Search results

This study aims to understand the necessity of entrepreneurship in a poor emerging economy, where the supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem is not in place.

In the years 2015 and 2019, this study survey first-time small-scale emerging entrepreneurs within the new entrepreneurial ecosystem in Cuba.

The results suggest that the entrepreneurial environment has deteriorated and declined over this period. The study contributes to the understanding of high-vulnerability regions and poverty conditions as found in some emerging economies. This study contributes to the wider literature on policies that inhibit or stimulate necessity entrepreneurship in emerging economies.

The study responds to calls for a better understanding by offering new insights into necessity entrepreneurship in challenging contexts under poverty and crisis; and the ways for recovery. It provides insights into the underexplored Cuban economy.

This study aims to examine the extent to which board size, the use of power by venture capital investors and entrepreneurs’ interpersonal tactics such as persuasion to sway board decisions, influence the long-term survival of start-ups.

This study used a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative part is based on data collected from 179 chief executive officers (CEOs) of high-tech start-ups community financed by venture capitalists (VCs) in Israel of which 59 did not survive. To achieve a better understanding of these findings, semi-structured interviews with 12 entrepreneurs were conducted.

Smaller boards were positively associated with venture survival. The use of power by VC investors positively influenced start-up survival. CEO persuasion had a negative effect on venture survival; however, its interaction with board size suggests that it had a lesser effect on very small boards.

Although investors’ control over decision-making contributes to long-term survival, entrepreneurs should be aware of the possible detrimental effects of exercising a high level of persuasion in board processes. The findings also suggest that a small board size is preferable for start-up survival.

Exploring the effect of board processes on venture survival is considered complex. A unique sample of high-technology start-ups consisting of both surviving and failed start-ups was analyzed to explore the effects of persuasion and power in board processes.

This study aims to present and test a model of small business owners’ adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lenses of the resource-based view of the firm, upper echelon theory (UET) and positive psychology. Specifically, it examined the relationships between personal characteristics and strategic pivot behavior in a sample of small business owners during a peak period of the crisis in Israel.

A sample (N = 202) of small business owners provided information on their business and demographics, and responded to questionnaires assessing their personality (Big Five personality traits), emotional intelligence (EI) and reported the extent to which they implemented strategic changes during the pandemic. These changes were categorized as “positive” (e.g. shifting to new markets, adding partners or investors) or “negative’ (e.g. letting employees go).

The results partially support an association between personality traits and “positive” strategic change behavior, mediated by EI.

The results suggest that business owners' personality traits, and chief among them – EI may play a key role in enabling flexibility when dealing with a long-term crisis or threat. However, market and legislative differences between markets may limit the generalizability to other sectors or countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to address small businesses’ COVID-19-related challenges from a personal-resource perspective by applying a theoretical lens integrating the RBV of the firm, UET and positive psychology. The findings provide a better understanding of the ways in which business owners’ personal resources account for business pivot behavior in times of crisis.

To better understand the emergence of small-scale entrepreneurial firms in the under-researched transition economy of Cuba.

Given the scarcity of reliable publicly available information and restrictions on private data collection in Cuba, in-depth interviews were conducted with a panel of small-scale entrepreneurs at three different points in time. Evolutions are analyzed over this period.

Family can overcome institutional constraints by helping the entrepreneur deal with market and social obstacles. Despite the absence of a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem, these new entrepreneurs and their families have been able to transform longstanding passive attitudes into positive steps to set up new small-scale ventures in a country facing unprecedented internal and external challenges.

A new conceptual model of family support for entrepreneurship in transition economies is presented. The findings lend weight to institutional theory on overcoming constraints in emerging markets and extend the theory of family entrepreneurship to new transition economies.

This study explored the mediating effect of political embeddedness on the relationship between gender and performance of private enterprises in the emerging economy of China. Political embeddedness is examined in terms of personal characteristics of owners and their firm.

Secondary data were collected from the Chinese Private Enterprises Survey for the years 2002, 2006, 2014 and 2016 using responses to identical questions. Tobit models were implemented to examine hypotheses related to the gender gap. A bootstrapping approach was applied to examine hypotheses related to mediation through political embeddedness.

The gender effect on enterprise performance was found to be partially mediated by political embeddedness at the personal level and even more strongly by political embeddedness at the firm level, which is beyond the well-known mediation effect of bank loans.

The Chinese sample, in which guanxi plays a significant role with respect to women-led firms, may limit the generalizability of the findings to other emerging economies.

