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The main purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of innovation culture in the relationship between knowledge-based dynamic capabilities and innovation performance of small enterprises in Tanzania.

This study is cross-sectional and data collected through structured questionnaire were analyzed using PLS-SEM.

The findings revealed that dimensions of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities significantly influence innovation culture and innovation culture significantly influence the innovation performance. Finally, innovation culture is a significant mediator of the relationship.

The study contributes to the understanding that owners of small businesses must create conducive environments for the development of an innovation culture by improving knowledge acquisition, generation and combination for better innovation performance outcomes.

Studies done on innovation culture are limited especially in the context of developing countries such as Tanzania where adoption of innovative ideas is considered a slow process due to various factors such as poor management of knowledge resources. Therefore, this study contributes to the body of knowledge by establishing a link between knowledge-based dynamic capabilities and innovation performance through a mediation of innovation culture.

Knowledge of how entrepreneurial alertness (EA) and effectuation impact small firms' performance in uncertain markets is limited. Suggesting effectuation as a mediation mechanism between EA and small firms' performance, the authors explore how entrepreneurs of small firms apply effectual logic to translate their individual alertness to market opportunities into firms' performance.

A set of hypotheses is tested by partial least squares analysis of survey data collected from small firms in New Zealand.

The results show that effectuation works as a mechanism that mediates a positive association between founders'/managers' alertness to market opportunities and small firms' performance.

Integrating EA with the effectuation theory, the authors contribute to the literature on new market opportunity development and firm performance. The authors argue that entrepreneurs concentrate on action and resources to further develop their marketing intelligence in developing new market opportunities. The authors also enhance the understanding of entrepreneurial marketing decision-making by small firms in a relatively small economy in the Asia–Pacific region.

Small business owners require objective solutions to deal with threats of labour unionisation. This study aims to centre on a novel exploration for improving the leadership acumen of small business owners to address labour unionisation. Specifically, small business owners need a theoretical framework that uses best practices from human resource management (HRM) and industrial relations to provide solutions.

The design, methodology and approach reflect post-modernist epistemological and ontological perspectives for conducting systematic literature reviews. A systematic literature review revealed the relationship between small business owners’ leadership, positive industrial relations and HRM policies and procedures. To identify relevant studies in the review, the utilisation of several databases (EBSCO Database, including PsycINFO and Psych studies; Web of Science) and a mix of ranked journals from entrepreneurship, human resources, leadership and organisational behaviour.

The findings and results in this paper reflect the purpose, methodology and literature analysis culminating in 162,132,000 peer-reviewed studies. A total of 142 peer-reviewed studies met criterion for review. For example, the purpose of this review focused on labour unionisation mitigation for small businesses and HRM solutions. In doing so, the methodology allowed for identification of a novel research topic (i.e. how small business owners mitigate labour unionisation) worthy of further investigation. The sparse findings on labour unionisation mitigation represent small business owners' reticence in creating HRM policies and procedures.

This study contributes research implications for theory and practice by offering small business owners a theoretical framework to address labour unionisation. The framework, centring on HRM solutions, is grounded in social exchange theory to address the novel topic of labour unionisation mitigation in small businesses. This study results suggest that HRM solutions for small business owners provide competitive advantages for employee job satisfaction through a holistic industrial relations approach. In future research, examining other issues discussed in this study can influence the understanding of the relationship between small business owners and industrial relations to increase employee job satisfaction.

The link between SME performance, growth and development is well established; however, the characteristics of SMEs that allow firms to be successful in the long run in an underdeveloped country context, i.e. Pakistan, are still unclear. This paper aims to bridge this gap by identifying the SMEs’ characteristics that set them apart from their rivals and become successful.

This study uses Storey’s development framework to identify the SMEs’ characteristics. Data is gathered using the case study method from SMEs with a metropolitan context in Pakistan. A narrative methodological framework was used during the data gathering and analysing stages.

Findings of this study indicate that the prosperity of SMEs in Pakistan is dependent on a combination of characteristics, including entrepreneurial characteristics of owner–managers, knowledge of business operating models, social networks and relationship building and innovation in business style. Additionally, other factors such as governance structure, strategic planning of market diversification and export characteristics also influence the prosperity of an SME. These findings may have several important implications for key stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, SMEs and policymakers in the government.

