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Most studies of entrepreneurial failure do not have good measures of consumers' perceptions of product quality. As a result, perceived quality in entrepreneurial success is often omitted. The craft brewery industry is comprised of small entrepreneurial firms selling an experience good making it an ideal study setting. Using online beer reviews, the authors examine how perceptions of beer quality and the size of brewery production influence entrepreneurial success of microbreweries and brewpubs.

Using data from the Brewers Association and over 12 million reviews from beeradvocate.com between 2002 and 2016, the authors examine the relationship between perceived product quality to firm survival. Perceived quality is measured using online beer reviews. The authors expect larger microbreweries will survive longer as will breweries with higher perceived quality. The authors use a conditional log-log hazard model to estimate survival for microbreweries and brewpubs.

A one standard deviation increase in the beer ratings reduces the probability of exit by 26% for a microbrewery and 19% for brewpubs. The authors find that larger microbreweries have a lower hazard of exiting.

Entrepreneurs in the brewing industry start as home brewers before beginning commercial enterprises. Scaling up production is difficult. The initial size of their brewery is an important determinant of their success. Likewise, the perception of the quality of their beer as measured by consumer ratings gives a good market indication about future survival. This research is one of the few studies to examine the influence of perceived quality on firm survival in a growing industry.

Brewing has experienced a considerable revival in recent years with the number of brewers in the UK being at its highest level since the 1930s (Cask Report, 2018). After decades of mergers and takeovers saw the emergence of a small number of global brewing conglomerates, many of the recently established breweries have spearheaded what has been referred to as a ‘craft beer revolution’. Typically, producing small batches of artisan brews and with small workforces, the output of craft brewers accounts for approximately 2.5% of all beer sales in the UK, but is the fastest growing sector of the drinks market. The growth of the industry mirrors that seen by artisan food producers and has led some to suggest an emerging preference for rejecting mass produced food and drink products.

Despite recognition of the craft beer industry’s emergence, growth and cultural significance, almost nothing is known about the individuals who started these new breweries, nor what their motivations for doing so were. Drawing upon 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with owner-brewers of craft breweries from across Scotland, this chapter presents findings examining owners’ backgrounds and motivations for starting their brewery. The findings show a range of motivations and expectations amongst the group of owners and provide a useful basis for making practical recommendations of how other aspiring craft beer ‘entrepreneurs’ can be best supported by the industry.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the perceived resources, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats from the perspective of micro and small brewery owners, managers and brewing masters operating in three countries. To this end, the study adopts the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, complemented by a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis.

The research provides a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from craft breweries in Italy, Spain and the UK. In all, 165 valid responses were obtained from an online questionnaire, and an additional 24 face-to-face and telephone interviews with craft brewing operators in these three countries were conducted to further enrich the data. Independent samples t-test and Scheffé post hoc were used to analyse part of the quantitative data, while content analysis and word association were used for the qualitative component.

Product quality and uniqueness of product emerged as important perceived resources and strengths, suggesting an alignment with some of the resource-related attributes postulated by the RBV, such as valuable, rare and (un)substitutable. Other elements, such as natural and sustainable resources, including water quality and the current and future involvement in growing or sourcing raw products locally emerged as key resources, and are suggested as additional attributes. These strategic and tangible resources are however challenged by perceived weaknesses, particularly lack of financial, infrastructure and commercialisation resources, as well as threats from competition.

The exploratory study focuses on craft brewing from the perspective of micro/small operators. This industry has received very limited attention from the literature. The use of the RBV, with the potential to increase understanding of an emerging industry, and develop the theory further in this domain, adds to the originality and value of this research.

This paper aims to explore coopetition as a fundamental feature of the collaborative dynamics inherent in entrepreneurial ventures. The authors present a conceptual model and definition of entrepreneurial coopetition, the latter being explained as entrepreneurial involvement in simultaneous cooperative and competitive interactions with business network actors in a relational environment.

Using the micro-brewing industry in a Southern State in the USA, as an empirical base, the authors use an abductive case study approach drawing from multiple data sources including semi-structured interviews, marketing materials, information available on websites and social media, as well as information contained in newspaper articles and policy documents.

Findings suggest that entrepreneurs habitually interact in a coopetitive manner through norms formed in interaction and that these are often in response to the environment.

Findings are limited to one particular context. Future research could include entrepreneurs from other sectors, state or country contexts which may reveal other coopetition themes.

More benefits in coopetition could be reaped if the entrepreneur were more cognitively aware of, and strategically planned for, the coopetitive processes in which they are (or could be) engaged.

The authors open the black box of entrepreneurial coopetition by putting forward and empirically examining a conceptual definition of entrepreneurial coopetition. This work moves the coopetition discussion beyond the motives behind and consequences of coopetition, analysing interactions from a process perspective. The authors respond to recent calls for a deeper understanding of coopetitive mind-sets and a multilevel approach to coopetition.

The authors explore how entrepreneurs with limited resources legitimated (or failed to legitimate) a new organizational category in different jurisdictions in Canada despite severe resistance. The authors identify three meso-level domains of institutional action (public, administrative, and legal), where actors intervene to change their macro-institutional environment. The findings suggest that these domains mediate the relationship between micro-level agency and macro-level institutions. The authors describe how macro-level consensus about the category legitimacy emerges through a competition between judgments embedded in different discourses and how a particular discourse attains validity, forcing other actors to change their initial unfavorable legitimacy judgments and recognize the category’s legitimacy.

