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1 – 10 of over 2000Robert D. Hirsrich and Mikhail V. Gratchev
Given today’s hypercompetitive global economy, it is important to understand the ethical attitudes and standards of entrepreneurs in the US as well as in the other parts of the…
Abstract
Given today’s hypercompetitive global economy, it is important to understand the ethical attitudes and standards of entrepreneurs in the US as well as in the other parts of the world. This study of ethical attitudes and standards is grounded in theory and previous research. One hundred and sixty‐five entrepreneurs from the US and 159 entrepreneurs from Russia were surveyed using a measuring instrument containing binary response questions, scenarios and comprehensive demographic information. The study confirmed our expectations and indicated that entrepreneurs in the US and Russia are different with respect to their ethical codes and attitudes.
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Irina Nikolskaja Roddvik, Birgit Leick and Viktor Roddvik
This paper aims to present a historical case study of Norwegian transnational entrepreneurs (1880s–1930s) and the ecosystems that they founded in Russia’s Arctic periphery…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a historical case study of Norwegian transnational entrepreneurs (1880s–1930s) and the ecosystems that they founded in Russia’s Arctic periphery. Drawing from the contemporary transnational entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystem literature, and inspired by AnnaLee Saxenian’s concept of “brain circulation,” this study explores the journey and impact of these entrepreneurs in a time of evolving political turbulence.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a mixed-methodology approach, drawing from nine qualitative interviews held in 2021 and secondary material, including historical books, a podcast, videos and archival data.
Findings
The Norwegian entrepreneurs were both “pulled” by and “pushed” to the Russian region, their “New America,” where they could apply their personal skills and exploit their rich social and financial capital to establish a local entrepreneurial ecosystem. However, radical political change altered the context, which led many of the entrepreneurs to re-migrate to Norway.
Research limitations/implications
This paper demonstrates the role of the political context for contemporary entrepreneurship and management research, as transnational entrepreneurs and international expatriates remain vulnerable to political change.
Practical implications
Public-policy actors and managers in companies need to support highly-skilled transnational entrepreneurs, including expatriates, in a setting with turbulence, crisis and even war, to foster the sustainable contribution of entrepreneurial migrants to regional economic development across different countries.
Originality/value
This paper presents an original, novel case study on the historical role of transnational entrepreneurs across different cultural settings, their impact on a foreign peripheral location, including social-network building and evolving political change in the historical context. The findings are relevant for contemporary management literature.
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Tatiana Iakovleva, Marina Solesvik and Anna Trifilova
This paper studies female entrepreneurship in two post‐Soviet countries – Russia and Ukraine. Employing institutional theory, the research aims to investigate the entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper studies female entrepreneurship in two post‐Soviet countries – Russia and Ukraine. Employing institutional theory, the research aims to investigate the entrepreneurial environment, particularly government support programmes and the availability of financial resources, with a focus on women entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is a qualitative investigation that comprises 60 interviews with Russian and Ukrainian entrepreneurs, bank officers and representatives of government organisations supporting the development of entrepreneurship.
Findings
The investigation provides evidence that these countries have overcome the transition from a command to a market economy and local people are gradually adjusting to the new environment. Concentrating on macro/meso and money elements from the 5M model suggested by Brush et al., the authors suggest an additional construct – “motherland” – to embed a context in a new model.
Research limitations/implications
Only two factors of Brush et al.'s 5M model were considered – i.e. macro/meso environment and money (availability of financial resources). Discussion of management, marketing and motherhood is beyond the scope of the present paper.
Practical implications
The study reveals a broad range of managerial information and empirical data on the development of female entrepreneurship in contemporary Russia and Ukraine. The findings are helpful for policymakers engaged with these two countries.
Originality/value
The study is an attempt to capture the context dependency of research on female entrepreneurs, and suggests a new dimension for inclusion in Brush et al.’s 5M model – “motherland”.
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Donata Sobakinova, Yan Zhou and Dilawar Khan Durrani
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
A statistical analysis on a sample of 340 Russian entrepreneurs was conducted.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide new insight concerning a relatively understudied phenomenon in the medium sized enterprise (SME) internationalisation and international…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide new insight concerning a relatively understudied phenomenon in the medium sized enterprise (SME) internationalisation and international entrepreneurship literature; the internationalisation of firms crossing the border to only one adjacent foreign country. These firms are called border firms. This study explores the variety of internationalisation patterns of border firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on theoretical perspectives related to speed of internationalisation and country embeddedness, and uses empirical data from seven Norwegian case companies operating across the border between Norway and Russia.
Findings
Three different internationalisation patterns of border firms are empirically identified and described; an early single-country path, a born-again border path and a born border path. Then, a model of the distinctive cross-border pathway is developed.
Research limitations/implications
Several limitations of this study have implications for further research, such as sample size and setting, the new perspective on country embeddedness and questions related to generalisation of the findings.
Practical implications
The study has implications for both entrepreneurs and policy-makers. It demonstrates that internationalisation is not always about “going global” and is sometimes simply a matter of “hopping” across the nearest border. The model demonstrates different possible patterns for how to achieve or support this in practice.