This research provides evidence about factors that can help an SME to become successful in uncertain situations surrounding a business environment. Theoretically, the contribution of this research is that it demonstrates that entrepreneurial characteristics and the effective leadership style of owner–managers can help SMEs achieve prosperity in external unforeseeable situations.

Small businesses are facing evolving environments, with a resulting need to shift their traditional approaches toward new business models (BMs). Many face difficulties within this transition process due to their specific resource constraints. Based on this, incremental changes to the BM – business model transition (BMT) – are proposed as comprising a suitable framework for entrepreneurial small businesses.

This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to cover a broad range of relevant literature within a final sample of 89 articles. The SLR method was chosen to integrate research in a systematic, transparent and reproducible way. For qualitative analysis and framework derivation, the study draws on a thematic ontological analysis.

The broad search criteria, focusing on BM, incremental BM changes and small businesses, pave the way for a comprehensive overview of multiple research streams of BM concepts (e.g. digital and sustainable BM). The main contribution of this work is the resulting holistic BMT framework, comprising the main parts BM innovation, external antecedents (transition of environment, entrepreneurial ecosystem), internal antecedents (dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation, resilience, strategy) and output (firm performance).

The framework provides guidance for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial managers to implement and complete BMT in small businesses. Furthermore, the presented paper sets a future research agenda focusing on small businesses structured according to the derived framework.

This study provides the first SLR of existing BM concepts with a small-business specific perspective on BMI and a focus on various incremental BM changes.

This study aims to present and test a model of small business owners’ adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lenses of the resource-based view of the firm, upper echelon theory (UET) and positive psychology. Specifically, it examined the relationships between personal characteristics and strategic pivot behavior in a sample of small business owners during a peak period of the crisis in Israel.

A sample (N = 202) of small business owners provided information on their business and demographics, and responded to questionnaires assessing their personality (Big Five personality traits), emotional intelligence (EI) and reported the extent to which they implemented strategic changes during the pandemic. These changes were categorized as “positive” (e.g. shifting to new markets, adding partners or investors) or “negative’ (e.g. letting employees go).

The results partially support an association between personality traits and “positive” strategic change behavior, mediated by EI.

The results suggest that business owners' personality traits, and chief among them – EI may play a key role in enabling flexibility when dealing with a long-term crisis or threat. However, market and legislative differences between markets may limit the generalizability to other sectors or countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to address small businesses’ COVID-19-related challenges from a personal-resource perspective by applying a theoretical lens integrating the RBV of the firm, UET and positive psychology. The findings provide a better understanding of the ways in which business owners’ personal resources account for business pivot behavior in times of crisis.

To support the advancement of an underrepresented category of research in the field of entrepreneurial teams, this study proposes and tests a novel empirical model that connects two team emergent states, namely team entrepreneurial passion (TEP) and transactive memory systems (TMSs), and their influence on team performance.

The data were gathered using an online questionnaire distributed to undergraduate students who had formed entrepreneurial teams as part of a course assignment. Two methods were executed on the obtained data, namely partial least-square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA).

The results uphold the hypothesised mediation role of TMSs between TEP and team performance. Of the two direct relations in the model, only the necessary conditions were present for the effect of TEP on TMSs.

The issue of the small sample size, a common feature in entrepreneurial team research, as discussed in the methodical section of the paper, is sidestepped with the use of PLS-SEM tools. Nonetheless, a larger sample size could have increased confidence in the results' validity. In addition, a longitudinal approach to data collection and analysis could have been used to augment that confidence further.

Three practical implications stem from the empirical findings. First, it lends support for implementing teaching approaches and task designs that are envisaged to improve team functioning in university classrooms. Making a business plan boosts students' desire to exploit the received knowledge and find a venture, so the teaching effort in entrepreneurship courses can have real-world consequences.

By testing the mediation model, new insights are made into the associations between team emerging states and, subsequently, team performance. In addition, this study responds to recent calls in the literature to incorporate NCA in an entrepreneurial setting.

