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Whether older or younger entrepreneurs may be better positioned to achieve performance outcomes for their ventures is a much debated question. Here, we draw on Galenson℉s theory of creativity to propose a contingency perspective for understanding the relationship between entrepreneur age and venture performance, suggesting that a venture℉s level of innovativeness plays a moderating role. Results from a representative sample of 1,182 nascent entrepreneurs revealed mixed support for our hypotheses. While a negative relationship was found between entrepreneur age and performance for those developing “innovative” ventures, no relationship was found between entrepreneur age and performance for those developing “imitative” ventures.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the changing pattern and characteristics of international financial flows in the emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), provide a novel taxonomy to classify and analyze them, and discuss how such investments contribute to competence building and sustainable development.

In an exploratory study, the authors analyze the characteristics of international venture capital investors and the start-ups receiving funding in Kenya and map their interaction. The authors proceed by developing a novel taxonomy, classifying investors according to their main rationales (for-profit-for-impact), and start-ups according to the locus of needs and markets addressed by the start-up (local-global) and the locus of the start-ups capacity and knowledge (local-global).

The authors observe a new type of mainly western investors who support innovative ideas in SSA by identifying and investing in domestically developed technical innovations with the potential to address global market needs. The authors find such innovations to be mainly developed at the intersect of global and local knowledge.

The authors shed light on the – up to now – under-researched emerging phenomenon of international high-tech investments in SSA, and develop a novel taxonomy of technology investments in low-income countries, guiding further research on the conditions, impact, practical, and policy implications of this new form of finance flows.

This study aims to examine the degree to which a selection of home country factors affects the proclivity of firms to internationalise. The study also proposes and tests a conceptual model that fuses institutional and resource-based theories to improve our understanding of firm internationalisation.

The study uses cross-sectional, national-level secondary data from the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Development Institute and World Economic Forum data sets on global entrepreneurship and competitiveness indices for 137 countries. The data is analysed using correlation and hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that national income, institutions, trade openness and availability of risk capital positively influenced firm internationalisation, while home-country networking had an inverse effect. However, home country infrastructure had no statistically significant effect on firm internationalisation.

The findings highlight the importance of considering home country attributes in understanding the internationalisation of firms.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing empirical evidence of the role of local factors on the internationalisation of entrepreneurial ventures. It also tests a novel conceptual model that integrates institutional and resource-based theories to explain the nuances of the internationalisation of business ventures globally.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why, despite the development of a hybrid investing logic, funding problems are so persistent for early-stage Cleantech ventures (“Cleantechs”). An institutional logics lens is adopted to analyze how key actors' perceptions and communications of the Cleantech value proposition shape information asymmetries (IAs).

A mixed methods approach draws on 82 Cleantech pitch decks and 31 investment guidance documents, and insights from interviews with 42 key informants and nine Cleantech CEOs and their investors.

IAs persist, first of all, because key investor and entrepreneurial actors combine different goals in the hybrid Cleantech value proposition. Interestingly, the analysis of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) as a critical communication tool reveals a further mismatch in how actors actually combine logics. The authors ultimately identify three emergent actor roles – traditional laggard, developer and boundary spanner – that present a framework of how the three most influential actor groups develop EPIs and via that a hybrid Cleantech financing logic to overcome IAs.

The paper enhances the entrepreneurial finance literature primarily by showing that in contexts of hybrid investing a more nuanced understanding of institutional logics in terms of ends and means is critical to overcome IAs. While prior works highlight goal incompatibilities, the findings here suggest that the (in-)compatibility of goals as well as EPI choices of the same actors is likely to be the key explanandum for the stickiness of IAs and the funding gap. The novel emerging role framework offers additional theoretical, policy and practical advances for hybrid logic development.

The purpose of this article is to investigate if and how social capital offline – stemming from face-to-face interactions – and social capital online – stemming from social digital media – can influence early-stage entrepreneurs, i.e. ventures with up to 42 months of existence.

The authors used herein a qualitative research approach. The method used was the case study. The authors investigated three early-stage entrepreneurs in order to achieve the objective of the paper. These entrepreneurs are both the unit of analysis and the unit of observation.

The outcomes of this research indicate (1) the combined importance of social capital offline and online; (2) the different performance of the two different types of social capital (they seem to operate in relatively distinct ways) and (3) the existence of recursiveness between resources stemming from the two social spheres (offline and online).

As research limitations, the authors point out the following: (1) the use of semistructured interviews as the only data collection instrument; (2) the limitation of the outcomes to entrepreneurs only (3) the absence of information on the performance of the business ventures; the focus of the paper was only on establishing causality between social capital offline and online and entrepreneurial performance.

This paper provides important research contributions. Initially, the paper presents a range of offline and online variables, which can be used in further research. At the same time, the paper emphasizes the combined impact of social capital offline and online, expanding the literature related to entrepreneurship. Moreover, this study proposes the creation of an integrative model. Finally, the authors point out the need for new theoretical and empirical studies on the subject, which still presents a gap in the literature.

This study presents and validates a theoretical model linking individual characteristics of the founding or lead innovative entrepreneur of a start-up venture – the entrepreneur's values, entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial self-efficacy – to the firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) and, ultimately, to firm performance.

We conducted a survey on a stratified random sample of founders of early-stage South Australian micro- and small enterprises with a response rate of 24% (N = 204). Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model.

The study found that there is a significant relationship between the individual lead entrepreneur and firm strategies developed in early-stage firms in explaining firm performance. It also found that internal values are positively related to entrepreneurial attitude. Entrepreneurial attitude is positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy and EO innovativeness. In turn, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is related to innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. The proactiveness dimension of EO and entrepreneurial attitude is related to MO. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, innovativeness and MO are related to firm performance.

This research was limited to entrepreneurial ventures in South Australia and may lack generalisability in other states and countries.

The research contributes to the understanding of the heterogeneity within self-employed individuals, in particular among innovative entrepreneurs, by expanding insights regarding antecedents and consequences of the entrepreneurial process. It develops insights into the links of individual-level constructs with firm-level constructs to develop a more meaningful understanding of new venture creation and performance. It enhances our knowledge of the heterogeneity within the group of self-employed by exploring the individual entrepreneurial antecedents of performance in early-stage firms.