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This paper aims to explore cultural attitudes and beliefs about entrepreneurship in the southwestern region of Cameroon. This study also identifies the existence of subcultural variations with important implications for the development of entrepreneurial activities in Cameroon.

The paper uses the hybrid qualitative/quantitative Q methodology to survey and analyze a purposively diverse sample of individuals and thereby discover subcultural structures and patterns to the attitudes and beliefs that exist in Cameroonian culture.

This study discovers three distinct subcultures that differ significantly in their attitudes and beliefs about entrepreneurship. These subcultures can neither be predicted from commonly used national measures of cultures, such as those of Hofstede, nor are they directly attributable to regional effects.

The author calls into question the continuing use of national culture as a construct in explaining and predicting entrepreneurial activities, through discovery of subcultures at odds with national measures. Further research should be undertaken to assess the prevalence within Cameroonian society of the three widely different subcultures identified here.

This paper highlights the importance of incorporating subcultural variations in attitudes and beliefs (whether regional, tribal or other) in the development and implementation of public policies to affect national entrepreneurship.

The paper applies a novel methodology to qualitatively explore the subjective variations in the meaning and value of entrepreneurship in Cameroonian society, and to quantitatively develop a structure or typology to these variations.

Although business incubators are a widely recognized form of entrepreneurial support, this paper aims to challenge the assumption that incubation is necessarily beneficial for early-stage entrepreneurs, and considers cases where, due to variability in the motives and behaviours of entrepreneurs, incubation may be unwarranted or even undesireable.

This study presents a theoretically derived typology of incubated entrepreneurs, based on their entrepreneurial competence and capacity for learning, which asserts that incubation may be unwarranted or even undesireable for three of the four proposed entrepreneur types. Qualitative data from interviews with entrepreneurs and managing directors from 10 business incubators is used to illustrate the existence of these types.

The data provides evidence of entrepreneurial types whose incubation may be counterproductive to the goals and objectives of their host incubators.

Implications for incubator management (intake screening and ongoing monitoring of portfolio) are developed and aimed at improving the outcomes of business incubation for stakeholders.

The paper contributes to the incubation typology literature by challenging a widely held assumption that entrepreneurs have the potential to benefit from incubation and by reconceptualizing incubators as “crucibles” that perform a critical function in distinguishing high-potential entrepreneurs.

Although business incubators are widely used support mechanisms for innovative entrepreneurship, the literature still lacks theoretically based explanations of how the incubation process creates value for stakeholders. This study aims to address this gap by developing a conceptual model, and related research propositions, that explains how the entrepreneurial logic in use by an incubator influences the incubation process (selection criteria and service offering) and performance.

Integrating the effectuation and entrepreneurial opportunities literature, which shares common conceptualizations about how the predictability of the future affects entrepreneurial action, the authors posit two archetypes of entrepreneurial logic that are associated with different incubation processes (causal or effectual) and two archetypes of opportunity attributes (discovery- or creation-based) that affect the incubation process needed to support their development.

Juxtaposing these archetypes, the proposed cross-level conceptual model specifies four levels of fit (ideal, surplus, deficit and mismatch) between the incubation process and the opportunity attributes of individual ventures, which directly influence venture performance (high, moderate and low). In turn, an incubator's performance is largely shaped by the overall performance of ventures in its portfolio.

This paper responds to the call for theory-building that links the antecedents and outcomes of the incubation process across levels of analysis. In addition to developing a conceptual model and research agenda at the intersection of entrepreneurship and business incubation, the proposed model also has implications for incubator directors deciding how to allocate limited resources, and for public/private sector administrators interested in leveraging investment in business incubators.

Entrepreneurial intent (EI) is a foundational construct in theories of entrepreneurship. But three challenges currently threaten the author’s ability to accurately measure EI. First, previous measurement approaches have confounded EI with closely related but theoretically distinct constructs such as attitudes and beliefs about entrepreneurship. Second, they have treated EI as an “all-or-nothing” decision, without reflecting the step-wise commitment of the entrepreneuring process. And finally, much of past EI research has been done in Western developed countries without validation in a diverse international context in which unstated assumptions about the EI construct may not hold. The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of a new EI scale that addresses these issues.

Nested structural equation modelling is used to develop and validate a novel scale for measuring EI in international contexts, based on data from 998 respondents in eight countries.

A two-dimensional substructure to the EI construct is revealed as especially apparent in non-Western countries. Based on this, a new 11-item scale is proposed and validated.

Previous studies utilizing the EI construct may be biased by its imprecise measurement and confounding by other constructs in the nomological net. The present study provides new insight into the nature of the EI construct and a novel instrument for measuring it without bias. The discovered two-dimensional structure for EI measurement may also have implications for theorists interested in antecedents and effects of EI.

Accurate measurement of EI is essential to developing and targeting policies to effect changes in national entrepreneurship. Previous measurements may therefore have contributed to misstatement of policy objectives and allocation of national resources.

This research provides a validated method of measuring EI without the serious confounds of previous scales, and that is robust to a wide range of international settings. It also provides new insight into a two-dimensional substructure to the EI construct that has not been observed in previous studies.

Under the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), subjective norms are important antecedents of entrepreneurial intent. But little is known about the forces that shape these. Hofstede’s national culture has implicated, but the conceptual distance between it and subjective norms is wide. The purpose of this paper is to explore an intermediate level to propose a mechanism by which national cultures give rise to individual beliefs about entrepreneurship.

