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This study aims to empirically assess entrepreneurial leadership skills’ role in Corporate Sustainable Development (CSD) and firm performance (FP). This study considers five specific entrepreneurial traits: innovativeness, creativity, analytical thinking, emotional intelligence and passion and motivation. The motivation for this investigation stems from concerns over micro-firms vulnerabilities and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) lacking proper leadership skills. This study is guided by the resource-based view theory and conducted during the pandemic, offering insights into firms operating under constrained conditions.

Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM), were used on survey responses from 321 Bahraini firms. This study’s data collection occurred under environmental uncertainties due to the pandemic and provides a unique context for understanding CSD and entrepreneurial leadership skills under high business/environmental uncertainty.

The findings reveal that entrepreneurial leadership skills positively impact CSD and firm performance through creativity, passion and motivation. However, innovativeness negatively affects CSD and FP. Furthermore, CSD positively influences firm performance.

Theoretical and practical implications, plus limitations, are also discussed in this study.

Understanding entrepreneurial leadership skills effect on CSD and firm performance in SMEs is important as SEMs are prone to fail in the early years. This study’s findings and its implications help guide SME leaders in furthering their entrepreneurial leadership skills to foster CSD and firm performance.

This study contributes to comprehending the crucial role of entrepreneurial skills, during uncertain times of the pandemic, for SMEs’ survival. It provides valuable insights for firms operating in competitive environments, offering a unique perspective on the required entrepreneurial skills and their effect on CSD and firm performance.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The research proposes including entrepreneurial skills programmes in higher education and research programmes as a way to assure commitment to innovation and environmental sustainability.

Promoting entrepreneurial skills among higher education students could act as drivers for sustainable development.

The role of information and communications technology (ICT) has been tested in various contexts of online shopping and the results show that ICT has successfully transformed the way of doing business. This study aims to propose that if women have adequate internet skills, namely, operative, informational and creative skills, their entrepreneurial intentions will be high.

This is descriptive research. The data was collected from 246 university students and analyzed using PLS-SEM.

The results of the study show that students belonging to entrepreneurial backgrounds have a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship. The impact of internet skills was mixed on the relationship of entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial intention.

The sample was not generalized as the sample consisted of urban and internet-using women. Future research can test the model for rural women entrepreneurs or usage of m-commerce for the same.

The results of the study show that women having the skills to operate the internet have higher intentions to become an entrepreneur. Thus, the e-commerce web-space can use the results to influence women of the new generation to use available tools in their journey of entrepreneurship.

Women are an indispensable part of society. Empowering them will not only improve their confidence but will also strengthen the pillars of society.

Extensive research work has been done in the context of women entrepreneurship. The study is a novel attempt to test the effects of internet skills on entrepreneurial intention among new generation women. The results will be very much useful for future research and will extend the body of academic literature.

Despite the existence of a vast body of research on entrepreneurship, little is known about why some entrepreneurs are able to generate and realize more business ideas than others. This study aims to present a prospective answer to this question by empirically examining the relationships among human capital outcomes (entrepreneurial knowledge and skills) and the number of business ideas generated and implemented. Additionally, the authors examined the moderating effect of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy on the proposed relationships.

A statistical analysis on a sample of 340 Russian entrepreneurs was conducted.

The results from the analysis indicated that human capital outcomes (entrepreneurial knowledge and skills) are positively related to the number of generated and implemented ideas. Furthermore, it was seen that entrepreneurial self-efficacy significantly moderates the relationship between human capital outcomes and the number of implemented ideas. However, self-efficacy has no significant moderating effect on the relationships among human capital outcomes and the number of generated ideas. Finally, the results showed that the number of ideas generated mediates the relationships among human capital outcomes and the number of ideas implemented.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has investigated the combination of such variables as entrepreneurial human capital outcomes, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the number of new business ideas. This paper investigates this gap in the literature with an empirical analysis of the relations between the mentioned variables based on data collected from Russian entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how entrepreneurial skills (such as creativity, proactivity and risk tolerance) and socio-cultural factors (such as role model and businessman image) affect secondary education students’ propensity towards entrepreneurial options in their future careers.

A sample of secondary education students in the Region of Murcia (Spain) has been used. Data were collected through questionnaires and analysed using logit estimation. Confirmatory factorial analysis was used to validate the measures.

The results of this research study show that both the skills and socio-cultural factors positively affect entrepreneurial intention of secondary education students. Creativity, proactivity and risk taking promote entrepreneurial career. In addition, those students whose role model is an entrepreneur and have a better understanding of him or her, show a greater propensity towards entrepreneurial career.

The contribution to the literature on entrepreneurship is twofold. First, although there are studies focused on identifying the entrepreneurial profile of university students, there is a paucity of empirical evidence relating to entrepreneurial skills at earlier stages of learning. This paper sets out to bridge this research gap. Second, evidence of the importance of socio-cultural factors, role models and entrepreneurial image upon the career orientation of secondary education students is identified and empirically verified. These findings involve are useful in practice, in aiding the design of better and more relevant education programmes at early learning stages.

Entrepreneurship has become a widely accepted concept in the past few decades due to its prominent role in economic activity and economic development of a nation. Promotion of entrepreneurship can be ensured with the help of entrepreneurship teaching and learning through higher education institutions. Similarly, entrepreneurship skills play a significant role in the promotion of students’ intentions to become entrepreneurs. This study aims to examine the role of universities and entrepreneurship skills on the entrepreneurial intentions of students.

