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This paper aims at identifying the major obstacles to business enterprise in an emerging economy and how these obstacles are associated with different characteristics of the enterprises.

The study relied on the World Bank Enterprise Survey data on Ghana and applied binary and ordinal probit regression techniques to estimate the associations between the characteristics of the enterprises and the identified obstacles. Significance testing of the associations is also conducted.

The five main obstacles perceived by most of the enterprises in the study are access to finance, electricity, access to land, customs and trade regulations and tax rates. These obstacles are associated in different ways to growth rate (high vs low growth), scale (small and medium vs large), age, size of employees, the experience of the top manager and ownership (wholly domestic vs foreign ownership).

As a cross-sectional study focusing on Ghana, the findings are informative about the major obstacles facing business enterprises in an emerging economy; however, the ecological validity of these findings may be limited to factors specific to Ghana.

Given the representativeness of the Enterprise Survey, policymakers can rely on these findings to formulate useful policies to promote the operations of business enterprises.

The paper aims to explore the roles and impact of design in incubating and accelerating social enterprises. It aims to understand design’s influence on social enterprise ecosystems and in improving outcomes for social enterprises.

The study used an exploratory, qualitative approach, using case studies and interviews. The comparative case-study methodology was applied to evaluate the influence of design on the development of social enterprises in the UK and South Korea and identify critical issues in their utilisation of design. Empirical data included: in-depth case studies of design utilisation practices (UK = 6; South Korea = 15) and design applications (UK = 2; South Korea = 2) for the growth of social enterprise and its ecosystem; 27 social enterprise/design experts (UK = 17; South Korea = 10); and 22 social enterprises (UK = 12; South Korea = 10). Content and thematic analysis were used to synthesise the findings.

Findings demonstrate the differing influences of design on social enterprise, from improving products/services and business models to enhancing social enterprise ecosystem support and networks. Future directions are suggested for applying design for social enterprise growth, business stage development and systematising interactions between the social enterprise and design sectors.

The research is based on case studies from only two countries. Further, the adoption of working definitions of social enterprise in the countries may result in the research underestimating the heterogeneity of social enterprise.

The findings contribute to optimising efficient ecosystem development to improve social enterprise competitiveness and innovation.

This paper establishes a research foundation on design for social enterprise, offering theoretical and practical insights into its impact on growth.

The purpose of this paper is to locate those entrepreneur human capital elements which significantly influence an enterprise's growth performance, within both high‐tech and traditional enterprises, thereby helping entrepreneurs understand that human capital elements will provide different impacts within different industries.

Under some necessary research assumptions, the statistical analysis described in this paper uses data collected from a questionnaire survey and is performed under the SPSS16.0 Program.

An enterprise growth model is built from the perspectives of entrepreneur human capital. Analysis shows that human capital elements of the same entrepreneur have different impacts on the performance of business growth in different industries. The theoretical model provides a better explanation of the high‐tech enterprises' growth performance. Innovation and business growth performances from a high‐tech enterprise have greater reliance on human capital of entrepreneurs than the traditional industries.

Most current studies of the human capital of entrepreneurs focus on the analysis of background characteristics, but inadequate attention has been given to the relationship between human capital and the enterprises' growth performance, as well as to the comparative analysis of entrepreneurs' human capital in high‐tech enterprises and traditional enterprises. This paper, however, compares and analyzes such relationships between high‐tech enterprises and traditional enterprises.

This study aims to solve the realistic dilemma between the importance of entrepreneurship and the high rate of entrepreneurial failure, and to point out the direction of subsequent research.

The paper takes the form of a literature review.

Entrepreneurial activities involve multiple dimensions. Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams will be affected by multiple factors when starting a business, and sufficient attention should be paid to both the factors within the group and the factors outside the group such as institutional quality and market competition. High entrepreneurial failure rate is an essential characteristic of entrepreneurial activities, while solving this problem requires entrepreneurs to maintain passion, clarify their own motivation, improve their learning abilities and adopt appropriate entrepreneurial strategies to improve entrepreneurial performance. Meanwhile, it also urgent to build entrepreneurial teams with common goals, heterogeneous knowledge structure, outstanding learning ability, solid mutual trust, strong social influence and social capital. Successful entrepreneurship should adhere to the perspective of openness and cooperation. It should not only actively strengthen international cooperation but also fully adapt to the country’s system and culture. Sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises requires not only stable commercial revenue but also responsibility to society, which in turn leads to a good reputation and high social recognition.

The authors hope this review can provide some insightful viewpoints for deepening the theoretical system of entrepreneurship, improving the success rate of entrepreneurship and promoting the sustainable growth of enterprises.

Further research can be carried out on the promotion of business growth by entrepreneurship at the micro level in the following aspects: analyze functional mechanism between innovation and entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship research by integrating multiple institutional contexts and cultural traditions; consider the changes in emerging technologies on entrepreneurial activities; diversified mechanism between entrepreneurship education and business growth.

