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The purpose of this paper is to explain how the process that occurs before an entrepreneurial failure event provides a coached learning setting that creates entrepreneurial expertise.

This is a conceptual paper drawing on the literatures of expert information processing theory and deliberate-practice expertise development to suggest a model and propositions that flow from the analysis.

Adding to the expert performance literature – specifically the introduction of the notion of emergent practice – this paper proposes that the intensity of the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure, the duration of the fight, the content required in that fight, and the clarity and rapidity of feedback received, are associated with the creation of entrepreneurial expertise.

This paper complements research on learning from failure by exploring how significant learning before entrepreneurial failure either occurs or is avoided, can lead to the creation of entrepreneurial expertise.

This research provides guidance for entrepreneurs engaged in the fight to avoid entrepreneurial failure, and suggests ways for prospective supporters to better assess entrepreneurs with failed ventures in their history.

The paper applies the deliberate-practice concept, common in sports, games, and the arts, to an “emergent practice” setting; that is, within a real-life (marketplace) setting within which the “fight” to avoid entrepreneurial failure functions as the “coach”; and it describes how the learning necessary for the creation of entrepreneurial expertise likely takes place.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize on the mechanisms underlying the development of entrepreneurial expertise. While prior studies have identified differences between the behavior of novice and expert entrepreneurs, the mechanisms that cause these differences have not received sufficient attention.

This paper systematically reviews the extant literature on entrepreneurial expertise and builds the conceptual framework by employing an action-control belief framework to propose mechanisms underlying the development of expert behavior.

This paper argues that differences in behavior between novice and expert entrepreneurs stem from self-perceptions of their ability to act. More specifically, stronger action-control beliefs encourage entrepreneurs to create new interpretations of the world over time; develop and use strategies that allow them to rely on perceived control over means and ends, their perceived capacity, and their agency; and hence behave more like experts.

This paper suggests that strategy, capacity, and control beliefs are key in individuals’ decisions of whether to engage in entrepreneurial action and that expert entrepreneurs hold stronger beliefs than novices. Positive experiences, particularly those associated with deliberate practice, contribute to developing these beliefs and, more broadly, to entrepreneurial expertise.

This paper proposes that the mechanism of transformation from novice to expert behavior can be attributed to positive changes in deeply held beliefs about strategy (i.e. possible means-ends frameworks), capacity (i.e. access to means), and control (i.e. perceived efficacy). Each of the beliefs can develop separately from others and at different pace. In other words, this work explains why novice and expert entrepreneurs behave differently.

Entrepreneurs can easily slide into severe economic crises (Fichman and Levinthal, 1991), in particular, in the first years after their founding. Additionally, research shows that entrepreneurs often lack a realistic evaluation of the entrepreneurial risks and barriers. Referring to research on cognitive and networked expertise (Ericsson et al., 2006; Hakkarainen et al., 2004), recognising and reflecting on potential failure may help to prevent or manage upcoming crises (Mitchell et al., 2008). Thus, this study aims to test whether assessing upcoming crises in a new venture varies along with the level of entrepreneurial expertise.

In a cross-sectional design with three subgroups (start-up consultants, entrepreneurs and students), this study evaluated critical incidents that have already been validated as likely to emerge in the post-formation phase (Heinrichs and Jäcklin, 2017). Entrepreneurial expertise was measured by seven indicators, chosen based on the approaches of cognitive and networked expertise.

By applying latent profile analyses, the participants were grouped along with these indicators of expertise in three levels. Analysis of variance showed significant differences amongst the profiles in perceiving critical incidents. Experts rated the incidents significantly higher than semi-experts and novices towards indicating financial risks (medium effect) and the probability that the entrepreneur could manage the upcoming crises (large effect).

The results call for developing and evaluating interventions, e.g. case-oriented entrepreneurship education courses (Heinrichs, 2016), that foster future entrepreneurs’ expertise in perceiving and managing entrepreneurial risks to prevent entrepreneurial failure.

