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The study explores the relationship between entrepreneurial cognitive styles, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and innovation performance (IP) of organizations in northern India. It also investigates how the cognitive styles of entrepreneurs impact their orientation and influence their innovative performance.

A quantitative research design validates the proposed hypotheses. A survey was conducted using simple random and snowball sampling to gain responses from 150 entrepreneurs based in northern India. The structural relationships in the study were examined using ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) which is a statistical method used to assess whether there are significant differences in means amongst groups by comparing the variance.

Data analysis revealed that entrepreneurial cognitive styles significantly and positively impact EO. The innovativeness and proactiveness dimensions of EO affect IP.

Previous researchers have worked independently on cognitive style and EO. The present paper combines the impact of cognitive style and EO on IP to identify the missing links between the three constructs, which need to be added to the existing literature. The authors' findings are valuable for entrepreneurs seeking to identify the key factors contributing to developing effective strategies at the firm level, thereby driving IP. Furthermore, the authors' insights would assist potential entrepreneurs in distinguishing between the different cognitive characteristics that differentiate entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs and how they strategically decide based on market situations to enhance IP.

Building on self-determination theory, this study empirically examined the influence of entrepreneurial leadership (EL) style on employee innovative behavior (EIB) in the context of software development firms located in the twin cities of Pakistan (Rawalpindi and Islamabad).

For the present study, an employee survey (online questionnaire) was used for data collection. The data were collected through an adopted questionnaire by using emails and messaging applications. Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data collected from 245 respondents.

The findings of this study delineate that entrepreneurial leadership positively and significantly influences employee innovative behavior. Moreover, the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and employee innovative behavior was partially mediated by employee epistemic curiosity (EC) and creative process engagement (CPE). The sequential mediation by the employee epistemic curiosity and creative process engagement between the link of entrepreneurial leadership and employee innovative behavior was also confirmed.

In innovation-intensive organizations like software development firms, entrepreneurial leadership style can foster employee innovative behavior that is critical for organizational innovation success. This study provides information to the strategic leaders on how leadership behaviors can drive employee innovative behavior, particularly in the context of software development companies.

This study is an attempt to extend the scarce literature on the mechanisms through which leadership styles impact employee innovative behavior. Specifically, the mediating roles of employee epistemic curiosity and creative process engagement have been explored through a self-determination perspective.

This study aims to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership (EL) and new product development performance (NPDP) at the firm level (level 2) of analysis and employee’s creativity (EC) at the cross level (level 1) of analysis. It also examines the serial mediations of (1) intrinsic motivation (IM)-EC and (2) creative self-efficacy (CSE)-EC on the relationship between EL and NPDP.

A systematic random sampling technique was used to collect data through self-administered surveys from leaders and employees of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan’s IT sector. Analysis was conducted on net responses from 114 leaders and 476 employees.

The results revealed significant positive associations between EL and NPDP at the firm level of analysis and EC at the cross level of analysis. The results of the cross-level serial mediations show that (1) IM and EC, and (2) CSE and EC serially mediate the relationship between EL and NPDP.

This study is among the few to use the Coleman bathtub model to show top-down and bottom-up relationships. The study extends and complements the multilevel perspective on leadership and new product development research by simultaneously examining the relationships between EL and NPDP at the individual and firm levels.

The need for developing new entrepreneurial ways of thinking and acting has been in the agenda for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union countries. In line with their agenda, the Nordic Council of Ministers has been preoccupied with the development of entrepreneurial mindsets among the adult population. Seeking to meet the urgent need for developing entrepreneurial thinking, the Nordic Network for Adult Learning, together with the Nordic Council of Ministers, has elaborated and tested a Scandinavian model for stimulating entrepreneurial mindsets through the transformative learning circles. Based on the study of the TLC pilot project, this chapter explores the process of facilitation of entrepreneurial learning. The literature on entrepreneurial learning and education emphasises on the importance of facilitation; however, this issue is yet to be addressed in-depth. This chapter seeks to fill in this gap and contribute to our understanding of the role that facilitators play in the entrepreneurial and transformative learning processes. Drawing on the social constructionist approach to learning, this chapter discusses how facilitators and learners (entrepreneurs) become co-creators of knowledge and learning experiences.

