Search results

The relevance of the planning approach for innovative and for young entrepreneurial firms had been subject to debate. It has been argued that planning dampens the realisation of entrepreneurial vision. This study examines the enacted strategy approaches of entrepreneurs who had studied on a Graduate Enterprise programme that aimed to help them to start a business. The approaches they used to strategy formation were compared to the planning approach that had been emphasised to them seven to 12 years earlier. Data were gathered through non‐directive interviews, and were analysed using survey and case study methods. The formation of strategy by these entrepreneurs relied more on emergent than planning approaches, but some elements of the planning approach were strongly associated with growth. Some key resources were essential for the firms and their strategy formation processes. These were key personal relationships, with whom and through whom the entrepreneurs found ways of enacting their visions – the essence of their strategy process. Implications for curriculum and course development are given.

The main objective of this paper is to identify the factors associated with a successful transition through the entrepreneurial ladder for both men and women in a sample of nine Latin American countries.

The authors classify individuals according to five categories of increasing entrepreneurial engagement and estimate separate generalized ordered logit models to account for possible gender differences. Compared to previous literature, this is a more efficient methodology that allows us to identify the factors that have a significant and persistent relationship across stages and those that are only significant to specific engagement levels.

The authors find that factors such as parent business ownership, access to loans and autonomy increase the probability of progressing in the entrepreneurial ladder for both men and women and through all the stages. The authors also find that span of activity and the proxy for income increase the likelihood of moving to the next stages only for men, while higher education and autonomy do so only for women.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to identify the factors promoting progress through the different stages of the entrepreneurial ladder in Latin America. Separate regressions for women and men provide insight into the differential role of each variable by gender. Results from this study suggest that the gender dimension, currently absent in most policies, should be incorporated or strengthened in the design of entrepreneurship promotion programs in Latin America.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the optimal decision-making style in a fast-paced, complex, and dynamic environment.

Three decision-making attributes are explored: the use of intuition vs analysis, the proclivity to heuristics, and susceptibility to bias. The intuition/analysis is tested with a questionnaire that has been validated in prior research, while information on the two other dimensions is from an exploratory survey designed for this purpose. Responses to the survey questions provide some insight into the differential decision-making style of elite NHL hockey coaches’ vis-à-vis amateur coaches and news reporters.

The data suggest elite decision makers have no preference for intuitive or analytical settings, but exhibit a significantly higher perception of their ability to perform in both. While current literature shows sports athletes to be more intuitive, it appears coaches excel on the analytical dimension instead. This study finds that while elite hockey coaches have fewer biases overall, they tend in particular to be overly optimistic in comparison to amateur coaches and news reporters.

The main limitation in this paper is that the survey on heuristics and biases is exploratory, making these results less robust than the findings on intuition and analysis.

This paper is first to extend the decision-making literature to coaches, and among few papers that obtain insights from NHL coaches directly. The findings are likely to extend to corporate leadership as well, increasing the relevance of the results.

Adopting a dual processing cognitive perspective, this study explores the decision-making processes past the start-up stage that small entrepreneurial businesses employ to grow. The author examines how entrepreneurs evaluate and make decisions on growth opportunities in their business environment. The author uses cognitive style as a theoretical lens to capture differences in information processing, combining interviews and psychometric questionnaires to analyse cognitive styles. The longitudinal mixed methods approach illustrates the richness of the entrepreneur’s decision-making process, which the author tracks over a two-year period. The author determines how intuitive and analytical cognitive styles are used by entrepreneurs and the contribution these styles make to decision-making. The findings show that the two cognitive styles are versatile as entrepreneurs adjust and adapt their cognitive style over time, in keeping with the situational factors of their business environment. The author also finds marked differences between novice and mature entrepreneurs and that experienced entrepreneurs exhibited greater levels of cognitive versatility, which was directly linked to their prior experience. The study has significant implications for future research, which should consider the question how an entrepreneur’s cognitive style is dependent on the business context and their prior experience.

This study investigates whether a firm’s character as a mature micro and small family or non-family business may impact the managing owner’s choice of a potential exit strategy.

The empirical evidence was provided through a sample of 302 entrepreneurs (170 respond-ents from mature micro and small family businesses and 132 from non-family businesses) who participated in a survey on potential exit strategies.

The primary finding indicates that there is no significant difference in exit strategy preferences between family and non-family entrepreneurs from mature micro and small-sized firms. It was found that both groups of entrepreneurs mostly opt for internal succession.

This paper presents a novel perspective, demonstrating that while non-family firms are not typically anticipated to adopt the same exit strategies as family firms, they may still opt for internal succession. Furthermore, we provide an insight into potential exit strategy decisions made in smaller firms, which have been less frequently analyzed compared to larger firms in the field of entrepreneurial exit.

