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Based on the collective agentic perspective of social cognitive theory and supplemented by social support theory, this study aims to investigate how the entrepreneurial collective efficacy of entrepreneurial teams impacts team effectiveness. Specifically, this study hypothesizes that entrepreneurial collective efficacy is a critical factor affecting effectiveness through the mechanism of instrumental support to varying extents, depending on team size.

The hypotheses were tested on a Chinese sample of new venture teams (N teams = 81; N individuals = 335). A multisource questionnaire that included questions for team leaders and other team decision makers was designed. The data on entrepreneurial collective efficacy (six items) and instrumental support (four items) comprised the aggregate responses from all team members; the data on team effectiveness (seven items) was reported by team leaders.

The findings indicate that entrepreneurial collective efficacy is positively associated with team effectiveness through instrumental support, especially in small teams.

This study makes important contributions to the research related to exploring in uncertain environments (entrepreneurship) how (instrumental support) entrepreneurial collective efficacy impacts team effectiveness, as well as more particularly under what conditions (team size), all within the specific context of collectivistic cultures (China).

This article aims to understand the challenges and key takeaways of implementing total quality management (TQM) in a virtual organisation.

An interventionist research (IVR) methodology combined with a qualitative critical event analysis was used to evaluate the challenges and concerns faced during the company’s adoption of TQM and understand the roles of the key players involved.

Standard process tools such as desktop procedures (DTP), focused teams, and service-level agreements (SLAs) were fundamental to implementing TQM in the company. These processes require the right leaders, but external agents may also be influential, acting as accelerators of change in adopting and using management practices in small companies. Indeed, the researcher acted as a problem solver, bringing innovative solutions to the firm using a hands-on iterative approach.

This research underscores the importance of critical success factors (CSF), such as employee engagement, training, and project management tools. These factors are not just important but crucial for the success of TQM in organisations seeking to adopt the industry’s best practices.

This study, conducted as a virtual IVR for TQM implementation, provides novel insights for practitioners and academics. It elucidates the pivotal role of some quality management tools in the journey towards TQM and the role of both internal and external critical players in the process, particularly in small virtual organisations based on innovative business models.

This study aims to investigate the causal complexity of ECF investors’ peer effect through two different paths of structural social influence.

Using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) approach, we employ 157 samples from a Chinese ECF source to explore how peer-effect are caused by both informational and normative mechanisms.

The findings suggests that there are multiple configurations could lead to ECF investors’ high level peer-effect through both informational and normative mechanisms, and the informational mechanism' role depends on the normative mechanism, while the normative mechanism could lead to peer-effect independently.

The findings enrich the literature on ECF investors’ behaviors by revealing the diverse configurations resulting in investors’ peer-effect and shedding new light on investigating the decision-making driven by information asymmetry and relationship settings for individuals at a disadvantage.

This is the first study that investigates the multiple-driven of ECF investors’ decision-making and the importance of mutual norms in individuals' decision-making by complex network analysis approach and qualitative comparative analysis from the perspective of complexity. The results reveal the complexity of investors’ decision-making in ECF.

The primary objective of this investigation is to explore the factors that lead to entrepreneurial re-entry. The study examines the influence of social support and resilience on re-entry intention through the lens of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

To test the study model, data were collected from 255 failed Omani entrepreneurs accessed during a rehabilitation and incubation programme.

Key findings indicate that social support boosts the confidence of failed entrepreneurs to start anew and enhances their resilience, ultimately leading to the development of re-entry intentions.

The field of entrepreneurship research has expanded significantly in recent years. Nevertheless, there remains a dearth of studies focusing on entrepreneurial re-entry. This research provides a unique perspective on the cognitive processes that influence re-entry entrepreneurial behaviour, highlighting the roles of social support and resilience among entrepreneurs in this process.

In the process of pursuing an entrepreneurial career, the role of the relational institution of the family depends on the economy in which the institutions are embedded. In emerging economies, parents play a more significant role concerning their children’s career in contrast to those in developed ones. In this respect, there is limited knowledge regarding the process of pursuing an entrepreneurial career while simultaneously handling parental relations in a context that does not support entrepreneurship. This paper investigates how parental dynamics influences the process of an individual’s transition to an entrepreneurial career after graduating from a university in a developing country.

This paper is based on a longitudinal study of 15 graduate entrepreneurs in Ethiopia who were in the process of transitioning to entrepreneurial careers. Data was collected and analysed during a two and a half year period (2018–2020) drawing on 45 interviews with, and observations of, these entrepreneurs, and six interviews with parents.

