Showing papers on "Entrepreneurship published in 2003"

The role of social and human capital among nascent entrepreneurs

Abstract: This study examines nascent entrepreneurship by comparing individuals engaged in nascent activities (n=380) with a control group (n=608), after screening a sample from the general population (n=30,427). The study then follows the developmental process of nascent entrepreneurs for 18 months. Bridging and bonding social capital, consisting of both strong and weak ties, was a robust predictor for nascent entrepreneurs, as well as for advancing through the start-up process. With regard to outcomes like first sale or showing a profit, only one aspect of social capital, viz. being a member of a business network, had a statistically significant positive effect. The study supports human capital in predicting entry into nascent entrepreneurship, but only weakly for carrying the start-up process towards successful completion.

A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: The Individual-Opportunity Nexus

Abstract: In the first exhaustive treatment of the field in 20 years, Scott Shane extends the analysis of entrepreneurship by offering an overarching conceptual framework that explains the different parts of the entrepreneurial process - the opportunities, the people who pursue them, the skills and strategies used to organize and exploit opportunities, and the environmental conditions favorable to them - in a coherent way. Given the level of interest devoted to entrepreneurship in the economy and among academics at business schools, one would think that researchers would have deep insights into this phenomenon. However, those who look closely at academic investigations of entrepreneurship realize that scholarly understanding of this field is quite limited. Unlike its sister fields of accounting, marketing, finance, organizational behavior and strategic management, entrepreneurship is rather poorly explained by academics. Scott Shane resolves this by considering the nexus of enterprising individuals and valuable opportunities and by using that nexus to understand the processes of discovery and exploitation of opportunities, the acquisition of resources, entrepreneurial strategy and the organi

Shaping agility through digital options: reconceptualizing the role of information technology in contemporary firms

Abstract: Agility is vital to the innovation and competitive performance of firms in contemporary business environments. Firms are increasingly relying on information technologies, including process, knowledge, and communication technologies, to enhance their agility. The purpose of this paper is to broaden understanding about the strategic role of IT by examining the nomological network of influences through which IT impacts firm performance. By drawing upon recent thinking in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and IT management literatures, this paper uses a multitheoretic lens to argue that information technology investments and capabilities influence firm performance through three significant organizational capabilities (agility, digital options, and entrepreneurial alertness) and strategic processes (capability-building, entrepreneurial action, and coevolutionary adaptation). We also propose that these dynamic capabilities and strategic processes impact the ability of firms to launch many and varied competitive actions and that, in turn, these competitive actions are a significant antecedent of firm performance. Through our theorizing, we draw attention to a significant and reframed role of IT as a digital options generator in contemporary firms.

Knowledge‐based resources, entrepreneurial orientation, and the performance of small and medium‐sized businesses

Abstract: While theory suggests that management has discretion in manipulating resources in order to build competitive advantage, resource-based research has focused on the characteristics of resources, paying less attention to the relationship between those resources and the way firms are organized. In explaining performance, entrepreneurship scholars have focused on a firm’s entrepreneurial strategic orientation (EO), leaving its interrelationship with internal characteristics aside. We argue that EO captures an important aspect of the way a firm is organized. Our findings suggest that knowledge-based resources (applicable to discovery and exploitation of opportunities) are positively related to firm performance and that EO enhances this relationship. Copyright  2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Enterprise Education: Influencing Students' Perceptions of Entrepreneurship

Abstract: This research examines the effect of participation in an enterprise education program on perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of starting a business. Changes in the perceptions of a samp...

Social Networks and Entrepreneurship

Abstract: We study network activities of entrepreneurs through three phases of establishing a firm in four countries. Entrepreneurs access people in their networks to discuss aspects of establishing and running a business. We find that entrepreneurs build networks that systematically vary by the phase of entrepreneurship, analyzing number of their discussion partners, and the time spent networking. Entrepreneurs talk with more people during the planning than other phases. Family members are present in their networks in all phases, particularly among those who took over an existing firm. However, women use their kin to a larger extent than men, and even more than men when they take over an existing firm. Experienced entrepreneurs have the same networking patterns as novices. Moreover, these networking patterns are the same in all countries. However, there are country differences in size of discussion networks and time spent networking.

Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education

Abstract: Is everything in a university for sale if the price is right? In this book, one of America's leading educators cautions that the answer is all too often "yes." Taking the first comprehensive look at the growing commercialization of our academic institutions, Derek Bok probes the efforts on campus to profit financially not only from athletics but increasingly, from education and research as well. He shows how such ventures are undermining core academic values and what universities can do to limit the damage. Commercialization has many causes, but it could never have grown to its present state had it not been for the recent, rapid growth of money-making opportunities in a more technologically complex, knowledge-based economy. A brave new world has now emerged in which university presidents, enterprising professors, and even administrative staff can all find seductive opportunities to turn specialized knowledge into profit. Bok argues that universities, faced with these temptations, are jeopardizing their fundamental mission in their eagerness to make money by agreeing to more and more compromises with basic academic values. He discusses the dangers posed by increased secrecy in corporate-funded research, for-profit Internet companies funded by venture capitalists, industry-subsidized educational programs for physicians, conflicts of interest in research on human subjects, and other questionable activities. While entrepreneurial universities may occasionally succeed in the short term, reasons Bok, only those institutions that vigorously uphold academic values, even at the cost of a few lucrative ventures, will win public trust and retain the respect of faculty and students. Candid, evenhanded, and eminently readable, Universities in the Marketplace will be widely debated by all those concerned with the future of higher education in America and beyond.

