Showing papers on "Entrepreneurship published in 1995"

Innovation and industry evolution

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction. Part 2 Measurement: The Longitudinal Data Base: Introduction The Longitudinal Data Base File Editing Reliability Comparisons A Note on Measuring Innovative Activity Conclusions. Part 3 New Firms: Introduction Why Firms Exist The Traditional View of Entry Asymmetric Information, Transaction Costs, and the Principal Agent Relationship New-Firm Startups Over Time and Across Industries The Model Results Conclusions. Part 4 Survival and Growth: Introduction Firm Selection Post-Entry Performance of New Firms Firm Growth and Survival Semiparametric Hazard Duration Model Conclusions. Part 5 Entrepreneurship: Introduction Measuring Entrepreneurship Innovation, Scale Economics, and Entrepreneurship Empirical Results Conclusions. Part 6 Compensating Strategies: Introduction Minimum Efficient Scale and Suboptimal Plant Share Suboptimal Plants and Compensating Factor Differentials Empirical Results for the United States Empirical Results for Japan Conclusions. Part 7 Who Exits and Why: Introduction Displacement and the Revolving Door Measurement The Age Cohort of Exiting Firms Conclusions. Part 8 Conclusions: Major Findings Broader Implications.

Toward a theory of entrepreneurial careers

Abstract: Parallel streams of theory and research regarding entrepreneurship and careers has led to a dearth of comprehensive theories regarding the careers of entrepreneurs. This article describes four core...

Culture, structure and regional levels of entrepreneurship

Abstract: While the potential importance of cultural factors for entrepreneurship has been stressed by several researchers, empirical research focusing on this issue is scarce. In this study, values and beliefs assumed to be related to entrepreneurial behaviour, as well as entrepreneurial intentions, are investigated amongst the general population in six structurally different clusters of regions within Sweden. The cultural differences found are not very large, but interesting and statistically significant differences exist. The results suggest that the prevalence of certain values affect levels of entrepreneurship measured as regional rates of new firm formation. There is no clear indication that beliefs about the societal and individual outcomes of entrepreneurship influence new firm formation. The results further suggest some intricate relationships between structure, culture and entrepreneurship. These have implications for policy-making as well as research.

Race, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in Urban America

Abstract: The introduction to a book-length study, this chapter reviews the "interaction theory" of ethnic self-employment and introduces multiple disadvantage as an improvement over disadvantage theory

Cooperative strategy and new venture performance: The role of business strategy and management experience

Abstract: This paper reports the results of a study of new ventures which examine the relationships between performance and the experience of a new venture's management team, its choice of competitive strategy, and its use of various cooperative arrangements. The findings of the moderated regression analysis indicate that cooperative arrangements are most beneficial to those new ventures whose management teams possess the most experience.

The ‘other side’ of embedded ness: A case‐study of the interplay of economy and ethnicity

Abstract: As interest in ethnics and their entrepreneurial activities has grown in recent years, sociologists have come to emphasize the importance of ethnic social structures as the source of actions propelling business growth. In a sign of convergence with the ‘new economic sociology’, recent literature suggests that embeddedness in ethnic networks and communities leads to cooperative, if not conformist, behaviour among ethnic economic actors. This article looks at the ‘other side’ of embeddedness, through a case‐study of African‐American, Caribbean, Korean and white construction contractors in New York City. I argue that, in construction, the embeddedness of economic behaviour in ongoing social relations among a myriad of social actors impedes access to outsiders. Embeddedness contributes to the liabilities of newness that all neophytes encounter, breeding a preference for established players with track records. However, the convergence of economic and ethnic ties has a further baneful effect, since out...

“push” and “pull” entrepreneurship

Abstract: The adverse selection problem that is created because of asymmetry of information about entrepreneurs' attributes and abilities in turning ideas into viable businesses makes it difficult for venture capitalists or corporate executives to identify would-be successful entrepreneurs in advance. To mitigate this, and the related moral-hazard problem, we focus on an individual's motive to become an entrepreneur in the context of an individual's demographic and personal characteristics. We distinguish between two types of entrepreneurs based on their motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activity: “Push” entrepreneurs are those whose dissatisfaction with their positions, for reasons unrelated to their entrepreneurial characteristics, pushes them to start a venture. “Pull” entrepreneurs are those who are lured by their new venture idea and initiate venture activity because of the attractiveness of the business idea and its personal implications. Statistical analysis of data obtained from a questionnai...

