Entrepreneurship & Regional Development

This study conceptualizes graduate entrepreneurship as a spatial phenomenon. Specifically, we explore how combinations of university-related (knowledge exchange intensity and entrepreneurship support) as well as regional conditions (economic prosperity and entrepreneurial culture) might explain the presence or absence of high graduate entrepreneurship as possible (or likely) explanations based on...

Prior research on crisis management focuses on crisis strategies used by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), predominately without considering their initial state of preparedness – how these SMEs stepped into the crisis in the first place. This study examines the effects of financial, organizational and cultural crisis preparedness on the strategic choices SMEs make during...

In this study, we analyse savings and credit groups (SCGs) to investigate whether belonging to these groups contributes favourably to entrepreneurship. SCGs are community-based groups that represent a form of informal finance in developing countries. For the analysis, we adopt the social embeddedness theory, and test our hypotheses on a unique sample of respondents to...

Research suggests that business families may favour family members’ ability to act entrepreneurially and convey an entrepreneurial legacy to successors to ensure the continuity of family businesses. Nonetheless, families’ entrepreneurial imprinting can extend beyond successors, as non-successors can also pursue an entrepreneurial path. Little is known, however, about non-successor daughters’ entre...

Entrepreneurship research rarely explores and explains how people approach ambiguity differently as they combine knowledge during the entrepreneurial journey. In this paper we introduce curiosity as a source of intrinsic motivation that addresses this shortcoming. We find that the full range of curiosity-driven entrepreneurial behaviour is not well-described by terminology found within the curiosi...

My research focuses on enabling, accelerating, and funding the entrepreneurial journey, from initial idea to viable venture, in independent, corporate, and social settings. An evolving entrepreneurial opportunity is central in this process: obvious in retrospect, but uncertain, nebulous, and ambiguous in prospect. I am interested in how potential entrepreneurs and investors think, act, and interac...

This paper explores how a future – as something that can only be imagined but can inspire entrepreneurial action – can attract economic capital. We integrate Dor’s (2015) model of language as a communication technology for the instruction of imagination with Bourdieu’s theory of practice to account for how an entrepreneur’s words can hold sway...

Entrepreneurship is an elusive phenomenon and its meaning has been vigorously debated. This study seeks to contribute to critical perspectives on entrepreneurship by investigating how entrepreneuring participates and intervenes in the dominant discourse, and thus, in the practices that constitute meaning. To explore this crucial question, I use the framework of entrepreneuring as a mode...

Mark Freel is the Royal Bank of Canada Professor for the Commercialisation of Innovations at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. He also holds an appointment as a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Lancaster University Management School, UK, and is a research fellow at the Lazaridis Institute, Wilfrid Laurier University. Before moving...

We apply the sociological lens of linked lives to show how household contexts channel transitions to self-employment in ways strongly differentiated by gender. We investigate the impact of demographic transitions to marriage, cohabitation and having children on the transition to self-employment using fixed-effects models on 10 waves of the UK’s nationally representative survey, Understanding Socie...

In the field of international entrepreneurship, there are increasing calls for the study of cognition in its social context. In this regard, this article draws on social representations theory to explore and better understand the cognition of entrepreneurs. The objective of the present study is to explore the social representation of legitimacy among different social...

Entrepreneurship is often about the individual drive for innovation and the exploitation of opportunities; however, in an increasingly connected world, entrepreneurial ecosystems have gained considerable research interest. In many developed countries, entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge from organic collaborations between businesses and investors, with little political involvement. However, in a pos...

Using a phenomenological approach, we analyse the voices of entrepreneurs living in the peripheral ecosystems of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK), Palermo (Italy) and Perth (Australia). These ecosystems are defined by the considerable physical distance between their geographical location and the location of a larger, more established ‘core’ ecosystem in their nation. The purpose of our...

Entrepreneurs usually have several means at their disposal to deal with and overcome adverse circumstances, ranging from simple non-resourceful coping strategies to more elaborate resourceful behaviours. However, entrepreneurs who find themselves in conditions of prolonged adversity and disadvantage have few effective possibilities to withstand sudden adversity such as crises and income shocks. Ba...

The aim of this research is to undertake explorative research and present propositions that would identify the drivers of regional emergency networks, i.e. regional technological collaborative agreements under extreme conditions. Based on previous studies on emergency management, we empirically evaluate how 49 organizations built 53 technological cooperative agreements within the context of COVID-...

Answering the call for more process-oriented research into the inception and development of companies, this paper analyses the funding acquisition process of nascent ventures. Based on optimal matching techniques combined with multinomial logistic regression, we identify how the most typical funding acquisition processes of nascent ventures evolve and identify in which circumstances ventures pursu...

Craft-based ventures draw on associations with tradition, place and quality to differentiate their products from mass-produced counterparts. However, ‘place’ in the context of craft entrepreneurship is both underexamined and undertheorized, with extant research predominantly focused on the positive impact of place. We argue that this perspective ignores the impact of place on craft entrepreneurs’...

The study examines the influence of inspiring role model (IRM), social entrepreneurship (SE) compassion, and the SE education and their interactions and consequences for nascent SE behaviour. Utilizing a quantitative survey approach, the study acquired a total of 136 valid responses from nascent social entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. The data analysis through partial least square...

In this paper, we explore the micro-interactions through which a regenerative enterprise engages with proximate natural ecosystems in its attempt to repair and protect them. Through an ethnographic study of a regenerative farming enterprise in rural Southern Patagonia – Fundo Panguilemu – we discover a reciprocal relationship between the enterprise and animals, central to their...

Studies of social incubators illustrate the importance of these organizations in promoting social innovations and entrepreneurship at regional level. However, little is known about the main categories of contingency factors that influence the organizational design and fit of social incubators. We apply a comparative case study methodology to analyse the mission, structure and activity of...

This article analyses the influence of gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship by jointly studying the effect of gender-role orientation (GRO) and sex (women vs. men) on the entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and actions of individuals. Entrepreneurship is associated with the typical male stereotype in most societies, leading to a lower rate of women entrepreneurs. Our model builds...

Drawing on a qualitative study of Syrian refugees in constrained immigration contexts in the North of England, this article explores refugees’ perceptions of integration and social exclusion through entrepreneurship. By exploring refugee experiences as they engage in entrepreneurship programmes or business start-ups, our findings highlight a divide among refugees with the means to start-up busines...

This study explores the dynamics of online community entrepreneurship, using a rural grocery store as a case study. I examine the role of social media in community entrepreneurship, revealing insights into the interplay between social interactions, spatial factors, and the entrepreneurial process. The case account outlines a process where online communities turn ideas into actions...

n this paper, we apply a feminist interpretation and an extension of Bourdieu’s theory of practice to explore the gap in our understanding between gender gap issues – the institutionalized and structural inequalities that underpin the differential access to resources by women and men – and women business owners. Drawing on an interpretivist analysis of...

Our study develops a contextually embedded institution-theoretic model of the major influences precipitating entrepreneurial founders’ leadership succession. Drawing on a unique sample of 184 listed firms from 10 national securities markets across the Caribbean region, we find that both business group (BG) and private equity (PE) ownership are associated with an increased likelihood of founder...