Business Relationship Learning and Commitment in the Internationalization Process

Abstract: This paper is based on a case study of an international venture and on the observations reported by a number of researchers that the received models of the internationalization process of the firm do not capture some important phenomena in the modern international business world. As several researchers argue that networks play an important role in the early internationalization the paper outlines a network model of the internationalization process of the firm. It combines the experiential learning–commitment interplay as the driving mechanism from the old internationalization process model with a similar experiential learning–commitment mechanism focusing on business network relationships. In the resulting model we can see firms learning in relationships, which enables them to enter new country markets in which they can develop new relationships which give them a platform for entering other country markets.

The Impact of Entrepreneurship on Economic Growth

Abstract: The present chapter deals with the consequences of entrepreneurship for macro-economic growth. It consists of eight sections: (1) Introduction; (2) The influence of economic development on entrepreneurship; (3) Types of entrepreneurship and their relation to economic growth; (4) The effects of the choice between entrepreneurship and employment; (5) Entrepreneurship in endogenous growth models; (6) Strands of empirical evidence; (7) The time lag structure; and (8) Conclusion.

Networks in entrepreneurship: The case of high-technology firms

Abstract: The value of networks as an integral part of the explanation of entrepreneurial success is widely acknowledged. However, the network perspective does not specify the role of networks in the emergence and early growth of a venture. We have distinguished three entrepreneurial processes in new venture development, i.e. discovery of opportunities, securing resources, and obtaining legitimacy, which are of importance for survival and performance. This paper examines how these processes are influenced by strong and/or weak ties and whether the degree of innovation (incremental versus radical) acts as a contingency factor in the way network ties support entrepreneurial processes. In this explorative study three cases on high technology firms in The Netherlands provide empirical material enabling us to develop a number of propositions on the network effect, in particular the mix of strong and weak ties, on the three entrepreneurial processes.

In Pursuit of a New 'Enterprise' and 'Entrepreneurship' Paradigm for Learning: Creative Destruction, New Values, New Ways of Doing Things and New Combinations of Knowledge

Abstract: The paper argues for a new approach to the study of entrepreneurship and a new paradigm as a basis for entrepreneurship education. It also argues that such an approach is unlikely to come from university business schools. It needs an organisational revolution which, however, can be managed within a university as a whole. The paper is divided into two parts. The first explores the political imperative in Europe for development of the 'enterprise culture' and attributes this mainly to pressures for greater international competitiveness. The educational response is then examined and, with the help of a number of recent surveys, some of the key issues pertaining to the development of entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions in the UK and Europe are reviewed. The second part attempts to address the imperative at a more conceptual level. The pursuit of entrepreneurial behaviour is seen as a function of the degree of uncertainty and complexity in the task and broader environment and/or the desire of an individual, in pursuit of an opportunity or problem solution, to create it. It is argued that the key trigger for the growing interest in entrepreneurship is globalization. The way in which this has impacted on the role of the state, the organization of business activity and public services and on individuals to create greater uncertainty and complexity in the environment is explored. This leads to a conclusion that a wide range of stakeholders are being confronted with the need for entrepreneurial behaviour, for example, priests, doctors, teachers, policemen, pensioners and community workers and, indeed, potentially everyone in the community. Entrepreneurship is therefore not solely the prerogative of business. It follows that the traditional focus of entrepreneurship education on business, and new venture management in particular, provides an inadequate basis for response to societal needs. Moreover, the pervasive ideology of the 'heroic' entrepreneur can be seen as a dysfunctional when viewed against the needs of a wider community. The wider notion of 'enterprise' is therefore introduced as a means of moving away from the hitherto narrow paradigm. How this relates to the development of the individual and the design of enterprising organizations is explored. The paper explores the challenge of this broader context by reference to a number of issues central to the globalization debate including: culture, market liberalization, forms of governance and democracy. It then links these with the ontological and epistemological challenge to education. It concludes with discussion as to how this relates to the traditional concept of a university and argues that universities as a whole are in a much better position to respond to the challenge than are business schools.

Redefining Business Success: Distinguishing Between Closure and Failure

Abstract: New firms are believed to have high closure rates and these closures are believed to be failures, but two U.S. Census Bureau data sources illustrate that these assumptions may not be justified. The Business Information Tracking Series (BITS) showed that about half of new employer firms survive beyond four years and the Characteristics of Business Owners (CBO) showed that about a third of closed businesses were successful at closure. The CBO also made it possible to compare results of models of business survival and business success, but because of non-response bias logit models were used. Similar to previous studies, firms having more resources – that were larger, with better financing and having employees – were found to have better chances of survival. Factors that were characteristic of closure – such as having no start-up capital and having a relatively young owner – were also common in businesses considered successful at closure. Hence, few defining factors can be isolated leading to true failures. The significant proportion of businesses that closed while successful calls into question the use of "business closure" as a meaningful measure of business outcome. It appears that many owners may have executed a planned exit strategy, closed a business without excess debt, sold a viable business, or retired from the work force. It is also worth noting that such inborn factors as race and gender played negligible roles in determining survivability and success at closure.

Social entrepreneurship: towards conceptualisation

Abstract: The marketing in strategy dialogue and the emerging marketing/entrepreneurship interface paradigm stress the need for marketers to research entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneur-ship, the entrepreneurship leading to the establishment of new social enterprises and the continued innovation in existing ones, is much discussed but little understood and given the increasing importance of such organisations should be addressed. This paper conceptualises social entrepreneurship as a multidimensional construct involving the expression of entrepreneurially virtuous behaviour to achieve the social mission, a coherent unity of purpose and action in the face of moral complexity, the ability to recognise social value-creating opportunities and key decision-making characteristics of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice and concludes with a consideration of theoretical issues and directions for future research. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications