research. The Advances series also publishes papers from fields such as strategy or sociology that use entrepreneurial examples. It is a key source of articles of record for major concepts in the discipline of entrepreneurship. Volume 16 considers the central issue of academic entrepreneurship: the factors and concepts that underpin the fostering of universitybased entrepreneurial ventures. Specifically, it contains research on the consequences of university technology transfer, with a strong emphasis on the entrepreneurial dimension of this activity. The theoretical and empirical manuscripts in this volume consider all aspects of how university stakeholders create, incubate, and accelerate ventures.
143844473
Project failure from corporate entrepreneurship: Managing the grief process
In this paper, we complement social cognitive theory with psychological theories on grief in our discussion of two approaches to grief management - grief regulation and grief normalization - that hold promise for enabling corporate entrepreneurs to cope with negative emotions induced by project failure. We propose that to the extent that organizational members have high self-efficacy for recovering from grief over project failure, or this coping self-efficacy can be built through the social support offered by the organizational environment, regulating rather than eliminating, grief via normalization processes will explain superior learning and motivational outcomes.
145508768
Entrepreneurial locus of control and competitive strategies : the moderating effect of environmental dynamism.
Past research suggests that entrepreneurs with an internal locus-of-control personality trait tend to undertake innovative strategies, whereas their external counterparts tend to prefer low-cost strategies. This paper examines the impact of environmental dynamism on this entrepreneurial locus of control-competitive strategy relationship, arguing that the strategy preferences driven by the locus-of-control personality trait produce unconventional strategy-environment (mis)matches. Drawing upon a social learning theory framework, we examine the competitive strategies of 84 entrepreneurs. The results show that internal entrepreneurs prefer product innovation strategies in stable environments, whereas external entrepreneurs opt for low-cost strategies in dynamic environments. Extant strategy contingency thinking suggests that these unconventional strategy-environment combinations may well lead to business failure.
154979896
An Integrated Agency-Resource Dependence View of the Influence of Directors' Human and Relational Capital on Firms' R&D Spending
In this paper, we contribute to the agency and corporate entrepreneurship literatures by focusing on board antecedents of research and development (R&D). Some researchers in this stream find outside directors negatively influence R&D spending, yet popular opinion suggests boards should be composed of outsiders, and at the same time, firms should be innovative and entrepreneurial. We begin to address this conflict by extending agency theory and incorporating resource dependence views in order to explore the influence of a wider range of director characteristics on R&D spending, a precursor of innovation and entrepreneurial activity. Our empirical results demonstrate that aspects of directors' human and relational capital (e.g. education, entrepreneurial finance experience, technical experience, and interlocks) significantly influence R&D spending. Our findings illustrate that boards can be configured to improve efficiencies, thereby reducing R&D spending, and/or to augment R&D spending. They reveal the merits of considering inside and outside directors separately and show how the independence (i.e. inside/outside status) of directors shapes the effect of their human and relational capital on R&D spending.
154354304
Moral hazard, competition and contract design: empirical evidence from managerial, franchised and entrepreneurial businesses in Norway
Agency theory emphasizes the role of ownership, control and incentives in encouraging managers to improve efficiency. Owners often tie managers to contracts that reduce conflict of interest between owners and managers. The differences between alternative business ownership structures have been investigated. According to theory, we expect managers with an outcome-dependent dealer contract to be more efficient than managers with a more integrated and less performance based employee dealer contract. We also analyse how competitive pressure might reduce the moral hazard problem and therefore affect contract design. Berle and Means (The Modern Corporation and Private Property, Macmillan, New York, 1932) long ago stated that the market mechanism could constrain the agency problem. Even so, this problem has scarcely been investigated empirically. This paper also considers the contractual effect of potential monitoring costs, education and relationship age in a model tested on data from 175 dealer contracts in a multinational oil company.
36290670
The Use of Knowledge in Society
AbstractWhat is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order?On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic. That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use of the available means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions which the solution of this optimum problem must satisfy have been fully worked out and can be stated best in mathematical form: put at their briefest, they are that the marginal rates of substitution between any two commodities or factors must be the same in all their different uses.
