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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of formal rules such as business regulation and rule of law on the level of formal entrepreneurship in Latin America countries over time.

The authors use the panel regression techniques to examine the influence of business regulation and rule of law on formal entrepreneurship. In particular, they implement together two alternative views of formal entrepreneurship suggested in the literature: the “dual” and “legalistic” view. At the empirical level, the “dual” definition corresponds to the business owners’ rate. As for the “legal” definition, it corresponds to the business registration rate. The evidence presented is based on two panels. The first panel covers the period 2004–2015, and the data set contains 180 observations in 18 countries. The second panel covers the period 2006–2015, and the data set contains 134 observations in 14 countries.

The impact of institutional variables on formal entrepreneurship depends on the definition employed: “dual” or “legal.” Thus, the results suggest that business owners’ rate is more substantial in Latin American countries that have weak property rights. Conversely, from a legal definition, the business registration rate is more significant in Latin American countries that have most secure property rights and fewer labor regulations. These contradictory results suggest that the legal definition of formal entrepreneurship, but not the dual definition, seems to be associated with the type of entrepreneurial activity that promotes economic growth and development.

The results support the importance of conducting analyzes that take into account the different types of entrepreneurial activities that are present in an economy, and in addition the relevance of understanding what each measure is capturing of the heterogeneous phenomenon of entrepreneurship.

The results suggest that the entrepreneurship policy should focus on the quality of entrepreneurship, rather than merely seeking to increase the number of new businesses. Additionally, the results suggest that the legalistic definition of formal entrepreneurship is probably the most relevant for many policy issues.

The paper analyzes together two alternative views of formal entrepreneurship suggested in the literature: the “dual” and “legalistic” views. Also, the paper has used the Latinobarómetro data set, which has not been extensively used by scholars in the field of entrepreneurship and which could be useful for longitudinal research on entrepreneurial activity in Latin American countries.

The purpose of this paper is to use a unique set of measures from Holmes et al. (2013) to clarify the relationship between entrepreneurial readiness and entrepreneurial behaviours across countries and determine whether formal institutions moderate this relationship.

This paper uses data collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the Index of Economic Freedom, Political Risk Services, and the Freedom House and Political Constraint Index to test a theoretical model. A multilevel analysis is performed based on set of 377,356 observations from 51 countries spanning eight years (2001-2008).

The results suggest that entrepreneurial readiness has a strong relationship with entrepreneurial behaviour (as measured by entrepreneurial entry and opportunity-based entrepreneurship) and that this relationship strengthens with increases in political democracy (PD), government regulations (GR), financial capital availability (FCA) and market liquidity (ML).

The study is based on Holmes et al.’s (2013) institutions that are most important for society, uses satisfactory sample size and multi-level modelling. However, many more institutional conditions that remain to be considered might affect entrepreneurial activities.

For policy-makers, the results show that PD, GR, FCA and ML correlate favourably with entrepreneurial behaviour when individuals have a high level of entrepreneurial readiness. Policy-makers should introduce policies that provide a secure environment to individuals to start their own ventures.

The current study is among the first to examine the three dimensions of formal institutions—political, regulatory, and economic institutions—in a single study. Using the three dimensions, the study explains theoretically and examines empirically the effect of individual-level entrepreneurial readiness on entrepreneurial behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and innovative entrepreneurial activity (IEA) across countries using an institutional perspective.

The paper tests theoretical model using data collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness study and the Index of Economic Freedom (IEF). A multi-level analysis is performed based on set of 1,004,620 observations from 49 countries spanning 13 years (2001–2013).

The results suggest that in terms of formal regulations; the relationship between entrepreneurial cognitions and IEA becomes stronger when there is an increase in intellectual property right and business freedom regulations in a country. On the other hand, in terms of informal institutions the relationship between entrepreneurial cognitions and IEA becomes stronger when the level of institutional collectivism and uncertainty decreases and performance orientation increases.

The study indicates that entrepreneurship by innovation increases when the individuals possess high level of entrepreneurial cognition under suitable institutional conditions (e.g. intellectual property right, business freedom, institutional collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and performance orientation).

The paper analyses the implications of a platform strategy in new product development with reference to the automobile industry. The implications and benefits of a platform strategy are discussed from both the technical and organisational points of view. The impact of a platform strategy on international product development is then analysed. The paper draws on examples from the experience of major Japanese automobile companies. In general, the analysis highlights how platform strategies are evolving and how they must be recognised more and more in relation to the internationalisation processes of R&D activities and operations. Moreover, different approaches are pointed out concerning more advanced and/or conservative approaches to platform development. A more advanced approach leads to more benefits in terms of the performance of the product development process and the reorganisation of the development process on a global level.