Entrepreneurs can easily slide into severe economic crises (Fichman and Levinthal, 1991), in particular in the first years after founding. Additionally, research shows that entrepreneurs often lack a realistic evaluation of the entrepreneurial risks and barriers. Referring to research on cognitive and networked expertise (Ericsson et al., 2006; Hakkarainen et al., 2004), recognising and reflecting on potential failure may help to prevent or manage upcoming crises (Mitchell et al., 2008). Thus, this paper aims to test whether assessing upcoming crises in a new venture varies along with the level of entrepreneurial expertise.

In a cross-sectional design with three subgroups (start-up consultants, entrepreneurs and students), this study evaluated critical incidents that have already been validated as likely to emerge in the post-formation phase (Heinrichs and Jäcklin, 2017). Entrepreneurial expertise was measured by seven indicators, chosen based on the approaches of cognitive and networked expertise.

By applying latent profile analyses, the participants were grouped along these indicators of expertise in three levels. Analysis of variance showed significant differences among the profiles in perceiving critical incidents. Experts rated the incidents significantly higher than semi-experts and novices towards indicating financial risks (medium effect) and the probability that the entrepreneur could manage the upcoming crises (large effect).

The results call for developing and evaluating interventions, e.g. case-oriented entrepreneurship education courses (Heinrichs, 2016), that foster future entrepreneurs’ expertise in perceiving and managing entrepreneurial risks to prevent entrepreneurial failure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between team heterogeneity and team performance in entrepreneurial team and is also of significance in guiding the management practice of an entrepreneurial team.

The study is carried out based on an experiment, in which a 2×2 experimental group is devised to collect data concerned with the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial team’s expertise and the attitude toward heterogeneity.

The entrepreneurial team’s heterogeneity has a significant effect on entrepreneurial performance; the entrepreneurial team’s heterogeneity influences entrepreneurial performance through team task conflict; attitudes toward heterogeneity play a mediating role in the above process.

This paper is carried out based on an experiment which can be used to determine the mediating effects of team conflict on the relationship between team expertise heterogeneity and the entrepreneurial performance.

While interest in and demand for entrepreneurial universities has gained prominence in recent years (e.g. Clark, 1998; Etzkowitz, 2008; Thorp and Goldstein, 2010), there is minimal research on the learning experiences and career-making events that transform traditional faculty members into faculty entrepreneurs who are able to successfully apply their research knowledge toward endeavors that intersect with the private market. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to understand, from the perspective of faculty entrepreneurs, the lived learning experiences that contributed to their development from traditional faculty member to faculty entrepreneur. Specifically, this study explored the question on how faculty members who were founders or co-founders of a business learned “to work in entrepreneurial ways” (Rae and Carswell, 2000, p. 220). In general, individuals who are interested in pursuing a career as a professor are not generally socialized during graduate school to engage in technology transfer activities or encouraged to start businesses (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008). This study also sought to understand how faculty entrepreneurs learn to persist in an organizational culture that does not always support entrepreneurial endeavors outside the scope of researching, teaching, and service.

A phenomenological qualitative research design was employed using in-depth, semi-structured interview questions. Entrepreneurial learning was the theoretical framework that grounded this study.

The data analysis process revealed six themes which offer insights on the learning experiences, contextual factors, and patterns of behavior that helped the participants to develop and to persist as faculty entrepreneurs.

First, the data were dependent upon the learning experiences identified and articulated by the faculty entrepreneurs. There is a possibility that significant learning or career-making experiences were omitted or unintentionally not reported by the participants. Second, the author used a broad net when searching and recruiting for faculty entrepreneurs. Any faculty member who was in a tenure-track position and who had founded or co-founded an organization was eligible to participate in this study. However, the data analysis process may have yielded different results if the author had elected to study faculty entrepreneurs from a specific academic discipline or if the author had chosen to only interview faculty entrepreneurs who had founded a specific type of business. Third, this study focussed only on tenured faculty members who are currently involved with the businesses that they founded or co-founded. Subsequently, this study did not include any faculty members whose entrepreneurial pursuits were unsuccessful (i.e. closing the business). There is the possibility that former faculty entrepreneurs may have had similar learning experiences as the individuals who were interviewed for this study.