59330918
Influence of clusters on the intensity of innovation outputs
The article evaluates the impact of clusters on innovation outputs in the regions of the Czech Republic. The research was divided into four main phases. An overview of all institutionalised clusters in the Czech Republic, including innate clusters, was compiled in the first phase. Location quotients were used to identify innate clusters. For institutionalised clusters the main declared field specialisation, membership basis and cluster age were established. In the second phase, 5 most important branches were defined per each region by number of employees. Subsequently, the hypotheses that innovation characteristics of the regions depend on the number of clusters, their average age and the number of members were tested. Innovations were characterised by patent applications, utility models, total R&D expenditure and export of technology services. All values were examined as incremental for the period of 2009 to 2012 per one full-time researcher. None of the determined hypotheses were confirmed. There is no systematic dependence between the innovation outputs in the regions and clusters. The possible reasons for this fact are discussed in the article, such as the short time clusters have been operating in the CR, the impact of the economic crisis or underestimating the existence of innate clusters. In the last phase of the research, innovation outputs were evaluated for the branches with operating clusters in respective regions and compared with total innovations per branch in the CR. Two regions were selected to serve as an example. The analysis showed that innate non-institutionalised clusters can also have a major impact on innovation outputs in regions.
145776300
Some Implications of Hayek's Cognitive Theory
ABSTRACT Hayek's oft-neglected cognitive theory, articulated in The Sensory Order, provides a foundation for a theory of innovation that integrates cognition, experience, and the importance of freedom for the creation of entirely new conceptual categories and fundamentally innovative entrepreneurial endeavors. For Hayek, one sees only what one is prepared to see; that is, we can notice sensory and other phenomena only after we have classified the data into often-implicit abstract categories that are mediated to us physiologically. Learning takes places by using received categories while innovation takes place by creating new categories or moving data from one category to another, which is often an attempt to resolve anomalies. The new perceptual awareness required for discovery leads, in turn, to new categorizing and new perceptual horizons. Such innovation often requires not just freedom of imagination, but freedom of action, for one has to be able to try out many different perceptual possibilities.
55177521
The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research
To date, the phenomenon of entrepreneurship has lacked a conceptual framework. In this note we draw upon previous research conducted in the different social science disciplines and applied fields of business to create a conceptual framework for the field. With this framework we explain a set of empirical phenomena and predict a set of outcomes not explained or predicted by conceptual frameworks already in existence in other fields.
153663936
Impact of founder experience on exit intentions
Entrepreneurial exit—the process by which the founders of privately held firms leave the firm they helped to create (DeTienne, J Bus Venturing, 2010)—is an important component of the entrepreneurial process, yet researchers know very little about it. We examine entrepreneurs’ intentions to exit by a range of possible exit paths [acquisition, initial public offering (IPO), family succession, employee buyout, independent sale, liquidation], building on Gimeno et al.’s (Adm Sci Q 42:750–783, 1997) notion of thresholds as they apply to a simple survival/exit dichotomy, and expanding this to include different intended paths of exit. Our results indicate that entrepreneurs intend to pursue different exit paths based on previous entrepreneurial experience, industry experience, age, and education level. Our findings provide preliminary evidence that differences between intended exit and failure are underspecified in the literature, since exit consists of many unique paths. Also, in support of threshold theory, we find that the intended exit path is driven by factors other than firm performance.
112946691
The Achieving Society
Examines the motivation for achievement as a psychological factor that shapes economic development. Refuting arguments based on race, climate, or population growth, the book instead argues for cultural customs and motivations - especially the motivation for achievement - as the major catalysts of economic growth. Considering the Protestant Reformation, the rise of capitalism, parents' influences on sons, and folklore and children's stories as shaping cultural motivations for achievement, the book hypothesizes that a high level of achievement motivation precedes economic growth. This is supported through qualitative analysis of the achievement motive, as well as of other psychological factors - including entrepreneurial behavior and characteristics, and available sources of achievement in past and present highly achieving societies. It is the achievement motive - and not merely the profit motive or the desire for material gain - that has advanced societies economically. Consequently, individuals are not merely products of their environment, as many social scientists have asserted, but also creators of the environment, as they manipulate it in various ways in the search for achievement. Finally, a plan is hypothesized to accelerate economic growth in developing countries, by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries. The conclusion is not just that motivations shape economic progress, but that current influences on future people's motivations and values will determine economic growth in the long run. Thus, it is most beneficial for a society to concentrate its resources on creating an environment conducive to entrepreneurship and a strong ideological base for achievement. (CJC)
167756973
Does entrepreneurial self-efficacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers?