This study aims to investigate how mature born global firms create value for customers to achieve continued international growth.

The study employs a case study approach to investigate the under-researched area of how mature born globals create value for customers and, by doing so, contribute to their continued international growth. This in-depth examination of how three born globals developed over time uses interviews, observation and secondary data.

The findings indicate that the entrepreneurs of born global firms, that continued to grow, created a culture in the early stages that supported value creation for foreign customers. These firms have built a competitive position by developing international niche products. They have also implemented a combination of proactive and reactive market orientation to facilitate the creation and delivery of value to customers. To maintain growth, they further invest the revenues earned on additional international marketing activities and continuously enhance their focal products.

The study relies on three cases. We therefore recommend that future studies extend the scope of the research to several companies in various industries and countries, in which the theoretical arguments can be applied. In addition, further studies that test the propositions developed in this study, in different contexts, are highly recommended.

To gain international growth, managers should create an organizational culture that facilitates satisfying international customer needs. Firms should continuously invest in sales and market development (e.g. social media marketing, personal selling) and undertake technology development of niche rather than new products. To achieve international growth, managers need to standardize part of the offer to achieve economies of scale and adapt the other part to international customers' needs.

Research on born globals has focused on the early stages of their internationalization processes, while largely neglecting the later stages (mature born globals) or the factors that lead to continued international growth. To address this gap, this study explores what happens when born globals ‘grow up’. This study contributes to the literature by capturing the factors and processes underlying how mature born globals create value for customers, for international growth. In particular, the study shows that the culture and strategies developed in the born globals' early stages also lead to international growth in later stages. The mature born globals have also invested in niche products, brand building, and effective market channels and adopted a combination of proactive and reactive market orientations.

This article discusses the statistics and trends surrounding the rapidly aging U.S. population. Older workers will make up an increasing portion of the workforce and these individuals represent an important growing demographic target market. While much has been written about the aging population and the potential for entrepreneurs to target this growing market, little research has been conducted on older entrepreneurs. They are a unique group and this article provides empirical results and discussion about the differences and importance of older entrepreneurs to the economy and as contributors to American society. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Mature age or older entrepreneurship is an understudied but important area of research due to the ageing population and changing demographics in society. The purpose of this study is to review the literature about older entrepreneurship to understand the gaps and areas that need more attention.

A systematic literature review was undertaken and then the content was analyzed according to main themes. The key issues currently discussed about older entrepreneurship are stated, which leads to a number of future research suggestions.

The findings involve the need to take more care in how to define and conceptualize older entrepreneurship and to undertake more studies that have an older sample in general entrepreneurship research.

The systematic literature review highlights the gaps in the literature about older entrepreneurs that need to be addressed in future research.

The paper provides some suggestions about how older people can be more involved in entrepreneurship.

This study contributes to the emerging literature about older entrepreneurship by providing an overview and directions for the future.

This research investigates how the value creation interests and activities of different stakeholder groups within one open source software (OSS) project influence the project's development over time.

The authors conducted a case study of OpenSimulator using textual and thematic analyses of the initial four years of OpenSimulator developer mailing list to identify each stakeholder group and guide our analysis of their interests and value creation activities over time.

The analysis revealed that while each stakeholder group was active within the OSS project's development, the different groups possessed complementary interests that enabled the project to evolve. In the formative period, entrepreneurs were interested in the software's strategic direction in the market, academics and SMEs in software functionality and large firms and hobbyists in software testing. Each group retained its primary interest in the maturing period with academics and SMEs separating into server- and client-side usability. The analysis shed light on how the different stakeholder groups overcame tensions amongst themselves and took specific actions to sustain the project.

The authors extend stakeholder theory by reconceptualizing the focal organization and its stakeholders for OSS projects. To date, OSS research has primarily focused on examining one project relative to its marketplace. Using stakeholder theory, we identified stakeholder groups within a single OSS project to demonstrate their distinct interests and how these interests influence their value creation activities over time. Collectively, these interests enable the project's long-term development.

This research explores the role of entrepreneurs' dynamic capabilities in small artisanal firms' entrepreneurial internationalisation.

The paper applies an inductive, exploratory multiple case study approach to the empirical context of the Nepalese artisanal sector. Primary data were collected through interviews and observations and triangulated by secondary data, such as firms' websites and social media profiles.

The findings suggest that entrepreneurs' network utilisation, network-building and marketing capabilities are crucial to enabling small artisanal firms' entrepreneurial internationalisation. Entrepreneurs' network-retaining, market-oriented learning and innovative capabilities become more important as firms mature. Accordingly, the paper theorises that artisan entrepreneurs in a developing economy should build and apply different dynamic capabilities based on firms' internationalisation phase.

The fine-grained discussion of the findings and the six propositions from this study advance the current understanding of dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial internationalisation and artisan entrepreneurship literature.