The dynamism of competition in international markets requires managers to react accordingly and ensure the firm's survival and competitiveness. This study examines the impact of cognitive styles and dynamic managerial capabilities (DMC) on a firm's international performance and the mediating role of these capabilities in the relationship between cognitive styles and international performance.

This study adopts a quantitative cross-sectional research design, employing a sample of 306 firm owner-managers from exporting companies in Kosovo.

The findings suggest that managers' cognitive styles positively influence firm international performance, including their impact on DMC. Results also indicate that only managerial cognition mediates cognitive styles' effects on a firm's international performance, compared to managers' social capital.

In this study, the authors contribute to the literature by integrating cognitive styles with DMC in a transition country. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that DMC mediate the impact of cognitive styles on the firm international performance.

Entrepreneurial intentions have been extensively studied in student populations, with results suggesting that higher education does not promote formation of entrepreneurial intentions (e.g. Varamäki et al., 2013). However, the gap between intending to start a business and actually doing something to start one remains. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions with higher education students andto analyze the antecedents of actual behaviors related to start-ups with higher education students. The authors use theory of planned behavior (TPB) for both analyzing the intentions and analyzing the actual behaviors.

The authors apply Ajzen’s (1991) TPB to entrepreneurial intentions of higher education students and test their relevance as antecedents of actual behaviors. In addition to the basic elements of TPB (attitudes, subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioral control (PBC)) the authors test the impact of entrepreneurial characteristics (EC) (innovativeness, tolerance of ambiguity, creative problem solving and the ability to organize) of the student for intentions and for actual behaviors related to start-ups. Gender, entrepreneurial role models and basic education (upper secondary school vs vocational) are used as control variables. The data were collected in fall 2012 in seven different universities of applied sciences and consists of 3,754 responses, including 182 from respondents who were starting their own business at the time of the study.

For entrepreneurial intentions, the model explains 47 percent of the variance. The best antecedent of intentions seems to be attitude followed by PBC. EC and SN are significant but their role in the model is quite small. For actual behavior related to starting up a firm, the results are quite different. Gender explains behavior significantly and so does basic education. The most important independent variable is EC followed by PBC. Attitude toward entrepreneurship is not significant in explaining the actual start-up behavior, nor is SN.

From an empirical standpoint, the sample was limited to higher education students in one country. This limits the scope of generalization. Further studies, comparing antecedents of intentions and behavior in multiple contexts should be undertaken. Another limitation of the study is that the authors have been unable, due to the small number of students engaged in start-up activities, to examine the differences between study years.

The results raise interesting and difficult questions for entrepreneurship educators. Should entrepreneurship education aim at actual behaviors rather than intentions – or neither? What is vocational education doing “right” compared with upper secondary school or, indeed, higher education? Furthermore, if EC are this significant for actual behavior, what should or could be done to promote development of such characteristics in higher education?

The paper contrasts entrepreneurial intentions with actual behaviors related to starting up a firm and tests the utility of the TPB antecedents in this context. As the development of entrepreneurial intention has generally been studied in isolation from actual activities, the paper presents an interesting counterpoint to previous research.

This paper attempts to empirically model and analyse interrelationships of quality management (QM), information technology (IT) and entrepreneurial culture (EC) with its impact on performance of Indian IT enabled service small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). More specifically, this paper aims to investigate the proposed model which is validated by analysing both direct and indirect paths by deploying higher order structural modelling.

A quantitative approach has been followed by deploying cross-sectional research design. Structured questionnaires were distributed personally and by e-mail to around 1,380 service SMEs. The approach follows empirical testing and analyses of hypothesized paths of the proposed research model which is validated with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using maximum likelihood estimation. This study also identifies and tests the mediation effect of higher order constructs.

