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How general can a “general” theory of entrepreneurship be? Abstraction is a necessity but is it possible to include venture opportunity variation in a general theory of entrepreneurship building on two contrasting perspectives such as equilibrium economics and disequilibrium economics. Two important boundaries need to be explicated. First, defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new economic activity includes both the creation of new means – ends (cf. Schumpeter, 1934) – as well as optimizing within known means – ends frameworks (cf. Kirzner, 1997). Second, such a theory includes an opportunity – actor nexus because it is the first tangible or intangible evidence of existing venture opportunities. Formal models of entrepreneurship often start with a person and at some point in time an exchange of persons with firms take place which is confusing because both levels of analysis and outcome are mixed with each other. Apparently, there is no such thing as entrepreneurship without actors, but if we want to create knowledge about the creation of economic activity, we need to frame our boundary around the nascent initiative instead of single actors and/or teams of actors because value can only be assessed in relation to the costs of services withdrawn. Analogous to this is, for example, the theory of firm and the theory of organizations with boundaries well beyond single actors or groups of actors. Another factor behind a venture-based theory of entrepreneurship comes from empirical evidence from the Swedish PSED, which suggests that approximately 16% (n=97) nascent entrepreneurs are exchanged during the start-up process. Formal models of entrepreneurship could therefore start with the nexus of venture opportunities and enterprising actors as suggested by Shane (2003) or with resources as suggested by Davidsson (2000) and progress forward in the entrepreneurial process. Entrepreneurship models built around the economic activity itself needs to be dynamic allowing different outcomes and feedback loops because resource combinations alter our perception of value and diffuses information, which may lead to additional resource combinations (Hayek, 1945).

The purpose of this paper is to examine how nascent entrepreneur perspectives towards the utility of the formal written business plan (BP) change before and after start-up competition (SUC) participation. Such focus is pertinent and timely given the enduringly contentious matter of BP creation for nascent entrepreneurs. Despite mounting criticisms, considerable resources continue to be expended on promoting the BP within educative and start-up support provision; the globally ubiquitous SUC phenomenon provides a prominent example of such promotion.

In-depth open-ended interviews were undertaken with nascent entrepreneurs at the start, end and six months after participation in a UK university-based SUC. An inductive thematic content analytical approach was taken to identify patterns across participant accounts at each wave of data collection.

Upon entering the competition, the nascent entrepreneurs held highly positive views towards the BP, believing that it provided legitimacy and served as a means of sense-making. Immediately after the competition, views were more ambivalent, with the BP viewed as secondary to action but remaining an external expectation. Six months after the competition, the BP was viewed as underutilised and internally irrelevant; an unnecessary feature of an action-led approach and only useful when needed by external parties.

Contributing to the limited body of SUC research, the enduring centrality of formal BP production within competition provision is challenged given its limited relevance to the nascent entrepreneur beyond the competition context. Emphasis on BPning within a competition need not automatically require BP creation; this has implications for business competition organisers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of mentor expectations on nascent entrepreneur’s venture creation and how this relationship strengthens/weakens when mediated by the sense of nothing to lose and entrepreneurial resilience.

The author nested the data from mentors and protégé entrepreneurs by using a questionnaire survey. Mentors were those individuals who were established entrepreneurs and involved in training to protégé entrepreneurs. Protégé entrepreneurs were those who were part of the cohorts in incubation centers for training and startup training.

Data revealed that it was unlikely to create a new venture when mentors displayed low expectations in protégé entrepreneurs. However, this relationship was positively mediated by the sense of nothing to lose and entrepreneurial resilience.

The findings have important implications on how mentor expectations can hinder protégé entrepreneurs’ venture creation and how it turns around when entrepreneurs display the ability of nothing to lose and resilience.

Mentorship from other experienced individuals has become essential to entrepreneurs and their fledgling ventures. Although there is an acknowledgment that mentoring improves an entrepreneur’s likelihood of success in a new venture, yet far too little the authors know about the degree of expectations in mentor-mentee relationships and new venture creation. This research connects those pieces of the puzzle and fills the gap.

This study examined the effect that venture creation action has on the outcomes of nascent entrepreneurship. A conceptual model was developed which proposes action as a fundamental mechanism in venture creation. Thus, action should rightly be considered as a means which transmits the effects of venture resource endowments on to venture creation outcomes. This conceptual model was empirically supported in a random sample of nascent ventures. Ventures with higher levels of human or social capital were found to be more active in venture creation. In turn, more active venture attempts were more likely to achieve improved venture creation outcomes. Further, human and social capital, on their own, exhibit little direct influence on the venture outcomes achieved. These findings confirm action's central place in the venture creation process.

