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Coaching is a widespread form of human development that has grown considerably in recent years. However, it is not well understood in entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and little is known about the success factors for coaching in SMEs. Thus, this article presents a theoretical framework for coaching SMEs. The paper reports on a study carried out to develop and validate a coaching model for entrepreneurship in SMEs.

A mixed methods approach was undertaken in SMEs in the Iranian pharmaceutical industry. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the samples and the model's dimensions.

The results show five chief constructs of the entrepreneurial coaching model. In particular, the authors determine the importance of early goal setting and identify the essential characteristics of an effective entrepreneurial coach.

Firstly, the data relied solely on the pharmacy industry in Iran, indicating a need for future studies to explore coaching programs across various industries and countries. Additionally, a quantitative aspect of the research involved participants answering questionnaires based on their perceptions. This subjective nature introduces a potential for inaccuracies in participants' perceptions and expectations. Furthermore, the inherent bias of program stakeholders may have led to exaggerated responses. To mitigate these issues, it would be beneficial to conduct experimental and longitudinal research, which could address these concerns more effectively.

By utilizing a theoretical framework, the authors goal is to define the essential features of coaching in SMEs and compare it to other developmental interventions to highlight both commonalities and distinctions. This approach addresses the recent suggestions in coaching literature to distinguish coaching practices tailored for particular groups, specifically entrepreneurs involved in SMEs.

This study contributes to understanding the essential features for successful entrepreneurial coaching in SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to answer the following questions. What kind of entrepreneurial identities do students have that motivate them to choose either of the entrepreneurship course and university-based incubator? How do students involve in the entrepreneurship ecosystem at university based on their entrepreneurial identity?

For this study, the author began to gather information using previous knowledge and any aspect of a work, namely, from the literature review to represent interpretive syntheses of the meaning-making literature review addressing the research question.

This study suggests what happens to entrepreneur students from academia and the reason that they end up in one of the two aforementioned paradigms. This paper aims to underpin the issue of how various entrepreneurial identities of students cause substantial contributing factors in forming such entrepreneurial activities at university and throughout the entire innovation ecosystem.

Almost all of the content of the entrepreneurship education (EE) courses and incubator training is oriented towards consensual entrepreneurship methods, in accordance with entrepreneurship education. Although the core contents of the EE courses and university-based incubators’ training are the same, the outcomes are quite different.

This study considers the students’ entrepreneurial identities with a focus on their point of view that led them to end up in one of the two common entrepreneurship resources at universities: the EE course and entrepreneurial activities related to university-based incubators.

Social hackathons are events designed to craft social change using technology that enables citizen empowerment or addresses societal issues by deploying data. Hackathons provide a framework for organizing to help create prototypes and business models through interaction with technology. The relevance of the sociomateriality of the emergent technology (prototype) and organizational structure raises the question if viable and impactful solutions can be developed within such frames.

This study applies an inductive research methodology based on ethnographic participant observation, interviews with participants and event organizers, and qualitative insights from surveys.

Events such as social hackathons are centered around technology and share a vision of creating opportunities for change. The materiality of prototypes may define their interaction patterns. The differentiation of the embodiment and emergent structuration of technology may be a breaking point for in-group dynamics and a barrier to social innovation. The emergent structuration of technology with a longer initial phase of problem definition and ideation within a group was found to have more potential for impactful embodiment with the technological artifact. Some cases reveal that “expert” participants who shared visions of change enabled by technology were constrained by other members.

The paper suggests an extended view on the connection of sociomateriality, organizing and social impact.

This study aims to describe social entrepreneurs' motivation during the social entrepreneurship process and identify different social entrepreneurs in terms of their social characteristics.

The descriptive research design uses a directed qualitative interpretative approach based on 17 cases of social entrepreneurs active in healthcare innovation hubs.

The study describes the social entrepreneurs in a service context. Based on their key motivational characteristics, the study identifies three types of social entrepreneur: discoverers, seekers, and rangers. The study finds that not all of the three types regulate high levels of motivation during the social entrepreneurship process.

Depending on the type of social entrepreneur, the social entrepreneurship process requires different forms of support. In practice, the traditional R&D process deployed by innovation hubs is suitable for rangers; discoverers and seekers commonly regulate low levels of motivation when developing and introducing their social innovations to the market.

Most service research on social entrepreneurship focuses on the outcome; in contrast, this empirical study focuses on the individual entrepreneurs, their motivation and process. While previous research has treated motivation as an antecedent for engagement in the social mission of entrepreneurship, the present study investigates social entrepreneurs’ motivation in relation to the social entrepreneurship process, providing insights in the behavior of social entrepreneurs.

Unicorn companies, such as Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb, significantly impact our economies. This happens although they had a dramatic initial start – at least in terms of financial performance – that would have let any other “conventional” business close. In other words, Unicorns challenge the start-ups’ problems traditionally associated with early failure (liability of newness). This paper aims to understand what helps Unicorn firms initially survive despite huge losses.

By adopting a behavioral lens, this historical case study article focuses on key strategic decisions regarding the famous social media Unicorn Snapchat from 2011 to 2022. The case combines secondary data and a thematic analysis of Snapchat founders’ and investors’ interviews/comments to identify the behavioral antecedents leading to Snapchat’s honeymoon.

Snapchat network effect triggered cognitive biases of Snapchat founders’ and investors’ decisions, leading them to provide initial assets (i.e. beliefs/goodwill, trust, financial resources and psychological commitment) to the nascent Unicorn. Therefore, the network effect and biases resulted in significant antecedents for Snapchat’s honeymoon.

The authors propose a general, theoretical framework advancing the possible impact of biases on Unicorns’ initial survival. The authors argue that some biases of the Unicorns’ founders and investors can positively support a honeymoon period for these new ventures. This is one of the first case studies drawing on a behavioral approach in general and on biases in particular to investigate the liability of newness in the Unicorns’ context.