Abstract Previous research on the psychology of entrepreneurs found that personality traits such as locus of control failed to distinguish entrepreneurs from managers. In search of an individual characteristic that is distinctively entrepreneurial, we proposed an entrepreneurial self-efficacy construct (ESE) to predict the likelihood of an individual being an entrepreneur. ESE refers to the strength of a person’s belief that he or she is capable of successfully performing the various roles and tasks of entrepreneurship. It consists of five factors: marketing, innovation, management, risk-taking, and financial control. We conducted two studies, one on students and the other on small business executives. Study 1 found that the total ESE score differentiated entrepreneurship students from students of both management and organizational psychology, and that across the three types of students, ESE was positively related to the intention to set up one’s own business. We also found the entrepreneurship students to have higher self-efficacy in marketing, management, and financial control than the management and psychology students. In study 2, we simultaneously tested effects of ESE and locus of control on the criteria of founders vs. nonfounders of current businesses. After controlling for individual and company background variables, the effect of ESE scores was significant, but the effect of locus of control was not. More specifically, it was found that business founders had higher self-efficacy in innovation and risk-taking than did nonfounders. The results of this study demonstrate the potential of entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a distinct characteristic of the entrepreneur. From these results, some important implications can be drawn on entrepreneurial assessment, education, counseling, and community intervention. First, ESE can be used to identify reasons for entrepreneurial avoidance. There may be many individuals who shun entrepreneurial activities not because they actually lack necessary skills but because they believe they do. This is especially true for sectors of the population such as women or those minority groups who are perceived as lacking entrepreneurial traditions. Communities and individuals could benefit from identifying sources of entrepreneurial avoidance by targeting their efforts toward enhancing ESE of particular groups or individuals for specific aspects of entrepreneurship. An additional use of ESE is to identify areas of strength and weakness to assess the entrepreneurial potential of both an individual and a community. Once entrepreneurial potential is identified, resources can be channeled and more effectively used to promote entrepreneurship. Finally, diagnosis and treatment of ESE can be performed on real entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur may be completely avoiding, or performing less frequently, certain critical entrepreneurial activities because s/he lacks self-efficacy. For example, the entrepreneur may be avoiding company growth for fear of losing control. Identification and removal of self-doubt will enable the entrepreneur to be actively engaged in entrepreneurial tasks, more persistent in the face of difficulty and setbacks, and more confident in meeting challenges. Overall, ESE is a moderately stable belief and requires systematic and continuous efforts to be changed. Two broad approaches can be taken toward desired change. One is the micro-approach that directly focuses on people’s beliefs. In designing and conducting entrepreneurship courses, training institutions should not just train students in critical entrepreneurial skills and capabilities but also strengthen their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The current state of entrepreneurship courses in most management schools may fall short in both respects. Courses focus on commonly identified management skills, but often ignore entrepreneurial skills such as innovation and risk-taking. Furthermore, the teaching of entrepreneurial skills tends to be technical, with insufficient attention paid to the cognition and belief systems of the entrepreneur. Educators should take into account entrepreneurial attitudes and perceptions when designing or assessing their course objectives. Conscious efforts could be made to enhance ESE by involving the students in “real-life” business design or community small business assistance, by inviting successful entrepreneurs to lecture, and by verbal persuasion from the instructor and renowned entrepreneurs. The second approach to enhancing ESE is to work on the environment of potential and actual entrepreneurs. According to the reciprocal causation model, the environment may affect self-efficacy not only directly but also indirectly through performance. An environment perceived to be more supportive will increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy because individuals assess their entrepreneurial capacities in reference to perceived resources, opportunities, and obstacles existing in the environment. Personal efficacy is more likely to be developed and sustained in a supportive environment than in an adverse one. A supportive environment is also more likely to breed entrepreneurial success, which in turn further enhances entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Communities can work toward creating an efficacy enhancing environment by making resources both available and visible, publicizing entrepreneurial successes, increasing the diversity of opportunities, and avoiding policies that create real or perceived obstacles.
