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The literature on international entrepreneurship offers two competing views on why new ventures internationalize: (a) the nature of the opportunity pulls them international or (b) the founder pushes the firm international. While these two internationalization drivers are not independent, they do represent unique causal mechanisms. Previously, the tools available to understand the entrepreneur’s disposition toward internationalization were limited. The present study uses the theoretical foundation of the international entrepreneurial orientation construct and from it develops and tests an attitudinally-based individual-level measure of disposition toward internationalization. To ensure the validity and reliability of the new measure, termed International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition, studies were conducted to: develop new scale items, examine their psychometric properties and construct validity, and demonstrate criterion validity. A strong measurement model is developed using structural equation modeling (CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.07), and the measure is shown to be useful as a predictor of perceived international venture attractiveness.

Entrepreneurship is a prominent area of inquiry which is enriched by an ample literature base and challenged by definitional deficiencies. Over the years, multiple perspectives of entrepreneurship have emerged and a holistic approach to entrepreneurship has been proposed. This can facilitate the continued enlargement of the entrepreneurship field and allow for interdisciplinary research within the African region. This chapter contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship in developing economies by providing an extensive review of the various approaches that entrepreneurship has been conceptualised. Nine themes are explored: the great person, economic perspective, psychological perspective, sociological perspective, behavioural perspective, management, intrapreneurship, cognitive perspective and leadership perspective. This is followed by an examination of entrepreneurship as a process, as a new venture creation and as an art of opportunity recognition and exploitation. In the last section of this chapter, a clarion call is made for more African scholarship and research in the field of entrepreneurship.

Analyses the rapid and considerable changes occurring in retailing in West Germany, highlighting its differences with the UK. Focuses on the problems faced by West German department store groups which are struggling against competition from the newer retail stores.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are converging world cultures by creating common consumer lifestyles across countries through standardized products. However, little is known about how consumers’ exposure to foreign cultures affects their purchase experience from the country. This study explores this gap in the literature by investigating how consumers’ exposure to foreign cultural source (e.g., entertainment) shapes their attitude toward its country. This attitude is conceptualized to influence the perceived product quality and corporate ability of the country’s MNCs, which are further hypothesized to influence consumers’ purchase experience with products offered by the MNCs. Furthermore, the impact of product quality and corporate ability on consumer purchase experience is expected to be moderated by consumer ethnocentrism. The study framework is tested in the context of the Korean Wave (or “Hallyu”) using data consisting of 533 Indonesian consumers. The results support most of the study hypotheses. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Despite recognition of the centrality of emotions in entrepreneurship, little attention has been given to role of emotions in the development of entrepreneurial identity or enactment of entrepreneurial role. The contribution of the chapter is in the development of a dynamic model of the process leading to identification or dis-identification as an entrepreneur. In this chapter, we develop a dynamic model of the process leading to identification or dis-identification as an entrepreneur. We theorize that the driver behind an individual’s decision to become an entrepreneur, and their significant emotional experiences in the entrepreneurial role, influence the likelihood of following an identification or dis-identification cycle. Specifically, our framework proposes that positive emotions strengthen approach motivation and identification with the role, while negative ones foster avoidance motivation and dis-identification. We argue that contextual embeddedness can prompt transition between these two cycles. Our theorization provides new insights into methods of analyzing the role of emotions in the entrepreneurial process, more specifically in the process of entrepreneurial identity crafting. These insights also can be translated into studying the crafting of any professional identity.

Extant research posits that mergers and acquisition (M&As) do not create value. Still many firms adopt expansion strategies such as alliances, joint ventures (JVs), and M&As to grow and enhance their performance. Through performing a meta-analysis on 204 papers that assess the relationship between the three most prevalent expansion strategies formed by firms, alliances, JVs, and M&As and their different substantive and symbolic performance effects, this study contributes in two ways. First, it becomes clear that alliances and M&As enhance a firm’s substantive performance, while no positive performance effect is observed for JVs. In turn, all three expansion strategies boost a firm’s symbolic performance in terms of its legitimacy and status. Second, a distinction between their effects on a firm’s substantive performance in terms of their market-based and accounting-based performance shows that alliances and M&As both positively contribute to a firm’s accounting-based performance, while only the former spurs a firm’s market-based returns. This indicates that M&As have more long-term accounting-based performance effects compared to alliances and JVs, which suggests that in the long-term firms do best by expanding through M&As.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to deliver a new and holistic insight on small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) strategic alliances in terms of the precursor, motivations, selection, governance structure, outcomes and challenges of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them.

