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The purpose of this study is to investigate potential lenders of legitimacy for business-to-business (B2B) startups as reflected in the willingness of potential customers to do business with startup firms. This study theorizes the role of familiarity with B2B startups, their founding teams and their product offerings in influencing perceptions about legitimacy among potential customers.

Data are collected from key decision-makers involved in B2B procurements in large Indian companies and analyzed using conjoint analysis.

Results suggest that familiarity with product/service offerings from B2B startups is the most salient factor in forming favorable assessments for the venture, followed by the awareness of the startups and their founding teams, in that order.

The research makes several contributions to understanding the legitimacy of B2B startups from the customers’ perspective. The study provides a nuanced view of the factors impinging on legitimacy. The conceptualization of legitimacy as a reflection of willingness to buy (in other words, willingness to do business with) provides a useful lens with which to study the interactions between B2B startups and potential customers.

The strong empirical support the study finds for the predicted relationships in an international context, specifically India, enhances theory development, providing a solid foundation for future knowledge generation around the demand side legitimacy concept.

The concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) attracts considerable attention in the organizational literature. Focusing on issues related to measurement of EO and using a three-pronged framework to organize the growing diversity of EO measures, the authors conduct a systematic literature review on how EO is captured and assessed in the empirical literature. Specifically, the authors classify 551 empirical works according to the approach to measurement (i.e., managerial perceptions, content analysis, and resource allocations) which allows the authors to document and critically analyze prevalent measurement practices within the literature. Based on the synthesis, the authors identify key measurement-related tensions that may inhibit cumulative knowledge development in the area of EO, such as ad hoc modification of seminal scales and lack of theoretical clarity with respect to measurement. Additionally, the authors find that research into the antecedents of EO as well as causality and temporality of the phenomenon is underdeveloped, which the authors attribute to scarce use of mixed methods. The authors conclude chapter by discussing the challenges involved in measuring EO and offering possible recommendations for future inquiry.

Academic inquiry into entrepreneurial phenomena has had a rich history over several decades and continues to evolve. This editorial draws attention to the classics: seminal articles that make profound contributions to the development of an academic field in entrepreneurship studies. We focus on the formative years of entrepreneurship research, specifically the 1970s and 1980s, to identify classics using a key informant approach that surveys members of the journal editorial board. Each nominated classic is introduced and discussed by an editorial board member, with particular focus on research opportunities that may be pursued going forward. Analyzing classics allows for the recognition of substantive advances in entrepreneurship research and provides an opportunity to delve into the academic progress achieved in understanding entrepreneurial phenomena.

The link between social interaction and entrepreneurial activity has attracted considerable attention in the entrepreneurship literature. In this study, we focus on individual cultural values, shaped by interactions in the social space, as they relate to opportunity evaluation, a cornerstone of the entrepreneurial process. We test our predictions in India, a non-Western society that has sustained one of the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity in the world. Our findings suggest that value orientation of high power distance is negatively associated with opportunity evaluation whereas uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, and femininity are positively associated with opportunity evaluation.

Studies of entrepreneurial orientation tend to merge its three components‐proactiveness, risk-taking, and innovativeness‐into a monolithic construct and analyze its relationship with firm outcomes at one point in time. This has resulted in knowledge voids related to the relative importance of the different components, their specific effect on value created by the firm, and their evolution over time. The present study links each component of entrepreneurial orientation to economic value creation using a longitudinal dataset. Results provide support for hypothesized relationships. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Acting entrepreneurially in nascent industries is a complex endeavor characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. Nevertheless, entirely new industries do emerge, often as a direct result of entrepreneurial behavior. We extend and apply discovery and creation approaches to study entrepreneurial behavior during industry emergence by means of qualitative analysis of a film about the personal computer (PC) industry℉s formative years. We find that discovery and creation behavior are fundamentally interrelated and share a common element: bricolage. Moreover, ideological activism is a major component of entrepreneurial behavior in a new industry℉s formative years during both creation and discovery processes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Women entrepreneurship is designated as the new engines of economic growth in developing countries. Prior research shows how men and women differ in starting a business, with women normally facing more restrictions on entrepreneurial financing, entrepreneurial growth, and entrepreneurial performance. This has often been explained by gender role, yet we still lack a systematic understanding of how gender roles impact on women's entrepreneurial process in developing countries. In this chapter, we review literatures on female entrepreneurship in developing countries to show how gender role works in developing countries and especially its influence on the intention/entry/business participation and performance of female entrepreneurs.

Despite the increasing popularity of entrepreneurship among students in colleges and university, there is a surprising scarcity of theoretical or empirical research on this topic. In this article, we define the concept of student entrepreneurship, delineate its domain, and demarcate its boundaries. We propose a preliminary typology of student entrepreneurship rooted in the works of three leading economists from the Austrian School of Economics: Joseph Schumpeter, Israel Kirzner, and Ludwig Lachmann. We also identify and discuss important challenges associated with the practice of student entrepreneurship. The article concludes by advancing a future research agenda for the study of student entrepreneurship.