1,721,141 research outputs found
ACE Research Vignette 048: Can Policy Initiatives Boost High-Growth Entrepreneurs
No full textThis series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. This vignette is written by Professor Erkko Autio at Imperial College (UK) with some editing by the Director of ACE, Professor Per Davidsson
Contextual influences on entrepreneurial actions
Full text linkResearch on entrepreneurial actions has thus far been dominated by individual-level and
dispositional approaches. These approaches assume that individuals’ entrepreneurial actions
are regulated by individuals’ enduring characteristics that operate in a similar way in all
contexts and in total isolation with their surroundings. This assumption has continued to
dominate research on entrepreneurial actions in spite of the widespread recognition of the fact
that entrepreneurial actions are also influenced by contextual factors. The dispositional
approach thus presents an under-socialized view of entrepreneurial opportunity creation and
ignores that entrepreneurial process of opportunity discovery are strongly influenced by
contextual factors, such as organisational environments, institutions, social reference groups,
cultural orientations, environmental munificence. This thesis addresses this gap and
contributes towards answering “How do individuals’ context influence entrepreneurial
actions?” We provide answer by extending McMullen and Shepherd’s proposed theoretical
model and argue that entrepreneurial actions depend upon not only an individual’s personal
feasibility and desirability considerations (McMullen and Shepherd 2006), but also upon the
context within which the individual evaluates the consequences of those actions. In order to
test and provide evidence in favour of this argument, an empirical design is proposed that
comprises of three separate empirical studies, each of which considers the cross-level effects
on entrepreneurial actions by combining the influences of individual-level as well contextuallevel
factors on those actions and offers explanations on the pertinent mechanisms through
which an individual’s context exercises a regulatory influence on entrepreneurial actions by
individuals.
The thesis acknowledges and further consolidates the multi-level nature of entrepreneurial
actions and considers cross-level effects by combining the influence of individual-level and
contextual-level factors on entrepreneurial actions. A multi-level methodology has been
developed and tested to bring forth the cross-level moderation effects of contextual factors
that operate at a higher level on individual-level entrepreneurial actions. Three multi-level
empirical studies feature in this thesis that elucidates the mechanisms through which an
individual’s context constitutes a regulatory influence on the feasibility and desirability to
undertake entrepreneurial actions.
The first study examines the influence of prevailing norms in an individual’s social
reference group on individual-level entrepreneurial actions. The second empirical study
examines the influence of national-level cultural orientations on individual-level
entrepreneurial actions and the third study investigates the influence of national-level cultural
orientations on persistence in the entrepreneurial process. The third empirical study examines
the influence of national-level cultural orientations on an individual’s persistence into
entrepreneurship
SME Internationalisation: Studies of Resource as Antecedents and Performance Outcomes
Full text linkThe PhD thesis aims to promote a better understanding of the SMEs internationalisation process.
The thesis consists of a systematic literature review and two empirical studies. I argue that resource
elements, growth strategy, and other mechanisms constitute important determinants of the SME
internationalisation process and subsequent firm performance. This thesis therefore, advances the
literature on SME internationalisation, firm resource dependence as antecedents, and the
performance outcomes in context of the globalisation process. Designed empirical models, such as
controlled matching process and difference-in-differences estimation, have been employed to
provide robust empirical evidence in this thesis.
The systematic review of the literature on SME internationalisation and performance relationship
provides a comprehensive examination of the research in this stream and, more importantly,
identifies the inadequate theoretical arguments and empirical evidences that need to be addressed
to advance the understanding of the field. This review develops a roadmap of future research areas
for the exploration of the mechanisms that influence the SME internationalisation process and
subsequent firm performance.
The first empirical paper draws on the resource-based view, resource dependence theory, and
international entrepreneurship literatures to investigate the relationship between SME resource
position and internationalisation process. Empirical results suggest a linear positive relationship
between high-discretionary slack and SME internationalisation, a U-shaped curvilinear relationship
between low-discretionary slack and likelihood of FDI, as well as an inverse U-shaped relationship
between knowledge intensity and internationalisation of SMEs.
The second empirical paper looks at the effects of internationalisation on the firm’s subsequent
performance. I argue that SMEs internationalisation is an entrepreneurial strategy that shapes these
companies’ future business development. Regression results suggest that in the short term, FDI activities have a negative impact on firm profitability. In the long run, however, local resource exploitation leads to a superior performance of international SMEs compared with their domestic counterparts.Open Acces
Toward a process theory of entrepreneurship: revisiting opportunity identification and entrepreneurial actions
Full text linkThis dissertation studies the early development of new ventures and small business and the entrepreneurship process from initial ideas to viable ventures. I unpack the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial actions and new ventures’ investor communications through quality signals to finance their growth path. This dissertation includes two qualitative papers and one quantitative study. The qualitative papers employ an inductive multiple-case approach and include seven medical equipment manufacturers (new ventures) in a nascent market context (the mobile health industry) across six U.S. states and a secondary data analysis to understand the emergence of opportunities and the early development of new ventures. The quantitative research chapter includes 770 IPOs in the manufacturing industries in the U.S. and investigates the legitimation strategies of young ventures to gain resources from targeted resource-holders.Open Acces
Early development of new ventures : the role of capabilities in overcoming the liabilities of newness and foreignness
Full text linkThis dissertation studies the early development of new ventures and the role of capabilities in overcoming the liabilities of foreignness and newness in these ventures. Motivating my research is the belief that the creation and configuration of capabilities by the entrepreneur is critical for economic success, both for new ventures and society. Organisational capabilities are a key driver in explaining differences in firm performance. However, an important question that remains is whether capability development differs between young and established firms. New ventures, which are typically resource constrained, need to overcome the legitimacy challenges of entering a new market. While prior research has examined capability development in established firms, it has largely ignored the context of new ventures. To address this gap, I investigate the role of capabilities in overcoming the liabilities of newness and foreignness in the context of new ventures.