Originality/value
This study contributes to theory-building in the field of SME internationalisation and international entrepreneurship in three ways. First, it identifies and defines an interesting but neglected type of international venture; border firms. Second, it explores the different start-up patterns of these firms, their speed and embeddedness. Third, it offers a theoretical framework of the distinct cross-border pathway of internationalisation.
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The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the article explores an understudied side of invention commercialization–the rejection of business as something “dirty” among Russian…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the article explores an understudied side of invention commercialization–the rejection of business as something “dirty” among Russian scientists. As such, the paper contributes to the individual-level explanations of innovation promotion, hence balancing extant literature's excessive focus on institutional explanations. Second, the article suggests that Russian scientists' rejection of business is rooted in broader Russian work ethics rift between “material” and “ideational” aspects of life. As such, the paper shows how dominant collective values refract in the management practice of specific social class, i.e. of scientists.
Design/methodology/approach
To analyze the rift between material and ideational aspects of Russian scientists' work, the article employs directed content analysis (DCA) of in-depth interviews with 45 Russian scholars. To address credibility bias of the research findings stemming from DCA, I further draw on the survey of existing studies, researches and polls highlighting Russian population attitudes toward the dichotomy between “material” and “ideal” realms.
Findings
This study argues that Russian scientists' likelihood of invention commercialization is positively associated with their ability to integrate in a personal psyche business and science as equally valuable facets of life.
Originality/value
The article identifies the three groups of scientists – opportunity-seekers, idealists and integrators – with different attitudes to invention commercialization. The article shows how policymakers should apply institutional incentives differently to each group of scientists to achieve higher rates of invention commercialization.
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The importance of small enterprise to the economy is now widely recognized not only by the Western industrialized world, but also by many countries, which formally had socialistic…
Abstract
The importance of small enterprise to the economy is now widely recognized not only by the Western industrialized world, but also by many countries, which formally had socialistic forms of government. Former Communist countries as well as less developed countries that are working to fuel their economies are expending considerable effort to foster entrepreneurship (Kasadara, 1992).
Galina Shirokova and Alexander Shatalov
The purpose of this paper is to discover factors of new ventures performance in Russia and to combine them in a model which describes the influence of these factors on the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discover factors of new ventures performance in Russia and to combine them in a model which describes the influence of these factors on the performance of a new venture.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross‐sectional study of new ventures was conducted by a field survey in six regions in Russia. One‐factor variance analysis and regression analysis were used to identify significant factors.
Findings
Three groups of factors were identified as significantly influencing performance of new ventures in Russia: environmental factors, style of management and type of strategic behaviour. For environmental factors the following variables were included: crisis in industry, increase in product demand, predictability of regulatory authorities behaviour, predictability of financial markets, and environmental hostility. For company management style, several variables were statistically significant: level of centralization, concentration of management in the hands of the founder, and role of the middle management. For strategic behaviour, only the strategy of prospector in terms of Miles and Snow was found to have significant influence on the new venture performance (NVP).
Research limitations/implications
The research ignores industry specifics that may be reflected in different new ventures performance factors.
Practical implications
Entrepreneurs starting new ventures in Russia should take into account the identified factors which can influence their companies’ performance.
Originality/value
Although there have been many studies on NVP factors, no such research has been performed in Russia.
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Abstract
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Olga Dziubaniuk and Maria Ivanova-Gongne
This study aims to explore how Russian-origin immigrant entrepreneurs manage to adapt their business-to-business (B2B) relationship management practices and moral concerns to the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how Russian-origin immigrant entrepreneurs manage to adapt their business-to-business (B2B) relationship management practices and moral concerns to the business ethics of their country of origin and of the host country via the prism of ethical relativism. By focusing on the ethical values of immigrant entrepreneurs in a business relationship context, the study aims to extend the currently limited understanding of these issues in the B2B marketing field.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach is applied to provide findings from eight in-depth interviews with first-generation Russian entrepreneurs living and doing business in Finland. A narrative approach to the data analysis is used, in particular by applying a thematic analysis of the collected interviews because of the focus on the personal experiences of the interviewees.
Findings
The results illustrate how the immigrant entrepreneurs adapt to ethical values and norms in Russia and Finland and how they enact those values in B2B relationship management in the countries. Immigrant entrepreneurs share several national and ethical backgrounds, which may influence their interaction in international markets, helping them adapt to country-specific business ethics.
Practical implications
The results imply that managers should acquire knowledge on ethical norms at the global level and at the national level, where they aim to expand their business. Productive business relationships involve the premises of honesty, transparency, fairness toward business partners and minimizing opportunism. However, business relations between developed and emerging markets may demand relativism when addressing ethical behavior.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies that explore the ethical values of immigrant entrepreneurs in the context of international business relationships. The study contributes to the limited literature on ethics in the fields of B2B marketing and immigrant entrepreneurship. The authors encourage further research on ethical values adoption by immigrant entrepreneurs, which is an essential topic in times of increased workforce immigration.
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