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1 – 10 of over 22000The purpose of this paper is three-fold. The first objective is to contextualize and clarify the concepts of regional innovation systems and entrepreneurship, addressing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is three-fold. The first objective is to contextualize and clarify the concepts of regional innovation systems and entrepreneurship, addressing their differences and complementarities and suggesting an analytical filter to enhance their understanding. The second aim is to question and analyse the challenges this renewed approach brings to the domain of territorial policy, namely, the role it may bring to local and regional development strategies, opening up the way for a set of public policy interventions on the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation promotion. Finally, the paper presents and analyses the example of Coimbra, a medium-sized city in Portugal, underlining both the role of academia and the Instituto Pedro Nunes-Incubator have had on these domains.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a case study approach, with an in-depth descriptive and exploratory analysis of the Coimbra entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Findings
The paper acknowledged the role entrepreneurial stakeholders have on the fertilization of the innovation and entrepreneurial Coimbra ecosystem. The Instituto Pedro Nunes-Incubator, with a new generation of startups, mostly born on its infrastructure as university spin-offs, gradually introduced a more business-oriented perspective on the local innovation system which, alongside the creation of a thicker networking and more profound cooperation culture, with the growing involvement of other local stakeholders such as science parks (Coimbra iParque), has had a decisive role on upgrading urban competitiveness. These new knowledge-based startups also have important spill-over effects that are beneficial to the growth of other firms in the same locality. There is evidence that they also provide an important Schumpeterian stimulus within economies by increasing competition, promoting innovation and augmenting the efficient allocation of resources within economies. Besides the more traditional transactional forms of support (tax incentives, grants, etc.), there is now the recognition that relational forms of support such as network building, developing connections between entrepreneurial actors, institutional alignment of priorities, fostering peer-based interactions have been strategic to improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Research limitations/implications
There is, thus, a need for more profound theorization and empirical research that can produce additional comprehension into this domain of the cause-effect relationships between entrepreneurship, innovation and local and regional dynamics. Some authors suggest, in particular, that the existing work on entrepreneurial ecosystems within popular business literature and academic research still has a deficit of a solid theoretical foundation, making the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach somehow both ambiguous and immature concept and, thus, reducing its generalizability and policy applicability. Research that evaluates the relationship between entrepreneurial performance and the level of government participation as part of governance systems will also be of great significance over the near future as it will help researchers and policymakers to realize better where the different stakeholders can enhance entrepreneurship and where their intervention will possibly diminish positive outcomes.
Practical implications
The main practical implications of this paper are associated with the need that urban and regional policymakers to formulate more business-led strategies to promote territorial innovation and entrepreneurship. The paper also offers conceptual tools that point out the need that innovation stakeholders, namely, universities, incubators and firms, have to assume more protagonism in promoting competitiveness and sustainability.
Social implications
The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach constitutes both a theoretical and analytical useful tool to define competitive strategies for urban and regional economies. Urban and regional-innovation ecosystem construction is a representative method of realizing territorial development and competition enhancement, through sustainable job and wealth creation.
Originality/value
This paper analysis summarizes and integrates the increasing and scattered literature of both the regional innovation systems and of the entrepreneurial ecosystems and delivers new insights for the future development of this field, namely, in terms of renewal of policy formulation and implementation. The singularity of the case study is associated with the fact that Coimbra entrepreneurial ecosystem is still largely embryonic, having its roots on a paradigm strategic shift the University adopted towards a more proactive role in terms of city aand regional development.
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Marian Buil Fabregá, Núria Masferrer, Josep Patau and Albert-P. Miró Pérez
The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and innovation commitment and entrepreneurial skills and environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and innovation commitment and entrepreneurial skills and environmental commitment as drivers of awareness on sustainable development of higher education students.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 1,318 business and management students out of the 3,535 students of Tecnocampus Pompeu Fabra University in Spain during the 2017-2018 academic year was selected to conduct a survey regarding their entrepreneurial skills and sustainability commitment, resulting in a total number of responses of 515. A structural equation model is proposed to contrast the hypothesis.
