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The students should be able to understand the potential and competitive advantage of community-based business model. The students should be able to familiarise themselves with the concept of entrepreneurship through acquisitions. The students should be able to decide when a firm should use acquisition as a key driver coupled with fewer efforts on organic growth or vice-versa. The student should be able to evaluate the success or failure acquisition as a growth strategy. The student should be able to evaluate the key metrics and other variables in the acquisition of target companies. The students should be able to wear the shoes of the protagonist and resolve the dilemma.

The teaching case looks at the dilemma of Sairee Chahal. Chahal is the founder of SHEROES, an online community for women. SHEROES started as an online career ecosystem for women. As time progressed Chahal witnessed conversations beyond career and moved towards women-centric themes. Chahal decided to pivot it into an online community for women. Her growth strategy for SHEROES has primarily been driven by serial acquisitions coupled with dispersed efforts on organic growth. In the meanwhile, Chahal had harboured an ambition to bring 100 million users to SHEROES by the year 2024. In a period spanning from 2016–2020, SHEROES acquired six niche women-centric companies. SHEROES grew to be a community of 1 million users to 20+million women users by 2020. On the other hand, the industry leader, Mogul used a diametrical approach to grow the platform into 30+million users by 2020. It had primarily used organic growth strategies such as content development, designing courses, referrals and many more. However, Chahal found herself in a dilemma when a reporter posed a question to Chahal. Chahal’s growth strategy depended on acquisitions, coupled with less effort in organic growth. Conversely, Mogul grew primarily via organic growth strategies. The reporter’s question forced her to question and revisit her growth strategies. She wondered if a target of 100 million users could be achieved with the acquisition as a major driver and less effort invested in organic growth or whether it might be better to make organic growth the key growth strategy while pushing acquisitions to the back seat. The uniqueness of the case lies in the female protagonist who is trying to build a larger-than-life community primarily via acquisitions with little effort on organic growth. Such a phenomenon has rarely been explored in teaching cases. The case is based on secondary data and the information is available in the public domain.

The case is designed for post-graduate students in the entrepreneurship curriculum. Within entrepreneurship, it is well-suited for use in specialised courses on “growth of an entrepreneurial venture” or “entrepreneurial strategies”. An instructor may take it up in the middle of the module as students would have familiarised themselves with various growth strategies. An instructor may use the case for a very niche course such as entrepreneurship through acquisition. An instructor may take it up as an introductory case in such a course. It can also be used in the executive programme aimed at “women entrepreneurship”, “community-based model” and “serial acquisitions” to teach how women or founders create and grow entrepreneurial ventures with acquisitions or communities as their focal tenet. The case has been tested in the authors’ post-graduate student’s entrepreneurship course. An instructor can use it when the instructor wants to discuss the various growth strategies available to an entrepreneurial firm.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

First things first: being an entrepreneur is not all glory, flexible hours, and being the owner of your own time. As a matter of fact, it is quite the opposite, at least in the early years. The stories we read about successful entrepreneurs are quite compelling and cause an urge and desire in people to pursue that kind of life. What is often left out of those great stories and news are all the businesses that have failed along the way. The odds of being one of those renowned entrepreneurs are extremely low. This is not to dissuade people of starting his or her own business, but for them to be aware of the reality and challenges of starting a new business. This chapter will focus on the different types of entrepreneurship.

This study aims to comprehend vocational preservice teachers' recalled experiences with the Cooperative Problem-based Learning (CPBL) pedagogical approach in an entrepreneurship course and to reveal how these experiences will impact their future teaching practice. The course under study intends to improve preservice teachers' entrepreneurial attitudes while equipping them with the skills necessary to create a comparable teaching strategy at school after graduation.

This study used the semi-structured interview data to triangulate the qualitative data collected from the students' reflection journals. The data were thematically analyzed whereas the codes with comparable elements were combined, resulting in themes that describe the relevance of scaffolding used with each component of the MUSIC motivational model.

The results revealed that the student teachers who took part in the research stated in their comments how the scaffolds used in the CPBL sessions impacted their learning. Additionally, they could articulate the experiences that strengthened their perceptions regarding entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship education.

By implementing scaffolded CPBL in entrepreneurship course during the teacher preparation program, the preservice teachers would be able to put a similar approach into the practice of their future teaching profession in guiding students to accomplish instructional outcomes.