The findings may be instructive for traditional faculty members who are interested in applying their research findings and expertise with an entrepreneurial endeavor such as starting a business. In addition, these findings may be useful for higher education administrators who seek to cultivate an entrepreneurial learning environment in their institutions and for future researchers who want to expand the study of faculty entrepreneurs.

There is a gap in the literature on how traditional faculty members learn to couple their research knowledge and expertise with an entrepreneurial endeavor such as starting a small business. In addition, there has been minimal research that delineates how the faculty entrepreneur comes into existence at the individual level (Clarysse et al., 2011; Pilegaard et al., 2010). Subsequently, this is one of the first phenomenological qualitative research studies to examine the lived learning experiences of faculty entrepreneurs.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.

The “innovator's dilemma” suggests that by listening to current customers leading firms often lose their markets to upstart newcomers as a result. The purpose of this paper is to understand how entrepreneurs successfully create such upstart firms and new markets, since this ought to have direct implications for theorizing about the innovator's dilemma.

The paper examines implications of recent studies in entrepreneurial expertise that show expert entrepreneurs use an effectual logic of non‐predictive control. It then connects these ideas to notions of firms and markets as artifacts of entrepreneurial action. Finally, it describes the implications of these concepts for the innovation strategies of large corporations, and specifically for firms periodically facing the innovator's dilemma.

The findings suggest that the practical answer to the innovator's dilemma is not to predict technology trajectories more accurately, or otherwise strive to build immortal firms in mortal markets. Instead, innovation managers should focus on building new markets. This will inevitably involve pluralizing decision‐making technologies by including some aspects of effectual decision making (used by expert entrepreneurs) into the decision‐making processes of large firms.

It is the basic contention of this paper that the innovator's dilemma is not the story it is usually portrayed as, i.e. technology commercialization. Instead, the core issue is investing in and building new markets. The paper brings a novel theoretical framework (from entrepreneurship) to bear on this problem.

Entrepreneurship is known to be important to the economy, and many scholars across the globe have researched it from a number of viewpoints. Currently, there is a need for an academic study to explore this area by combining sustainability value creating practices and the efforts of current entrepreneurs towards the said target, particularly in the case of the agricultural sector. While the entrepreneurship studies have mostly focused on the determinants of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, few studies have attempted to analyze the factors influencing the entrepreneurial alertness (EA) of students, especially in relation to agricultural students. To fill this gap, this work investigated the impact of human and social capital on EA among the students of agricultural higher education in Iran.

The sample consisted of 254 agricultural students in higher education from Ilam province in the Islamic Republic of Iran, selected by the stratified random sampling method for the study. Modeling of structural equations was used in inferential statistics.

According to the results of the trial, human resources and social capital (SC) have been seen to have a strong, optimistic and measurable impact on EA. Key findings also show that human capital (HC) has an indirect, optimistic and important effect on EA through the mediator role of SC. Establishing higher education science teams, groups, networks and associations can foster opportunities to create and develop relationships and communication between agricultural students and entrepreneurs.

These findings illustrate the value of human and social resources in fostering entrepreneurship alertness among Iranian students of agricultural higher education. Considering the research results, the authors recommend some theoretical and realistic implications and suggestions for ways of promoting and increasing EA among farm students to encourage sustainable growth of agricultural careers in western Iran.

A stratified random sample of respondents was identified from databases compiled by associate researchers located in each of five countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia Taiwan, Indonesia and Japan. The aim of the study was to establish which dimensions of management skill are important to regional customers; to compare British management skills on these dimensions with those of major trading nations active in the region and to prioritise key areas for improvement if Britain is to become a valued member of the region. The major conclusion of this study was that British managers were generally perceived, amongst managers in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Japan, to be inferior to Japanese and US managers and, in most areas, inferior to German managers. British managers were ranked fourth above Australian and Taiwanese managers, who were ranked as the weakest amongst the countries being investigated on a number of skills.