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This paper documents the increase in the number of global billionaires from mainland China between 2004 and 2018. One of the key findings is that under conditions of an open economy, grassroots billionaire entrepreneurs (e.g., Jack Ma) could mitigate political economy as well as financial frictions via capital injections from foreign venture capitalists. By building a unique database, I report that (i) the politically unconnected billionaire entrepreneurs financed by foreign venture capitalists are more likely to go public their companies outside mainland China (mainly in Hong Kong and the USA), use offshore financing vehicles, and enter the innovation sector and (ii) the politically connected global billionaire entrepreneurs, however, are closely associated with a record of state-owned enterprise (SOE) restructuring. Plain English Summary: The increase in the number of billionaire entrepreneurs (e.g., Jack Ma) from mainland China between 2004 and 2018 is a new phenomenon, which necessitates a reassessment of the crony capitalism arguments, the types of entrepreneurs, and the sources of innovation. This paper has important implications for future research on entrepreneurship in a global economy and the design of relevant policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plain English Summary: Publishing entrepreneurship research is not just important but challenging. Longstanding experts in the field can provide helpful advice. As borders between academic fields blur, research fields are increasingly global in their perspective, knowledge, and findings, thus enabling robust participation in research fields at a scale previously unimaginable. Drawing on the experience, insights, and perspectives of three seasoned editors, we try to reconcile the seemingly incoherent and inherent frustration experienced by researchers, on the one hand, with the very purposeful and self-aware process of at least one scholarly journal, Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal, on the other, to provide guidelines and insights to aspiring authors in what they should consider in crafting their research for submission with the goal of publication. In providing this sage council, the paper provides guidance to researchers on the process of publishing their results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we question the implicit assumption that more entrepreneurship drives more innovation and growth, asserting that specific typologies of entrepreneurship are responsible for these phenomena. A growing number of studies has analyzed this relationship while focusing on the overall level of entrepreneurship. This paper exploits recent advancements in measuring the sophistication and connectedness of economic systems, brought by the notions of economic complexity and relatedness, to study the nexus of industrial structure and high-potential forms of entrepreneurship. The present study uses a panel dataset for Italy for the period 2015–2019. The results show a differentiated pattern among the high-potential startups considered, with relatedness and complexity having a positive effect for innovative startups, a negative one for high-growth startups, and no effect for pioneers. These results inform potential entrepreneurs of the importance of analyzing how external conditions can have distinctive effects on the process of opportunity identification among different typologies of high-potential startups. Plain English Summary: In this paper, we question the implicit assumption that more entrepreneurship drives more innovation and growth, arguing that only specific typologies of entrepreneurship are responsible for these phenomena. In recent years, researchers have highlighted the importance of the factors external to the startups to explain the entrepreneurial dynamics. In particular, specialized and sophisticated economic systems have often been associated with a high level of entrepreneurship. Accordingly, we investigated the differentiated effects that industrial systems have on the high-potential typology of startups, namely, innovative startups, high-growth startups, and pioneers. Upon analyzing the case of Italy across a 5-year period (2015–2019), we found that certain compositions of industrial structure may either favor or hinder the typologies of the aforementioned startups. These results inform potential entrepreneurs of the importance to analyze how external conditions can distinctively affect the process of opportunity identification among different forms of high-potential startups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant 'sand in the wheels' view holds that entrepreneurship is strongly inhibited by corruption. Challenging this, the 'grease the wheels' view maintains that corruption might increase entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. We extend the basic predictions of these theories by examining entrepreneurs' start-up decisions, as well as their location choices, in a seemingly low-corruption environment: Swedish municipalities. Combining a validated index of corruption perceptions in local government with population data on new entrepreneurs, nested logit models reveal that even in a low-corruption setting such as Sweden, perceptions of corruption can deter latent entrepreneurs. We also find that a minority of entrepreneurs relocate from their home municipalities to establish their start-ups elsewhere. Surprisingly and contrary to expectations, these relocating entrepreneurs often relocate from relatively