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This study aims to explore the impact of different contextual factors and their interactions on university students' entrepreneurship, specifically start-up activities.

The paper used a multilevel hierarchical model with four contextual factors: i) industry and technological, ii) institutional and policy, iii) organizational-university; and iv) cultural. Each of these factors might influence university students’ start-up activities differently. To address this exploratory direction, the study used a sample of 34,200 nascent entrepreneurs from 34 countries included in the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit students’ Survey, along with data from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, Global Entrepreneurship Index and Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Index.

The results show that, in general terms, contextual elements impact university students’ start-up activities. Nevertheless, when these factors are combined, their effect increases strongly with the performance-based culture but decreases with a high level of a socially supportive culture.

Regarding the study of university students’ start-up activities, most scientific evidence has an individual-level approach without considering the influence of the context. The paper adopts a multilevel approach for such analysis to reflect the multilevel and context-dependent nature of the topic under study.

Este estudio explora el impacto de diferentes factores contextuales y sus interacciones en el espíritu empresarial de los estudiantes universitarios, concretamente en las actividades de puesta en marcha.

El trabajo emplea un modelo jerárquico multinivel con cuatro factores contextuales: i) industriales y tecnológicos, ii) institucionales y políticos, iii) organizativos-universitarios; y iv) culturales. Cada uno de estos factores podría influir de forma diferente en las actividades de puesta en marcha de los estudiantes universitarios. Bajo un enfoque exploratorio, el estudio utilizó una muestra de 34.200 emprendedores nacientes de 34 países incluidos en la Encuesta Global de Estudiantes Universitarios con Espíritu Emprendedor (GUESSS por sus siglas en inglés), junto con datos del Índice de Competitividad Global (GCI), el Índice de Espíritu Emprendedor Global (GEI) y el Índice Global de Liderazgo y Eficacia del Comportamiento Organizacional (GLOBE).

Los resultados muestran que, en términos generales, los elementos contextuales influyen en las actividades de creación de empresas de los estudiantes universitarios. Sin embargo, cuando se combinan estos factores, su efecto aumenta considerablemente en países con una cultura basada en el rendimiento, pero disminuye en las de un alto nivel de apoyo social.

En lo que respecta al estudio de las actividades de creación de empresas de los estudiantes universitarios, la mayoría de las pruebas científicas tienen un enfoque a nivel individual sin tener en cuenta la influencia del contexto. Nuestro trabajo adopta un enfoque multinivel para dicho análisis con el fin de reflejar la naturaleza multinivel y dependiente del contexto del tema estudiado.

Este estudo explora o impacto de diferentes fatores contextuais e suas interações no empreendedorismo dos estudantes universitários, especificamente nas atividades de start-up.

O artigo utilizou um modelo hierárquico multinível com quatro fatores contextuais: i) industrial e tecnológico, ii) institucional e político, iii) organizacional-universitário, e iv) cultural. Cada um desses fatores pode influenciar de maneira diferente as atividades de start-up dos estudantes universitários. Para abordar essa direção exploratória, o estudo utilizou uma amostra de 34.200 empreendedores de 34 países incluídos na Pesquisa Global sobre o Espírito Empreendedor dos Estudantes Universitários (GUESSS), juntamente com dados do Índice de Competitividade Global (GCI) do Fórum Econômico Mundial, do Índice Global de Empreendedorismo (GEI) e do Índice de Liderança Global e Eficácia Organizacional (GLOBE).

Os resultados mostraram que, em termos gerais, elementos contextuais impactam as atividades de start-up dos estudantes universitários. No entanto, quando esses fatores são combinados, seu efeito aumenta fortemente com a cultura baseada em desempenho, mas diminui com um alto nível de cultura socialmente solidária.

No que diz respeito ao estudo das atividades de start-up dos estudantes universitários, a maioria das evidências científicas tem uma abordagem em nível individual sem considerar a influência do contexto. Nosso artigo adota uma abordagem multinível para tal análise, a fim de refletir a natureza multinível e dependente do contexto do tema em estudo.

