Editorial

Citation

Marlow, S. (2002), "Editorial", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 8 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijebr.2002.16008faa.001

Editorial

Having successfully presented an excellent special issue at the beginning of the year on embeddedness and ethnic entrepreneurship, managed by Professor Jan Roth, it is very gratifying to be able to announce that we are aiming to develop further special editions in the future with plans to focus on family business and the interface between marketing and entrepreneurship. It is a notable quality of this journal that we present a truly international analysis of enterprise, just looking back over this year so far, we have incorporated papers from The Netherlands, Australia, the UK, the USA and Norway. Hence, this journal fulfils a particularly useful role of presenting differing perspectives on the critical theme of entrepreneurship and small firm ownership. The following issues are no exception to this with papers from the UK, Scandinavia, Turkey and the USA. So, for example, Herrera Bernal et al. explore the particularly salient issue of networking in their paper, "Competitor networks: international competitiveness through collaboration – the case of small freight forwarders in the High-Tech Forwarder Network". Much has been written about the importance of networking amongst smaller firms and particularly, the role of clusters and shared sector knowledge. This paper makes a useful contribution to this debate whilst addressing an area which has received little consideration elsewhere. In keeping with the networking focus, Jenssen and Greve explore the issue of social networks in respect to the strength of ties between entrepreneurs. In this paper, the authors consider the concept of "redundancy" in networking regarding the degree of overlap between entrepreneurial contact. It has been suggested that there is limited utility in networking between those who possess similar contacts and knowledge but Jenssen and Greve dispute this thesis with support from empirical findings.

A key contemporary area of debate amongst current European Union members is the issue of expansion to Eastern European nations, however, little attention is paid to the differing opinions and concerns expressed by the business community within potential member states regarding such an event. The paper by Coskun and Altunisik explores such issues informed by empirical evidence from owner/managers of Turkish SMEs. It was found that there was a generally positive attitude towards EU membership but a lack of strategic perspective which would assist in the efficient capitalisation of such opportunities. Indeed, there is a growing literature upon the role of strategic management in smaller firms and particularly, how the analysis of strategy in general, needs to be sensitive to the context of such firms. In their paper, Jill Kickul and Joanna Walters from Chicago, explore issues of strategic orientation and how issues of firm size impact upon such practices. Overall, in these two issues of the IJEBR we have developed a number of coherent themes, particularly around networking and strategic orientation. In keeping with the remit of the journal however, we have managed to explore differing aspects of these issues from national perspectives, so offering useful international insight into differing aspects of contemporary elements pertaining to the debates surrounding small firm ownership and entrepreneurship.

Susan Marlow