low-corruption municipalities to others that are more corrupt. Implications for future research and public policy are discussed. Plain English Summary: The effect of corruption in local government is often overlooked in entrepreneurship research. This paper finds that even in one of the world's least corrupt countries—Sweden—local government corruption discourages the will to start new firms. Most scholars agree that corruption discourages people from starting new firms. However, a few studies have lately suggested that corruption—under specific circumstances—may actually increase entrepreneurship when bureaucracies are highly regulated and inflexible. This paper delves deeper into the salience of these contradictory views by studying municipalities in Sweden. This low-corruption country is highly regulated with an efficient but, at times, rigid bureaucracy. Using a combination of survey and business register data, we find that even in this low-corruption environment, corruption decreases the rate of entrepreneurship. Surprisingly, though, a minority of entrepreneurs relocate from their relatively low-corruption home municipalities to establish their start-ups in others that are more corrupt. An important implication of our findings is that even in the world's least corrupt countries, active anti-corruption strategies need to be upheld, and this is particularly pertinent at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, sustainable entrepreneurship, urban entrepreneurship, and sustainable cities have separately gained lots of attention from scholars in different fields. In this article, we emphasize the importance of studying the interaction of entrepreneurship and sustainability in the context of cities. We discuss three promising areas along this line of research: sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, entrepreneurial smart cities, and entrepreneurial solutions to sustainable urban growth. We then summarize the papers included in this special issue. These papers make important contributions to the transdisciplinary research at the intersection of entrepreneurship, sustainability, and urban development. Plain English Summary: In this article, we emphasize the importance of studying the interaction of entrepreneurship and sustainability in the context of cities. We discuss three promising areas along this line of research: sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, entrepreneurial smart cities, and entrepreneurial solutions to sustainable urban growth. More specifically, sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems focus on actors and factors to facilitate the creation and growth of sustainable or green ventures in communities. Entrepreneurial smart cities are cities that grow their digital capability in infrastructure and other public services through corporate and startup entrepreneurship. And entrepreneurial solutions to sustainable urban growth highlight the transformative roles of entrepreneurs in sustainability-oriented urban development in both developing and developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of entrepreneurship has seen remarkable growth, increasing the expectations of academic audiences. Articles need to balance novelty with rigorous methodology, theoretical contributions, social implications, and coherent argumentation to succeed in the publication process. However, navigating these varied and sometimes conflicting expectations to achieve optimal distinctiveness in academic narratives is challenging for authors. To explore how authors can achieve optimal distinctiveness amidst these complex expectations, we studied academic narratives and related editorial decisions of two leading entrepreneurship journals, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice (ETP, 4,151 papers) and Small Business Economics Journal (SBEJ, 4,043 papers), using computer-aided text analysis. Our study debunks common assumptions about what makes a successful entrepreneurship paper, providing an empirical basis for understanding actual versus perceived publication requisites. Furthermore, we extend optimal distinctiveness theory by demonstrating that high distinctiveness is not uniformly advantageous, meeting numerous expectations is not necessarily beneficial, and clear language is crucial for complex narratives. Our study underscores that crafting narratives is more nuanced than traditionally believed. Plain English Summary: Getting published in Entrepreneurship Journals: Less is more! How can entrepreneurship scholars increase their chances of getting published? Our study delves into scholarly articles in entrepreneurship journals, investigating which papers are published and which papers are not. We challenge the assumption that authors must fulfil as many expectations as possible and emphasize the importance of addressing specific audience expectations. By analyzing narratives and editorial decisions from Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice (ETP) and Small Business Economics Journal (SBEJ), we uncover the key to publication success: tailoring articles to meet the targeted audience's most pronounced requirements. Focusing on theoretical contributions when submitting one's work to ETP and focusing on empirical contributions when submitting one's work to SBEJ can increase the chances of getting your work published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a concept of "site entrepreneurship." Distinct from other forms of entrepreneurship, site entrepreneurship is the transformation of remote desolate sites with