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The purpose of this paper is to examine business growth and explore the “growth mode” among 24 women entrepreneurs participating in a Nordic research, development and networking programme.

A longitudinal design made it possible to follow entrepreneurial growth as an unfolding and emerging research process with a methodology inductive in nature and driven by empirical findings. The analysis is structured following established procedures for inductive, theory-building research, using guidelines for constant comparison techniques and working recursively between the data and the emerging theory.

Two processes were found important to understand the women entrepreneurs’ growth mode. The first is interpreted as intentionally driven and relates to the women’s achievement of expanding their knowledge reservoir; the other is non-intentionally driven and a result of uncontrolled network responses. The latter unfolded as a movement towards a preferable macro-actor status for some of the entrepreneurs.

The study calls attention to relevant knowledge preferable to entrepreneurs who face challenges when trying to grow their businesses. The political implications of this study relate to the importance of awareness among governmental organizations and municipal business advisers regarding the effects of entrepreneurial networking.

This study provides an empirically rigorous insight into the processes of entrepreneurial growth. The findings led the authors to develop a conceptual model for business growth, which contributes to the recent stream of literature on how new businesses are growing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the kinds of contacts and networks women find supportive in their role as business leaders, and which also support their willingness to grow their business. The approach is to investigate the context of women entrepreneurs and the kinds of supporting social networks of which they are part. This is seen in relation to their willingness to grow.

Questionnaires were sent to women entrepreneurs in mid‐Sweden and mid‐Norway, relating to supportive assets and willingness for growth.

The results show: that personal networks are seen as a more supportive asset than business networks; that personal contacts with other entrepreneurs are regarded as valuable; and that women entrepreneurs who are positive towards new networks already have a more heterogenic network than those who do not express this willingness.

Without a relational attitude and a willingness to put oneself into a relational interplay, women entrepreneurs will have a hard time succeeding in growing their businesses.

This study is unique in three ways: first, it combines different theoretical perspectives, above all a variety of network perspectives seen in an entrepreneurial context. Second, from a huge set of data containing women entrepreneurs, the paper presents valid findings about social network configurations among this group. Third, it introduces the term “willingness”, and discusses the effects related to this and to network expansion and business growth. These dimensions help us to increase the understanding of networking and growth in women‐owned enterprises.

During the last decade, there has been an increasing focus on commercialization of knowledge and technology from universities. However, universities report financing as being the main impediment to successful university spin‐off companies (USOs) creation, leaving valuable inventions un‐commercialized. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model in order to explain financing challenges experienced by USOs.

This paper presents a conceptual model illustrating financing challenges met by USOs, and provides an explanation why TTOs report that obtaining financing is their biggest impediment to spin‐off creation. Two different theoretical perspectives back this conceptual development: Knightian uncertainty and agency theory.

This theoretical examination suggests that increasing levels of uncertainty affect the investor's willingness to fund new companies in a negative way. Through the literature review, clear indications were also found for the increased uncertainty with which USOs are faced. It is therefore natural to conclude that investors are more reluctant to invest in USOs because of the level of uncertainty compared with other entrepreneurial companies.

This study made a generalization of USOs as a homogeneous group of companies, which is an oversimplification. Further research should address how different business models, types of resources and their institutional link affect USOs' capital requirements and their problems in raising the required capital.

The main contribution from this paper is the combination of theoretical insights from the concepts of Knightian uncertainty and agency theory. These combined with insights from previous empirical studies explain why USOs face specific challenges in order to raise risk capital.

The purpose of this study is to explore growth models based on “industry-based capabilities”, “resources-based capabilities” and “institution-based capabilities” in the context of the determinants of micro, small and medium enterprises’ (MSMEs) actors’ intention to grow.

This study involved 188 owners/managers of MSMEs. The analysis was conducted using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Moreover, the importance-performance map analysis package is used to complement the study findings.

This study uses the framework of the resource-based view (entrepreneurial knowledge), industrial-based view (industrial linkage) and institutional-based view (government support and access to finance) as proxies of the tripod-based view framework. The findings show that entrepreneurial knowledge (skills, competencies and functional), government support, access to finance and industrial linkage (vertical and horizontal) significantly encourage MSMEs’ owner/manager growth intention.

Firstly, this study suggests that MSMEs actors focus on developing entrepreneurial knowledge to boost the skills, competencies and functionalities needed to improve their business capabilities, directly affecting their growth intention. Secondly, this study indicates that the growth intention of MSME players, besides increasing internal capacity, must also be supported by the external environment, such as financial institutions, government and industrial linkage.

This study offers a tripod-based view as a framework for MSMEs’ actors’ intention to grow, where the constructs in the model used so far have not been explored comprehensively in the context of MSMEs. So, the built model brings more relevant factors to explain this topic from various perspectives.

Despite the existence of a vast body of research on entrepreneurship, little is known about why some entrepreneurs are able to generate and realize more business ideas than others. This study aims to present a prospective answer to this question by empirically examining the relationships among human capital outcomes (entrepreneurial knowledge and skills) and the number of business ideas generated and implemented. Additionally, the authors examined the moderating effect of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy on the proposed relationships.