As this article reports, in recent years most legislative activities focused on start-ups, with as many as 12 European Union (EU) Member States having introduced tax incentives for employee share ownership (ESO) in this type of small and middle-sized enterprise (SME). But incentivising ESO in SMEs should be extended to all SMEs, the engine of the European economy, including those from the social economy, having shown their crucial function for the resilience of our societies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Against the background of this recent and very dynamic development this article, it provides an overview of the start-up business segment in comparison to other types of companies, particularly focusing on differences with the SME sector; examines the legal regulations that hinder a broader adoption of ESO in European start-ups; presents best-practice examples to demonstrate the favourable conditions already established in some EU Member States and discussed whether these reforms and best practice examples could be extended and – as is already the case in some countries – applied to the whole SME population including social economy enterprises.

Since the European Commission launched the 2011 Social Business Initiative (SBI) followed by the 2016 Start-up and Scale-up initiative, many actions to support social enterprises in view of their potential to address societal challenges and contribute to sustainable economic growth have followed. Most recently, the 2021 Social Economy Action Plan of the European Commission gave important impulses. The potential of employee buyouts offering a continuation perspective to SMEs owners looking for successors was highlighted in the 2022 EC report “Transition Pathway for Proximity and Social Economy,” calling for the implementation of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).

The situation of employee share ownership in start-ups has some parallels with that in traditional SMEs, but in many respects, they differ fundamentally. Although, on the other hand, social enterprises may also have to compete with large firms for qualified staff and face challenges when growing or scaling their activities, the reason why ESO in this enterprise segment is not widespread in the EU is altogether different. In the absence of a prescribed legal form of incorporation, social enterprises operate in various forms (be it for profit or non-profit), e.g. cooperatives, closely held limited liability companies, mutuals, associations, voluntary organisations or foundations. Therefore, this article looks into the extension of the incentives for ESO to social enterprises inasmuch as they are organised in legal forms allowing for share ownership, above all in the form of limited liability companies.

This paper aims to address third actor introductions to interaction episodes aiming at fast-forwarding the continuous development of business relationships of new firms.

The study is qualitative, collecting data from 30 interviews from 28 informants associated with creation of new ventures and business network development in the context of a novel type of third actor called venture builder. Venture builders are privately owned organizations devoted to new firm creation in a factory-like mode, collaborating with individual entrepreneurs.

The findings suggest that interaction episodes, central to the development of new relationships, may be triggered by introductions managed by third actors using different types of involvement depending on the location and focus of the potential relationship. A framework is presented including four types of introductions to interaction episodes, aiming at saving time by removing the perceived distance between new firms and their counterparts in the initiation of business relationships. The framework describes four types of introductions of interaction episodes: Managed, Advised, Facilitated and Monitored.

Triggers and introductions of interaction episodes for new firms has previously been sparsely addressed. This paper presents how third actor involvement, by the introductions of interaction episodes with internal and external counterparts is managed with an aim of fast-forwarding relationship development.

Start-ups require a competitive advantage to integrate sustainable practices and develop organizational capabilities to thrive in dynamic business environments. However, implementation of these practices presents several ethical challenges. This study aims to quantify the influence of organizational capabilities (information technology capabilities and organizational virtues) on start-ups' competitive advantage and readiness to implement environmental, social and governance practices.

This study employed a survey design, and data were collected from 320 start-up founders and/or managers in India. The data were analyzed using Smart PLS 4.0.

The findings suggest that organizational capabilities, including information technology capabilities and organizational virtues, play an important role in enhancing start-ups' competitive advantage and readiness to implement sustainable practices. Dynamic capability mediates these relationships, while entrepreneurial orientation moderates the relationship between organizational virtues and dynamic capability.