Many scholars have highlighted, from both the theoretical and the empirical perspective, the importance of customer satisfaction for firms’ competitiveness. Most contributions, however, do not analyse the links between customer satisfaction and the related organizational processes. Adopting a process‐based point of view, develops an integrative and holistic approach and proposes a framework for the analysis of the organizational processes required for the achievement of customer satisfaction. These processes are subdivided into three main categories: planning, design and monitoring. The first concerns the establishment of the medium, long‐term company strategic objectives for customer satisfaction, the second regards the design of the firm’s operating system, and the third relates to the outline of the control system. Proposes an integrated view of customer satisfaction that overcomes the limits of an approach mainly based on monitoring activities.

Entrepreneurship ecosystems could be useful road maps for the formulation of entrepreneurship policies for countries in Africa. The twenty-first century economic development agenda lay a lot of emphasis on the pivotal role that entrepreneurship plays in the growth of economies, job creation and poverty alleviation especially in Africa. But without the right entrepreneurial ecosystems to enhance the formulation of pertinent entrepreneurship policies, achieving entrepreneurial economic growth will be difficult. The existing frameworks for the development of entrepreneurship ecosystems are based on research that has been conducted elsewhere. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Entrepreneurship research in Africa has rarely focused in understanding and evaluating the entrepreneurship ecosystems. In this paper, we have attempted to examine the present state of the entrepreneurship ecosystems in four countries (Botswana, Egypt, Ghana and Uganda) in Africa. Despite the fact that extant literature on the concept is limited, it has been reviewed to provide a picture of entrepreneurship ecosystems. Relevant national and international documents were also examined to evaluate the present state of entrepreneurship ecosystems in these countries.

The findings from each of the countries though they depict a static situation, justify the proposition that entrepreneurs are omnipresent, it is only the entrepreneurship environment that accounts for the differences in entrepreneurial economic growth and the cross-countries comparisons shows the dissimilarities in national entrepreneurship environments.

In conclusion, a broad process to develop entrepreneurship ecosystems initiatives is suggested alongside the crucial roles that governments and other stakeholders should play which implies that a National Entrepreneurship Mission might be necessary.

Multiple case studies that have compared entrepreneurship ecosystems of countries in Africa are very rare. This study though explorative, is one of the first. The findings and conclusions could be useful for a detailed study to map out pertinent and self sustaining entrepreneurship ecosystems that are necessary for the formulation of entrepreneurship policies.

This article adopts an evolutionary perspective to analyse the similarities and the possibility of converging various types of production systems and in particular the lean production model and the Volvo production system. The evolution of the Toyota production system is studied from the point of view of assembly design, work organization and automation. Then the evolution of the Swedish model of production and its influence on the lean model is considered. Subsequently, the question of similarities and differences between the systems is studied in light of unique aspects of the social and cultural contexts where the production systems have been developed.

The purpose of this study is to explores the extent to which local institutional forces affect female entrepreneurial venture performance. Drawing upon a unified theoretical framework of social cognitive and institutional perspectives, the authors scrutinize the complex interplay among institutional support, entrepreneurial cognitions and entrepreneurial success.

Based on a unique sample of 202 female entrepreneurs in 30 provinces throughout Japan, this paper grounded social cognitive theory and attempted to clear the relation between women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy and venture performance empirically by statistical analysis.

The findings of structural equation modeling indicate that women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy is a strong and useful mediator of the effect of informal institutional support on venture performance. Unexpectedly, formal institutional support shows no correlation with entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

This study proposes that perceived social legitimacy may lead to increased entrepreneurial self-efficacy, thereby enhancing venture performance. This finding can clarify the institutional force pathways to foster entrepreneurial confidence.

This study contributes to the field of female entrepreneurship by examining institutional antecedents of women’s entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Focused on the case of Japanese female entrepreneurs, this study is unique and valuable.

The paper aims to investigate the existence of typical preferred behaviours that might characterize Brazilian women’s entrepreneurial profile and whether this profile influences their motivation to undertake a venture.

Following the evolution of the literature on women entrepreneurship, the study criticizes the rational view that conceives entrepreneurship as a universal phenomenon and immune to gender. A quantitative approach based on multivariate data analysis (structural equation modelling) was applied to a sample of 418 women entrepreneurs with regard to six hypotheses associated with a specifically conceived conceptual model.

The behavioural categories tested in the model that most influence Brazilian women’s entrepreneurial profile are planning, identifying opportunities, sociability and leadership, corroborating the results of other international studies. Behaviours connected with persistence did not correlate to Brazilian women’s entrepreneurial profile. The hypothesis that women’s entrepreneurial profile positively influences their entrepreneurial intention was confirmed.

As the study is based on an intentional, non-probabilistic sample, further research needs to be conducted using other forms of sampling, extending the findings to other contexts internationally and to other Brazilian regions.

Women can perceive whether their behavioural profile is suited to embracing entrepreneurship challenges, helping them to make effective career choices.

The study provides a robust model with high explanatory value. It contributes to the women’s entrepreneurship literature from the perspective of a Latin American developing country, offering valuable insights regarding the impact of entrepreneurial behavioural profile on women’s entrepreneurial activities.