Findings
The statistical analysis showed the existence of a positive relation between the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness, innovation and environmental commitment to foster sustainability and sustainable development. It is one of the few studies related to the self-conciousness competence of the entrepreneurial skills which found, as a novelty, that the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness is the skill with the greater impact on innovation and environmental commitment.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of the study are that it is based on a sample of students taking entrepreneurship courses at a specific Spanish University that is not representative of all entrepreneurs in all universities.
Practical implications
The research proposes including entrepreneurial skills programmes in higher education and research programmes as a way to assure commitment to innovation and environmental sustainability.
Originality/value
Promoting entrepreneurial skills among higher education students could act as drivers for sustainable development.
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Barbara Del Bosco, Roberto Chierici and Alice Mazzucchelli
This paper investigates the user entrepreneurship process in the video game industry, and how this process is influenced by the interactions between user entrepreneurs and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the user entrepreneurship process in the video game industry, and how this process is influenced by the interactions between user entrepreneurs and communities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents an exploratory multiple case study on 17 firms founded in the video game industry by Italian users.
Findings
The findings show that in most of the cases analysed, innovation by users precedes identification of the entrepreneurial opportunity. This research identifies three categories of communities that provide different forms of support to user entrepreneurs: communities of (1) gamers/users, (2) developers/innovators and (3) entrepreneurs. Given the different role played, the three categories of communities have a different relevance during the various phases of the innovation and entrepreneurial path: communities of gamers/users and of developers/innovators affect innovation development and opportunity identification, while communities of entrepreneurs help users to evolve from opportunity recognition to the start-up of a firm.
Originality/value
This study investigates the video game industry, a context in which user entrepreneurship is under-researched and that is characterized by the intangible nature of the products (while previous studies have mainly focused on physical goods). It contributes to extant literature by revealing that, at the beginning of the end-user entrepreneurial process, there may be not only unmet needs but also “excitement-driven” innovations. Moreover, by analysing the whole entrepreneurial path, the study shows how three categories of communities (gamers/users, developers/innovators and entrepreneurs) provide different forms of support to user entrepreneurs in the different phases of the entrepreneurial process.
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Talah S. Arabiyat, Metri Mdanat, Mohamed Haffar, Ahmad Ghoneim and Omar Arabiyat
The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of how different aspects of the national institutional environment may influence the extent of innovative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of how different aspects of the national institutional environment may influence the extent of innovative entrepreneurial activities across countries. Several institutional and conductive factors affecting a country’s capacity to support innovative entrepreneurship are explored.
Design/methodology/approach
Institutional theory is used to examine the national regulatory, normative, cognitive and conducive aspects that measure a country’s ability to support innovative entrepreneurship. A cross-national institutional profile is constructed to validate an entrepreneurial innovation model. The impacts of country-level national institutions on innovative entrepreneurial activity as measured by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data are assessed through structural equation modeling.
Findings
Knowledge about the influence of specific institutional aspects on innovative entrepreneurship, and hence of institutional structures within and across countries, is enhanced. For new innovative enterprises, conductive and regulatory aspects seem to matter most. All conductive factors have a significant and positive impact on entrepreneurial activity rates.
Research limitations/implications
Results could support policy makers and practitioners in evaluating government policies’ effects on innovative entrepreneurship. Interventions should target both individual attributes and context. Future research could include longitudinal designs to measure the direction of causality.
Practical implications
Aspects such as regulatory institutions, and conductive factors such as information communication technology use and technology adoption, are important for innovation entrepreneurship development.
Originality/value
The literature on institutional theory and innovative entrepreneurship is highly limited. This study complements growing interest in empirical analysis of the effects of national institutions on innovative entrepreneurial activities and substantiates previous empirical work.