This study highlights the importance of providing more innovative practices for entrepreneurship education across teacher preparation curricula to help develop the skills necessary for entering the future profession. The findings also emphasize the value of scaffolding in PBL, including expert, peer and activity design scaffolding. It also completes the body of research indicating that PBL-based entrepreneur education instruction can help students develop their entrepreneurial skills and attitudes while also providing a great chance to improve their teaching abilities.

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the public and private financing obstacles to medium- and small-scale entrepreneurs in rural areas in Iran.

Descriptive analytic research method is used for collecting field data among 5,770 owners of entrepreneurial businesses located in rural areas of Mashhad in 2015.

The results showed that there are numerous public and private obstacles in rural entrepreneurship financing in Iran, which are the main factors for short-term loan repayment in public sector, and in the private sector, they result in entrepreneurs’ lack of access to the source of financing. Moreover, there are a variety of financing methods for entrepreneurship in rural areas, among which personal resources and borrowings are the most important ones. Thus, lack of serious and persistent governmental support from local entrepreneurs causes many entrepreneurial failures at the early stages of entrepreneurial activity in villages of Iran.

So far, few studies have been conducted on the subject of the study; hence, the results of the current study may be helpful to the developing nations.

This study presents and validates a theoretical model linking individual characteristics of the founding or lead innovative entrepreneur of a start-up venture – the entrepreneur's values, entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial self-efficacy – to the firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) and, ultimately, to firm performance.

We conducted a survey on a stratified random sample of founders of early-stage South Australian micro- and small enterprises with a response rate of 24% (N = 204). Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model.

The study found that there is a significant relationship between the individual lead entrepreneur and firm strategies developed in early-stage firms in explaining firm performance. It also found that internal values are positively related to entrepreneurial attitude. Entrepreneurial attitude is positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy and EO innovativeness. In turn, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is related to innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. The proactiveness dimension of EO and entrepreneurial attitude is related to MO. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, innovativeness and MO are related to firm performance.

This research was limited to entrepreneurial ventures in South Australia and may lack generalisability in other states and countries.

The research contributes to the understanding of the heterogeneity within self-employed individuals, in particular among innovative entrepreneurs, by expanding insights regarding antecedents and consequences of the entrepreneurial process. It develops insights into the links of individual-level constructs with firm-level constructs to develop a more meaningful understanding of new venture creation and performance. It enhances our knowledge of the heterogeneity within the group of self-employed by exploring the individual entrepreneurial antecedents of performance in early-stage firms.

Doug Cook, an MBA graduate, was wrestling with one of the most important career decisions of his life: Which one of three seemingly promising businesses should he acquire? Each acquisition was a viable opportunity, and each had potential to be a successful business. Cook, however, had heard numerous disconcerting stories about other entrepreneurs going through this process. He realized that until this time the biggest purchase he had made in his life was a $250,000 condominium in downtown Chicago. Acquiring one of these companies would require a financial and personal commitment greater than anything he had ever attempted. He felt a window of opportunity was closing. If he did not act now, he might find himself in the corporate world forever. Cook began by writing up a personal criteria list for his acquisition, then researching online and media sources for businesses for sale. Frustrated with that process, he hired a business broker. With the broker's help, Cook found three promising candidates from which to choose: Luxury Tassels, Inc.; Feldco Windows and Doors, Inc.; and Coyote Consulting Company. The (A) case includes income statements, pro forma forecasts, balance sheets, and organization charts for each company, in addition to Cook's financial analyses and valuation of each company. The (B) case features the letter of intent that Cook gave the owner of the company he selected. Ultimately he did purchase the company, and in the (C) case, Cook examines pathways to growing his newly acquired company.

How to be entrepreneurial through acquiring a business The importance of establishing their own decision criteria regarding the type of company they would like to acquire How to research businesses for sale The issues in working with a business broker How to analyze financial statement in the context of buying the company How to make decisions and use financial analysis to support their decisions

Doug Cook, an MBA graduate, was wrestling with one of the most important career decisions of his life: Which one of three seemingly promising businesses should he acquire? Each acquisition was a viable opportunity, and each had potential to be a successful business. Cook, however, had heard numerous disconcerting stories about other entrepreneurs going through this process. He realized that until this time the biggest purchase he had made in his life was a $250,000 condominium in downtown Chicago. Acquiring one of these companies would require a financial and personal commitment greater than anything he had ever attempted. He felt a window of opportunity was closing. If he did not act now, he might find himself in the corporate world forever. Cook began by writing up a personal criteria list for his acquisition, then researching online and media sources for businesses for sale. Frustrated with that process, he hired a business broker. With the broker's help, Cook found three promising candidates from which to choose: Luxury Tassels, Inc.; Feldco Windows and Doors, Inc.; and Coyote Consulting Company. The (A) case includes income statements, pro forma forecasts, balance sheets, and organization charts for each company, in addition to Cook's financial analyses and valuation of each company. The (B) case features the letter of intent that Cook gave the owner of the company he selected. Ultimately he did purchase the company, and in the (C) case, Cook examines pathways to growing his newly acquired company.

