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The purpose of this paper is to add to the small but growing body of research examining the influence of founder gender on new venture access to venture development programs.

Hypotheses were tested utilizing a sample of 482 nascent technology ventures which applied for admittance into a venture development organization headquartered in the southern region of the United States from March 2004 through February 2016.

Findings suggest that female-founded applicant ventures experience a higher likelihood of acceptance into venture development programs than male-founded applicant ventures. Results further suggest that social attention to gender equality reduces this effect for female-founded applicant ventures. Findings extend the understanding of the gendered nature of high-technology venturing and venture development organizations.

The findings of this study may not generalize to new ventures operating in other contexts (e.g., non-U.S., low-tech, and other venture development programs). Additionally, this study's design and data limitations do not allow for the establishment of causality or address founder motivations to apply for acceptance into venture development programs.

This study adds to empirical findings regarding the influence of founder gender on new venture acceptance into venture development programs by developing and testing competing hypotheses. This study also extends extant research by examining the moderating effect of social attention to gender equality on the hypothesized relationships between founder gender and acceptance into venture development programs.

This paper aims to investigate which network relationships foster the early development of a sustainable new venture (SNV) and how sustainability as the core characteristic of the new venture shapes those network relationships.

This paper relies on a qualitative approach. The primary data source is 25 interviews with 18 key informants of 15 Italian SNVs. The fashion industry is the empirical setting due to its negative environmental and social impacts and shifts toward sustainability during the past decade.

The paper identifies six types of network relationships that affect the development of fashion SNVs. It proposes sustainability-enhanced and sustainability-enabled network relationships and relates them to trust and legitimation in the network.

The study enriches the theoretical debate on networks, new ventures and sustainability by dealing with the case of SNVs in a traditional sector. This paper presents managerial implications for entrepreneurs and policymakers.

This paper contributes to the debate on society’s sustainable development by emphasizing how networks can affect the growth of SNVs.

This paper fills a research gap in a novel manner. The paper contributes to the recent debate on new ventures and sustainability from the market as network approach. It identifies relevant networks, their contribution and the role of sustainability. The study refers to SNVs in traditional nontechnological industries.

Literature has recognised entrepreneurship education as the main conduit through which entrepreneurial behaviours, attitudes and actions can be built, enacted and delivered. Since the founding of new ventures is largely a resourceful founder-driven enterprise, entrepreneurship education has largely centred on galvanising and shifting the mindsets and cognition of the entrepreneur. Yet, despite over 60 years of delivering entrepreneurship education programmes, hard evidence of the generation of high-growth-oriented and sustainable ventures has been scarce as student entrepreneurship intentions do not always translate into successful venture creation. This is largely because of the complexities of the practicality of entrepreneurial education particularly, the dissonance between acquired education in business schools and the knowledge and competencies needed in the entrepreneurial field. Such dissonance can be attributed to the lack of clarity on the pedagogical approach that most resonates with entrepreneurial action, the diversity in assessment methods and the scholarly illusion pertaining to how pedagogical approaches can be channelled to the generation of growth-oriented ventures. Drawing on Girox's concepts of transformative critical pedagogy (including pedagogy of repression), Socratic dialogue, Hegelian dialectic and Yrjö Engeström's transformative expansive agency, I demonstrate how a flipped transformative critical pedagogy can be harnessed in digitally enhanced learning environments to create new entrepreneurial possibilities for facilitating critical inquiry, complex problem-solving, innovation for the market and fostering tolerance for failure in ambiguous entrepreneurial contexts.

Entrepreneurial support programs, like incubators and accelerators, often offer mentorship to new ventures. However, existing research on mentoring has mainly focused on the entrepreneur's perspective, leaving researchers with limited understanding of why experienced mentors provide support to new ventures. This study aimed to explore mentors' motives in mentor–venture relationships and their impact on the advisory process. It also examined different types of mentors (social and commercial) and their motivations for assisting and supporting new ventures.

