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The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of a team’s personality faultlines on entrepreneurial performance. Additionally, this paper verifies the moderating effect of shared leadership on the connection between the two varies. The authors focus on the upper echelons theory and social identity theory as well as personality faultlines in entrepreneurial teams.

An online survey was conducted using data collected in China. Data from 618 members from 144 new venture teams were collected to examine the authors’ hypothesis.

The authors find a U-shaped relationship between the strength of entrepreneurial teams' personality-faultline and entrepreneurial performance. Additionally, shared leadership negatively moderates this U-shaped relationship. Specifically, when the entrepreneurial team has a high level of shared leadership, both the positive and negative relationships between the strength of the personality faultlines and entrepreneurial performance are weaker.

The research offers important theoretical and practical implications for the formation of entrepreneurial teams.

Over the past decades, mainstream studies have generally indicated that new ventures could improve entrepreneurial performance by adopting strategic alliances (SAs). However, recently an increasing number of new ventures appear to not realize this objective using SAs at all times and may, rather, even be stuck in the survival trap. This dilemma indicates that the causal relationship between SAs and entrepreneurial performance in new ventures is not simply linear and rather a further complex nonlinear relationship. To handle this debate, this study attempted to reveal the nonlinear relationship of two types of SAs (technology alliances and market alliances) in new ventures with entrepreneurial performance (organizational growth and customer value). In addition, the moderating effect of transactive memory system (TMS) in the entrepreneurial team under the nonlinear relationship was explored.

This study established a research model by considering technology alliances and market alliances as two independent variables, organizational growth and customer value as two dimensions of entrepreneurial performance, and TMS as the moderators. The survey data collected from 207 Chinese new ventures was subjected to the hierarchical linear regression method for testing the proposed hypotheses.

The results revealed that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between technology alliances and organizational growth, while the relationship between technology alliances and customer value was U-shaped. In addition, the relationship between market alliances and organizational growth was U-shaped, while an inverse U-shaped relationship was observed between market alliances and customer value. Finally, TMS was observed to positively moderate the U-shaped relationship between technology alliances and customer value as well as the U-shaped relationship between market alliances and organizational growth.

This study concluded that a nonlinear relationship between SAs and entrepreneurial performance existed in new ventures, which contributes to resolving the debate on whether new ventures could adopt SAs to improve entrepreneurial performance at all times. Specifically, the findings of this study would enrich the existing literature on the outcomes of SAs in new ventures through an evaluation of the effect of the inverse nonlinear relationship between technology alliances and market alliances on entrepreneurial performance (e.g. organizational growth and customer value). In addition, the findings of this study would extend the discussions about the conditions of the above causal relationship by introducing the TMS as the core moderator.

This study aims to solve the realistic dilemma between the importance of entrepreneurship and the high rate of entrepreneurial failure, and to point out the direction of subsequent research.

The paper takes the form of a literature review.

Entrepreneurial activities involve multiple dimensions. Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams will be affected by multiple factors when starting a business, and sufficient attention should be paid to both the factors within the group and the factors outside the group such as institutional quality and market competition. High entrepreneurial failure rate is an essential characteristic of entrepreneurial activities, while solving this problem requires entrepreneurs to maintain passion, clarify their own motivation, improve their learning abilities and adopt appropriate entrepreneurial strategies to improve entrepreneurial performance. Meanwhile, it also urgent to build entrepreneurial teams with common goals, heterogeneous knowledge structure, outstanding learning ability, solid mutual trust, strong social influence and social capital. Successful entrepreneurship should adhere to the perspective of openness and cooperation. It should not only actively strengthen international cooperation but also fully adapt to the country’s system and culture. Sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises requires not only stable commercial revenue but also responsibility to society, which in turn leads to a good reputation and high social recognition.

The authors hope this review can provide some insightful viewpoints for deepening the theoretical system of entrepreneurship, improving the success rate of entrepreneurship and promoting the sustainable growth of enterprises.

Further research can be carried out on the promotion of business growth by entrepreneurship at the micro level in the following aspects: analyze functional mechanism between innovation and entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship research by integrating multiple institutional contexts and cultural traditions; consider the changes in emerging technologies on entrepreneurial activities; diversified mechanism between entrepreneurship education and business growth.