How to be entrepreneurial through acquiring a business The importance of establishing their own decision criteria regarding the type of company they would like to acquire How to research businesses for sale The issues in working with a business broker How to analyze financial statement in the context of buying the company How to make decisions and use financial analysis to support their decisions

Hercules Powder. Liebmann Breweries. These companies, and over 250 others that appeared on the very first Fortune 500 list in 1955, have vanished from the front ranks of American industry. Why did so many fail to thrive? Is there an inevitable cycle of corporate growth, senescence, and morbidity? This is a salient question to pose three decades later. Why does the American corporate elite have such a lackluster record in perpetuating their preeminence? What accounts for the fact that companies with the wherewithal to hire the very best executive and technical talent available, and with the most money to invest in marketing, manufacturing, and R&D, have had so much trouble sustaining themselves at a lofty level?

This chapter elaborates on entrepreneurship in developed and developing countries and focuses on the optimization of entrepreneurial activities. Various scenarios are considered: independent functioning of the market, integration in the form of reorganization (mergers and acquisitions), integration in the form of clustering, and integration in the form of innovational networks and technological parks. The optimal structure of the integration processes and best-case scenarios for its implementation to accelerate the rate and increase the quality of economic growth are substantiated. The potential for uptake of integration processes in stimulating economic growth through entrepreneurship is determined by the level of institutionalization in an economy. In developed countries, all forms of company integration are characterized by the high level of institutionalization, which allows for their effective use for economic growth. Independent companies, mergers, and acquisitions restrain economic growth and reduce its quality, while clusters, technological parks, and innovational networks accelerate the rate of economic growth and increase its quality. In developing countries, integration processes in entrepreneurship have a different influence on economic growth and require further institutionalization.

This study aims to use the knowledge management perspective to examine the mechanism through which entrepreneurship drives firms’ technological innovation in the digital age. The objective is to develop a multi-stage integrated theoretical model to explain how entrepreneurship exerts its influence on firms’ technological innovation with a particular focus on the knowledge management perspective. The findings can be used for the cultivation of entrepreneurship and for the promotion of continuous technological innovation activities.

This study uses a case-based qualitative approach to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation. The authors first analyze the case of SANY and then explore the mechanism of how entrepreneurship can promote a firm’s technological innovation from the perspective of knowledge management based on the technology-organization-environment framework. An integrated theoretical model is then developed in this study.

Based on a case study, the authors propose that there are three main processes of knowledge management in firms’ technological innovation: knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge creation. In the process of knowledge acquisition, the joint effects of innovation spirit, learning spirit, cooperation spirit and global vision drive the construction and its healthy development of firms’ innovation ecosystem. In the process of knowledge integration, the joint effects of innovation spirit, cooperation spirit and learning spirit help complete the integration of knowledge and further the accumulation of firms’ core knowledge resources. In the process of knowledge creation, the joint effects of mission spirit, learning spirit and innovation spirit encourage the top management team to establish long-term goals and innovation philosophy. This philosophy can promote the establishment of a people-oriented incentive mechanism that helps achieve the transformation from the accumulation of core knowledge resources to the research and innovation of core technologies. After these three stages, firms are passively engaged in the “reverse transfer of knowledge” step, which contributes to other firms’ knowledge management cycle. With active knowledge acquisition, integration, creation and passive reverse knowledge transfer, firms can achieve continuous technological innovation.

This study has important theoretical implications in entrepreneurship research. This study helps advance the understanding of entrepreneurship and literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the digital age, which can broaden the application of knowledge management theories. It can also help better understand how to develop healthy firm-led innovation ecosystems to achieve continuous optimization of knowledge and technological innovation in the digital age.

This study proposes an integrated theoretical model to address the issues of entrepreneurship and firms’ technological innovation in the digital age, and it is also one of few studies that focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation from a knowledge management perspective.