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In the past decade, entrepreneurship research has evolved with the contribution of different scholars, but there is a lack of studies available that focused on entrepreneurship with disabilities. The objective of the research is understanding differently abled entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial journey. How challenges caused by disability contribute to motivate them to pursue entrepreneurship as a career. This study is based on “Underdog entrepreneurs: Challenge-based entrepreneurship model” theoretical model proposed by Miller and Breton-Miller (2017).

This qualitative research includes case study methodology to study eight differently abled entrepreneurs. All the identified cases are located in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. In-depth interviews and multiple visits were scheduled to collect the data. Transcripts of the interview and observation notes were developed for the analysis of the content according to the adopted theoretical model.

Differently abled entrepreneurs show similar traits as the non-disabled entrepreneurs. They are also found to be more resilient and persistent while dealing with the challenges of failure, stress and uncertainty. Difficult conditions and experiences of discrimination indirectly prepare them for tackling challenges while pursuing entrepreneurship. People close to differently abled entrepreneurs play a critical role in shaping and supporting their ventures.

Owing to the lack of authentic information available on disabled entrepreneurs, the study does not include different entrepreneurs with more disabilities such as hearing impairment, speech impairment and mental illness. The study also focuses on the entrepreneurs of Ahmedabad City, Gujarat because of the similar reason.

This paper is an original submission and contributes towards understanding the differently abled entrepreneurs.

This study addresses the challenge of integrating entrepreneurial competences development into the traditionally structured engineering curriculum, recognizing its potential contribution to job creation. Specifically, this study proposes a course design that intersects project management and entrepreneurial disciplines, adopting a challenge-based learning approach.

Considering a list of common features that entrepreneurs and engineers—in the role of project managers—should excel at, and building upon the principles of experiential learning, this study proposes and describes a course design that is expected to help engineering students develop entrepreneurial competences. Through a series of assessment instruments and descriptive statistics, the study evaluates its implementation in a pilot test applied in a Project Management course at a Spanish university.

The results demonstrate a significant improvement in students' entrepreneurial competences after completing the course. Noteworthy variations in receptiveness to skill development among different personality profiles are observed. Gender differences are minimal, with the exception of women exhibiting heightened self-perception in the autonomy dimension.

This study explores the common features shared by two often-disconnected disciplines, namely engineering and entrepreneurship. It suggests that integrating both perspectives through a challenge-based course design can enhance entrepreneurial competences among engineering students without compromising the specific knowledge gained from engineering programs. Engaging students in such pedagogical experiences not only fosters entrepreneurial competences but also contributes to their professional and personal growth.

Social entrepreneurship education (SEE) is gaining increasing attention globally. This paper aims to focus on how SEE may be better understood and reconfigured from a Bourdieusian capital perspective with an emphasis on the process of mobilising and transforming social entrepreneurs’ cultural, social, economic and symbolic resources.

Drawing on qualitative research with a sample of social entrepreneurship educators and mentors, the authors generate insights into the significance of challenging assumptions and establishing values and principles and hence that of developing a range of capitals (using the Bourdieusian notion of capital) for SEE.

The findings highlight the significance of developing a range of capitals and their transformative power for SEE. In this way, learners can develop dispositions for certain forms of capitals over others and transform them to each other in becoming reflexive social agents.

The authors respond to the calls for critical thinking in entrepreneurship education and contribute to the field by developing a reflexive approach to SEE. The authors also make recommendations to educators, who are tasked with implementing such an approach in pursuit of raising the next generations of social entrepreneurs.

Building on the limitations of the efforts of aid agencies and non-governmental organisations to pull the poor out of poverty in low- and middle-income countries and declining opportunities for market expansion in high-income countries, microfranchising is being promoted as a pro-poor business model, which promotes entrepreneurship. Sub-Saharan Africa has become a fertile ground for the propagation of this model. However, contemporary studies on microfranchising have not sufficiently explored what motivates people to turn to this method of doing business.

Through the case of a microfranchise in Ghana (FanMilk), the purpose of this paper is to use qualitative methods to study motivations for engaging in entrepreneurship ventures in a microfranchise.