Although the published studies have noted that ambidextrous marketing capabilities (AMCs) could improve firm performance, they seem to ignore the differences between mature corporations and new ventures (NVs). Generally, it is impossible for NVs to simultaneously possess two types of marketing capabilities such as marketing exploitation and marketing exploration. They have to make a trade-off between the present market and the future market. This paper seeks to investigate the causal relationship between AMCs (exploitation-dominated AMCs and exploration-dominated AMCs) and entrepreneurial performance in the context of NVs. Furthermore, this paper attempts to explore the internal interaction of entrepreneurial orientation and the external interaction of competitive intensity.

This paper develops a theoretical framework according to configuration theory and investigates the causal relationship between AMCs (exploration-dominated AMCs and exploitation-dominated AMCs) and entrepreneurial performance as well as the moderating roles played by entrepreneurial orientation and competitive intensity based on the survey data collected from 257 Chinese NVs.

The results show that both the exploration-dominated AMCs and the exploitation-dominated AMCs have significant positive effects on entrepreneurial performance. However, the moderating roles played by entrepreneurial orientation and competitive intensity in the causal relationships are different and complicated. Specifically, entrepreneurial orientation negatively moderates the relationship between exploitation-dominated AMCs and entrepreneurial performance and positively moderates the relationship between exploration-dominated AMCs and entrepreneurial performance; competitive intensity positively moderates the relationship between exploitation-dominated AMCs and entrepreneurial performance and negatively moderates the relationship between exploration-dominated AMCs and entrepreneurial performance.

This paper plays a pioneering role in enriching the theoretical connotation of AMCs, improving the theoretical framework of AMCs and expanding the theoretical application of AMCs by analyzing and confirming the causal relationships between AMCs and entrepreneurial performance in the context of NVs, which is different from the previous studies. In addition, this paper also makes a valuable contribution to management practices, such as leading NVs, to match different types of AMCs with internal and external conditions for improving entrepreneurial performance.

This study aims to examine the effect of entrepreneurial skills, market orientation, sales orientations and networking on entrepreneurial competency and performance of micro-enterprises in Kelantan, Malaysia.

Adopting a cross-sectional design, this paper collected data through structured interviews from 403 micro-entrepreneurs from “Majlis Amanah Rakyat,” Kelantan and “Majlis Agama Islam dan Adat Istiadat,” Kelantan.

The findings reveal that entrepreneurial skills, market orientation and networking have a positive effect on entrepreneurial competency. Then, entrepreneurial competency, entrepreneurial skills and networking have a positive effect on enterprise performance. The findings show a significant mediation effect of entrepreneurial competency on the relationships between entrepreneurial skills, market orientation and networking and enterprise performance.

Addressing the understudied “human factor” in entrepreneurship, this paper extends the resource-based view and enriches the existing entrepreneurship literature in Malaysia. It provides useful insights into the improvement of micro-enterprise performance, which is crucial for promoting entrepreneurial activities and for enhancing socio-economic conditions among low-income households in Malaysia. Thus, the government and developmental organizations should focus on the development of entrepreneurial skills, market-oriented approach, networking traits and entrepreneurial competencies and subsequently encourage poor households to perform entrepreneurial activities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the correlations among entrepreneurial environment, market-oriented strategies, and entrepreneurial performance.

Entrepreneurial environment is measured by institutional environment and industrial environment. A survey of 176 large Chinese automobile firms is conducted. The structural equation model is applied to perform analysis.

The uncertainty of the institutional environment is positively related with market-oriented strategies and market-oriented strategies are positively related with firms’ performance. The stronger the uncertainty of the industrial environment is, the larger impact that market-oriented strategies have on firms’ performance will be. There is no distinct positive relationship between the uncertainty of industrial environment and firms’ market-oriented strategies. The hypothesis, that the stronger the uncertainty of institutional environments is, the larger the impact that market-oriented strategies will be on firms’ performance, is not supported.

In terms of research design, this paper does not select survey samples randomly. This paper only takes institutional and industrial environments into consideration while the environmental characteristics are omitted.

This paper expands entrepreneurship research by integrating previous studies. Findings in this paper are helpful for firms in emerging countries to implement “going abroad strategies,” to start up new businesses in other countries, and to achieve the goals of improving competitiveness and integrating with international firms.