143600472
Entrepreneurship Education Research Revisited: The Case of Higher Education
Our purpose in this article is to take stock of the education preoccupations that animate research on entrepreneurship focusing on the context of higher education. More specifically, we content-ana...
155402885
The “heart” of entrepreneurship: The impact of entrepreneurial action on health and health on entrepreneurial action
Health is one of the most important topics in society. By exploring issues related to health we can gain a deeper understanding of the critical antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial action. Specifically, we take a psycho-social perspective on health and our knowledge of the entrepreneurship literature to begin a conversation about, and hopefully stimulate research on, how heath (of the entrepreneur and/or others) impacts entrepreneurial action and how entrepreneurial action creates (or diminishes) value (through the health of the entrepreneur and or others). We hope this article stimulates scholars' curiosity on one of society's most critical issues.
167211967
A situated metacognitive model of the entrepreneurial mindset
We develop a framework to investigate the foundations of an 'entrepreneurial mindset' -- described by scholars as the ability to sense, act, and mobilize under uncertain conditions. We focus on metacognitive processes that enable the entrepreneur to think beyond or re-organize existing knowledge structures and heuristics, promoting adaptable cognitions in the face of novel and uncertain decision contexts. We integrate disparate streams of literature from social and cognitive psychology toward a model that specifies entrepreneurial metacognition as situated in the entrepreneurial environment. We posit that foundations of an entrepreneurial mindset are metacognitive in nature, and subsequently detail how, and with what consequence, entrepreneurs formulate and inform "higher-order" cognitive strategies in the pursuit of entrepreneurial ends.
168046894
The Pedagogical Side of Entrepreneurship Theory
As the United States enters a significant newera of entrepreneurship, strategies for teaching entrepreneurship effectivelybecome an important aspect of entrepreneurship scholarship. A growing demandfor information on how to launch a business has caused a surge in the number ofclasses and programs in entrepreneurship. Acknowledging the difficulty ofteaching theory to entrepreneurship students -- given the frequent complaints,"Theory is boring!" "Lectures are boring!" "School isboring!” – the author argues that an effective strategy for teaching theory tostudents must be approved by students and monitored by teachers. The most effective measure is to establish a student-approved system forclass meetings, requiring students to practice specific skills. In this way,students acquire competencies by practicing theory-based activities. Goodtheory can always pass the test of applicability, and if teachers fail to teachtheir students how to apply it, it is the faculty of the instructor ratherthanthe theory. This approach gives the classroom a less teacher-centeredposition and introduces more variety and surprise by delegating learningactivities to students. The obstacles to the success of this approach are also examined, includingthe loss of predictability during class and the need ofteacherpreparation for multiple class scenarios (a major time commitment to thesuccess of the class). The greatest advantage of using a theory-based activityapproach is that students will learn theory that can improve their chances asentrepreneurs. (CBS)
154370637
The theoretical side of teaching entrepreneurship
Contributing to the ongoing debate in entrepreneurship scholarship about teaching students to be entrepreneurs, it is argued that academics should develop a more refined, cumulative theory and teach it to students in a way that emphasizes learning by doing. Starting from the premise that theory is an essential part of teaching, the progress to date in developing entrepreneurship theory is assessed. Syllabi provided by the participants in a retreat for entrepreneurship scholars are analyzed topically. The results suggest that the 18 provided syllabi encompass 116 different topics, a finding which points to the dissimilar courses entrepreneurship scholars teach. More theory in entrepreneurship courses is necessary, and questions to which entrepreneurship scholars can provide distinctive answers are suggested. Some of the recommendations include: teaching students what they ought to do, which is coded language for theory; avoiding the mere description of what entrepreneurs do, particularly in light of the observation that most of them fail; emphasizing more deductive approaches in teaching, rather than inductive ones. These appeals for a strong theoretical content stem from the following assumptions: (1) the improbability that students will encounter circumstances similar to anecdotal lessons learned in entrepreneurship school; (2) the existence of a process can be explained theoretically; (3) studying ideal types may be discouraging to entrepreneurs if they do not fit a special profile; (4) showing that the high failure rate among entrepreneurs is not a pattern student want to model their aspirations after; (5) studying average profiles, anecdotal recommendations, rules of the thumb or war stories can only lead to average returns; (6) leveraging the motivational benefits of studying successful entrepreneurs may have detrimental consequences. Several opportunities to build cumulative theory are suggested, and a contingency approach for teaching entrepreneurship is offered.(CBS)
142803436
Are You Experienced or Are You Talented?: When Does Innate Talent versus Experience Explain Entrepreneurial Performance?
