Volume 14, Issue 3

Despite an increased interest in crises within the field of entrepreneurship, there is still a lack of understanding about the interplay between different types of crises and entrepreneurship. In addition, the specific circumstances surrounding each type of crisis may also cause the conclusions of these studies to diverge or converge. To enhance our theoretical understanding of entrepreneurship during times of crisis, our review seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) How are the different types of crises addressed in entrepreneurship literature, and what similarities and differences exist? (2) How can we broaden our understanding and deepen our insights into the relationship between a crisis and entrepreneurship? In an effort to review the largest possible variety of crises that extends beyond political crises, natural disasters, and financial crises, we have also included a number of recent studies that examined COVID-19 from an entrepreneurial perspective. Following this, our study identifies six types of crises along with corresponding research themes, key findings, and critical shortcomings. This review also identifies multiple research gaps and suggests several future research directions, as well as theoretical approaches that researchers can take to build upon existing discussions surrounding entrepreneurship in times of crisis.

Although entrepreneurial failure (EF) is a fairly recent topic in entrepreneurship literature, the number of publications has been growing dynamically and particularly rapidly. Our systematic review maps and integrates the research on EF based on a multi-method approach to give structure and consistency to this fragmented field of research. The results reveal that the field revolves around six thematic clusters of EF: 1) Soft underpinnings of EF, 2) Contextuality of EF, 3) Perception of EF, 4) Two-sided effects of EF, 5) Multi-stage EF effects, and 6) Institutional drivers of EF. An integrative framework of the positive and negative effects of entrepreneurial failure is proposed, and a research agenda is suggested.

This article builds on the stressor-strain-outcome framework to explain how entrepreneurial stressors (stressor) and emotional exhaustion (strain) hinder the growth intentions of women entrepreneurs (outcome). A stress-buffering hypothesis is also used to explain how peer support can buffer the entrepreneurial stressor – emotional exhaustion – growth intention relationship. Using a sample of 300 South African women entrepreneurs, our evidence demonstrates that in addition to a significant direct effect on growth intentions, entrepreneurial stressors also contribute to an increase in emotional exhaustion. This, in turn, hinders the growth intentions of women entrepreneurs. We argue that peer support plays a vital buffering role by significantly reducing the effect of entrepreneurial stressors on emotional exhaustion, shielding women entrepreneurs from the adverse effects of entrepreneurial stressors upon venture growth intentions. Finally, implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This paper investigates the impact of public policies aimed to foster entrepreneurship on the national entrepreneurial culture of a country. While most of the existing studies focus on the direct impact of policies on entrepreneurship outcomes, we propose that the impact of policies on entrepreneurial culture may be even more important for the development of economies in the long term. Using data for 36 OECD countries in the period 2002–2014, we investigate econometrically the impact of policies on culture usually associated with entrepreneurship and find that such impact is stronger for policies that address a broader target of potential beneficiaries, rather than a narrow one. Moreover, we find that, among the values that are usually associated with entrepreneurial activity, entrepreneurship-friendly policies foster those that are related to creativity, innovation and risk taking, but not those that relate to individualism and the belief that success is achieved through one’s own personal efforts. Lastly, we find that the positive impact of policies on culture only applies to the countries with a higher initial level of entrepreneurial culture, and not to the countries with lower initial levels.

As an important part of rural members, the success of returning migrant workers’ entrepreneurial activities is not only related to the realization of rural comprehensive revitalization strategy, but also related to the stability of national society. Based on the survey data of 962 returning entrepreneurial migrant workers, combined with social network theory and resource-based theory, based on the dual combined ambidexterity of knowledge resources and operation resources, this paper explores the influence mechanism of rural and urban social network embeddedness combined ambidexterity of returning migrant workers on their entrepreneurial performance. The results show that the embeddedness combined ambidexterity between rural and urban social networks is beneficial to the improvement of entrepreneurial performance of returning migrant workers, and the dual entrepreneurial resources combined ambidexterity of knowledge resources and operation resources play an intermediary role between dual social networks embeddedness combined ambidexterity and entrepreneurial performance. The resource integration ability of migrant workers has a positive moderating effect on the intermediary effect. The research results can provide a reference for the state and government to formulate policies and take measures to improve the entrepreneurial performance of returning migrant workers.