The findings reveal whether motivations for becoming microfranchise entrepreneurs change over time or are varied, and these changes are moderated by changing opportunities, challenges and demographic factors.

These findings contribute to knowledge on microfranchising in terms of theory, policy and practice. The findings also seek to stimulate further inquiry into microfranchising and its ability to create value for multiple parties when operating in emerging markets such as Africa.

Entrepreneurship Education (EE) is increasing throughout the world. In 2012, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) financed Contamination Labs (CLabs), which are laboratories that are aimed at developing entrepreneurial mindsets in all university students. This study analyses the entrepreneurial learning process mechanisms adopted in these CLabs.

An ethnographic case study was performed in two Italian CLabs from October 2017 to December 2019.

Findings demonstrate that the CLabs in Italy are promising Entrepreneurship Education Centres which create programmes to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in students with different educational backgrounds and levels. Interdisciplinarity in the composition of the student teams, virtuous contamination of knowledge and experience between the students and the stakeholders from the entrepreneurial ecosystem are the key pillars to foster an entrepreneurial mindset in all the students.

The limitations of this work regard the need to expand the analysis to all the other CLabs created in Italian universities.

The findings provide indications that may be used to guide a university faculty in the design and management of Entrepreneurship Education Centres in collaboration with entrepreneurs, corporations, student clubs, incubators and representatives of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Moreover, the results point out a need to develop interdisciplinary entrepreneurial programmes.

The originality resides in the analysis of a novel type of Entrepreneurship Education Centre in Italian Universities created as the result of an ad-hoc Italian policy.

Sustainable development is an issue of high relevance for all countries and universities play a fundamental role in promoting the participation of society members in achieving this objective. This study aims to conduct an open laboratory of social innovation (OPENLAB_SI) inside a university with society stakeholders, as a research and innovation tool that facilitates addressing the complexity of social problems through the principles of openness, experimentation, inclusion, diversity, participation and collaboration. The aim was to encompass innovation with the active participation of citizens in processes of experimentation, exchange and creativity to impact their social reality through collective designs for more sustainable futures done by and for communities.

This paper presents a case study conducted during an OPENLAB_SI, which applied innovative, socio-educational strategies intending to promote the social appropriation of renewable energies to help the sustainable development of urban, rural and marginalized areas. In our open lab, a total of 67 participants attended, including university students from various public and private institutions of higher education. Also, civil organizations participated, as well as consultants, teachers, government representatives and university professors. Experts from various disciplines who work in businesses, foundations, universities and government spoke on the topics that were addressed.

Among the notable principal findings is the collaborative work done voluntarily by all the participants who, instead of working with a proposal designed beforehand by one group or another, recognized that an OPENLAB_SI leads to the creation of links between society, academia, business and government.

In the OPENLAB_SI through the exchange of experiences and best practices, aimed at more robust networking and improvement in the acquisition of scientific and technological skills and abilities, the participants became actively involved in the generation of collective knowledge. The main contribution of this paper is to present an open laboratory into the social innovation space that can be replicated such a living lab model in other contexts to contribute to pursuit the sustainable development goals with education for sustainable development as a key catalyst for transformation.

The wider use of Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible to create smart cities. The purpose of this paper is to identify key IoT challenges and understand the relationship between these challenges to support the development of smart cities.

Challenges were identified using literature review, and prioritised and elaborated by experts. The contextual interactions between the identified challenges and their importance were determined using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM). To interrelate the identified challenges and promote IoT in the context of smart cities, the dynamics of interactions of these challenges were analysed using an integrated Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC)-ISM approach. MICMAC is a structured approach to categorise variables according to their driving power and dependence.

Security and privacy, business models, data quality, scalability, complexity and governance were found to have strong driving power and so are key challenges to be addressed in sustainable cities projects. The main driving challenges are complexity and lack of IoT governance. IoT adoption and implementation should therefore focus on breaking down complexity in manageable parts, supported by a governance structure.

This research can help smart city developers in addressing challenges in a phase-wise approach by first ensuring solid foundations and thereafter developing other aspects.

