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Looks at the new position of chief strategy officer (CSO), which has arisen in the past five years. Adds that this (CSO) position is usually found in technology based companies, as the strategic part of management has been found to be beyond most line manager’s sphere of development. Concludes the CSO’s abilities at an individual level will have a telling effect in achieving the desired objectives.

Today, newly founded businesses are inevitably driven to start in a digital form from day 1. Moreover, most existing businesses conceive digitalization as an important part of their strategic orientation by developing and improving their digital assets and digitalizing their processes. By taking account of this development, this chapter investigates how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) affects a small firm’s proclivity to both digitization and internationalization and their performance that comes from it. Internationalization has been a key topic for many small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) over the past decades. As digitization is currently taking over the helm from internationalization as the most pressing topic affecting business, we carried out research among SMEs to understand the interplay of these factors influencing business performance. The focus of the research was on the precursory factors inducing firm performance as well as on their interrelationships. Using a sample of 357 SMEs, EO is found to be significantly closely associated with an SME’s degree of digitization as well as with its overall performance. In contrast, EO does not affect the SME’s level of internationalization. This result is surprising considering that proactive and risk-taking firms tend to be more inclined to enter foreign and distant markets.

How does having an external affiliation influence the probability of employee inter-firm mobility? Our review of the literature suggests that it is difficult to predict ex-ante whether holding an external affiliation increases or decreases inter-firm mobility due to the presence of competing arguments related to the benefits of employment flexibility against agency costs. In the absence of a clear direction for prediction, we conduct an exploratory analysis on administrative labor market data from Sweden during 2002–2010. Specifically, we examine the effects of a few contingencies that are prominent in the study of employment and organizations, namely, organizational age, size, and employment tenure. We find that holding an external organizational affiliation reduces inter-firm mobility among younger and smaller organizations, and for recent hires; yet it increases inter-firm mobility for other organizations and employees. We discuss the implications of our work for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to use social cognitive theory to investigate entrepreneurial intent among participants in graduate entrepreneurship programs. Specifically, the authors test whether students' creative potential is related to their intention to engage in entrepreneurship.

Theoretically derived hypotheses are tested using multiple and ordinal regression analyses.

High scores on a creativity test and prior entrepreneurial experiences are positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions, whereas perception of risks has a negative influence.

The authors' theoretical predictors of entrepreneurial intention received strong support, indicating that creativity should be considered in models of entrepreneurial intentions. However, the use of intentions as dependent variable has its own weaknesses in that it may not distinguish between “dreamers” and “doers”.

The findings indicate that exercises in creativity can be used to raise the entrepreneurial intentions of students in entrepreneurship education. Heterogeneity in creative styles among students also points to the problems of a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach to entrepreneurship education.

The paper is the first to investigate the importance of creativity in entrepreneurship education and theoretical models of entrepreneurial intentions.

We explore how absolute and relative incomes affect an individual's propensity to start a new business as a pure or hybrid entrepreneur. Using a sample of 12,686 individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort (NLSY79) in our empirical analyses, we find that individuals with high absolute income are generally less likely to engage in entrepreneurship. However, once absolute income is controlled, those with above-average relative income are more likely to become an entrepreneur, particularly in pure form as opposed to a hybrid one. Our findings provide more nuanced understanding on the differences between absolute and relative income levels influencing an individual's decision to become an entrepreneur, and if so, whether to engage in pure or hybrid form.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ability of Russian firms to develop strategic entrepreneurship (SE) as a source of sustainable competitive advantage in a turbulent and hostile business environment. It aims to suggest a model of SE that includes two components – exploration and exploitation – and to test this model on 500 Russian small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) which show the influence of these components on firm performance. It also aims to address one of the most fundamental questions confronting the international business (IB) field: “What determines the success and failure of firms around the world?”.

The paper presents empirical research with a regression analysis of 500 Russian SMEs operating in Moscow and St Petersburg in three major industries: information technologies and communications (ICT), hotels, restaurants, and cafes (HoReCa) and wholesale/retail.

The Russian firms show a positive influence of exploration and exploitation on firm performance. Moreover, the influence of specific elements of exploration and exploitation was analyzed and entrepreneurial values, investments in internal resources, knowledge management and developmental changes were determined to be significant factors constituting SE and having a positive relationship with firm performance.

The research is limited by its sample, which includes only three industries and the number of dependent variables tested. Further research can focus on other performance indicators, industries and different settings.

The paper contributes to the existing literature on entrepreneurship and IB in two ways. The theoretical contribution in entrepreneurship literature is linked to development and testing of the SE model. It also contributes to IB literature by proposing that SE is one of the possible sources for creating a successful firm in an emerging economy context such as in Russia.

Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are the engine of growth of most developing countries, as they employ a large number of people as opposed to large firms. Consequently, these enterprises should succeed in expanding to become significant employers and producers. However, what seems obvious at least through cursory observation is that the current state of SMEs betrays an economic loss with respect to the benefits that ought to be forthcoming from their potential. This loss can be triggered by a number of factors. The study determines the drivers of internal fraud and their impact on Ghanaian SMEs and prescribes coping mechanisms.

Primary data collected on 250 SMEs collected from various sectors across Accra, the capital of Ghana, are used for this study. Using a cross-sectional regression, the authors identify the key drivers of internal fraud that hamper the growth of Ghanaian SMEs.

The regression results show that although several fraud variables impact negatively the growth of the SME sector, it is only accounting fraud which is significant. This study also revealed that stealing, fake currency issued for the payment of goods or service and non-payment of goods or service account for almost 83 per cent of fraud cases experienced by SMEs.

The study was limited to the SMEs located in the Accra, the capital of Ghana.

The study will offer SMEs owners methods that will assist in their determination to fight fraud in the business that they manage.

The survival of SMEs is paramount to job creation. Consequently, combating fraud that stifle the growth of SMEs will allow SMEs to grow to their full potential and create more job opportunities for the unemployed. This will minimizes the social vices such as robbery, stealing, drug trafficking and prostitution that confront nations.

This study should be useful to managers of SMEs, auditors and the security agencies in developing economies in particular, in their quest to combat fraud within SMEs.