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Morteza Akbari, Afsaneh Bagheri, Saheb Imani and Mohammad Asadnezhad
The crucial importance of innovation leadership for high technology small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) has been suggested in the literature. However, few studies…
Abstract
Purpose
The crucial importance of innovation leadership for high technology small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) has been suggested in the literature. However, few studies empirically examined the impact of leadership style on innovation work behavior (IWB) of employees in the context of SMEs. Furthermore, our knowledge is limited about how leaders of high technology SMEs influence the IWB of their employees. The present study explores the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on IWB of employees and introduces creative self-efficacy and support for innovation as the mechanisms through which the leaders encourage their employees' IWB in information and communications technology (ICT) SMEs in Iran.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample was selected from high technology ICT SMEs using the simple random sampling method and included 175 CEOs and owner-managers of the businesses. We used validated questionnaires to test the hypothesized relationships between entrepreneurial leadership, IWB, creative self-efficacy and support for innovation.
Findings
The findings show that entrepreneurial leadership has a significant and positive impact on IWB of employees in ICT SMEs. Furthermore, employees’ creative self-efficacy and leaders’ support for innovation mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and IWB. Implications of the results and suggestions for developing IWB among the employees of high technology SMEs are suggested.
Originality/value
The study makes important contributions to both entrepreneurial leadership and the innovation behavior literature and theory development specifically in high technology SMEs in the transitioning economy of Iran. The findings also contribute to the existing empirical studies on how entrepreneurial leadership affects IWB of employees by examining the mediating role of creative self-efficacy and support for innovation and in the settings of ICT high technology SMEs.
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Afsaneh Bagheri, Morteza Akbari and Armin Artang
This paper explored the ways through which entrepreneurial leadership practices of chief executive officers (CEOs) enhance their employees' innovation at workplace in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explored the ways through which entrepreneurial leadership practices of chief executive officers (CEOs) enhance their employees' innovation at workplace in knowledge-based firms. Building on social cognitive theory and resource-based view of firms, this paper argues that entrepreneurial leadership fosters employees' innovation work behavior by enhancing their individual and team creativity self-efficacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample was selected from knowledge-based firms in Iran using the simple random sampling method. Two mediation models were tested using data from 41 CEOs and 207 employees in two separate phases.
Findings
The analysis supported that CEOs' entrepreneurial leadership improves their employees' innovation work behavior through enhancing their individual and team creativity self-efficacy.
Originality/value
The research contributes motivational and enabling mechanisms at both individual and team levels that entrepreneurial leaders use to improve employees' innovation work behavior in the context of knowledge-based firms. The findings may assist managers and business leaders in effectively leading innovation process.
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Mihaela Mikic, Tin Horvatinovic and Ivana Kovac
This study responds to calls by researchers to examine the relation between innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems more closely, and also to further broaden our…
Abstract
Purpose
This study responds to calls by researchers to examine the relation between innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems more closely, and also to further broaden our understanding of regional intellectual capital formation.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional analysis was conducted on NUTS 2 regions of the selected EU countries. In the empirical part of the research, multiple linear regression approaches were carried out using secondary data.
Findings
In sampled regions, the entrepreneurial ecosystem positively affects levels of high growth firms and levels of regional innovation capital.
Practical implications
Results lend further support to policymakers to develop and implement a regional-specific policy for fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems. However, given the multiple output nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems, this issue becomes more complicated than ever before.
Originality/value
This study builds upon previous research and complements it by widening the range of effects that the entrepreneurial ecosystem has. In doing so, this study is the first to examine the concurrent effects of these ecosystems on levels of high growth firms and innovation capital while using a regional innovation capital outlook.
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Bruno Fischer, Maribel Guerrero, José Guimón and Paola Rücker Schaeffer
Frugal innovation has gained prominence based on its potential contribution to sustainable development and the new opportunities that it offers to low-income customers…
Abstract
Purpose
Frugal innovation has gained prominence based on its potential contribution to sustainable development and the new opportunities that it offers to low-income customers. This paper aims to analyse the strategic knowledge transfer practices implemented by an entrepreneurial university for fostering frugal innovations within an emerging economy.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a case study methodological approach. The selected case was the University of Campinas (Unicamp), one of the leading universities in Brazil in terms of research quality and technology transfer. The study built upon 14 interviews with key informants and secondary sources of data (official and public documents).