Taking as reference a sample of around a hundred biographical materials on entrepreneurs in Mexico and Colombia, the purpose of this chapter is dual. Both to show the relevance and varied modalities that the biographical approach has enjoyed in business history research since the 1990s, and to display the intrinsic potential this modality of scholarship entails for entrepreneurship endeavors. In particular, it discusses the prospects to incorporate this body of empirical works into the large Latin American audience attending undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs in business, economic history and related fields. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first two are devoted to illustrate relevant patterns in the entrepreneurial trajectory of individuals and entrepreneurial families studied in each of the two countries under consideration. The last section identifies some conceptual issues that may impact current debates on Latin American business development as exemplified in recent business and economic history journal venues and scholarly conferences.

Leveraging the boom of a craft beer renaissance, this paper explores social capital theory through the impact of the craft brewing industry. The exploration addresses entrepreneurial micro-ecosystems that share one commonality – the need for community development and revitalization. North Carolina's deregulation of craft brewing (Pop-the-Cap Initiative, 2005) led to a boom of brewery startups, from 54 in 2010 to more than 380 in 2022.

This qualitative study focuses on 15 brewery founders who have launched ventures within a few years of the Pop-the-Cap Initiative. This included 15% of those breweries launched between 2012 and 2017. Naturalistic Inquiry methodology was utilized, and semi-structured interviews, observations, and artifact analyses were applied to each participant via content analysis and NVivo.

Framed by two contributing entrepreneurial mindset factors (anti-establishment mindset and business-person's burden mindset) and three external entrepreneurial micro-ecosystems conditions (community conditions, doom and boom conditions, and economic conditions), these emergent themes represent the ecosystem contributors (mindsets/conditions) associated with startup success and social value creation in rural and downtrodden urban areas.

This study facilitated a deep dive into two evolving entrepreneurial micro-ecosystems (rural/urban) through the perspective of brewery startups. It illuminated the actors, conditions, and domains in play. Conceptualizations of “nestedness” (Spigel, 2022) with “microfoundations” (Wurth et al., 2022) integrated to see a specific sector (craft brewing) developing within a sub-ecosystem's capacity to help frame and “understand the co-evolution of agents with entrepreneurial ecosystems” (Cho et al., 2022). Additionally, antecedents to the birth of local economies suggest the value of agents involved in evolution of nascent local economies (Cho et al., 2022). These findings reinforce developing literature while presenting opportunities for future studies.

Craft breweries in rural and urban environments represent third places within communities. Third places can be recognized as conduits for developing social capital among individuals, groups, and firms. High levels of social capital positively impact communities. These conditions helped anchor tenants thrive and did not occur accidently. They are intentional value propositions of entrepreneurs and ecosystem conditions.

Brewery entrepreneurs were aware of their contribution to social capital value, economic impact (e.g., tax revenue, jobs, space, attraction/destination, etc.), and how these facets interplay as revitalizing anchor tenants (i.e., craft breweries). Insight into how entrepreneurs come to understand and recognize their impact on community through social capital development and the economy can aid in further support ecosystems at the community level.

This case is meant for MBA/MS/executive MBA students.

Entrepreneurship development, leadership.

This case is about the successful entrepreneurial journey of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of India-based biotechnology company Biocon Limited. Mazumdar-Shaw established Biocon in 1978 as a joint venture company. As a woman entrepreneur, Mazumdar-Shaw faced many challenges and setbacks during her initial days. She overcame these and took Biocon to new heights. Later, Mazumdar-Shaw decided to make a strategic shift in Biocon’s business model – going from manufacturing enzymes to biopharmaceuticals with the vision of making an impact on global health care by providing access to affordable, life-saving drugs.

The learning outcomes are as follows: understand the ecosystem of women entrepreneurs in developing countries; examine the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey and how successful entrepreneurs convert challenges into opportunities; and analyze what entrepreneurial leadership is and understand how these leadership qualities play an important role in the success of entrepreneurial ventures.

Mazumdar-Shaw was able to break through the gender barrier that was highly prevalent in Indian society then and successfully established her entrepreneurial venture in biotechnology, a discipline that was still nascent in the1970s. Though she has scaled great heights in the biotechnology area and developed her business, she has remained sensitive to the problems of those who are unable to get affordable medicines. Firmly believing that she should share the prosperity of the company with the poor and the marginalized, Mazumdar-Shaw, through her philanthropic venture, Biocon Foundation, started providing essential drugs at affordable prices to them.

CCS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The paper examines the sudden changes and challenges experienced by British craft breweries because of COVID-19. The purpose is twofold; firstly, to evaluate the overall growth trajectory of the craft brewing sector prior to the pandemic crisis and, secondly, to identify features of resilience and adaptability that aided business survival.

The authors conducted 24 interviews with a sample of craft brewers during 2020, supplemented with a focus group later in 2021, to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on their businesses. Inductive thematic analysis followed a flexible six-stage approach to generating codes. Qualitative findings were set in the context of the pre-COVID-19 industry trends which were analysed using panel data from the Society of Independent Brewers' (SIBA) Annual Surveys between 2015 and 2018.

Findings from the analysis reveal a range of factors influencing growth in the UK craft beer sector before the pandemic crisis, such as levels of investment and local network ties, and identify a range of strategies implemented by brewers in response to the crisis, including new packaging and supply channels, more intensive marketing and greater online engagement with customers. Analysis of the intersection between aspects of individual and organisational resilience also revealed that dynamic responses to an external crisis depend on individual resilience characteristics before organisational strategies can be developed.

The study provides fresh empirical evidence to practitioners and policymakers to help forecast and future-proof the UK craft beer sector, as well as elucidating aspects of resilience that apply to SMEs in the global industry who face similar challenges. Moving towards a post-COVID-19 economy, the paper offers important theoretical insights into how the resilience of breweries, and other SMEs, is shaped by complex interdependencies and networks and how their adaptive responses might strengthen future business models.