Search results

This chapter reports the results of an empirical study on the “gender–performance gap,” the alleged difference in business performance between firms started or owned by females and males. Although numerous studies have compared the business performance of firms started by or owned by female and male entrepreneurs, most research to date has employed financial performance metrics and has often produced inconsistent results. The present research compared gender-based business performance by examining self-perceptions of a large sample of female and male Black and Mexican-American entrepreneurs. As such, the present study overcame several limitations of prior gender–performance gap research and addressed entrepreneurial groups seldom studied. While there were no perceptual differences between female and male entrepreneurs surveyed regarding the performance of their respective businesses, Mexican-American entrepreneurs surveyed perceived the performance of their business as being better than Black entrepreneurs surveyed, and this result held for both females and males. Findings from the study provide insights into the perceptions held by Black and Mexican-American female and male entrepreneurs and provide a context for further race and gender studies.

Entrepreneurship involves complex interactions between individuals and environments but there is little research on these dynamics. We address this gap by conducting an inductive qualitative study of entrepreneurs in the exclusive tourist destination of Tiradentes, Brazil. Tiradentes has a unique architectural, cultural, and economic heritage that serves as a unique sociocultural backdrop that influences entrepreneurs’ models of start-up thinking and action. Specifically, our investigation revealed that entrepreneurs’ backgrounds (native vs. nonnative) and social identities come together with the sociocultural fabric of the community in a way that moved them towards a “Joia” or “Bijuteria” orientation, each of which were associated with a distinct mindset. This diversity had implications for entrepreneurs’ conceptualizations of start-up models possible within the backdrop of Tiradentes sociocultural fabric and this influenced the actions entrepreneurs took such as the geographic location chosen for the business and the business practices used. We discovered that entrepreneurs favoring one orientation over another tended to occupy predictable physical and social positions in the community while also espousing similar values and perspectives. These results are used to elaborate the theory on the link between the external and internal explanation for entrepreneurial thinking and action. The net effect is new understanding regarding ways models of start-up thinking and action can be investigated.

The authors investigate the essence of individual entrepreneurship activities’ strategy; they provide characteristics of survival, growth, and product strategies; they also prove the reasons for overwhelming use of survival strategy compared to growth strategy to ensure individual entrepreneurship activities. The importance of forming a proper product strategy to survive in the severe competition is shown. The authors suggest estimating the compliance of the chosen strategy with the potential and opportunities of an entrepreneur and assessing risks built in the strategy. The authors also suggest monitoring the growth goals and controlling their compliance with the chosen strategy.

This chapter explores how the recognition of opportunities regarding developing technology and entering a new market is influenced by the systemic effect of social forces. These include institutions, social networks and the entrepreneur’s cognitive frames. This study adopts a longitudinal perspective by capturing and analysing the phenomenon in two moments: first, when the businesses started to operate domestically and second, when they began to internationalise. The cases of five Brazilian technology firms are analysed. The findings reveal the systemic and mutually reinforcing effect of these social forces on the recognition of opportunities. The entrepreneurs’ cognitive frames were particularly vital in recognising opportunities to enter the Brazilian market. The institutional support provided by universities along with government mechanisms and entrepreneurs’ social networks were essential to accrue experiential and non-experiential knowledge of international markets, therefore contributing to the recognition of international opportunities. The temporal perspective employed in this research assists the understanding of how historical events shape entrepreneurs’ capabilities to recognise and change company discourse to pursue the recognition of international opportunities. The results provide guidelines for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers, particularly in the emerging economies in Latin America, to support the growth and flourishing of entrepreneurial ventures through pursuing international opportunities.

High technology entrepreneurs have received increased attention over the past decade as it is now recognized that these entrepreneurs are able to build companies that generate high wage employment and high levels of wealth. While much anecdotal evidence has been offered as to who these entrepreneurs are, little is known about their early efforts to launch a high technology company. Based on the most recent data that specifically profiles nascent entrepreneurs throughout the United States, we extrapolate and discuss implications of our findings. Specifically, we identify who, where, when, and why these entrepreneurs are engaged in this important form of business launch. We conclude by suggesting how decision-makers and institutions can better facilitate and nurture the launch of high technology firms.