The paper identifies patterns of how entrepreneurs embedded with or dis-embedded themselves from their parental relations as they developed their ventures. The findings show that there were shifts in the entrepreneur–parent relational dynamics from the pre-startup phase to the up and running phase. Drawing on these findings, the paper develops a theoretical framework of graduates’ transitioning to entrepreneurship as a process of individuation from parental relations. Further, we find that parents are both the context and the agents in the entrepreneurial process and that the graduates’ pursuit of entrepreneurial careers is instrumental for their individuation process. The findings contribute to the literature on family embeddedness in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship career literature and individuation theory.

Answering the call for research on family embeddedness in entrepreneurship, this paper explores the role of parental dynamics when a family member transitions to an entrepreneurial career after graduating from a university. The study proposes and shows how individuation theory is a relevant perspective for understanding graduates’ transition to entrepreneurial careers.

The purpose of this study is to identify motivations for the uptake of crowdfunding by micro-entrepreneurs in an emerging economy and the extent to which these vary by entrepreneur characteristics, sector and crowdfunding model.

The authors conduct qualitative analyses of data collected in interviews with 57 micro-entrepreneurs in Morocco, all of whom used crowdfunding in fundraising.

The authors identify six key motives for crowdfunding adoption by micro-entrepreneurs including financing needs, legitimacy seeking, sense of achievement, network-building, entrepreneurial and marketing competence enhancements. They also find evidence for moderation effects of fundraiser characteristics on likelihood of adoption, including gender, age, education, training experience and sectoral affiliation. Furthermore, the authors show that the relative importance of different motives varies by the type of crowdfunding model used.

The original aspects of the study include the examination of adoption motives in an emerging market context and the distinguishing between entrepreneurs’ adoption motives based on different gender, age, education, training experience, sectoral affiliation and crowdfunding model used. Moreover, the authors show that enhancement of competencies is a more dominant motive in the emerging market context than mentioned in earlier studies in developed contexts.

The rise of digitalization brings new opportunities and challenges to female entrepreneurship (FE). This paper aims to systematically review the intellectual landscape of FE research, identifying gaps and proposing future directions.

A systematic literature review was conducted on 1,918 highly relevant articles on FE, which were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science up to 2023.

While cyberfeminism is a rising perspective, the impact of digitalization on FE remains underexplored. Antecedents of FE are predominantly examined at the individual, family, organizational and environmental levels, overlooking team-level factors. Studies predominantly focus on outcomes at a single level and within a country, neglecting FE’s cross-level and cross-national complexity and diversity. The static analysis of mediating mechanisms in existing research fails to capture the dynamic process of FE. Furthermore, contextualization research often isolates family, institutional, social and mixed embeddedness, neglecting the simultaneous multiple contexts in which female entrepreneurs operate.

To bridge gaps in existing literature, this paper introduces an integrated research framework for FE. It suggests future research directions encompassing the impact of digital intelligence, heterogeneity of different groups of female entrepreneurs, the multiple contextual embedded nature of FE, dynamic process mechanisms for FE and cross-cultural comparisons. The proposed framework aims to inspire new insights and contribute to the evolving field of FE research.

Many studies on entrepreneurial intention have explored the impact of different factors; however, few have examined the relationship between and impact mechanisms of informal social networks and entrepreneurial intention. This study aimed to bridge this research gap.

This study is based on social capital and ambidexterity theories. After surveying the data of 302 college students from different provinces and universities in China, a mediation model for research is constructed.

Informal social networks help enhance college students’ entrepreneurial intentions, whereas entrepreneurial learning (exploratory and exploitative learning) partially mediates this relationship.

This study empirically explores the impact of informal social networks on the entrepreneurial intentions of Chinese college students and indicates the crucial role played by entrepreneurial learning (divided into exploratory and exploitative learning).

Wage employees enter self-employment either directly or in a staged manner and may subsequently undertake multiple stints at self-employment. Extant research on the relationship between entry modes and the persistence and outcomes of self-employment is inconclusive. This study investigates the relationship between wage employees’ initial mode of entry into self-employment and the duration of the subsequent first two stints of self-employment.

This study used a matched longitudinal sample of 9,550 employees who became majority owners of incorporated firms from 2005 to 2016.

The findings demonstrate that the initial mode of entry into self-employment matters for the first two stints at self-employment. Staged entry into self-employment was associated with a shorter first stint and became insignificant for the second stint. Staged entry into self-employment was positively related to the odds of becoming self-employed for the second time in the same firm.

Using a comprehensive and reliable dataset, the paper shifts focus from the aggregated onward journey of novice entrepreneurs (survival as the outcome) to the duration of their self-employment stints. By doing so, the paper offers insights into the process of becoming self-employed and the patterns associated with success/failure in entrepreneurship associated with self-employment duration.