To better understand the entire process of SME strategic alliances, the author takes a novel approach which is based on a combined perspective of entrepreneurship and innovation, resource-based theory, and social network theory.

The author develops a theoretical model which seeks to conceptualize the antecedents, process, and outcomes of strategic alliances of SMEs and the relationships between them.

The conceptual framework provides the directions for future empirical testing and further theoretical research.

This study may help managers better understand the importance of an integrated approach to entrepreneurship and innovation, and the process and outcomes of enhancing their entrepreneurship and innovation capacities through strategic alliances.

To the author's knowledge, this study is the first of its kind that takes a holistic and integrated approach to study SME strategic alliances.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the combination of relational and organizational resource factors that influence small‐to‐medium‐sized firm satisfaction with their supply chain portfolio performance.

This research employs two complementary theoretical lenses frequently used in the explanation of relationship performance, resource‐based view of the firm and strategic behavior theory. The authors then used an international survey based in three Northern European countries to test their hypotheses with hierarchical linear regression.

The quantitative analysis supports all three hypotheses indicating that supply chain portfolio flexibility is an important determinant for small‐to‐medium‐sized firm satisfaction with supply chain portfolio performance. Additionally, firm alliance orientation and entrepreneurial orientation both significantly influence the relationship between supply chain flexibility and performance satisfaction.

This research is limited by the categorization of the supply chain portfolio flexibility types as high and low resource linkages by the researchers. Future research may look at additional ways to measure individual agreements and have firms categorize them according to resource requirements. However, the findings of this research provide a theoretical and empirical foundation through the application of resource‐based view of the firm and strategic behavior theory for future research in the area of small‐to‐medium‐sized firms and their satisfaction with supply chain portfolios.

Important managerial implications are found for small to medium‐sized firms and larger firms that work with them when managing portfolio satisfaction. This research indicates that it makes sense for managers to consider categorizing supply chain relationships similar to the way they categorize their end‐user relationships. This allows small‐to‐medium‐sized firms across the portfolio to be segmented into groups where appropriate relationship maintenance can take place and where more suitable satisfaction goals can be defined in terms of operational metrics.

The framework developed in this paper provides insights on small‐to‐medium‐sized firm satisfaction with supply chain portfolio performance. This research stimulates a new research stream towards an integrated theory of supply chain portfolio management.

The purpose of this study is to classify and analyze the impact of antecedents studied in the extant literature on two levels of SME alliance performance – alliance-level and firm-level.

Using online databases and the bibliography section of the selected articles, 45 peer-reviewed studies specifically analyzing the impact of antecedents on the performance of SME alliances at the two levels were studied to gain insights.

The study differentiates between the impact of antecedents on the two levels of SME alliance performance, alliance-level and firm-level, and finds that certain antecedents, such as absorptive capacity, corporate entrepreneurship, control, network dimensions, partner opportunism and partner reputation, have a peculiar impact on a single level while other antecedents such as trust, commitment and cooperation, have an influence on performance at both levels. Also, the impact of these antecedents is hypothesized to be weak or strong, depending upon the results obtained by the papers in the review.

In a first-of-its-kind approach, the paper provides a conceptual insight into the differentiating impact of antecedents on SME alliance performance at both levels, as opposed to the unitary analysis approach used in the extant literature. The model provided by the study can be used by researchers to gain a systematic understanding of how alliance outcomes are affected.

While the extant literature remains largely ambiguous on the role of antecedents causing variance in SME alliance outcomes, this paper serves to bridge this gap and enhance the understanding of practitioners by systematically analyzing how specific antecedents affect SME alliance performance at both levels.

As opposed to the unitary approach used in the extant literature, which does not differentiate between the two levels of SME alliance performance, this paper arranges and categorizes these studies based on the level at which alliance performance has been analyzed. Furthermore, the paper identifies the impact of antecedents at each level, thereby providing pioneering insights on understanding SME alliance outcomes.

Microcredit schemes fashioned after the Grameen Bank model are widely acclaimed for their potential for empowering the poor through access to credit based on social collateral. However, women market vendors in Ibadan refer to microcredit loans as owo komulelanta, a term which translates as “resting the breasts on a hot kerosene lantern,” a plain critique of the stringent conditions of loan repayment. This paper presents the lived experience of borrowers based upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2019. It reflects on the Nigerian state's neoliberal policies of microfinance and the experience of women borrowers. The paper argues that social–emotional vulnerability of women borrowers is exacerbated by the acceptance of a loan due to the rigid system of repayment and harassment from providers.