This study has significant implications for organizations implementing sustainable business practices through the development and nurturance of organizational virtues and information technology capabilities. The study is also useful for leaders, managers and entrepreneurs in training and development, managing tradeoffs and maintaining important organizational capabilities to establish a balance between people’s concerns, the environment and profits.

Few studies have examined the role of organizational capabilities, sustainable business practices and competitive advantage in the context of start-ups. This study contributes to the literature on sustainable entrepreneurship and organizational capabilities.

Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (LUASA) uses a holistic approach to foster entrepreneurial thinking and behavior of students and employees. Students and participants of the program shall be motivated to start own ventures during the study program or later in the life.

An entrepreneurial eco-system shall be built and a close partnership with regional key actors established.

A combination of Design Thinking and Lean Start-up is used for the entrepreneurial education. Fostering experimentation, early customer feedback, and interdisciplinary teamwork is essential. An enhanced Lean Canvas version is used for having a guideline to work on the important questions and documenting the learnings in the iterative process.

The program “Smart-up” of LUASA is running since three years as a pilot in two departments and is now rolled out to the entire University. Since program start more than 120 start-ups have been founded.

In all study programs, an “entrepreneurial track” is defined and students can earn credits while working on their own projects. Two interdisciplinary modules are offered. The proposed Smart-up Lean Canvas has been proven to be a key tool to develop innovative ideas in start-ups and in existing companies.

The combination of Design Thinking and Lean Start-up in a holistic setup proved that students can learn the methods and tools and are able to use them now or later as entre- or intrapreneurs.

Students are motivated to start their own business, meet role models and participating at different (networking) events.

The combination of Design Thinking and Lean Start-up with analytical approaches like Systems Thinking and Data Analytics supports the problem understanding and solution (product/service and business) design.

This paper aims to explore the extent of open data actualization for start-up entrepreneurs based on affordance theory. The principal interest of the study revolves around the possible actions or actualization of open data for innovation and entrepreneurial benefits.

The author used a qualitative case study as the research design. The author consulted the central public agency that manages open data implementations in Malaysia regarding the research topic. By doing so, the author recognized and interviewed start-up entrepreneurs who actualize open data in businesses. From that exercise, the author conducted a snowball sampling technique to recruit more informants for the research. Start-up entrepreneurs selected for the study must be active in an entrepreneurial project and have at least one year of experience using open data for innovation and entrepreneurship. The author conducted 30 online semistructured interviews with start-up entrepreneurs, representatives from open data providers and a start-up association for triangulation purposes. The author adopted affordance theory as a lens of understanding. Qualitative analysis software was used to generate research findings.

In this study, start-up entrepreneurs actualize open data in three principal areas: product building with open data, value creation with existing products and open data for business research and strategies. The study came across distinct narratives of local start-ups that build open data products named “a property start-up,” “mechanics on the go” and “peer-to-peer digital charity movement.” Also, the study discovered three unanticipated findings about the research topic. First, the study uncovered two start-ups that used open data to enhance algorithm designs. Second, the study revealed a unique narrative of a start-up that pivoted business ideas based on open data during the Covid-19 pandemic. Third, the study learned about a start-up that initiated strategic partnerships with an agricultural association and smallholder farmers inspired by open data. These findings extend the literature on how start-up entrepreneurs actualize open data for entrepreneurial gains in a developing economy. What is also unique about this study is that there might be an open data misconception among start-up entrepreneurs. The findings advocate that some start-up entrepreneurs believed all data should be shared or opened upon request based on the generic understanding of open data. Clearly, this is a fallacy, and better awareness is required among start-up entrepreneurs regarding open data principles and implementations.

Data providers need to build a credible image of open data as a foundation to drive actualization. This can be achieved through capacity building, awareness campaigns and strategic engagements with start-up entrepreneurs. Open data institutions need to initiate flagship projects with start-up associations in highly valuable sectors to demonstrate commercial applications of open data in certain fields.