This study aims to systematize the drivers of nascent entrepreneurship in tourism and to suggest avenues for future research. As a consequence of the pandemic, a reduction in early-stage entrepreneurial activity was reported worldwide. The countries that responded best to this situation were those that fostered entrepreneurship at this early stage, designated as nascent. Hence, research on nascent entrepreneurs requires particular attention.

To address this study’s goal, the authors have examined the development of nascent entrepreneur literature in the last two decades and discussed how the literature on tourism nascent entrepreneurship relates to the mainstream literature in terms of theoretical frameworks. The authors explored specificities of the tourism industry to propose new research avenues to explore the theme of new venture creation in the hospitality and tourism sector.

The authors divided the implication of tourism specificities into main themes: motivations, human and social capital and government and incubators. Several research questions for future research are proposed.

By focusing on nascent entrepreneurship, researchers and policymakers can obtain important insights from projects that have not been implemented, going beyond those that have been successfully undertaken, as aimed at in entrepreneurship research.

This research contributes to the nascent tourism entrepreneurship literature by providing theoretical and empirical research questions to advance existing knowledge in tourism nascent entrepreneurship.

This research aims to theorize how a critical factor, resource access, can paradoxically impact the comprehensiveness of venture location decision processes and the relationship between decision comprehensiveness and new venture performance. To do so, the authors focus on nascent entrepreneurs’ venture location decision processes and introduce resource access as a double-edged sword.

In this conceptual article, the authors draw from the strategic decision-making and resource mobilization literature to theorize about the new venture location decision-making process and its performance implications.

By uncovering the paradox of resource access, the authors propose that high levels of resource access create a paradoxical situation in which nascent entrepreneurs are less likely to use comprehensive decision processes when their benefits are at their greatest.

This work contributes to entrepreneurship research on new venture location and resource mobilization in three important ways. First, the authors advance the literature on nascent entrepreneurs’ location decision-making processes by introducing “location decision comprehensiveness” as a decision process construct and juxtaposing it with resource access to uncover the entrepreneurial decision-making process. Second, the authors develop a more nuanced theorization of the location choices made by nascent entrepreneurs instead of relying on generalized conclusions drawn from well-established corporations’ location decisions. Last, the authors extend the literature on resource mobilization in entrepreneurship by shedding light on the paradoxical aspect of resource access. While previous research has emphasized the favorable effects of resource access on new venture processes and outcomes, the authors contend that it can also negatively impact entrepreneurs’ ability to make effective decisions.

A global crisis like that caused by the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the survival of any business, but especially of nascent entrepreneurs, due to their vulnerable situation. At this stage of entrepreneurship, information and communication technology capabilities (ICTCs) are critical skills that help entrepreneurs develop their new businesses, fostering economic adaptability to counteract adverse effects. This study advances knowledge of how nascent entrepreneurs react in an environment of global crisis.

The study analyzes a sample of 331 Spanish nascent entrepreneurs to determine the mediating effect of ICTCs on the relationship between the impact of a global crisis (e.g. COVID-19) and the firm’s strategic response.

The results suggest that crises influence adaptation and compensation strategies significantly and that ICTCs exert a total mediating effect on this relationship. The results do not, however, establish a clear relationship between the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and disengagement response, but rather a negative relationship, possibly influenced by government attempts to mitigate the pandemic’s economic consequences (economic aid to maintain the workforce, financial support for business model survival).

The COVID-19 crisis revealed ICT as a key technology for continuing business operations. This study analyzes how ICTCs affect nascent entrepreneurs’ strategies in crisis environments. Our analysis is important because these entrepreneurs have invested resources in their new project. We must determine their strategic response to crisis environments: adaptation, compensation or disengagement. The sample itself, collected during the pandemic, provides unique insights into the impact of the crisis on nascent business decisions.

像2019冠狀病毒病大流行等的全球危機一旦發生，各工商企業能否繼續生存必會受到威脅和影響。這影響以剛開始發展的創業者為甚，因為他們處於脆弱的處境。在這個創業階段，創業者必須擁有資訊與通訊科技能力，才能發展他們的新業務，他們亦需培養經濟上的適應能力，以能抵銷各種不利的影響。本研究擬就剛開始發展的創業者在全球危機發生時應如何應對進行探討，以增進我們對這課題的知識。

本研究分析一個涵蓋331名西班牙新生創業者的樣本，來鑒定資訊與通訊科技能力對全球危機 (如2019冠狀病毒病) 帶來的影響與企業戰略應對之間的關聯所起的中介效應。