Korean economy is demanding to change from an industrial society to an entrepreneurial society. It is asking for a generational change from the preexisting paradigms of such as labor consciousness, the concept of work and company management. Entrepreneurship is one of the key elements that will lead to a successful business performance under highly uncertain business conditions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business performance. Also, the authors look for the role of entrepreneurship education in the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on financial and nonfinancial business performance.

To accomplish the purpose of this study, the authors carried out a survey targeting nascent entrepreneurs and total early-stage entrepreneurs with less than seven years of experience. Based on the Miller’s (1983) definition, a group of questions for entrepreneurial orientation, similar to Covin and Slevin (1989), were developed.

First, among the subfactors of entrepreneurial orientation, it was clear that innovative progressiveness affected nonfinancial business performance. Second, risk-taking propensity did not influence both financial business performance and nonfinancial business performance. Third, entrepreneurship education had no connection with entrepreneurial orientation or business performance.

Nonfinancial business performances are related with long-term goals and growth potential. Innovative proactiveness affects nonfinancial business performance. Thus, entrepreneurs should look for ways to promote their innovative proactiveness. Entrepreneurship education for experienced entrepreneurs is not as effective as that for students.

In the authors’ study, survey questionnaires were sent to 200 nascent and total early-stage entrepreneurs searching for business angel investments or entrepreneurship consultants in Korea. A total of 180 entrepreneurs answered the survey questions online. There are not so many valid studies examining the effect of entrepreneurship education for nascent and total early-stage entrepreneurs in Korea.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the direct and indirect role of autonomy on firm performance. It also determines the role of professional experience in the relationship.

The authors analyzed data collected from 124 small firms in Addis Ababa city using the ordinary least square (OLS) regression and hierarchical regression analysis.

The result of the OLS regression revealed that autonomy directly and indirectly (through entrepreneurial engagement) influences the firm's performance. Besides, professional experience moderates the relationship between autonomy and performance, as well as the relationship between autonomy and entrepreneurial engagement.

Entrepreneurs should tend to engage in the works that they have professional experience than involving in jobs that they have no experience.

This study examines the relationship between autonomy and firm performance in established firms. It is among the first studies that tested the moderation influence in the relationship. That is, determining the role of professional experience is a novel contribution of this study, which is forgotten previously.

The purpose of this study is to specifically look at the relationship between reliable network reliance and entrepreneurial performance.

To help achieve the study objective, 450 rural farmer-entrepreneurs from Jiangsu, Anhui, Guangxi and Zhejiang Provinces were randomly selected. The study concentrated mainly on entrepreneurs who have engaged in entrepreneurial activities the past five or more years.

This study’s findings show that network reliance has direct and indirect effects on entrepreneurial performance through external networking behaviour. The result further shows that external networking behaviour partially mediates the relationship between network reliance and entrepreneurial performance. On the moderation effect on entrepreneurial orientation (EO), the result reveals that it strengthens the relationship between external networking behaviour and entrepreneurial performance. The result shows that EO has a direct effect on entrepreneurial performance. The paper introduces behavioural component of network to entrepreneurial performance. The study concludes that external networking behaviour of entrepreneurs is key in entrepreneurship as it improves relationships among actors and thereby translating into an improved performance.

The paper brings to light the need to reconsider extension education by including elements of networking to enable rural entrepreneurs derive full benefits of their entrepreneurial ventures.

Research examining the influence of organizational factors on entrepreneurial tendencies and performance within organizations is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of organizational structure and work autonomy on entrepreneurial tendencies, locus of control and performance.

Data were obtained online using validated self-report questionnaires in a sample of 181 currently employed individuals.

The results showed organizational structure components to be related to work autonomy and performance, but not to individual-level variables. However, work autonomy related to entrepreneurial tendencies and locus of control, indicating potential indirect effects of organizational structure on individual-level variables via work autonomy. Entrepreneurial tendencies and locus of control were positively related to performance.

Whilst the mediating effect of a number of individual-level traits has been examined in the past, very little research has looked at how organizational factors may influence entrepreneurial tendencies. Fostering entrepreneurial tendencies in employees may facilitate corporate entrepreneurship and performance within organizations.