The empirical context used in this study provides an interesting window on the early development of capabilities in new ventures. I use a longitudinal dataset of 4 928 new ventures tracked over their first seven years of existence. I study three different aspects of capability development in new ventures. In the second chapter I examine the role of new ventures' business model in overcoming the liability of foreignness. In the third chapter I investigate the performance effects of aligning human capital investments with capability deploying decisions. In the fourth chapter I examine new venture resource allocation into the development of key capabilities and I test the effect of the resulting capability configurations on survival.Results show that new ventures' capabilities can be a major driver of entrepreneurial performance when they are configured effectively. Finally, I highlight the crucial role of the entrepreneur in developing, configuring and orchestrating the various elements of the business enterprise.Open Acces
New venture internationalisation in the digital age
No full textDigitalisation is considerably affecting patterns of entrepreneurial opportunity pursuit, value creation, and innovation in the economy, yet there has been little systematic research on how digital technologies impact new venture internationalisation process, largely focused on the positive effects. However, some evidence from internationalising companies suggests that, while eliminating some barriers, digitalisation brings new types of obstacles that are not yet well understood. Extant internationalisation theories have been built on various assumptions including vertical value chains, high location specificity, and high asset specificity. These assumptions have been undermined by the usage and prevalence of digital technologies due to their specifics, such as generativity, flexibility, openness, and layered infrastructure. This research provides a systematic review of extant literature on internationalisation and digitalisation, and proposes a conceptual model based on three commonly used internationalisation ontologies: the process model, network perspective, and international new venture approach. This framework attempts to shed light on the impact of digitalisation on new venture internationalisation and aims to guide future research in this important domain. Following the review, I map the effects of digitalisation on internationalisation outcomes and offer testable propositions predicting the effects of digitalisation. Furthermore, a fresh perspective is introduced on new venture internationalisation processes by arguing the importance of the new digitalised context for internationalisation theory. A business model design lens is applied to explain new ventures’ internationalisation process in digitally enhanced contexts. Based on a multiple-case study, three areas of internationalisation, namely digital, ecosystem, and country layers, are introduced. I argue that new ventures that leverage digital technologies and platforms for internationalisation tend to initially adopt a global approach by utilising the digital layer, as well as the ecosystem layer, and then move towards consolidation while gradually developing a country-specific focus.Open Acces
Orchestrating ecosystems: a multi-layered framework
Full text linkEcosystems are distinguished from other structural arrangements for value co-production by the nature of their governance and coordination challenges. As ecosystems are marked by their relative non-reliance upon formal, 1–1 supplier contracts to govern and coordinate productive activities, they need to find non-hierarchical ways of orchestrating ecosystem constituents such that a coherent system-level value offering is enabled and targeted at a defined user audience. Importantly, ecosystems cannot rely on ‘command-and-control’ governance to coordinate inputs from different participants, as would be the case of conventional supply chains. Instead, ecosystem leaders need to persuade others to make voluntary inputs that are consistent with the ecosystem’s overarching value offering. I call this task ‘ecosystem orchestration’. In this essay I suggest an ecosystem orchestration framework that distinguishes between technological, economic, institutional, and behavioural layers of ecosystem orchestration. I begin by highlighting distinctive governance challenges of ecosystems. I then provide a brief overview of the ecosystem orchestration literature. Then I introduce the different domains in which orchestration can be exercised. I conclude with a framework for orchestrating innovation ecosystems from birth to maturity. In addition to distinguishing between and describing technological, economic, institutional, and behavioural layers of ecosystem orchestration, the model also distinguishes between three stages of ecosystem momentum creation: initiation, scaling, and control. This framework has been designed to help practitioners to design strategies for ecosystem momentum creation
The Finnish paradox: The curious absence of high-growth entrepreneurship in Finland
Full text linkThis paper looks at how well Finland performs in high growth entrepreneurship and uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship monitor to benchmark Finland against other European countries. It is found that Finland's prevalence rate of high growth entrepreneurial activity lags significantly behind most of its European and all of its Scandinavian peers. That this weak performance in high-growth entrepreneurship goes hand in hand with Finland being a world leader in per capita investment in R&D may be described as a paradox. The reasons underlying the underperformance of Finland remain however unclear. At this point, explanations should be sought in culture, industrial traditions and systemic experience in high growth entrepreneurship
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