Entrepreneurship and Business Culture

Abstract: Part 1 Cultural issues in economic perspective: from "economic man" to "ethical man" economics as an imperialistic social science economic analysis of society - the contribution of Frank Knight. Part 2 Entrepreneurship in a cultural context: entrepreneurship and business culture modelling entrepreneurship cultural factors in innovation. Part 3 The political economy of national culture: cultural determinants of national economic performance industrial policy in cultural perspective brands - economic ideology and consumer society entrepreneurship, regional development and minority language enterprize culture and institutional change in Eastern Europe.

Flexible Re-Cycling and High-Technology Entrepreneurship:

Abstract: This article explores high-technology entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley—an environment in which technological innovation and new enterprises have thrived during the past 30 years In this domain, the demise of one firm typically leads to the formation of others This process of "flexible re-cycling" can result in novel reconfiguration of knowledge and human capabilities, allowing new firms to rise from the ashes of disengaged enterprises The versatile ecosystem of Silicon Valley facilitates the process of flexible re-cycling and can be viewed as the enduring dimension of business activity

Critical Success Factors for Small Business: Perceptions of South Pacific Entrepreneurs

Abstract: The South Pacific is inhabited by three groups of people: the Polynesians who are the light-skinned, straight haired inhabitants of islands such as Western Samoa and Tonga, the Micronesians from some tiny islands dotting the region, and finally the Melanesians who are the dark-skinned inhabitants of the region in countries such as Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu (formally New Hebrides). This article discusses a study of critical success factors that are perceived by South Pacific entrepreneurs as being necessary for successful operation of small businesses in the region. It is based on the recognition that entrepreneurship and enterprise have a critical role to play in economic development, especially in developing societies such as the island nations of the South Pacific. Lately, there is a proliferation of small businesses in the South Pacific, attributable mainly to promotion and assistance given to the small business sector by governments and government agencies (such as Small Business Development Corporations), foreign donors and foreign development agencies (such as USAID and CIDA), and voluntary organizations (such as the Friedrick Ebert Foundation). Promotion and assistance are generally in the form of the construction of industrial parks to alleviate location and infrastructural problems; bookkeeping courses to improve financial recording systems, marketing assistance, and management; and technical consulting to provide on-site advice. These are thought to be important ingredients for successful small business development. However, as noted by some researchers of entrepreneurship in developing nations, programs and strategies that succeed in one country may not necessarily succeed in another because of cultural and governmental differences. There are also virtually no empirical data identifying critical success factors for small business development in the South Pacific region - hence our decision to find out these factors from the small business people themselves. Small businesses in the South Pacific dominate the retail, road transportation, tourism, and handicraft sectors. They also participate (to a lesser degree) in the construction, maintenance, domestic agriculture, and manufacturing sectors. The research questions addressed by this study are as follows: (1) What critical success factors do South Pacific entrepreneurs perceive as necessary for small business development? (2) Do non-indigenous entrepreneurs and indigenous entrepreneurs perceive the critical success factors for small business development differently? (3) Do entrepreneurs with formal educations and entrepreneurs without formal educations perceive critical success factors for small business development differently? Results A random sample of 220 entrepreneurs (180 males and 40 females) was selected from Melanesian Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Vanuatu, Polynesian Western Samoa, the Micronesian state of Marshall Islands, and Fiji. Of the entrepreneurs surveyed in the study, 65 percent were indigenous Pacific entrepreneurs, and 35 percent were non-indigenous Pacific entrepreneurs such as the Chinese in PNG and Western Samoa, Vietnamese and French in Vanuatu, and Indo-Fijians in Fiji. Indigenous enterprises are typically small with few employees, low sales volume, inadequate assets, and low profit margins. These enterprises offer retail outlets, urban and inter-village transport systems, and goods and services appropriate to the local communities. Non-indigenous enterprises, on the other hand, are mainly in light manufacturing, hotel/tourist accommodations, fast food, and restaurants. The overall educational level of the entrepreneurs was found to be above the national average. Eighty percent of our respondents had gone through the formal school system at one level or the other. Of this, 40 percent were primary school graduates, 35 percent were high school graduates, and the remaining 25 percent had achieved post-high school education. …