Whether founding with friends will affect entrepreneurs’ venturing model? Based on construal level theory, this study shows a fresh look into entrepreneurs’ intimacy with other founding members and its effects on their cognition of ongoing venturing projects. We argue that the stronger intimacy with other founding members shortens the perceived psychological distance between an entrepreneur and an ongoing project, thus lowering the entrepreneur’s construal level. The construal level mediates the effect on the problem space the entrepreneurs perceive. Using two-wave survey data from 162 Chinese founding teams, we find that the strong intimacy with other founding members results in less effectual problem setting through lower construal level. Moreover, the indirect effect is moderated by venturing team size in the way that a large venturing team size will weaken the effect. From the construal level theory perspective, our findings may explain why and how founding with friends may affect the venturing model choice and highlight the importance of entrepreneurs’ surrounding relationships within founding teams. This study also provides some potential practical implications for the entrepreneurs when founding with friends.

Prosocial personality traits are thought to be essential characteristics of social entrepreneurs. However, extant research has typically focused on how personality traits affect individuals to simply engage in social entrepreneurship but not on the actual prosocial behavior they employ or the eventual outcomes. We posit that studying the link between personality traits and organizational legitimacy, a salient outcome for social enterprise development, is a fruitful avenue for research. Building on the legitimation perspective, we examine the underlying mechanisms and contextual conditions in the relationship between personality traits (agreeableness specifically) and social enterprise legitimacy. Empirical analysis of 230 social enterprises in China demonstrates that a social enterprise’s legitimation strategy via network centrality and the contingent role of the focal venture’s development stage importantly conditions the effectiveness of the social entrepreneurs’ personality traits and their impact on social enterprise legitimacy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This paper aims to analyze the antecedents leading to habitual entrepreneurship by investigating the role of entrepreneurs’ narcissism and their level of education. While the literature provides a general understanding of what motivates individuals to pursue their entrepreneurial ideas, the possible antecedents to the individual’s decision to become a habitual entrepreneur remain unexplored and untested. Relying on a sample of 343 start-up entrepreneurs, hypotheses are tested through the partial least squares analysis. Results show that entrepreneurs’ educational levels fully mediate the relationship between narcissism and the choice to become habitual entrepreneurs. The study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurs’ personality, decision-making, and human capital, also underlining a few practical implications.

This study integrates social network theory and dynamic capability theory to explore the influence of network insight on entrepreneurial performance under the mediating role of resource integration, and the influence path of dynamic management capability. We test a series of hypotheses using survey data from 228 Chinese enterprises and applying partial least squares based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Our study provides knowledge to understand new ventures’ performance promotion from a new perspective of network insight. We empirically found a mechanism between structural insight, relational insight, and environmental insight on entrepreneurial performance. Besides, this study also revealed a boundary condition of dynamic management capability to understand how organizational resource integration motivates entrepreneurial performance.

Most recent research about entrepreneurial intent (EI) examines EI and its determinants as a one-time event, but whether and how EI is continuously changing during early-stage entrepreneurship has not been adequately addressed. We track the shifts in the EI of young creative sector early-stage entrepreneurs vis-à-vis their changing external circumstances and their developing perceptions of the realities of business start-up. Our findings of 11 established and 10 new determinants of EI contribute to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and guide our appreciation of EI as a dynamic, longitudinal construct, which is the link between intent and realized action. Our findings have profound implications for policy-makers and practitioners, for instance those wishing to help early-stage entrepreneurs to establish businesses when they only possess limited entrepreneurial experience. This research study, therefore, responds to calls for more longitudinal qualitative research into the determinants of EI, entrepreneurial processes, and early business exit.

In this study, we argue that managing technological entrepreneurship effectively is crucial for firms’ competitive advantage and high performance. By using an inductive approach of a multiple-case study of Chinese technology-based manufacturing firms, we identify four complementary patterns of technological entrepreneurship (i.e. in-house R&D, R&D acquisition, R&D alliance, and R&D contracting) and find that possessing the uniqueness of knowledge assets and technological capabilities and capturing the value of knowledge assets and technological capabilities are the major determinants for firms to choose these patterns. Our study develops an integrative framework of technological entrepreneurship for emerging economy firms. Implications for theory, practice, and policy are discussed.

In this study, we present a new approach to understanding the persistence of nascent entrepreneurs, by examining the role played by context and cognition through the mediation of a self-regulatory mechanism. Drawing on a sample of 316 nascent entrepreneurs from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED II), we first consider whether entrepreneurial self-efficacy and goal commitment predict persistence in nascent entrepreneurs. We then evaluate the role of perceived institutional support, both formal and informal. Finally, we examine the relationships between cognitive and contextual variables and their impact on entrepreneurial persistence. Our results show that goal commitment has a direct effect on entrepreneurial persistence, while self-efficacy acts indirectly through goal commitment, from which we infer the existence of a self-regulatory mechanism impacting on persistence in nascent entrepreneurs. Among the contextual factors, only informal institutional support presents a direct relationship to persistence, while perceived formal support exerts an indirect influence through cognitive self-regulation. From a practical standpoint, our findings may be useful for institutions that design policies and programmes to foster sustained economic growth through the promotion of entrepreneurship.

This paper investigates the influences of digital public services on the ease of setting up a new business in 28 European countries during the period of 2012–2019. The development of digital public services is reflected in business mobility and key enablers. The digitalization-entrepreneurship nexus is analyzed by using the panel corrected standard error (PCSE) model, while we employ the dynamic fixed effects estimator (DFE) used in the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to measure the short-run and long-run effects. Our results indicate that the online delivery of government services positively affects the density of entrepreneurship in a country. We find robust results utilizing various econometric techniques and adding further explanatory variables. However, the positive effects of offering public services online are only found in the long run. Using digital public services benefits the entrepreneurial sectors by reducing the time and costs required to start a new business. Notably, digital transformation in the public sector acts as a shield to protect enterprises by dampening the detrimental effects of uncertainty on entrepreneurship.

This study examines how technological entrepreneurship affects national innovativeness based on the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship. It also examines how technological environments related to intellectual property protection and R&D transfer moderate this relationship. Based on data from 82 countries on technological entrepreneurship, intellectual property protection and innovation activities, this study finds that a higher ratio of technological entrepreneurship in the country enhances national innovativeness. In addition, the level of R&D transfer environment is found to negatively moderate this relationship, and evidence is found for a negative moderating effect of the strength of the intellectual property protection environment in a subsample of innovation-driven economies.

Previous research has confirmed the overall positive relationship between subsidiary autonomy and performance. However, given the lack of consensus regarding the effect of subsidiary autonomy on performance, contingency is required to understand complex linkages and possible causality in both developed and emerging economies. This study adopts the agency theory and entrepreneurship to address the interplay among subsidiary autonomy, entrepreneurship, and performance in the emerging economy of China. The empirical results indicate that renewal entrepreneurship has a positive moderating effect and venturing entrepreneurship has an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on the positive relationship between subsidiary autonomy and performance. This study extends the research context and contributes to the literature on agency theory and entrepreneurship in the multinational corporation.

Hub-based entrepreneurial ecosystems (HEEs) have become an important venue for entrepreneurship. This study examines how ecosystem-specific resources and capabilities are orchestrated by ecosystem actors (i.e., hub firms and ecosystem entrepreneurs) to support the development of new ventures in the context of HEEs. Using an explorative single case study approach, we uncover nine distinctive resource orchestration subprocesses that are grouped into three aggregate processes that help sustain enduring entrepreneurship in the HEE context. Our findings extend and complement the literature on entrepreneurship and ecosystems by developing a new resource orchestration model and by illustrating how resource orchestration in an HEE facilitates the synergies across ecosystem ventures as well as the synergies between hub firms and ecosystem entrepreneurs in coexploring and coexploiting new opportunities.

This study explores the different paths that lead to the effectuation and causation of entrepreneurial decision-making logic. Data were collected from a sample of 300 entrepreneurs in China in January and March 2018 and analyzed using crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA). The results reveal various combinations of four key factors, i.e., environmental uncertainty, entrepreneurial experience, organizational slack, and centralization of decision-making factors, determine the effectuation or causation logics. No antecedent condition alone is necessary to produce the outcome, although several factors are identified as sufficient for the presence of effectual or causal decision-making logics. This study advances the entrepreneurship literature by revealing the combinations of factors that Knowledge of how the factors interact in the decision-making process determine entrepreneurial decision-making logic. The study findings can help entrepreneurs to better communicate, discuss and justify their decisions.

Everyday ventures are important engines of economic and social development around the world. These types of ventures tend to be resource constrained, focused on regional service areas, and rely almost exclusively on replicative approaches to business. Despite their prevalence, these types of ventures receive far less attention in the literature than their innovative, growth-focused counterparts. Thus, there is still much we do not know about how the entrepreneurs behind these types of ventures approach strategy and measure their success. In this qualitative study, we utilize self-determination theory to interpret interview data and illustrate how venture launch and strategic choice allow everyday entrepreneurs to self-fulfill their psychological needs through their business. Doing so, our research answers questions related to: 1) everyday venture launch; 2) the strategies everyday entrepreneurs pursue to position their venture in the market; and, 3) the metrics by which everyday entrepreneurs measure the success of their venture. We find that everyday entrepreneurs self-fulfill their needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence by launching their ventures and making specific strategic choices regarding competition. More specifically, we find that everyday entrepreneurs primarily rely on differentiation strategies focused on high-quality offerings coupled with a premium customer service experience, while measuring success using an approach similar to the balanced scorecard. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for theory and practice.

Should new ventures with limited resources invest in corporate environmental responsibility (CER)? Considering the significance of entrepreneurship’s considerable social and economic influences, this question is critical for both researchers and practitioners. Drawing on signaling theory, we argue that CER is an effective strategy for new ventures to overcome the liability of newness by shaping accountability and professionalism perceived by stakeholders, which in turn enhances their financial performance. Furthermore, this positive impact is reinforced by new ventures’ corporate political activity, whereas institutional pressure weakens such an impact. Using a nationally representative sample of 2,147 Chinese new ventures, these hypotheses are largely found supported. This research makes important theoretical contributions to the entrepreneurship literature by shedding new light on how new ventures overcome the liability of newness, and also extends the environmental management literature by providing a novel and entrepreneurship-based explanation regarding the performance implications of CER.

Equity crowdfunding has been gaining more and more relevance as an alternative way for entrepreneurs to raise capital. This paper examines the impact of retained equity, business angel backing, grants and intellectual property rights on the success of equity crowdfunding. Using data from Crowdcube, one of the leading equity crowdfunding platforms in the world, we obtain 473 pitches within the period from March 2017 to February 2020. We apply three empirical methods to analyse our data set: logistic regression, multiple linear regression and negative binomial regression. By running univariate test and several regression analyses, we find that retained equity has a significantly negative impact on funding success; also, the support of business angels helps entrepreneurs to achieve a funding success. While winning grants is more likely to attract investors, there is no direct evidence associated with funding success. Furthermore, it turns out that intellectual property rights are not relevant for funding success. In an extension, we re-examine our analysis in the light of the Corona crisis by analysing 95 pitches from March to November 2020. We find no structural changes in relevance of the success factors.