Given the mediating effects on firm performance of political embeddedness at the personal and firm levels, women business owners in China should pursue political involvement, possibly with the support of policymakers and mentors.

The relationship between businesswomen and political embeddedness is underexplored. This study innovates by applying the gender lens to the notion of political embeddedness and extending the construct of personal political embeddedness to the firm level.

This study aims to present multi-layered embeddedness and explore the main and interaction effects of political embeddedness on the performance of private enterprises in China. This study tests multi-layered embeddedness through interaction effects between three layers, namely, political, territorial and inter-firm embeddedness. Political embeddedness is related at the personal and the firm levels.

The authors used secondary data of four non-panel waves (2002, 2008, 2010 and 2016) of large samples having identical questions based on the Chinese private enterprises’ survey. The accumulated number of business owners’ responses is a total of 10,686.

The main effects of each of the layers of embeddedness showed a positive influence on enterprise performance consistently and unchanged over time which fits the Chinese Guanxi regardless of the immense macro-economic transition. However, unexpectedly some interactions showed negative significant effects on performance.

First, business owners should be aware of the specific contribution to the performance of political embeddedness at both the firm level and the personal level. Second, the pursuit of exercising simultaneously several layers of embeddedness may be detrimental to company performance. This study provides generalizable lessons regarding different embeddedness layers beyond the context of China’s transition economy.

First, the authors extend political embeddedness to the firm level whilst in previous research this construct had been mostly related to the personal level. Second, building on the resource-based view and redundant resources the authors present the disadvantage of “over-embeddedness” as related to multi-layered embeddedness which has been understudied.

This research explores the influence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on SMEs located at core and peripheral regions, by focusing on a single dimension of EO: proactiveness. We conducted a quantitative study of 626 Israeli SMEs. Business growth, as measured by the rate of change in number of employees, was found to be significantly higher in the core region. As expected, proactiveness was found to strongly affect SME growth as well as firm expansion to international markets. Our analysis shows that the difference in business growth between regions can be attributed also to a lower level of ownersʼ proactiveness in peripheral regions since it was found to mediate the effect of peripheral location on firm growth. Differences in proactiveness levels may be explained by the historical development of peripheral regions. Our results have useful implications for policies that aim to promote growth and development in peripheral regions.

This paper aims to focus on the perceived role of clusters in inter‐firm cooperation and social networks.

The study was carried out in a region of Latin America where limited research has been conducted in terms of inter‐firm relationships. Managers from three key natural resources‐based industries in Chile participated in the survey; one of these industries constituted a well‐defined cluster whereas the other two did not. The survey assessed managers' perceptions of the benefits and opportunities of inter‐firm cooperation in strategic marketing activities.

Results support the advantages of clusters. Managers of firms which are part of clustered industries tend to perceive more benefits and opportunities for inter‐firm co‐operation in marketing activities. Additionally, significant differences between clustered and non‐clustered industries in terms of their co‐operation behavior and objectives were found.

The findings shed light on strategies for the enhancement of inter‐firm cooperation in marketing, of particular value for marketers in small‐and‐medium sized enterprises. The paper suggests establishing new clusters and promoting more regional clusters policies since clustering seems to provide better and positive inter‐firm interaction leading to cooperation.

There are lessons to be learned at national and regional levels for Latin American and emerging economies fostering new industry cluster policies.

Clustered firms and industries may result in more innovative marketing strategies at both local and international levels than non‐clustered firms. The authors encourage regional development bodies to foster more cooperation among firms and trade associations.

This study aims to focus on how companies operating in international food commodity markets can improve their long-term competitiveness and profitability upon financial pressure. Management can choose between generic strategies of either cost leadership or enhanced value adding by differentiation and innovative marketing strategies. The aim of the paper is to highlight key findings from a case study perspective.

The research is set within the farmed salmon sector in the world’s second largest producing country, Chile, which is also a fast growing emerging economy in Latin America. Semi-structured personal interviews were conducted with General Managers of this global industry.

Unexpectedly, our findings show that executives preferred competitive strategy of cost reduction rather than differentiation. Based on previous research, we recommend managers of individual firms and trade associations to play down commoditisation and to pursue differentiation strategies with particular attention to emergent environmental attributes.

Practitioners from Latin America may learn on empirical considerations of international marketing strategies taking this competitive global industry as an example. An overall cost leadership strategy is not sufficient in a mature industry, and customer-oriented strategies are needed more than production-oriented strategies. Clustered firms are recommended to benefit from differentiation strategies with particular attention to emergent environmental attributes.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The personal characteristics of upper management are critical and reflect how a firm will survive during times of crisis.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.