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This study aims to delve into the lived experiences, challenges and visions of women entrepreneurs in Jordan, placing a magnifying glass on those spearheading or co-pioneering start-ups. It aims to understand the myriad factors that influence their entrepreneurial journey, from motivation to the future of their niche.

Adopting a qualitative lens, this study is anchored in semi-structured interviews encompassing 20 Jordanian women entrepreneurs. Following this, thematic analysis was deployed to dissect and categorize the garnered insights into ten salient themes.

The study reveals that personal experiences and challenges are pivotal in directing these women towards niche markets, aligning with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Tools such as digital instruments, customer feedback and innovative strategies like storytelling and augmented reality are integral to their entrepreneurial success, resonating with the resource-based view (RBV). Additionally, challenges like cultural barriers and infrastructural limitations are navigated through adaptive strategies, reflecting the resilience inherent in these entrepreneurs. Networking, mentorship, embracing technological advancements and implementing sustainable practices are highlighted as crucial elements underpinned by the social identity theory (SIT).

Contrary to the extant body of research, this study provides new insights into the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in Jordan, highlighting the practical relevance of theories like TPB, RBV and SIT for both policymakers and the start-up community in niche markets.

The data for the case is a mix of both primary and secondary data, from the following sources: – personal interviews with the protagonist, Sofana Dahlan; – Tashkeil website; – official documents provided by the company: ■ “Tashkeil – Corporate Brief,” ■ “Saudi National Creative Initiative – Activities Report 2016”; and ■ “Tashkeil Global Company”. – published media sources.

The case outlines the story of Sofana Dahlan (Sofana) (she/her), a social entrepreneur and one of the first few women lawyers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She established Tashkeil as a social enterprise, helping creative entrepreneurs (creatives) with strategic, operational and legal inputs, thus enabling the creative industry in different parts of the Arab world, focussing on Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Her story can be used to inspire students on how a female entrepreneur fought against an extremely restrictive social and cultural environment and achieved her goals. It helps them to understand the challenges faced by women in the context of the Arab world and the key attributes required for them to succeed as an entrepreneur, especially in the context of certain social and cultural barriers. It also helps to understand the importance of resilience in entrepreneurs and to discuss how entrepreneurs can become more resilient.

The case can be used mainly in undergraduate Business Management Programs in courses such as Entrepreneurship, with specific reference to Women Entrepreneurship. The case would be a good fit for courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Creative Businesses.

The present article aims to investigate the quality of the relationships in a business partnership for a project in Medtech field and the components that most influence them, with special attention to relational capabilities (RCs). Dyadic relationships and mainly RCs are considered critical factors for the success of a partnership.

A case study was used to evaluate the influence of RC on the progress of an alliance between a start-up and a small and medium scale enterprise (SME). The evaluation is performed using a questionnaire. To highlight such progress, the same questions were asked at the start of the partnership and one year later. The results were compared to analyse the improvement of RC and draw conclusions on the correlation between RC and alliance performance.

The method adopted allowed for a clear identification of the criticalities of the partnership. The authors found evidence that poor RCs lead to confusion, a sense of exclusion and a lack of collaboration amongst members. Results confirmed that increased RC and aligning the allies' capabilities positively affect the alliance's performance.

Exogenous variables influencing the partnership's progress were not included in the present study. Future research may consider them.

Limited prior research is available on collaboration between SME and start-ups. The present authors aim to investigate the topic further, investigating RCs between firms. The article is also a starting point for future case study comparisons.

Digital technologies create myriad innovation opportunities and have inspired the establishment of many new start-ups in recent years. Despite the growing knowledge on digital entrepreneurship, few studies explore how start-ups exploit these opportunities to achieve entrepreneurial success. The purpose of this paper is to explore start-ups’ capabilities for successful delivery of digital artefacts in a cloud computing infrastructure.

Empirical data were collected during a qualitative case study of an established start-up in the Chinese market by interviewing 41 interviewees. Informed by the notion of dynamic capabilities and using the Gioia methodology, the case firm's life cycle was analysed in detail.

The study identifies start-ups’ ordinary and dynamic capabilities for successful development and delivery of digital services. The findings provide insights into a portfolio of start-ups’ capabilities, namely adaptation, networking, reengineering and refinement.

The study suggests that start-ups’ capabilities and underlying entrepreneurial actions determine the degree to which adoption of digital technologies create and transfer value to customers. The study offers specific insights into how start-ups successfully develop and deliver digital artefacts in a cloud infrastructure based on entrepreneurs' prior expertise, vision and accumulated experience.

This article explores the applicability of participatory action research (PAR) on two levels: on the one hand, as a participatory evaluation method for community engagement and community development; on the other hand, as a tool to link ex ante and ex-post evaluation that situated at various stages of the policy cycle.

Through a practice-based case study of the community engagement process of Valletta Design Cluster, this paper aims to illustrate how PAR can offer collaborative and continuous evaluation by facilitating social action through a practical, situative, context-bounded, responsive and transformative framework.

The study explores how PAR can contribute to cultural sustainability by linking community development with participatory evaluation, and it offers new perspectives on the applicability of PAR as a tool to link ex ante and ex-post evaluation, situated at various stages of the policy cycle.

Although based on a single case, the paper demonstrates that the method has the potential to be applied in various contexts, as it helps to foster local ownership and to develop future cultural strategies, thus providing a base for cultural sustainability.