We explore whether entrepreneurial performance is due to innate talent or the accumulation of entrepreneurial experience. Using a novel data set with multiple observations of founding attempts per individual, we generate a unique measure of entrepreneurial talent. In contrast to prior findings, the relative importance of experience versus talent changes with the context. When the current market or technology is familiar, experience dominates. However, when the venture context is unfamiliar, talent is more important. Individuals with experience and talent handle both familiar and unfamiliar aspects and may extract more from a given level of experience. The findings advance our understanding of how the drivers of venture performance shift with the broader technological and industry environment and places limits on when experience aids performance. Copyright © 2012 Strategic Management Society.
155017059
Entrepreneurial talent and venture performance: A meta-analytic investigation of SMEs
As the broad link between small and medium-sized firm activity and key policy goals such as employment or economic growth has become generally accepted, the conversation has focused on a more nuanced understanding of the entrepreneurial engines of economic activity. A significant body of research looking at antecedents to venture performance has identified that entrepreneurial talent variables account for meaningful differences in venture performance and that significant heterogeneity exists across performance measures. These are important issues for institutions and policy makers seeking to achieve specific economic goals (e.g., survival or growth of ventures, employment or revenue). Using meta-analysis, we integrate this work to view connections between aspects of entrepreneurial talent and different performance outcomes. Our investigation includes 50,045 firms (K of 183 studies) and summarizes 1002 observations of small and medium-sized firms. Analysis of these data yields an unexpectedly weak connection between education and performance. Furthermore, growth, scale (number of employees) and sales outcomes are significantly related to planning skills, while profit and other financial and qualitative measures are strongly connected with the network surrounding the firm founders. Moreover, we observe that entrepreneurial talent is more relevant in developing economies.
144983635
Practice Makes Perfect: Entrepreneurial-Experience Curves and Venture Performance
This study tackles the puzzle of why increasing entrepreneurial experience does not always lead to improved financial performance of new ventures. We propose an alternate framework demonstrating how experience translates into expertise by arguing that the positive experience–performance relationship only appears to expert entrepreneurs, while novice entrepreneurs may actually perform increasingly worse because of their inability to generalize their experiential knowledge accurately into new ventures. These negative performance implications can be alleviated if the level of contextual similarity between prior and current ventures is high. Using matched employee–employer data of an entire population of Swedish founder-managers between 1990 and 2007, we find a non-linear relationship between entrepreneurial experience and financial performance consistent with our framework. Moreover, the level of industry, geographic, and temporal similarities between prior and current ventures positively moderates this relationship. Our work provides both theoretical and practical implications for entrepreneurial experience—people can learn entrepreneurship and pursue it with greater success as long as they have multiple opportunities to gain experience, overcome barriers to learning, and build an entrepreneurial-experience curve.