low commercial value into profitable destinations. The primary theory used to explain how entrepreneurs draw customers to remote locations is the regulatory engagement theory. The primary driver in our concept is the entrepreneur with a vision of what a remote site could be as well as the entrepreneurial passion and hustle to pursue and develop the idea. The phenomenon that we are interested in is how popular destinations in remote areas are designed, developed, and sustained. The primary causes of mechanisms underlying relationships in our concept are (1) the entrepreneur's vision, passion, and hustle in establishing customer, human capital, and supplier flows to the destination and (2) the mediators in our concept of legitimation, logistics, and transportation, experience design, and sequence effects that enable destination development. Using examples from actual site entrepreneurs, we delineate how these entrepreneurs transform desolate sites into destinations, provide the key aspects involved in the projects, explain the vital role logistics and transportation play in such development, and emphasize the importance of experience design and promotion in attracting customers to remote locations. We conclude the paper with suggestions for future research to expand and apply the concept. Plain English Summary: How does an entrepreneur turn desolate, low-value locations into remarkable destination sites? We introduce the term "site entrepreneurship" to represent such activity in this context and analyze the key factors that are critical in developing priceless pieces of real estate that emerge from once desolate, low-value locations. In other words, we show how certain entrepreneurs turn the unique context of desolate sites into tourist destinations that impact not only the venture but the entire community. A classic example would be Walt Disney with his "Florida Project," later named Walt Disney World and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). Tourism worldwide is estimated to be a 1.31 trillion-dollar market. Therefore, examining what specific factors are involved in the value creation accomplished through the transformation of remote sites into destinations which constitute a concept of "site entrepreneurship" is important to understand. The principal implication of this study is to impact research and policy as we demonstrate why it is important to differentiate this specific categorization of entrepreneurship in order to better understand the context within which this type of entrepreneurial activity takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the effects of drastic institutional changes on the reduction of zombie enterprises in China and the underlying mechanisms of this relationship. We employed data from the ASIF from 1998 to 2007 and adapted the difference-in-difference approach to analyze the effects based on China's investment approval system reform. We find that the reform can reduce the proportion of zombie enterprises by 13.3%. This result is driven by competition and scale effects. The former reduces institutional transaction costs by 12.8% and increases innovation capacity by 6.1%. The latter significantly improves the total factor productivity of enterprises; the reform promoted the expansion of enterprise size by 7.1% and the enhancement of market accommodation capacity by 13.2%. The reform had a weak effect on state-owned and non-competitive industrial zombie enterprises. This paper contributes to debates concerning the effect of institutions on entrepreneurship and the disposal of small zombie enterprises. Plain English Summary: As the "entrepreneurial economy" shifts to an "ossified economy," the rate of zombie enterprises is increasing, while entrepreneurship is decreasing. This study finds that lowering barriers to entry by reducing government intervention and breaking administrative monopolies can facilitate the disposal of zombie enterprises and stimulate entrepreneurship. The competition effects originating from the entry of new firms promote a shift in the business strategy of zombie enterprises from rent-seeking to innovation-driven. The scale effect shows that the improved business environment breaks restrictive growth barriers, expands market boundaries, and improves total factor productivity. Eventually, zombie enterprises recover and survive in a healthier, more dynamic, and sustainable way. Economic vitality and resource allocation efficiency increase significantly. Our findings inform best practices for a policy designed to stimulate the "entrepreneurial economy." Moving forward, the government needs to reduce barriers to entry and strengthen market mechanisms to promote disruptive entrepreneurship and dynamic capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative entrepreneurship is the study of the spread and dynamics of popular narratives and stories focusing on the role and impact of entrepreneurs (stories of human interest and emotions), and how these change through time, to understand variation and heterogeneity in entrepreneurial activities across time and space. The term 'narrative' refers to a simple story or expressed explanation of events that many people want to bring up in conversation or on the news or social media because it can be used to stimulate the concerns or emotions of others and/or because it appears to advance self-interest. The field of entrepreneurship should be expanded to include serious quantitative study of changing popular narratives (theory development, experiments and econometric regressions). Narrative