Previous research provides limited empirical studies on the commercial application of open data for start-up entrepreneurs. Hence, the novelty of this study lies in understanding how start-up entrepreneurs actualize open data to create value in their respective fields.

Technological start-ups are significant contributor to the innovation and employment provider in an economy. Numerous technological start-ups are established every year; however, only a miniscule percentage of these technological start-ups sustain and scale up in the long run. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that affect Indian technological start-ups’ competitiveness.

Case study analysis of two technological start-ups (namely, WayCool and Moglix) is undertaken to study the factors affecting the competitiveness of technological start-ups in India. Being a relatively underexplored theme of study in entrepreneurship and strategy, case analysis facilitates exploration and validation of factors influencing competitiveness. Information for case study analysis is drawn from secondary sources of information. The collected data undergoes deductive thematic analysis to systematically identify and examine recurring themes and patterns relevant to the competitiveness of Indian technological start-ups.

Case analysis reveals that innovation intensity, organisational agility and internationalisation influence competitiveness of technological start-ups. The importance of the role of each of these factors for entrepreneurial ventures has been highlighted in literature; however, their effect on competitiveness has not been examined in extant literature.

Being among the few studies on the competitiveness of technological start-ups in specific and start-ups in general, this study highlights the gap in the literature and suggests the need for examining the competitiveness of technological start-ups.

For the practitioners, this study reinforces the need for entrepreneurs to emphasise fundamental factors that build competitiveness. Subsequently, the sources of competitiveness shall enable the start-up to gain a competitive advantage.

This is among the few studies to have explored the competitiveness of technological start-ups in the Indian context.

Extant studies in entrepreneurship have explored factors that influence the birth and growth of start-up firms; however, there appears to be a dearth of studies examining the influence of founders' ambidextrous orientation on start-ups' success, especially their speed of attaining the coveted status of a “unicorn start-up” – which is considered a mega success in practice. This study examines whether and how founding teams’ collective ambidextrous orientation influences their respective start-ups’ pace of becoming a “unicorn”.

This study empirically analyses 220 interviews by the founders of 83 Indian unicorns in examining the influence of the founding teams’ collective exploration-exploitation capability on their firms' speed to achieve the “unicorn” status. The Cox Hazard model was used to test the hypothesized relationships, and linear ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to test the robustness of the results.

The authors find a strong positive relationship between founding teams’ ambidextrous skills and the speed of becoming a unicorn. The study results suggest that the founding teams’ collective exploratory skills may be more influential in their start-up’s speed to unicorn status vis-à-vis their exploitative skills.

This study finds that the founding teams’ ambidextrous orientation and exploratory skills accelerate their start-up’s speed to becoming a unicorn, contributing to the academic discourse on the “unicorn” phenomenon, which is widely acknowledged as a grand success status for start-ups—especially technology and venture capital funded start-ups—among the practitioners. This study contributes to the academic discourse on firm capabilities and founding-team-related antecedents of start-up success by raising a new dimension of the founding team’s ambidextrous orientation.

This purpose of this descriptive case study is to examine students’ experience engaging in stand-up meetings during the team project for the application development course in their Management Information Systems (MIS) program. Although the body of research on agile stand-up meetings is growing, there is little research on the experience of students who are engaging in stand-up meetings. The majority of research focuses on business professionals instead of students.

This study uses a mixed methods approach to collect data by anonymously surveying students. This exploratory study is a prelude to implementing a larger-scale investigation of student perceptions of stand-up meetings. The research was conducted using a mixed methods approach that used a survey instrument with both open-ended and closed-ended questions to gather students’ perceptions. The qualitative data was analyzed using a thematic coding approach.

The results of this study demonstrate that students’ experiences with stand-up meetings are overwhelmingly positive, with students describing how stand-up meetings helped them communicate and collaborate with their team and solve problems together as a team. The majority of students in this study reported that participating in stand-up meetings helped them overcome roadblocks.