The purposes of the paper are to review the stream of studies that link financial inclusion to small enterprise growth in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) to identify the research gaps they provide and to prepare an agenda for future research in the field.

The study employs systematic literature search method to identify relevant literature from journals. The study then adopts a narrative approach for the review, highlighting the findings from the prior studies and gaps requiring research attention.

The discussions reveal that there is a need for future studies that can unpack small enterprise growth determinants, identify growth-enabling entrepreneurial characteristics and examine the contextual variabilities that shape their effectiveness.

There is currently no comprehensive/integrated review exploring the link between financial inclusion and small enterprise growth in SSA. The review, therefore, provides insights that contribute to the development of this stream of research.

This study attempts to understand the nature and activities of growth‐oriented women‐owned businesses in the East of England by highlighting the problems faced by women entrepreneurs during the growth process.

The approach analysed the main growth factors and their influence on the adoption of different growth strategies. An online questionnaire was designed using Snap survey software™, with results exported to SPSS™ for analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected via a variety of scaled, open‐ended, rank order, dichotomous, multiple choice and open questions.

The research indicates that most do not opt to develop growth‐oriented businesses, choosing instead small, non‐scalable, locally focused businesses providing services or operating in low‐tech industries. Women who are growth‐oriented appear to be inhibited due to a lack of access to, and control over such resources as, capital, business premises, information and technology, production inputs, appropriate childcare, qualifications, experience, training facilities and appropriate assistance from business development agencies. Non‐effective accumulation and use of social capital hinders access to appropriate decision‐making circles, and limits the probability of accessing critical management and financing resources, especially through the venture capital industry.

This research has implications for government or other business development agencies seeking to understand the growth patterns and problems of women‐owned enterprises in the East of England.

There are few British studies that have focussed on growth oriented women‐owned businesses. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by attempting to understand the nature and activities of such business, by analysing the main growth factors and their influence on different growth strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to use case study evidence to explain that enterprise agglomeration in itself may not advantage business development. Agglomeration has the potential to bring enterprise advantage but whether this occurs depends on additional supportive conditions.

The paper re‐examines case studies of Indonesia clusters from a more critical perspective than adopted in their original presentation. This critical perspective follows a realist assessment of agglomeration in which advantages depend on specific business environments.

Five processes are identified that limited the advantage obtained from agglomeration: internal segmentation; enterprise independence; technological pooling; excessive competition and linkage dependencies. Three attributes that influence whether agglomeration assists business and regional development: enterprise diversification, entry barriers and cluster scale.

The paper is limited by its reliance on previously completed case studies rather than a set of purpose‐designed case studies.

Business promotion agencies should be aware that not all enterprise clusters have an equal likelihood of sustaining economic growth.

The combined evidence from previously published case studies of Indonesian cluster experiences adds to the understanding of the conditions required for agglomeration advantages to be realised.

This study explores the relationship between the antecedent influences – composed of personal background, educational and occupational experiences, motivations, skills and knowledge, of women entrepreneurs and the growth of their ventures. Findings from this longitudinal study shows experience, business skills, and personal factors do affect the future growth of women‐owned enterprises.

The study aims to empirically study the effect of venture capital on open innovation of China's enterprises.

This paper selects China's A-share listed companies on the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) board and the Growth Enterprise Market from 2014 to 2018 as research samples to empirically study the effect of venture capital on open innovation of China's enterprises.

The authors find that venture capital can significantly promote open innovation of enterprises. This promoting effect is more significant when the venture capital institutions have profounder industry experience, higher shareholding ratio and are syndicated. Further research finds that venture capital mainly promotes open innovation through three mechanisms: increasing monetary funds, improving absorptive capacity and strengthening executive incentives, and the effect of venture capital on open innovation is significantly different under the conditions of different regions, industries and property rights.

This paper not only reveals the effect of venture capital on enterprises' open innovation and the specific mechanism, but also provides empirical evidence for emerging economies to build a national innovation ecosystem and make use of capital markets to accelerate innovation strategies.

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) counter numerous financial obstacles concerning business financing and cash flow management. The study, therefore, intends to examine the level of perceived severity of financial constraints on the business growth of enterprises, in terms of sales, profitability and asset growth. An attempt is made to study the influence of owner and firm attributes as the determinants of financial constraints faced by MSMEs.

The data were collected from MSME owners of Northern India through a self-administered questionnaire. In total, 213 responses were analysed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique through SmartPLSv2.

The findings advocate the role of owner and firm attributes in the severity of financial constraints experienced by the MSME owners. Most importantly, the study establishes a strong link between owner and firm attributes and cash flow constraints. Further, the paper confirms the negative influence of financing and cash flow problems on the growth of the firm.

The evaluation and categorisation of perceived financial challenges into meaningful dimensions generate value to the problematic area of MSME operations. Thus, the findings are useful for the policymakers and researchers to contemplate the financial vulnerability of MSMEs.

The empirical findings of the present study add worth to the limited evidence of the relationship between owner and firm attributes and severity of cash flow constraints faced by the Indian MSME owners.