The present study utilizes a qualitative research approach to investigate the motivations and mechanisms through which new venture mentors assist founders in their growth and success. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 mentors supporting both social and commercial ventures. These mentors were selected from ten accelerator and incubator programs situated in Belgium. The interviews aimed to gain insights into the mentors' motivations and their experiences in the role of mentors.

Based on the social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, this study identified two main motives of mentors: “gaining back” reflecting mentors’ self-interest in deriving benefits from the relationship and “paying back” representing their altruistic reasons for supporting new ventures. Additionally, the study identified mentor functions that primarily involved providing career-related support to new ventures. Moreover, the research revealed intriguing similarities and differences in the motivations and mentoring functions between mentors of social and commercial ventures.

Future research should explore the evaluation process and criteria used by mentors and new ventures when selecting each other for a productive mentoring relationship. Additionally, further investigation is needed to examine the firm-level impact of various mentoring services on the performance of social and commercial new ventures at different stages of development. Comparing mentor motives and functions across diverse geographical settings would address the limitation of the study and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic.

The findings of the study can inform policymakers, accelerator and incubator program managers and new ventures seeking mentors and support initiatives. They can use the insights to design effective mentoring programs that align with the specific needs and motivations of mentors and new ventures. Understanding the different motives and functions of mentors can help in the selection of appropriate mentors who can provide the necessary support and expertise to new ventures.

The study highlights the importance of mentorship in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Accelerator and incubator programs play a crucial role in connecting new ventures with mentors who have the right motivation and expertise, contributing to the growth and success of new ventures and the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem. By identifying both altruistic and self-interest motivations in mentoring relationships, the study emphasizes the dual dimensions that characterize the mentor–venture relationship. This understanding can foster stronger collaborations and reciprocal exchanges between mentors and new ventures, ultimately benefiting both parties.

This research contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by exploring the mentor–new venture relationship from mentors' perspective. It expands the existing research on mentor–protégé relationships, broadening the understanding of mentoring dynamics in different organizational settings. The findings offer insights grounded in social exchange theory and provide directions for future research on mentor–venture relationships, resource exchange and relationship development. The study also holds practical implications for policymakers and program managers involved in fostering mentoring initiatives for new ventures.

Entrepreneurship by Indigenous people in Canada and Australia, while historically connected to the ancestral lands and traditional practices of Indigenous people, has been evolving and expanding in scope and nature. In this article, the authors aim to offer an integrative framework for capturing the contemporary dynamics and outcomes of entrepreneurship by Indigenous people as they pursue venture creation as part of their broader development aspirations.

Drawing on literature from place-based views of entrepreneurship and social identity theory, the authors develop a typology to account for four modes of entrepreneurship by Indigenous people along two contextual dimensions – Indigenous territory and Indigenous marker.

Indigenous practicing entrepreneurship may choose to conduct business within or outside of traditional lands and demonstrate more or less indigeneity in their business activities as they marshal resources and seek opportunities. The authors identify how these diverse Indigenous businesses contribute to the economic development among Indigenous communities as part of their ongoing struggle to rebuild their “nations” using business.

This article contributes by differentiating sociocultural vs economic resources in noneconomic contexts to develop a theoretical typology of Indigenous entrepreneurship. By detailing the relations between Indigenous territories and Indigenous lands and between Indigenous identity and Indigenous markers, the authors contribute to a more nuanced and practical conceptualization of Indigenous entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to review the existing literature on structured corporate–startup collaboration programs (SCSCPs) concerning their objectives and organizational design components. The design components of the program execution are analyzed on how they impact knowledge transfer and how the extant literature on SCSCP considers the knowledge management topic. A new perspective to examine its ramifications will be discussed.

Through an integrative literature review, 103 papers on the topic of SCSCP are analyzed about references of objectives and design components of the programs.

The literature shows a strong focus on strategic objectives corporations pursue in implementing an SCSCP. The design components can be divided into governance mode, structural decisions, selection of ventures, program execution and follow up.