Business simulation games is taken as mediator between university role and entrepreneurial intentions as well as entrepreneurship skills and entrepreneurial intentions. This research has used Smart PLS to perform a PLS-SEM technique with a data of 378 students from higher education institutions of Malaysia.

The results of data analysis show a positive role of universities and entrepreneurship skills in the promotion of student’s entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, business simulation games positively mediates the relationship between dependent and independent variables.

Results of this research prove that entrepreneurial skills and university support have a significant part in the promotion of entrepreneurship intentions of students. As students use the electronic resources such as business simulation games, their skills, attitude and practical knowledge is positively enhanced and eventually it positively impacts the intention of students to become entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is believed that promotion of entrepreneurial skills in students via business simulation games and positive role of universities in promoting entrepreneurship will have a significant positive influence on the students’ entrepreneurial intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to present a survey of postgraduate research (PGRs) students studying at the University of Huddersfield, concentrating on entrepreneurial attributes and the importance of enterprise-related skills future career intentions.

Electronic survey questions asked respondents to rate their confidence in a series of enterprise-related skills, and each skill's importance in their career development. Identification with attributes relating to independence, risk taking, self-efficacy, tolerance of ambiguity, and innovativeness were explored. Further questions probed the importance of enterprise skills development, research impact, and career aspirations including business start-up potential.

Respondents identified with entrepreneurial attributes and were positive towards enterprise skills development. The majority felt that their research could have commercial impact, and over a third reported that starting a business appealed to them. Comparisons of importance and confidence ratings identified skills areas where confidence was relatively low and needed to be improved, where there is a large gap between confidence and importance, and where a skill was rated as having lower importance than is optimal from an institutional perspective. Interestingly, different groups of students considered “self-employment” compared with “business start-up” as a career option.

These single-institution results suggest that PGRs are more entrepreneurial than might be expected. Is the higher education (HE) sector underestimating the entrepreneurial potential of the PGR population, their appetite for engaging in enterprise, and their enterprise and commercialisation training needs?

The results have relevance for the HE community in terms of understanding PGR entrepreneurial attributes, and training needs for enterprise and commercialisation of research output.

The purpose of this study is to conceptualize the business model from a value network perspective and to investigate how top managers' individual characteristics contribute to business model innovation.

On the basis of upper echelons theory and contingency theory, this study empirically examines the micro‐macro link between top managers' human and social capital and firm business model innovation.

Using survey data collected from 146 Chinese firms, the findings indicate that both top managers' managerial and entrepreneurial skills and managerial ties significantly lead to business model innovation. Furthermore, the interaction between entrepreneurial skills and managerial ties enhances, yet the interaction between managerial skills and managerial ties inhibits business model innovation.

By proposing a value network‐based definition for the business model, this study provides additional insights into the current debate on the definition and architecture of business model. Further, the current study contributes to an emerging body of business model research by demonstrating, for the first time, that a manager's individual characteristics can both directly and interactively drive business model innovation in the context of emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a qualitative case-based analysis of the factors affecting the capability of primary sector rural entrepreneurs to manage regulation. The authors suggest a conceptual framework to aid understanding of their skill and capability when managing regulation.

Using a multiple case study approach the entrepreneurial skill of rural entrepreneurs is examined in light of three sets of factors: institutional regulatory, social capital and economic market.

The case analysis indicates diversity in the skill of rural entrepreneurs to manage regulation across sub-sectors including dairy and stock farming, fruit growers and vegetable/horticultural producers. The conceptual framework indicates that there are three areas that influence entrepreneurial skill: relationships with national cooperatives, relationships with the institutional regulatory environment and relationships with the economic market environment. This provides the authors with a conceptual framework to aid understanding of the interplay of factors affecting entrepreneurial skill and capability to manage regulation.

This study contributes to the emerging stream of literature highlighting the importance of industry sector context for understanding the complex and differing regulatory effects on entrepreneurs’ skill and hence capability to manage. Case comparisons allow the authors to explain and understand why entrepreneurs that operate similar businesses within the same sector respond differently to regulation.

The purpose of the paper is to address the fundamental nature of skill and identify how an examination of skill may be introduced into theoretical understanding of the entrepreneurial process.

The paper undertakes a fundamental review of skill.

Skill is an under‐researched construct. Skills once learnt are discounted, undervalued and largely ignored, excepting when they are not executed. Skills are multidimensional and continuous, and context‐related. They are not the same as competencies. Skills associated with the entrepreneurial process are primarily theoretical constructs and have been associated with opportunity recognition theory. The initiation of the process through alertness may be challenged and substituted with identification of a social/market valued need. Adopting different paradigmatic approaches to entrepreneurial behaviour yields different issues including problems of measurement and how skills are valued socially, politically and economically. Insufficient empirical research has been carried out to test theory, and identify critical skills.

Further empirical research is needed to test and build theory that resonates with practitioner – in particular of the entrepreneur – understanding. Education and training policies should reflect sound theory and practice and where appropriate fund further work on the nature and development of entrepreneurial skills.

A fundamental review of skill has not been carried out academically since 1990; this paper is timely as it not only addresses that gap, but develops the work by applying an understanding the issues of researching skill to the entrepreneurial process.