Although there are over 55,000 social enterprises operating in Egypt, the social entrepreneurship field is still failing to create the desired social change. This paper aims to explore the challenges faced by the field with a special focus on government related challenges as well as offer a set of recommendations to the Egyptian government to enhance the field.

The research was carried out in two phases; reviewing the literature around the topic through a secondary research followed by an empirical research interviewing four social enterprises, the ministry of social solidarity and experts in the field of social entrepreneurship.

The paper arrived to several challenges and they were organized into three main themes: challenges related to policy-making and other legal aspects; challenges related to institutional and operational support; and challenges related to social, educational and cultural awareness of the field and its ecosystem. The paper also came up with a set of nine recommendations directed to the Egyptian Government.

The originality and value of this research is that it offers first hand viewpoints of the challenges facing the field of social entrepreneurship in Egypt as well as offer practical recommendations to the Egyptian Government to overcome them.

This paper investigates how academic teachers engage in identity work and make sense of entrepreneurship and academia in an entrepreneurship training programme.

By employing a sensemaking approach, the paper inductively analyses materials from a business idea development camp organised for academic teachers.

In collective sensemaking during the camp, non-academic facilitators strongly influenced the reflection-in-experience via normative ideas of entrepreneurship and their othering of entrepreneurship from academic work. In their post-camp individual essays, the academic teachers reflect-on-experience and draw parallels between entrepreneurship and academic work constructing sameness.

Longitudinal research is needed in identity work and sensemaking among academic teachers in relation to entrepreneurship.

Universities need to offer arenas for teachers and other faculty to support identity work and sensemaking.

This study generates new understanding of how academic teachers engage in identity work and make sense of entrepreneurship in training when interacting with others. It underscores the importance of time needed for reflection-on-action.

It is the responsibility of the national governments to deliver healthcare services that are both effective and affordable to everyone. There are still gaps in this supply, which is extremely demanding. In this sense, companies are attempting to reach neglected markets and disrupt the marketplace with novel solutions. Although there are still anecdotal examples, a thorough literature evaluation is lacking. This study aims to provide a synthesis of the future of healthcare start-ups.

Papers that included the term “healthcare start-ups,” “health-tech start-ups,” “start-up,” “Artificial intelligence in healthcare,” and “Health tech start-ups in India” were considered for the analysis. The Biblioshiny package under the R programming tool was considered for a detailed analysis of the papers.

A total of 854 documents were related to healthcare start-ups, from which only 14 papers are related to health-tech start-ups and four papers are related to artificial intelligence in healthcare start-ups. It has been found from the past works of literature that the effectiveness of technology for information and communication in healthcare has significantly increased in recent years. Technology has already begun to permeate the healthcare market from other fields and industries. One way that the internet will help the industry evolve is by integrating digital health into daily life.

The study is not using other databases but is limited to Google Scholar and Scopus. A significant constraint of this study is the paucity of relevant literature in reputable publications on health and information systems. Another restriction was that gray literature, such as any journal or newspaper written by members of the health community about health-tech start-ups, was not taken into account.

Healthcare players should exhibit a fundamental openness to novel solutions to facilitate the digitalization of the healthcare system. Developing technology is widely used, and from an innovation perspective, a start-up should focus on innovation by employing technology and offering revolutionary healthcare solutions.

The novelty of this research is based on its presentation of an organized and thorough literature evaluation, which defines the current state of the art concerning green start-ups. To create a sustainable start-up, a thorough study of the information gained in respect of its healthcare start-up is presented.

A career in entrepreneurship is stressful, especially during the start-up phase. Training programs for these nascent entrepreneurs are designed to improve entrepreneurial competencies and, more generally to generate learnings. Although learning outcomes can reduce stress, the conditions under which this can happen are not fully understood. The study looks particularly at the effect of learning, interaction with other participants and gender.

A six-month three-wave longitudinal study of 120 nascent entrepreneurs has been conducted to investigate the before-and-after effects of training on stress reduction. The training is specially designed to develop competencies, share knowledge about business creation and support the development of the project, not to reduce per se stress.

The training has no direct effect on stress levels. However, results indicate that interacting with others has a positive moderating effect on training as stress reduction, just as gender has. Specifically, women reduce their stress through training while men see theirs increasing. The authors conclude that breaking isolation through training is a relevant way to reduce entrepreneurial stress for nascent entrepreneurs.

Training programs offer different ways to deliver the learning content (online, in cohorts, in the continuous entrance, etc.). The findings of this study suggest ensuring that the participants will have opportunities to interact with others as it reduces the stress on nascent entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, the authors cannot demonstrate that this has a long-term effect as our timeframe is limited to six months.

This research investigates the stress-reduction effect of training, which is not a common outcome studied related to training. This highlights the importance of looking at other more distal outcomes as nascent entrepreneurs may seek other peripheral outcomes from training, like seeking a sense of belonging or wanting to break isolation.

This chapter discusses female managers’ and entrepreneurs’ views on lifelong learning. The main empirical data were drawn from interviews with 67 women participating in training and coaching programmes in South Savo, Finland, in 2017–2021. Many of the women belonged to the working sandwich generation (WSG). The particular focus was on how lifelong learning relates to these women’s careers, wellbeing at work, work–life balance and search for meaningful lives. A model integrating women’s earning, learning and meaning aspects of work and life was developed. The findings of the study show that considering women’s fragmented work careers, lifelong learning is often crucial for them. For an individual, opportunities for lifelong learning and meaningful work assure personal development, wellbeing at work and a sustainable career. For employing organisations, offering opportunities for learning and meaningful work for their employees constitutes a competitive advantage.