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This paper aims to analyze born globals and business incubators from an empirical standpoint. Particularly, the role of business incubators in the emergence and development of born global firms is focused, thereby outlining the significance of incubator influence on rapid internationalization.

Based on extant literature on born globals, business incubators and their interrelationship that nurtures internationalization, a theoretical model is developed and empirically tested to analyze potential born globals residing in business incubators.

Due to services provided, such as infrastructure, business support and networking, business incubators create a favorable environment for rapid internationalization of their tenants. However, the initiative to go international comes from the incubatees, and the motivating role of business incubators in this process is fairly insignificant.

The incubator-incubation phenomenon is notably under-researched, with most of the literature focusing on “incubator topics.” This relationship is extremely important to understand to choose appropriate political measures and orchestrate effective management of business incubators.

The purpose of this article is to develop new insights into the interplay between trust, indigenous institutions and weak/dysfunctional formal institutions using the Nigerian context – a developing country in Western Africa. It advances new understanding on how Nigerian entrepreneurs trust in their indigenous institutions such as family ties, kinship, chieftaincy, religion, cooperatives and trade associations to resolve disputes arising from their exporting activities as opposed to dormant formal institutions in their country.

This exploratory study adopts an interpretive research paradigm, and it utilises a case study strategy. Data collected through observations, archival records and qualitative conversations with 36 exporting Nigerian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is analysed by utilising a combination of within and cross-case analysis techniques. Doing so enabled an in-depth study of the methods their owner-managers use in order to take advantage of the relationships they established through their long-standing cultural institutions in the place of weak formal institutions in their country.

Indigenous institutions have evolved to replace formalised institutions within the business environment in Nigeria. They have developed to become an alternative and trusted arbiter for solving SMEs' export issues because of weak/dysfunctional formal institutions in the Western African country. The owner-managers of exporting SMEs perceive formal institutions as representing a fragmented system that does not benefit their export businesses.

The findings demonstrate that there is need for policymakers to consider the role of informal institutions in the Nigerian context. Such an approach is essential given the economic importance and increasing number of SMEs that trade and export their goods through informal structures in Nigeria.

The study indicates that it is not just the void or absence of institutions that exist in a developing country such as Nigeria, but weak/dysfunctional formal institutions have been replaced by culturally embedded informal institutions. Thus, the study provides a new theoretical avenue depicting the concept of trusting in indigenous institutions.

In this chapter, the authors examine trust and social networks among entrepreneurs operating in a developing market context. At the centre of this study, trust emerges from the interplay of a range of cultural-specific factors, each of which describes how social relations shape economic action. Using case studies of exporting Nigerian small and medium sized enterprises, the authors document how exporting arrangements are enforced across West African markets. Interview data reveal how entrepreneurs take advantage of indigenous trust-based relationships to enforce exporting agreements. It is clear that exporting activities are shaped by trust and networks of kinship and market associations that permeate the West African region. This chapter facilitates a better understanding of trust and the range of indigenous relationships that underpin exporting activities in Nigeria and particularly across West Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurs’ investment decisions under uncertainty in continued investments where the authors test the role of emotions to continue or discontinue the investment.

A conjoint analysis is carried out on 101 entrepreneurs’ 3,232 investment decisions. The entrepreneurs were provided with a scenario of an investment where the dependent variable was the entrepreneur's propensity to allocate further resources to the described investment. They assessed their willingness to allocate further resources to the investment on a seven-point Likert-type scale. The independent variables in the experiment were the experienced emotions of the entrepreneur each of which was described by the two levels of high and low.

It was found that self-confidence, challenge, and hope increase the propensity to continue investments as do increased level of uncertainty. Embarrassment and strain do not increase this propensity, however, high uncertainty decreases the propensity to continue investments. In contrast to the escalation of commitment theory, embarrassment does not make entrepreneurs more prone to invest under uncertainty. Frustration does not yield significant results, which runs contrary to the theory and the hypothesis finds no support.

The paper focussed on a limited number of emotions, and also on one specific moderating factor that impacts the effect of these emotions on the investment decision.

To understand the role of their emotions in investment decisions under different levels of uncertainty may help entrepreneurs to improve the quality of their decision making.

This study is an experiment where practitioner entrepreneurs participate which increases the ecological validity of the study. Emotions can explain, partly, why entrepreneurs persist with some underperforming projects, but not others. Uncertainty is a powerful moderating variable in the decision-making process. The results enhance existing knowledge about the emotive side of entrepreneurs’ propensity to make investment decisions under uncertainty. The results also supplement and refine existing theories on self-justification.

To introduce the special issue focusing on the QUIS 9 symposium.

A brief perspective of the best papers presented at the Quality in Services (QUIS9) symposium held at Karlstad university, Sweden in June 2004.

Outlines some of the highlights surrounding the conference.

Provides a brief report of the context of the conference.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of brand contract in B2B from two perspectives: the theological and pragmatic.

A review of the branding literature challenges the dominant notion of the brand covenant as a firm driven, unilateral promise, referred to as a theological contract. The study adds to this the pragmatic perspective of a social contract, as deployed by the social sciences and IMP literatures. A tentative framework of a dialectical contract is developed through drawing on three cases of Chinese suppliers for the focal firm, IKEA.

First, both types of contract are identified in the firm’s practices. Second, the specific goals and roles of managers and suppliers in each contract are defined. The theological contract is used by managers to strengthen suppliers’ beliefs in the company’s vision and mission, while the pragmatic one is employed by both parties for the implementation of the brand’s norms and brand equity. Third, a new framework for and the definition of a dual, dialectical brand contract in B2B are developed.

Managers are advised to mediate between the theological pledge of their brand and its pragmatic implementation.

The paper challenges the dominant theological discourse in extant branding literature and puts forward a dialectical approach as a new proposition.