Uses Q methodology with data from seven countries to discover patterns of beliefs in diverse cultures. Hierarchical clustering characterises an intermediate-level mechanism.

In each country, a small number of patterns emerge, two of which are found in every country studied – despite the large cultural differences. Drawing on the institutional logics perspective, a model of individual sensemaking is developed to bridge between monolithic national culture and idiosyncratic subjective norms of individuals, and to explain the commonality of belief patterns observed. Several propositions are suggested for testing the model.

Reports cultural attitudes towards entrepreneurship at a more granular level than previous research, and thereby discovers the existence of cross-cultural patterns. Proposes a novel model that connects macro forces of national culture with individual precursors of TPB through cultural entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to report on the level of entrepreneurial intent (EI) in southwestern Cameroon, by developing and using a novel scale that avoids the problems of construct confounds that exist with most EI scales currently in the literature. This scale is also used to measure EI in Canada, as a comparative example of the Western countries typical of previous EI research, to demonstrate the stability of the scale across different cultures.

Data are collected by survey of random participants in Jamaica and Canada. Factor analysis is used to refine the choice of scale elements from this survey. Nested structural equation modelling is then used to confirm the construct validity and to demonstrate construct stability across the two populations. The population scores are then compared by t-test.

A novel ten-item scale is developed and is shown to have a stable factor structure across the two populations. Using this measure, it can be newly seen that, contrary to the expectations for low entrepreneurial prevalence and intention expressed in the literature, there is actually no significant EI deficit in Cameroon.

Previous measures of EI in the literature have been seriously confounded by adjacent constructs in the same nomological net, such as beliefs, attitudes and expectations for future behaviours. The research approach taken here demonstrates how these confounds may have led to erroneous conclusions about EI in Cameroon and potentially in other countries. The major limitation of this study is the small sample size, which should be reinforced by replication or extension in future studies.

The development of a scale free of construct confounds represents an important step in the refinement of accurate measurement of this foundational construct in entrepreneurship research. This is underscored by the finding that EI in Cameroon may have been misreported in early research due to confounded measurement.

This study aims to conduct a comparative exploration into the effects of culture, social values and entrepreneurial motivation on the career decisions of youth in the newly liberalizing economy of Bhutan. These data should inform current efforts in that country to foster greater entrepreneurship among young people as a means to national development and enhanced levels of gross national happiness (GNH).

We surveyed 144 young people with an express interest in becoming educated in business and entrepreneurship, located in Bhutan and Canada. We measured the seven Hofstede's dimensions of national culture, two dimensions of social values from the world values survey and the three dimensions of McClelland's need for achievement construct – in all cases by reusing well-established metrics from the entrepreneurship and international business literature. The novel Bhutanese data are then compared to the equivalent data for Canada to provide context for their interpretation.

Our results show significant and wide-spread differences in the measures of culture and social values. On the measures of achievement motivation, our results show that the Bhutanese youth differ only in a significantly lower need for demonstrating mastery.

This study appears to be the first report of the widely used international measures of culture, values and motivation for Bhutan, which represents a context that differs very significantly from many of its Asian neighbors and from western countries that are the usual subjects of research into drivers of entrepreneurship. As such, Bhutan may form an important test of the generalizability of theories of entrepreneurship and national development.

Our results point to novel and clear linkages between national policy objectives of increased entrepreneurship among youth and the specific supports and obstacles that exist in the national culture and values. These linkages, along with our findings on Bhutanese levels of achievement motivation, should inform the development of training programs to support the achievement of the national objectives.

Bhutan represents a unique combination where national entrepreneurship programs are being used for economic development in the context of a highly traditional social environment based on the maximization of GHN. Our results provide a unique insight into significant effects that culture and values may have in the realization of these goals for the people of Bhutan.

The aim of this study is to explore the drivers of supply and demand for attention in the managerial context, and develop a framework of managerial tools for allocating attention to various competing demands.

Deliberative attention refers to the application of attention to prolonged reflection and consideration of problems where routine approaches are insufficient. Drawing on theories of cognitive and structural constraints to the allocation of attention among competing stimuli, the paper investigates how managers match the strategic demands for deliberative attention and the supply available to individuals in their firms. This is used to develop a model of factors influencing the matching of supply and demand.

The paper uses this model to recommend specific strategies for explicitly managing deliberative attention and to categorize the appropriate application of a range of existing strategic management tools based on the nature and inherent uncertainty of the organizational problem being faced.

The model suggests that a primary strategic task of top managers is the appropriate management of attention within the firm. Understanding attention as a firm resource to be appropriately and deliberately managed helps to advance theoretical understanding of the human side of valuable resources in the firm. Such knowledge may also help practitioners to be more cognizant of their investments of valuable attention resources.

This is one of the first studies to treat attention as a scarce and valuable firm resource to be managed, and to use this as the foundation for more appropriate application of a wide range of current management techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that socio‐religious context plays in the decision of whether to become and entrepreneur, and what type of new business venture to create.

Interpretivist development from qualitative data obtained by interviews of entrepreneurs in Nepal and Canada.

Conceptions of Right Livelihood play an important role in the evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities and in the day‐to‐day operations of the resultant new businesses.

Links the literatures of social economics and entrepreneurship to explore how entrepreneurs must balance economic, social, and religious objectives when launching and operating new businesses.

When strategic planners at 3M‐Canada get together for a planning session, a staff artist joins them. When executives at Northern Telecom sit down to a strategic session, the note‐takers are busy doodling.