研究結果似顯示，危機會顯著地影響企業的適應和賠償策略; 研究結果似乎也顯示，資訊與通訊科技能力會對這關聯 (全球危機所帶來的影響與企業戰略應對之間的關聯) 發揮極大的中介效應。但研究結果並沒有就2019冠狀病毒病危機的影響與脫離反應、建立明確的關聯。反之，研究結果似顯示兩者有一個負相關的關係，這可能是因為政府施行應對方法，以減輕大流行所帶來的經濟後果所致 (這些應對方法包括用以維持勞動力隊伍的經濟援助、和使商業模式能繼續生存的財政支援) 。

2019冠狀病毒病危機揭示了資訊與通訊科技是讓商業運作能繼續進行的關鍵技術。本研究分析資訊與通訊科技能力如何於危機發生時影響新生創業者的策略。我們的分析有其重要性，這是因為這些創業者把資源投入他們的新項目; 我們必須鑒定他們對危機所採取的戰略對策: 適應、賠償和脫離。取自大流行期間有關的樣本本身已能就危機如何影響新生創業者的商務決策、提供獨特的啟示。

The present research integrates conservation of resources theory (COR) and adaptation theory to investigate the dynamics of entrepreneurs' reactions to obstacles. Furthermore, this research explores whether entrepreneurs' effort allocations following an obstacle influence how entrepreneurs appraise subsequent loss-related events. Finally, this research seeks to understand why some entrepreneurs handle obstacles better than others by considering the role of optimism.

This research utilized a longitudinal survey with 130 nascent entrepreneurs across 4 time periods. This research used a multivariate latent change analysis model to examine the temporal dynamics of new venture effort after exposure to obstacles.

The results indicated that entrepreneurial obstacles at time t were associated with decreased effort in new ventures at time t+1. Furthermore, new venture effort at time t was associated with decreased effort in new ventures at time t+1. The results also demonstrated that the allocation of greater effort may lead to a decrease in subsequent obstacle appraisals, a relationship that also varies as a function of nascent entrepreneurs' optimism.

This research extends the understanding of the dynamic pattern of reactions following exposure to entrepreneurial obstacles. The findings suggest that, rather than being straightforward, reactions are likely to ebb and flow over time.

The authors advance a model theorizing how new ventures elicit citizenship behaviors to cultivate dynamic capabilities that help bolster survival in their nascent years of operations—a characteristically resource-scarce and turbulent context.

Drawing on and integrating research on citizenship behaviors with dynamic capabilities, the authors develop a theory that new ventures that are better able to evoke a combination of affiliative and challenging citizenship behaviors from their wider entrepreneurial team (i.e. internal, and external stakeholders) are more adept at mitigating the liabilities of smallness and newness. As these behaviors are spontaneous and not explicitly remunerated, new ventures become stronger at utilizing their limited resource base for remaining lean and agile. Further, key boundary conditions are theorized that the sociocultural norms the venture is embedded within serve to heighten/attenuate the degree to which entrepreneurs can effectively cultivate dynamic capabilities from their team's “extra mile” behaviors.

The propositions extend a rich body of research on citizenship behaviors into the new venture domain. As all new ventures face the challenge of overcoming liabilities of newness, models that help understand why some are more adept at overcoming this and why others fail, hold substantive practical utility.

This research is the first to unpack how citizenship behaviors manifest among an extended range of stakeholders traditionally overlooked in new venture teams research and the mechanism for how this links to venture survival.

The purpose of this paper is to build a research model to examine the effects of business planning on the new venture emergence, as well as to examine the moderating effects of innovativeness of products.

Four hypotheses are put forward and examined by hierarchical binary logistic regression. The data of this paper are based on the first two waves of data from Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics project.

Results show that engaging in business planning has a positive effect on the new venture emergence, and the timing of business planning does not affect the new venture emergence significantly. This study also finds that the innovativeness of products has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the timing of business planning and the new venture emergence.

This study has some limitations. The innovativeness of products is measured by a single indicator, which may not completely reflect the meaning of the attribute. Moreover, this study explores new ventures only in the nascent stage.

The study is useful for entrepreneurs to realize the importance of business planning. First, engaging in business planning in early start-up stage is a very valuable activity, because business planning can help new ventures reduce the loss caused by trial and error learning. Second, engaging in business planning is more likely to ensure high innovative products quickly be accepted by the market. Because in the process of new venture emergence, the legitimacy signal to stakeholders can be transmitted and new products can be promoted to get support and recognition from stakeholder through the business plan.

This paper focuses on the early stage of new venture life cycle and the contextual factors to explore the influence of business planning on the new venture emergence under the logic of legitimacy. This paper could enrich business planning research from the perspective of legitimacy theory by inspiring scholars to focus on the differences between new ventures and mature enterprises and to offer proposals of legitimation strategies suitable for new ventures. Meanwhile, this study contributes to the understanding of the contextual factors of business planning. And it discusses the impact of the attribute in business planning on the new venture emergence, which helps scholars to get a deep thought about the value of business planning in entrepreneurial process.