The literature review shows a lack of insights into the knowledge transfer process between the corporation and the ventures. Therefore, this study suggests a practice-based, longitudinal perspective on the interaction processes that occur during the program execution of an SCSCP.

Compared to existing literature reviews, the study takes the corporation’s perspective on incubation and acceleration and reveals design components specific to the corporate forms. Furthermore, SCSCPs center around strategic value generation and the design of the programs can vary highly. It is proposed that knowledge transfer is the central aspect of corporate programs and that a practice-based perspective would enrich the research on knowledge transfer in highly complex setups like this.

The purpose of this study is to unfold the role of managerial characteristics in developing the dynamic capabilities necessary to serve foreign customers and compete in export market ventures.

The authors test their proposed model using path analysis with data collected from export managers working in 204 small- and medium-sized Turkish exporters operating in various sectors.

The findings suggest that the positive effect of export managers’ process thinking skills on dynamic capabilities increases when the export managers’ learning and avoid orientations are low and prove orientation is high and export venture experience (duration and scope) increases. In addition, it has been found that export managers’ process thinking skills have an indirect effect on export performance through export venture dynamic capabilities.

This study makes three contributions. First, the authors conceptualize and operationalize dynamic capabilities in the context of exporting. The authors empirically validate export venture dynamic capabilities as a higher-level construct composed of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring elements pertinent to the firm’s export market operations. Second, based on the micro-foundations approach of competitive advantage, the authors study managers’ process thinking skills in exporting firms and how these abilities support dynamic capability development in export ventures. Finally, the authors investigate how the impact of export managers’ process thinking skills on export venture dynamic capabilities is influenced by their goal orientations and certain objective exporter characteristics pertaining to different aspects of export venture experience.

This study aims to explore how aspiring entrepreneurs navigate between their own individual self-concept and the organisational identity of the new venture during the process of new venture creation.

The study draws on three cases of aspiring entrepreneurs within a UK-based university incubator in the process of “becoming” entrepreneurs. Semi-structured interviews and secondary data were collected and analysed using a flexible pattern matching approach.

The data illustrated parallel identity and sensemaking processes occurring as the aspiring entrepreneurs navigated towards new venture formation. For the organisational identity process, three key stages were found to occur: referent identity labelling, projection and identity reification. Concurrently the sensemaking process made up of creation, interpretation and enactment were seen to enable identity transitioning mechanisms: cue identification, liminal sensegiving and recognition of formal venture boundaries, which led to the organisational identity being formed.

This study is exploratory in nature thus future research is required to clarify the relationship between identity work practices and the process of creating a new venture (Oliver and Vough, 2020). The paper is limited to successful instances of new venture formation, and though this helped to extricate the identity transitioning stages and mechanisms that have thus far remained implicit within the process of new venture creation, it could be extended to examine entrepreneurs who fail to set up new ventures. This limitation opens avenues for further research on identity formation in failed ventures (Snihur and Clarysse, 2022) and on how entrepreneurs negotiate contested identities (Varlander et al., 2020). Furthermore, entrepreneurs take different pathways to new venture formation (Shepherd et al., 2021) and while this study follows the journey of aspiring entrepreneurs who differed in terms of sector, education and prior entrepreneurial experience (Shane, 2003), future researchers could undertake a more in-depth ethnographic study including the effects of incubator setting and how these can be best supported, as this was outside the original remit of this study. Given the importance of the university incubator (Bergman and McMullen, 2022), its role in the construction of new venture identity is an interesting area for future research.

This study provides a practical contribution into entrepreneurship curricula and incubator training, emphasising the importance of understanding the relevance of the entrepreneur's self-concept in making sense of future venture identities. Through the findings of this study, the importance of cue identification and how aspiring entrepreneurs rely on these to carve out the identity of their budding venture is demonstrated. Incubator spaces may have a role to play in supporting aspiring entrepreneurs to reflect on and interpret feedback (liminal sensegiving) during the venture creation process. Furthermore, both educators and incubator managers need to be aware of the state of in-between-ness aspiring entrepreneurs will face as they carve out the identity of the budding venture. This study enables educators to advise aspiring entrepreneurs that there will come a point on the entrepreneurial journey when they need to emphasise boundary setting between self and organisation to enable organisational identity to be fostered and venture formation realised. This study advises incubator managers to consider whether support around business registrations and creation of business accounts should be provided earlier in the incubation programme to emphasise boundary setting between self and organisation. There is a fruitful avenue for future research to extend the work in this paper to fully understand how this might be taught and practiced in the classrooms.