The main limitation of this descriptive case study is the sample size, since only one section of the course was available during the spring semester for the survey. Consequently, the findings may not be broadly generalizable to other contexts. An additional limitation is that the sample was obtained from a school primarily serving nontraditional adult students from underserved groups. One other limitation of this study is that the course surveyed was a synchronous online section with a limited amount of time for class sessions.

This case study should serve as a starting point for faculty, particularly information systems faculty, who are seeking to incorporate stand-up meetings into their courses. The benefits that students cited were clear. As one student stated, stand-up “allows us to vet through our work, help build interpersonal relationships and strengthen our skills.” The larger impact and contribution of this research is that encourages faculty to adopt the practice of stand-up meetings to enhance students’ communication, collaboration and problem solving.

Incorporating stand-up meetings into coursework benefits students by fostering collaboration, communication and problem-solving. The results of this study demonstrate that students’ experiences with stand-up meetings are overwhelmingly positive, with students describing how stand-up meetings helped them communicate and collaborate with their team and solve problems together as a team. The majority of students in this study reported that participating in stand-up meetings helped them overcome roadblocks.

This descriptive case study examines students’ experience engaging in stand-up meetings during the team project for the application development course in their MIS program. Although the body of research on agile stand-up meetings is growing, there is little research on the experience of students who are engaging in stand-up meetings. The majority of research focuses on business professionals instead of students.

Effective voice behavior in healthcare workers is critical for patient safety, quality improvement and workforce well-being. A review of the literature on voice behavior in healthcare highlights that little is known about the voice behaviors of new graduates in allied health and that current theory, from medical and nursing research, does not adequately apply to this sector. New knowledge about voice behavior for this sector of the workforce will support education and healthcare institutions in building and sustaining a healthy voice behavior culture.

This paper reports on phase two of a two-phase study looking at the voice behavior experiences of new allied health graduates over one year. Using a realist perspective and narrative analysis, we uncover and illustrate what works, with whom and under what conditions.

Four synthesized narratives outline the contexts and mechanisms that result in different voice behavior outcomes – speaking up effectively, speaking up with unmet expectations, not speaking up and a reduction in speaking up over time. Experiences of positive interprofessional collaboration and reflective supervision supported effective voice behavior.

This study used a case study approach, focusing on healthcare providers within a large New Zealand city and a cohort of 10 participants. Some researchers argue that small numbers limit the generalization of findings to different populations. Realists argue that, given the way in which knowledge is developed using realist methodologies, the resultant theory is portable. Interviews were conducted online during the COVID-19 pandemic. This may have impacted the connection between the interviewer and interviewee, causing the interviewees to not express their true thoughts. However, the interviewer did take time to connect with the interviewees and build trust over the three interviews over one year. Participants did not capture the diversity in the allied health workforce – most identified as female and none identified as Māori/Indigenous. And finally, participants could inhibit or exaggerate information due to the influence of social desirability. This does not appear to be a significant limitation in this study, given the many examples shared by the participants highlighted their challenges.

This study provides an in-depth exploration of how new graduates in allied health experience speaking up. Our findings enrich the knowledge of speaking up by using synthesized narratives to provide insights into what factors can enable a healthy speaking up culture within the new graduate allied health workforce. This is new knowledge that will be of interest at the individual, team and organizational levels of healthcare. The findings will support curriculum design and new graduate support frameworks for the education and health sectors. Highlighted in this study are the importance of the following factors in supporting speaking up for allied health new graduates: the employment of reflective supervision, purposeful facilitation of team belonging and interprofessional collaboration and tailored speaking up training for allied health new graduates and leaders in healthcare.

By taking a realist perspective and using narrative analysis, we gain an understanding of the voice behavior experiences of new graduates in allied health and the contextual factors and mechanisms that activate effective voice behavior in sub-acute and rehabilitation settings. These findings differ from nursing and medicine and highlight the benefits of reflective supervision and interprofessional collaborative practice.