This article delves into the contributions of Milton Santos (1926–2001) to the economic study of entrepreneurship. Santos made contributions to spatial economics, urbanization, and planning theories, being an important author to the field of regional and urban economics. His most famous idea is the “two circuits” of the urban economy. According to this approach, the urban economies in peripheral countries create two economic-urban circuits that are both distinct and connected. The superior circuit comes from the technological modernization and cultivates international relationships. High-value goods and networks and new technologies circulate through it. The inferior circuit works outside these networks. It consists of low-dimension activities from local populations. Santos elaborated this theory to understand urbanization in peripheral countries and to give voice to the ones left behind by the development process. He did not write directly on entrepreneurship. We argue, however, that his thoughts can be important to entrepreneurship studies. The entrepreneurship discourse, that had in Schumpeter one of its main sources, assumes that the entrepreneur has traits related to the superior circuit, such as access to resources and networks, which would not be available to entrepreneurs in the inferior circuit. We argue that Santos’ contributions can inform economic thought in entrepreneurship by calling attention to how literature can approach structural problems and contribute to making economics a more diverse discipline.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the implementation of a psychological assistance program on new entrepreneurs in a business incubator of a public university located in an emerging economy. The methodology was an intrinsic case study through qualitative approach. The findings suggest that this program had a positive impact on new entrepreneurs; it promoted a space for reflection, motivation and perseverance; it encouraged them to handle different emotions or factors to achieve its business targets. Thus, it helped them to improve the chances of success of their start-ups by learning and strengthening key psychological entrepreneurial competences.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the crisis on entrepreneurial activities and how it can be relieved. Specifically, we explore how the positive effects of the human capital (self-confidence, opportunity alertness, and risk willingness) on startup activities are changed after the global financial crisis. Additionally, we explore how knowing an entrepreneur boosts up these relationships. We applied data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) about prospective women entrepreneurs in China in 2006–2007 (precrisis time) and 2009–2010 (postcrisis time). Results show a sharp drop in effect size of self-confidence and opportunity recognition upon women's entrepreneurial actions; however, the global financial crisis nullified the effect of fear of failure on potential women entrepreneurs' business activities. Furthermore, knowing an entrepreneur has no significant moderating effect. Theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This study examines how narratives and legitimacy formation affect crowdfunding capital assembly from distributed, heterogeneous investors.

The study explores a dataset of 80,181 projects from Kickstarter, a rewards-based crowdfunding platform, between 2009 and 2013. We explore the link between project-related variables, legitimacy formation and outcomes.

Entrepreneurs design narratives and create project legitimacy by exploiting crowdfunding platform-specific features. First, lower funding targets and shorter campaign durations confer positive project legitimacy. Second, entrepreneurs exploit reward-levels as narrative tools that encourage funders to engage with the project. Third, visual pitches transmit a broader sociocultural narrative, leveraging emotional rather than financial reasoning. We also note certain gender effects.

Crowdfunding platforms allow entrepreneurs to pitch business ideas to a broad online audience. We show that project legitimacy, including both structural and narrative elements, is linked to crowdfunding outcomes. In particular, legitimacy is co-created through the generation of a persuasive narrative linking the entrepreneur and investor cohort.

Entrepreneurs use crowdfunding platforms to generate a coherent narrative around unfamiliar business models. Generic platform tools may be set and manipulated in online crowdfunding pitches to support project legitimacy. Ultimately, these are less important than establishing an affinity-based narrative that engages and exploits investor participation. Successful crowdfunding pitches co-author the project story with investors.

Crowdfunding has been traditionally understood as simply an online-mediated venture resource assembly tool. A narrative framework highlights the critical role of legitimacy formation in a disintermediated investment system.