A contribution originates from the integrated MICMAC-ISM approach. ISM is a technique used to identify contextual relationships among definite elements, whereas MICMAC facilitates the classification of challenges based on their driving and dependence power. The other contribution originates from creating an overview of challenges and theorising the contextual relationships and dependencies among the challenges.

This paper is positioned at the intersection of the spatial and the practice turn in management research. The purpose of this paper is to address the phenomenon of transgressive small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) formations and the limitations of SME globalisation research in capturing the connectivity of businesses in disjointed locations, and propose a qualitative case-study design to overcome these limitations.

The paper critiques existing approaches to SME globalisation, which are informed by an interpretative community that conceives of territorial geography as the nodal point of SMEs and does not distinguish between internationalisation and globalisation. The paper thus addresses related methodological challenges. Based on a synthesis across disciplines and theoretical perspectives, the paper offers a reflexive method for case-study research, in the hope that such a method may increase the productiveness of analytical exploration of the multidimensional quality of SME organising and managing at the focal point of current transformations.

The paper makes the case for SME globalisation research to move beyond societist and individualist ontologies to embrace social-constructionist thinking, to make practice the unit of case-studies, and to appreciate process geographies of managing and organising.

The paper contributes to business research on SMEs at the nexus of globalising flows. The theoretical, conceptual, and methodological implications are discussed and are substantiated by details and illustrative selected examples from an ongoing study.

The study of social SME landscapes, including from the perspective of the reflexive case-study method, is open to multilingual and international research collaboration.

The paper contributes a multidisciplinary research design that extends SME studies so as to embrace contemporary transformations, by offering a reflexive case-study method for the improvement of research practice. In the field of SMEs, the paper contributes a new concept social “SME landscapes” that could enrich and improve the understanding of contemporary business. In the fields of SME and entrepreneurship studies, the paper implements expressed demands for social constructionist, multidisciplinary approaches.

Many governments and public organizations are turning to shared service arrangements to decrease costs while increasing service levels. This paper aims to elucidate the fine-grained challenges managers face as they adjust to working under a shared service arrangement.

A two-year longitudinal ethnographic field study followed the IT shared service transformation process at a large public university. Meeting observations, emails, documents and interviews were used in the qualitative analysis.

The research identifies 11 challenges faced by management undergoing a transition to shared services. The authors use a taxonomy of management challenges based on the organizational perspectives literature (Knol et al., 2014) to organize the challenges and relate them to prior literature.

The novel findings include the importance of changing organizational culture, balancing dual interests of cost and customer focus, establishing a sense of urgency and achieving process standardization through practicing when adopting a shared service arrangement. The results from a single case study may not by generalizable to other organizations.

This study provides a nuanced and fine-grained understanding of the managerial challenges of adopting IT-shared services. This unique longitudinal data set describes in nuanced detail the challenges faced by frontline managers.

Customer experience has become a vital premise in service theory and practice. Despite researchers' and managers' growing interest, the customer experience remains a complex and multidimensional concept that is challenging for service providers to understand. This study aims to graph the experience in its multidimensionality by categorizing and proposing matching practices for service marketing managers to channel and foster customer experiences in customer journeys.

To support the predominantly conceptual nature of the study, an abductive approach underpinned by the authors' vast experience in academia and practice, real-life autohermeneutic phenomenological experience tales and theory on customer experience and its management by providers is deployed to craft a model that addresses and highlights the multidimensionality of experience.

This study introduces the “GraphEx” (Graph Experience) hip-pocket model, which expresses customer experience in a simple yet multidimensional fashion and offers managerial practices to foster the customer's experience. The model contains three dimensions (valence, type of experience and visceral intensity) and five managerial practices (urgent patchwork, restoring, activating and stimulating desire, bolstering and safeguarding appreciation).

This study contributes to the service literature by creating granularity in the multidimensionality of customer experience. This study advances customer experience management in practice by providing service managers with novel possibilities for understanding and managing customer experiences intelligently. This can help service providers streamline and innovate customer experience strategies during customer journeys and foster customer loyalty.