The purpose of this study is to examine various key aspects associated with entrepreneurs’ behaviour following a long-term crisis. Specifically, the study compares the perceptions of female and male entrepreneurs operating in Cyprus and Greece concerning success factors and firm performance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Conceptually, the study considers the organisational adaptation literature (Miles and Snow’s typology).

The views of female and male micro and small firm owners-managers operating in Greece and Cyprus, a total of 406, were gathered through a questionnaire. To analyse the quantitative data, independent samples t-test and exploratory factor analysis were applied.

Participants’ responses reveal similar levels of perceived importance between genders regarding adaptive measures and strategies to confront a long-term crisis, as well as perceived firm performance. Nevertheless, exploratory factor analysis highlights differences in how male/female entrepreneurs perceive actions that, as in the case of financial management, can safeguard the immediate outlook of the firm.

While scholarly discourses on gender and entrepreneurship abound, important knowledge gaps still exist, for instance, in entrepreneurs’ problem-solving strategies adopted by female and male entrepreneurs following crises. In addressing this scholarly gap cross-culturally, that is, drawing on cross-national data (Cyprus and Greece); the present study makes an important contribution. Empirically, the study ascertains similar entrepreneurial behavioural characteristics between female-male entrepreneurs. Theoretically, the study validates Miles and Snow’s typology and develops a theoretical framework linking the typology and dimensions emerging from the empirical findings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of entrepreneurs’ social competence (SC) on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance.

Primary data of 250 manufacturing SMEs were collected through a survey method. The influence of SC on performance was tested using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Overall, the findings suggest that SC dimensions have a positive influence on SME performance in terms of nonfinancial perspective. More clearly, the findings show that out of five dimensions of SC, which include social adaptability, social perception, social expressiveness, persuasiveness and impression management; social perception, persuasiveness and impression management have direct effect on customer perspective; persuasiveness, social expressiveness and social adaptability have a direct influence on internal business processes and social adaptability, social perception, impression management and social expressiveness are directly related with learning and growth. Contrary to expectations though, social perception and social adaptability were significantly and negatively associated with internal business processes and customer perspective, respectively, while there was no significant correlation between social expressiveness, persuasiveness and impression management with customer perspective, business processes and learning and growth in that order.

The current study affirms that SMEs managed by entrepreneurs and managers who possess high levels of SC, may have a better performance compared to those operated by entrepreneurs with low levels of SC. This justifies a need for SME entrepreneurs and managers to work hard to improve their SC capabilities.

This study is pertinent and unique because, it extensively examines each of the five dimensions of SC in relation to nonfinancial indicators of SME performance. Besides, the study also provides additional evidence of the impact of SC on SME performance by suggesting that entrepreneurs who are socially competent are more likely to own highly successful ventures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the corporate social responsibility performance among small and medium enterprise (SME) owners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before and during COVID-19. This study shows insights into the barriers that could affect the CSR performance practices of UAE SMEs, and related implications are discussed in the study.

This study used a longitudinal qualitative research design. The research comprised 30 interviews from 15 SME owners that were studied prior to and during the pandemic. The 15 interview participants are the sole owners of these SMEs and are Emirati citizens. They were identified through personal contacts and referrals.

Study findings show that there was a clear shift during the pandemic to place more focus on employees. CSR performance practices are dominated by strategies for caring for the environment and employees. During the pandemic, the priority was paying employees at least a portion of their salary despite financial hardships and ensuring their health and well-being. Prior to the crisis, the key barrier to the implementation of CSR performance practices was a lack of knowledge. During the pandemic, barriers identified included uncertainty and financial constraints. Furthermore, all the owners believe that big corporations should be more socially responsible and SMEs should be the recipients of CSR practices. Lastly, the owners expressed their belief in the values of transparency, integrity, commitment, efficiency and responsibility.

This study is a novel attempt to gain an in-depth understanding of CSR among SMEs in the UAE in the context of a pandemic. It looks specifically at the performance practices pursued by SME owners in the UAE before and during the COVID-19 crisis.