Findings
The findings highlight the multidimensional dynamics of frugal innovations arising from university–industry relationships. Key dimensions considered include the internal capabilities of universities to foster frugal innovations and connect them to markets, the surrounding innovation ecosystems in which the university is embedded and the overarching institutional framework.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis of strategic management practices for frugal innovation requires an evolutionary perspective, but the findings lacked sufficient longitudinal information for a formal evaluation. Also, as our empirical analysis is based on an in-depth case study of one university, further validation in other contexts would be necessary.
Practical implications
This study offers new insights regarding the effectiveness of university-business collaboration partnerships for developing frugal innovations in emerging economies. Policymakers should promote societal programs enhancing the active participation of all agents involved in the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem. University managers should understand the challenges and the opportunities behind the adoption of an inclusive and societal orientation.
Social implications
By adopting frugal innovation practices, universities can enhance their contribution of meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Originality/value
The literature on frugal innovation has emphasized the importance of networking between different types of firms, NGOs and governments, but the role of universities in frugal innovation remains mostly unexplored. This study addresses this gap by exploring how entrepreneurial universities participate in frugal innovations to meet societal challenges.
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Existing theories of innovation posit a split between incremental innovations produced by large incumbents and radical innovations produced by entrepreneurial start‐ups…
Abstract
Purpose
Existing theories of innovation posit a split between incremental innovations produced by large incumbents and radical innovations produced by entrepreneurial start‐ups. The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence challenging this foundational assumption by demonstrating that entrepreneurs play a leading role, not a subordinate role, in sourcing incremental innovations through secondary inventions and design modifications.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying the methods of historical econometrics, this study draws parallels between two dramatically different contexts: the mechanized reaper (1803‐1884) and cloud computing services (1961‐2011). Data for the reaper were drawn from 517 historical sources involving 348 modifications. Data for cloud computing services were drawn from 3,882 US patent filings and firm‐level data drawn from the Dun & Bradstreet database.
Findings
Entrepreneurial tweaking plays a central role in commercializing dominant designs. Among the highest‐ranked incremental innovations leading to the commercialization of the reaper and cloud computing, nearly 90 percent were attributable to entrepreneurs. And yet, an entrepreneur had only a one in fourteen chance of garnering returns from a reaper innovation and a one in nine chance of gains from a cloud computing improvement.
Practical implications
Incremental innovations by entrepreneurs are indispensable to the widespread commercial acceptance of new technologies. Yet, entrepreneurial tweakers rarely benefit from the significant value they have created.
Originality/value
This paper constitutes the first significant attempt to empirically address the central role of entrepreneurs in producing incremental innovations that result in the commercialization of radical breakthroughs.
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Virginia Bodolica and Martin Spraggon
One of the most discernible initiatives of entrepreneurial universities constitutes the launch of innovation centers, where students and alumni can incubate their business…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the most discernible initiatives of entrepreneurial universities constitutes the launch of innovation centers, where students and alumni can incubate their business ideas and collaborate on innovative projects with the purpose of converting them into start-up ventures. While incubators and accelerators are quintessential in Western academic contexts, educational institutions in emerging economies are lagging behind in the preparation of future-ready business leaders via the establishment of hubs that stimulate entrepreneurial intention and diffusion of innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
In this conceptual paper, the authors seek to contribute to the development of entrepreneurial education ecosystems in less advanced regions of the world through the activation of university-based centers of innovation. The authors rely on a general review of the specialized literature to identify best practice insights pertaining to curriculum design and draw on the combined expertise of the authors’ research team in delivering entrepreneurship and innovation (under)graduate courses and executive education programs in emerging countries.
Findings
The authors conceptualize the mission, vision and curriculum of an innovation hub that can be adopted by any institution of higher education from transitional and emerging market settings to build powerful entrepreneurial mindsets in the future generation of innovative leaders. The proposed innovation hub curriculum incorporates a number of practically relevant and learning boosting activities, including the “So, You Think You Can Innovate?” competition, networking events and guest speakers and training seminars and workshops.
Originality/value
To keep up with changing industry dynamics and secure the relevance of their programs, institutions of higher education in emerging economies need to embrace entrepreneurial models of instruction. They ought to allocate temporal, physical and mental spaces and infrastructure to students to facilitate the generation of innovative concepts and encourage them toward commercialization.
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