Race, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship in Urban America

Abstract: The authors have assembled a vast body of census data to address cutting-edge issues in entrepreneurship, immigration, urban studies, economic sociology, and social policy. In a novel research formulation, they compare the 272 largest metropolitan regions of the United States in respect to the entrepreneurship of various ethno-racial groups. Such a method permits them to vary the local economic environment and resource profiles of all major categories. Virtually all previously available data on these issues relied upon averages and overlooked inter-local variation within and among groups. Interpreting the voluminous data, which summarize the economic behavior of 100 million people, Ivan Light and Carolyn Rosenstein first explain resources theory (a supply-side formulation), providing a complete review of the large theoretical literature on immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship. They then address the other major theoretical concerns in the existing literature of social science, among them the interactionist theory of entrepreneurship and the possible effect of disadvantage upon entrepreneurship. The latter issue, an important and long-standing one, receives careful and decisive examination that eventuates in a theoretically elegant solution. A final chapter discusses social policy. The authors contrast liberal and conservative assumptions about entrepreneurship, faulting both. Locating entrepreneurship outside the usual framework of manpower policy, the authors make a case for a supply-side policy science of entrepreneurship that is neutral in political implication. Light and Rosenstein then suggest how policy might proceed to integrate two generations of social science research. Their closing discussion relates policy implications to the economic development of inner cities in America.

Entrepreneurship in a Remote Sub-Arctic Community

Abstract: Relatively little is known about entrepreneurial activities of the sub-Arctic. This explanatory study compares the existing theories of entrepreneurship with the findings of an ethnographic study of entrepreneurs in a small Alaskan town. In the study, the word "entrepreneurs" refers to individuals who earn their livelihood by exercising some control over a business activity, and who produce more than they can consume in order to profit from the sales. Findings are analyzed using a theoretical typology of the entrepreneur derived from interdisciplinary literature. The study involved all of the town's 65 entrepreneurs. Non-quantitative methods were used in order to research not only individual entrepreneurs, but also the socio-cultural context. The study used a variety of ethnographic methods, and included participant observation and open-ended interviews of business owners, employees, and key informants. Traditional categorizations of entrepreneurs were found to be inappropriate to compare Eskimo and non-native entrepreneurs. Individual entrepreneurships were classified according to the theory relevant to the specific experience of each person. Eskimos in the town have a lower tendency to become entrepreneurs than non-natives. Perception of and response to opportunity are culture-bound. Eskimos and non-native respondents relate to opportunity differently; the former tend to become reactive entrepreneurs (less by choice than by life circumstances), while the latter tend to be opportunity seekers. Implications for new venture programs on fostering entrepreneurial spirit among non-entrepreneurship-oriented cultures are discussed. (AT)

Entrepreneurship Education: Opportunity in Search of Curriculum.

Abstract: Entrepreneurship education derives its importance from three factors: a demand among students for information about entrepreneurship; a need to provide students with skills related to making jobs, rather than training to take existing jobs; and a related need for economic growth through job creation. According to a 1994 national Gallup poll, 7 out of 10 high school students wanted to start their own business, but most showed remarkably little understanding of entrepreneurship. To provide students with entrepreneurial skills, educational efforts must focus on the following three attributes of entrepreneurship: (1) the identification of market opportunity and the generation of a business idea t address the opportunity; (2) the commitment of resources to pursue the opportunity in the face of risk; and (3) the creation of an operating business organization to implement the idea. A useful model for implementing and supporting an entrepreneurship program identifies three elements: an "initiator" able to identify market opportunities and lead others; a development team recruited by the initiator to assist with human resources, finance, marketing, selling, development, manufacturing, and quality management; and a constituent group of community members with a stake in the growth of the venture. Unfortunately, current curricula fail to even address the initiator element of entrepreneurship. To facilitate the needs of today's youth, educators must provide true entrepreneurship education by focusing the curriculum on the role of the initiator. Contains 14 references. (MAB) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *************************************************************k********* Cr) ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION: OPPORTUNITY IN SEARCH OF CURRICULUM

Modelling entrepreneurial career progressions: concepts and considerations

Abstract: Studying entrepreneurship longitudinally is in effect a study of entrepreneurial careers, but there is little vocational theory specific to self-employment, much less entrepreneurship. Using Edgar Schein's Career Anchor Theory as a starting point, the existing anchors of autonomy and entrepreneurship are adapted to facilitate secondary analysis using existing longitudinal datasets. A model of career progression or trajectory, which would permit analysis of the self-employed as well as others, is developed using six variables. The first three come from Schein's “career cone” model of vocational movement–-hierarchy, function, and centrality. Three new variables are derived from a diverse literature on entrepreneurship–-employment duration, job multiplicity, and self-employment emergence. One approach to the operationalization of these six variables Is shown using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and implications for future research and theorizing on entrepreneurial career progression are given.