The findings demonstrate poor manifestation of entrepreneurial and market-oriented activities and confirm the mediation effect of IT and QM in the relationships of QM→EC along with IT→performance paths, respectively. Results indicate that IT and QM are complementary resource factors which signifies symbiotic relationships between them. Analyses highlights the significance of QM as a mediator in enhancing performance outcome through IT benefits and the effect of inculcation of EC by enterprises on their performance in today's vibrant and uncertain environment.

This study highlights major key areas of the decision-making process for SMEs’ owner and operations manager to overcome identified challenges like instituting collaboration with external business firms for learning, sharing risks and diversifying innovation capacity for managing capabilities of firms to earn sustainable profit margins. The outcome of this study would help operations manager, decision makers and entrepreneurs to redesign their business processes and entrepreneurial strategies by deploying operational intelligence in order to ensure agility and smooth flow within the firms. This would facilitate and help SMEs to cut down costs and redundancies in the process which would improve productivity and performance excellence.

The novelty of this study is based on development and empirical validation of the proposed research model which depicts how service SMEs could generate value with influence/effect of contextual factors on the QM–performance relationship. Findings of this study make significant contribution to the body of knowledge with new insights by highlighting the niche area in terms of interlinkages pertaining to quality management, IT and EC explicitly in Indian SMEs’ context.

This paper aims to further our understanding of the career success of the self-employed and how it is influenced by their psychological capital (PC), persistence (P) and risk-taking propensity (RTP). This study explores the direct effect of PC on success and investigates the potential mediation of P and RTP on the PC-success association.

In this quantitative study, questionnaires were administered to measure PC, P, risk-taking and success. Data was collected using purposive sampling with an expert judgment that represented a cross-section of the entrepreneurial population in three Malaysian northern states. Structural equation modeling by means of partial least square was used for hypotheses testing of the 252 usable responses.

Statistically significant and positive relationships were found between PC and success, whereas P and risk-taking were found to mediate the PC-success association. The mediation effects of P and risk-taking were more pronounced when entrepreneurial self-efficacy and optimism were included in the PC as a second-order construct than individually separate constructs.

The importance of the transitional progression of self-efficacy and optimism to success through P and risk-taking were verified and so can be used for nurturing efforts that activate positive self-efficacy and optimism for entrepreneurial career success. The lower mediation effect of risk-taking on the optimism-success association denotes caution when managing risk.

There is a relative dearth of supporting research that has not examined the inter-relationships between PC and career success of entrepreneurs. Exploring the intervening effect of P and risk-taking on that relationship is unprecedented.

Family businesses are value-based enterprises, contributing significantly to wealth creation. Although extensive research is conducted on family businesses, there is no study investigating how the cultural traits in the Arab world affect the organizational culture of family businesses. This paper discusses how the cultural characteristics in the Arab world shape family enterprises and explores how the Arab world's organizational culture enables family firms to establish competitive advantage underpinned by founder centrality, the concept of family, and business principles spanning many generations.

A thorough search of the extant literature was done in Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCO, and ScienceDirect using a combination of keywords such as Arab culture, family businesses, family firm culture, organizational culture, cultural traits, management strategies, and entrepreneurial strategies. Selected articles were classified according to their content, reviewed, and analyzed.

This study makes a few critical contributions about the nature, and the origins of organizational culture in family firms, entailing the founder's centrality and stewardship theory. Specifically, family firms in the examined region appear to have a stronger firm culture compared to non-family businesses. Also, organizational culture affects family businesses considering the firm-level outcomes, such as hereditary transition success, family inertia, etc.

This paper adds to the existing theoretical knowledge and underlines the cultural traits and family firm culture in the Arab world. A framework is presented, offering practical recommendations to managers of family firms striving to advance their competitiveness.