The novelty of this study is to link evaluation – a majorly top-down and ex ante approach – with participatory planning. PAR-E offers a continuous participatory framework for the whole European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) cycle, as well as serving as a tool for empowerment and community development.

Business model (BM) canvases have been used in educational institutions and business incubators for over a decade to assist students and start-up entrepreneurs in developing their business projects. Given the urgency of tackling sustainability challenges, several tools have emerged to stimulate sustainable business modeling (SBM). However, these tools are often too complex for nonexperts in business modeling or sustainability, and thus insufficiently user-friendly for educational contexts. This study aims to address this pedagogical gap by describing the design process of the responsible business model canvas (RBMC).

The authors relied on a design science research methodology involving the active participation of end users, entrepreneurship educators, business coaches and external partners. The authors proposed four criteria and ten subcriteria to analyze existing SBM canvases based on their user-friendliness and to design the initial prototype of the RBMC. The RBMC was subsequently tested in various settings, including classroom assignments and business incubation programs, with over 1,000 university students. The tool was refined and assessed throughout the development process, incorporating feedback from focus groups with start-up entrepreneurs.

Through the development process, the authors created a user-friendly tool to help novice student and start-up entrepreneurs integrate sustainability into their BMs: the RBMC. The canvas consists of 14 building blocks grouped into four areas: consistency (mission, vision, values), desirability (value propositions, customer segments, users and beneficiaries, customer relationships and channels), feasibility (key activities, key resources, key partners and stakeholders and governance) and viability (cost structure, revenues streams, negative impacts and positive impacts).

The research methods and user-friendliness criteria in this study can be applied in other contexts to design tools to support sustainable entrepreneurship education. While the RBMC is currently being used in several educational institutions throughout the world, its impacts in different pedagogical and cultural settings require further validation.

The RBMC is a user-friendly tool to introduce students and start-up entrepreneurs to SBM. It helps raise users’ awareness about sustainability concerns, challenging them to consider issues they might have otherwise overlooked. Some participants even shifted their outlook and were motivated to develop a long-term vision integrating compensatory, mitigative or corrective actions into their BMs.

The RBMC is the outcome of a balanced approach that combines both pragmatic (i.e. user-friendliness) and normative (i.e. sustainability) perspectives. It provides users with a systematic approach for integrating and applying sustainability issues in their business projects.

Innovation is critical to the tourism industry. Living Labs (LLs) are innovation ecosystems which are becoming popular in tourism. LLs are a model of open innovation characterized by a networked approach to innovation. Local communities and businesses are usually excluded from processes of decision-making concerning the management of tourism. LLs enable local communities' participation in the sustainable development of tourism, thereby providing them the opportunity to increase their share of benefits. This chapter focuses on a case study of an LL recently created in Portugal and discusses LLs as an environment for tourism innovation where the local community is stimulated to explore competencies to cocreate value.

Entrepreneurial trait and behaviour approaches are used to identify differing entrepreneurial profiles. Specifically, this study aims to determine which entrepreneurial competencies (ECs) can predict entrepreneurial action (EA) for distinct profiles, such as male versus female, start-up versus established and for entrepreneurs within different age groups and educational levels.

The research was conducted using a survey method on a large sample of 1,150 South African entrepreneurs. Chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) algorithms were used to build decision trees to illustrate distinct entrepreneurial profiles.

Each profile has a different set of ECs that predict EA, with a growth mindset being the most significant predictor of action. Therefore, this study confirms that a “one-size-fits-all” approach cannot be applied when profiling entrepreneurs.

From a pedagogical standpoint, different combinations of these ECs for each profile provide priority information for identification of appropriate candidates (e.g. the highest potential for success) and training initiatives, effective pedagogies and programme design (e.g. which individual ECs should be trained and how should they be trained).

Previous work has mostly focused on demographic variables and included a single sample to profile entrepreneurs. This study maintains much wider applicability in terms of examining profiles in a systematic way. The large sample size supports quantitative analysis of the comparisons between different entrepreneurial profiles using unconventional analyses. Furthermore, as far as can be determined, this represents the first CHAID conducted in a developing country context, especially South Africa, focusing on individual ECs predicting EA.

Entrepreneurship institutions exhibit substantial gender discrimination despite worldwide efforts to decrease the phenomenon. The MENA area has a low percentage of women entrepreneurs since little is known about women’s desire to start their businesses. The authors use the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain what influences women's propensity toward entrepreneurship and what factors discourage them.

TPB is a psychological theory explaining how individuals act in certain situations. The authors created their database by using a systematic questionnaire. Overall, 350 women entrepreneurs contributed to their dataset. Finally, the authors used structural equation modeling to verify their hypotheses.

This study helps them to shed light to better understand the dynamics of Entrepreneurial Intention, in women from Lebanon. The authors do not find any relationship between lack of knowledge, funding, networking and entrepreneurial startup intention for Lebanese women. The role of dynamic capabilities in the entrepreneurial landscape of Lebanon, particularly for women, is substantially highlighted by the full mediation observed in the relationship between lack of knowledge and entrepreneurial start-up intentions. The findings discovered that these capabilities could fully mediate the negative impact of lack of networking on the intention to commence entrepreneurial ventures.

This research illustrates and explains how dynamic capabilities mediate the relationship between women entrepreneurs' challenges and their intention to start a business in the Lebanese context.