By extricating the stages of organisational identity formation, often hidden within the new venture creation process, this study has framed new venture creation as a liminal experience and a visible site of identity work. This study presents a process model of the key identity transitioning stages and mechanisms in new ventures, by illustrating how aspiring entrepreneurs' sensemaking influences identity transitions during the process of venture creation.

The purpose of this paper is to begin to explore the strategic priorities of unicorn ventures as pursuers of market disruption. This study approaches this task by drawing on the positive deviance concept for studying outliers with the intent of understanding the strategic priorities of these ventures.

This is a comparison study of the priorities of 75 unicorn ventures, 37 early-stage ventures and 45 Fortune 500 organizations. The authors use computer-aided text analysis to conduct within-sample and between-sample means comparison tests of 12,487 newswires from 2022.

Where early-stage ventures emphasize their mission, and Fortune 500 companies emphasize financial results, unicorn ventures, occupy the middle of the spectrum, balancing their priorities between pursuing market disruption and achieving financial results. These high-growth outliers indicate their priorities by using significantly less positive tone, affective and prosocial language, and focusing less on corporate social responsibility initiatives, compared to early-stage ventures (and using more of this language compared to Fortune 500 ventures). An additional finding emphasizes that public Fortune 500 companies focus significantly more on money than their topic of interest.

This work has implications for understanding the strategic priorities of entrepreneurial ventures in different development stages. The results suggest that unicorn ventures actively work to balance their startup mission, which allows them to experience high-growth and achieve market disruption, with the financial demands of venture capital investors. This novel conclusion demonstrates the value of using positively deviant outlier cases, such as unicorn ventures, as a viable sample for studying market disruption.

The authors probe the relationships between country institutional support for entrepreneurship and new venture survival. Specifically, the authors unpack the nuanced influences of entrepreneurs' perceived environmental uncertainty and their subsequent entrepreneurial behavioral profiles and how this particularly bolsters venture survival in contexts with underdeveloped institutions for entrepreneurship.

Coleman (1990) ‘bathtub’ framework is applied to develop a model and propositions surrounding how and when emerging market entrepreneur's perceptions of their countries institutional support toward entrepreneurship can ultimately enhance new venture survival.

Entrepreneurs' interpretations of regulatory, cognitive and normative institutional support for private enterprise helps them embrace uncertainties more accurately reflective of “on the ground” realities and stimulates constructive entrepreneurial behaviors. These are critical for increasing survival prospects in characteristically turbulent, emerging market contexts that typically lack reliable formal resources for cultivating nascent ventures.

This paper has implications for international policymakers seeking to stimulate and sustain entrepreneurial ventures in emerging markets. The authors shed light on the practical importance of understanding the social realities and interpretations of entrepreneurs in a given country relating to their actual perceptions of support for venturing—cautioning a tendency for outsiders to over-rely on aggregated econometric indices and various national ‘doing business' rankings.

This study is the first to create a conceptual framework on the mechanisms of how entrepreneurs in emerging economies affect new venture survival. Drawing on Coleman's bathtub (1990), the authors develop propositional arguments for a multilevel sequential framework that considers how developing economies' country institutional profiles (CIP) influence entrepreneurs' perceptions of environmental uncertainty. Subsequently, this cultivates associated entrepreneurial behavior profiles, which ultimately enhance (inhibit) venture survival rates. Further, the authors discuss the boundary conditions of this regarding how the national culture serves to moderate each of these key relationships in both positive and negative ways.