369186
Educating Entrepreneurship Students About Emotion and Learning From Failure
As theory develops and increases our understanding of the role of emotion in learning from failure, entrepreneurship educators have the opportunity to reflect these advancements in their pedagogies. This requires a focus on how students “feel” rather than on how, or what, they “think.” I offer suggested changes to pedagogy to help students manage the emotions of learning from failure and discuss some of the challenges associated with measuring the implications of these proposed changes. I then expand my scope to explore possibilities of educating students on how to manage their emotions to avoid failure and, more generally, improve their emotional intelligence and for organizations to improve their ability to help individuals regulate their emotions.
154073371
Students’ entrepreneurial regulation and intention to become an entrepreneur: A comparison between public and private universities
Motivation and ability to orient ones' knowledge, thought and behavior to accomplish entrepreneurial goals and tasks has recently termed as entrepreneurial regulation. Entrepreneurial regulation strongly affects the whole process of new venture creation and specifically entrepreneurial opportunity exploration that is the first step in the entrepreneurship process. However, few researchers examined the construct particularly among potential entrepreneurs such as university students. This study aims to measure self-regulation (promotion focus), entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intention to become an entrepreneur among university students. 722 students from both public and private universities were randomly selected as the participants based on the assumption that entrepreneurship education and training programs and university environment highly influence the development of entrepreneurial regulation, self-efficacy and intention in students. Analysis of the data revealed a significant relationship between students' promotion focus, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, students from public universities had significantly higher entrepreneurial regulation and intentions than their counterparts from private universities. We discuss the implications of the findings for entrepreneurship research, theory development and education.
153352767
Assessing the Impact of Entrepreneurship Education Programs: Challenges and Approaches
Entrepreneurship education programs are increasingly being established and expanded in an effort to equip students with the knowledge and competency necessary to create economic value and jobs. An underlying assumption of these programs is that they create positive outcomes for students; however, the extent and nature of these outcomes have not been well explored in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of contemporary trends in educational evaluation and the challenges specifically associated with the assessment of entrepreneurship education programs. It proposes practical considerations for faculty and administrators involved in developing assessment initiatives for entrepreneurship education programs, including, the importance of reaching consensus on learning outcomes, the use of a stakeholder‐driven approach for setting assessment priorities, and the need to allocate resources to assessment initiatives so they can be sustained long term. It also highlights the value of involving faculty in the program evaluation process and the need to create incentives and opportunities for more assessment‐related research and scholarship within the field.
168084125
Reflections on the 2010 AMR Decade Award: Delivering on the Promise of Entrepreneurship As a Field of Research
I examine the impact of the 2010 AMR Decade Award article on the entrepreneurship field over the past ten years, identifying aspects of “The Promise of Entrepreneurship As a Field of Research” that have been largely accepted by the field, those that the field has challenged, and those that the field has found to be unclear. I also correct errors made in the earlier work and discuss how the field of entrepreneurship has evolved in response to the publication of the original article.
143865360
Education Matters—But Does Entrepreneurship Education? An interview with David Birch
For most entrepreneurship scholars and quite a few policy makers David Birch is well known, even though very few of today's scholars in the field have actually met him. His research in neighborhood...
154770097
How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between Innovation Stud
This study provides quantitative evidence on how the use of journal rankings can disadvantage interdisciplinary research in research evaluations. Using publication and citation data, it compares the degree of interdisciplinarity and the research performance of a number of Innovation Studies units with that of leading Business & Management Schools (BMS) in the UK. On the basis of various mappings and metrics, this study shows that: (i) Innovation Studies units are consistently more interdisciplinary in their research than Business & Management Schools; (ii) the top journals in the Association of Business Schools’ rankings span a less diverse set of disciplines than lower-ranked journals; (iii) this results in a more favourable assessment of the performance of Business & Management Schools, which are more disciplinary-focused. This citation-based analysis challenges the journal ranking-based assessment. In short, the investigation illustrates how ostensibly ‘excellence-based’ journal rankings exhibit a systematic bias in favour of mono-disciplinary research. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of these phenomena, in particular how the bias is likely to affect negatively the evaluation and associated financial resourcing of interdisciplinary research organisations, and may result in researchers becoming more compliant with disciplinary authority over time.