The determinants of entrepreneurial activity

Abstract: Examines the interface of entrepreneurship and marketing. Defines entrepreneurship as a variable phenomenon that can be applied at the societal, organizational and individual levels. Marketing is conceptualized as a fundamentally entrepreneurial activity. Argues that entrepreneurship is an environmentally‐driven phenomenon and that the environmental determinants of entrepreneurship can be categorized into three groups: infrastructure; turbulence and personal life experiences. Draws out the implications of these determinants, and the corresponding level of entrepreneurship that they produce, for the nature and role of marketing at the macro and micro levels.

Employment change in independent owner-managed high-technology firms in Great Britain

Abstract: There is a growing volume of literature that points to the potential for small technology-based firms to achieve substantial employment growth. As a direct consequence of such work this sector of any economy has attracted increasing attention from national and local Governments concerned with finding ways of revitalising economically deprived localities and creating employment opportunities. This paper provides up-to-date empirical evidence surrounding the ability of small high-technology firms to create additional jobs in Great Britain. In addition, key founder and business characteristics are isolated which are significantly associated with employment change in growing high-technology firms over the 1986 to 1992 period. With respect to factors influencing these high levels of employment growth, a high firm size (in 1986) was found to act positively on employment growth, as was a graduate level education for the key founder. On the finance side firms which had access to and used a multiplicity of sources of start-up finance tended to grow faster. Futher, on the basis of our results we would suggest (and recommend) a Government policy which at the firm level actively encourages high-technology firm start-ups (who record higher rates of survival than firms in more ‘conventional’ sectors) as well as providing support for existing high-technology firms who have already demonstrated the inclination and ability to grow in employment size.

Paradigms and entrepreneurial networks–some methodological challenges

Abstract: The use of network approaches to gain an understanding of business behaviour in general, and entrepreneurial action in particular, has increased. Research into entrepreneurial networking, however, varies considerably depending upon paradigmatic assumptions. In deterministic contexts networks mainly represent restrictions while in voluntaristic settings the network is the very instrument by which new ventures are realized. A subjectivist approach thus seems to be most able to exploit the potentials of the network metaphor in entrepreneurship research since venturing means organizing through personal networking. Yet both quantitative and qualitative tools may be adopted when mapping and interpreting the characteristics of entrepreneurial networks.

Contingency relationships between entrepreneurship, export channel structure and environment

Abstract: For decades, export performance has generated interest among researchers and public policy makers. However, despite extensive investigations, export marketing is still lacking in theoretically‐grounded conclusions. Attempts to overcome this limitation by presenting a new theory‐based framework of export performance by integrating the literature in exporting, entrepreneurship and organization theory. On the basis of two entrepreneurship‐based strategic postures, export performance is conceptualized as a function of fit among firms′ strategic orientation, environment and export channel structure. From a contingency perspective, argues that exporting firms need to match or align their strategic orientation with their external environment and export channel structure to achieve superior export performance. Briefly discusses future research directions and managerial implications.

Entrepreneurship in a Remote Sub-Arctic Community:

Abstract: This exploratory study attempts to provide a theoretical and empirically Informed Judgment about entrepreneurial activities In a small sub-Arctic Alaskan town. An Interdisciplinary literature revie...

Starting over in Eastern Europe: Entrepreneurship and Economic Renewal

Abstract: Part 1 Restructuring state enterprises: economic reform and the challenge of state enterprise restructuring state enterprise privatization - the case of Prochnik state enterprise restructuring - a tale of two shipyards. Part 2 Private business development: the nature of Polish private sector the private sector breakthrough constraints on private sector development lessons for private sector development. Part 3 Starting over - the lessons from Poland: a reinterpretation of economic reform after communism.

Networks and small business growth: An explanatory model

Abstract: To date, there has been limited empirical research related to network theory. With this article, we have tried to fill this gap by testing an explanatory model of the impact of networks on small business growth. To analyze this causal relationship, the log-linear technique was used. The results suggest that networks have an influence on the growth of a small business, especially through contacts with national and international entrepreneurs.