A statistical analysis on a sample of 340 Russian entrepreneurs was conducted.

The results from the analysis indicated that human capital outcomes (entrepreneurial knowledge and skills) are positively related to the number of generated and implemented ideas. Furthermore, it was seen that entrepreneurial self-efficacy significantly moderates the relationship between human capital outcomes and the number of implemented ideas. However, self-efficacy has no significant moderating effect on the relationships among human capital outcomes and the number of generated ideas. Finally, the results showed that the number of ideas generated mediates the relationships among human capital outcomes and the number of ideas implemented.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has investigated the combination of such variables as entrepreneurial human capital outcomes, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the number of new business ideas. This paper investigates this gap in the literature with an empirical analysis of the relations between the mentioned variables based on data collected from Russian entrepreneurs.

This paper seeks to add to our understanding of how entrepreneurs can build “knowledge reservoirs” to achieve competitive advantage. The study focus upon the following issues: what kind of actors can be found in various entrepreneurs' knowledge reservoirs, and what business knowledge do these actors possess.

The author employs a longitudinal case study approach, involving a sample of seven entrepreneurs in new technology‐based firms, each interviewed two times during the period from 1999 to 2001.

Evidence suggests that entrepreneurs should build knowledge reservoirs, segmented into internal, semi‐internal and external knowledge reservoirs. These reservoirs should be a means to gain competition advantage.

The conceptual model has both empirical and theoretical backing, but the empirical backing is limited to seven cases. It would be useful to test the conceptual model on larger sample sizes.

Practitioners can focus on how to build knowledge reservoirs, while the model helps to increase awareness of the holistic view of entrepreneurial knowledge and which actors can contribute to it. Policy makers should encourage entrepreneurs to build knowledge reservoirs, and support systems could require a plan for this activity before entrepreneurs get access to public funds.

The paper makes four main contributions: model generation, development of terminology, further development of the field of entrepreneurial research, and development of RBT.

Entrepreneurial knowledge spurs innovation and, in turn, generates a competitive advantage. This paper aims to explore if entrepreneurial knowledge combined with the attitude to innovate can overcome the key “imperfections” of the innovation process generated by dynamic, current technological progress in the knowledge-intensive sector. The “imperfections” identified in risk management, asymmetric information in the knowledge management process and hold-up problems can all disrupt collaborative partnerships and limit opportunities for innovation.

A theory-building approach is applied which offers a case study analysis of two small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These two SMEs operate in Europe but in two different territories: the UK and Italy. The study explores three key imperfections, risk management, asymmetric information in the knowledge management process and hold-up problems, which occur in the innovation process.

The entrepreneurs face these imperfections by adopting an open innovation model. Notwithstanding, both entrepreneurs had to deal with all “imperfections”, and their skills, attributes, attitude and aptitude allowed them to grow their business and continually develop new products. Therefore, the imperfections do not limit the innovative capacity of an entrepreneur but rather enhance their challengeable attitude. In this regard, the case studies induce a further analysis on entrepreneurial knowledge intertwined with entrepreneurial risk management and networking skills.

The empirical significance of the two cases does not allow theorisation. However, this research offers interesting results which can be strengthened by a comparative case study with other countries or deeper investigation by applying a quantitative approach.

By leveraging entrepreneurial knowledge, the imperfections noted in the innovation process can be overcome. Entrepreneurial knowledge is recognised as the main asset of an enterprise if it is combined with external talent or human resources. Entrepreneurs aim to develop innovative approaches and ideas through establishing both formal and informal collaborative partnership relationships which are used thanks to the entrepreneurs’ networking skills, knowledge and abilities.

The purpose of this paper is to direct attention to recent research on women's entrepreneurship, focusing on Nordic countries.

The paper encourages research that investigates how context, at the micro, meso and macro level, is related to women's entrepreneurship, and acknowledges that gender is socially constructed.

This paper finds evidence that recent calls for new directions in women's entrepreneurship research are being followed, specifically with regard to how gender is done and how context is related to women's entrepreneurial activities.

This paper assesses trends in research on women's entrepreneurship, mainly from the Nordic countries.

Women entrepreneurs are having increasingly profound impacts on the global economic landscape, although little is known about what supports or restricts women’s entrepreneurial attempts. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptual (i.e. presence of role models and fear of failure) and cognitive (i.e. opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial knowledge) mechanisms that influence a women’s choice of an entrepreneurial career.

A transnational sample of 9,716 women participating in global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) survey was examined using logistical regression analysis.

The results indicate that role models, opportunity discovery and entrepreneurial knowledge have a significant and positive influence on female respondents’ entrepreneurial intentions. Interestingly, fear of failure is not related to their entrepreneurial intention, which challenges the prevailing assumption that the worries about new venture outcomes are the primary suppressor of women’s entrepreneurship.

This study sheds new light on the intention of becoming women entrepreneurs, which has multiple implications for originality/value. This study sheds new light on the intention of becoming women entrepreneurs, which has many implications for policymakers. Moreover, theoretical contributions and directions for future research are discussed.