entrepreneurship is not only a product of reverse causality, from the outcomes to the narrative, but also from the narrative to the outcome (as we know from other fields such as marketing, philanthropy or education). The goal of this paper is to distil what we know, and should know, about narratives and stories to consider reasons to expect that stories and narratives might be thought of as important in the field of entrepreneurship and to stimulate future research to apply the concept of narrative into the field of entrepreneurship for both theory building and empirical analysis. Plain English Summary: The main focus of this paper is to distil what we know, and should know, about narratives and stories to consider reasons to expect that stories and narratives might be thought of as important in the field of entrepreneurship and to stimulate future research to apply the concept of narrative into the field of entrepreneurship for both theory building and empirical analysis. In contrast to previous research, in this study we argue also for a 'reverse causality' view in that narrative and stories may help us to explain differences and variations in all kinds of entrepreneurial activities. The principal implication of this study is that narrative and stories should be included into the field of entrepreneurship, and provides directions on future research in this promising and upcoming field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to introduce the special issue of Small Business Economics on "Radical Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and (Regional) Growth" and present a roadmap for future research in the area. This article argues that the link between the literature on radical innovation, entrepreneurship, and (regional) growth is still an underresearched topic. This paper also reviews the special issue's contributions that allow for a more nuanced understanding of this important link. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface cues such as displays of passion and physical attractiveness can affect crowdfunding outcomes. Yet the efficacy of these cues may be contingent on other attributes of the entrepreneur, such as their gender. We integrate insights from the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion with those of expectancy violation theory to develop and test a theoretical framework in which the benefit of these cues is contingent on the gender of the entrepreneur and expectancies associated with it. Furthermore, we introduce a novel measurement technique to assess individuals' implicit gender-based biases related to passion and attractiveness. Plain English Summary: Among biased investors, crowdfunding pitches work best for passionate male and attractive female entrepreneurs. Crowdfunding is a way for entrepreneurs to raise funds from a large, anonymous pool of amateur investors. To raise funds on these platforms, entrepreneurs create pitch videos to present to potential investors. When crowdfunding first emerged, there was widespread hope that it would open up new sources of funding to groups of entrepreneurs who are often shut out from traditional sources of funding, such as venture capital. But has that really happened? Or do biases that are common among professional investors also work to the disadvantage of these entrepreneurs in crowdfunding? In this paper, we answer these questions by studying the pitches of both male and female entrepreneurs and their impact on funding success. Our findings offer both a cause for optimism and for concern. On the positive side, we do find that crowdfunding can be a viable source of funding for female entrepreneurs. However, this benefit primarily goes to more attractive females. Furthermore, although being passionate in a pitch is generally a good thing, we find this benefit primarily goes to men instead of women. Without being too pessimistic, we find that these results only hold among those investors who hold certain gender-based biases pertaining to passion and attractiveness. Overall, the principal implication of this study is that biases that limit accessibility to traditional sources of funding also operate within crowdfunding. However, traditionally underfunded groups of entrepreneurs may be able to use these to their advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws on network theory to employ concepts of homophily and heterophily to investigate whether the presence of familiar, unfamiliar or a mix of actors in an entrepreneurial ecosystem is related to start-up rates. The empirical focus of this study is on 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems and their outputs in terms of academic spinoff companies. The paper finds that university entrepreneurial ecosystems with access to actors of predominantly heterophilious character are associated with higher spinoff start-up rates. It is concluded that in stimulating the development of successful entrepreneurial ecosystems there is a clear need to focus on their openness to heterophilious actors, inclusive of other ecosystems. This is especially important in the context of network lock-in that may arise from dependence on homophilious ties. Plain English Summary: Entrepreneurial ecosystems characterised by openness to diverse actors generate more firms, as shown in a study focusing on 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems. The paper studies network character of actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems and whether this character is associated with start-up rates. Specifically, it focuses on the familiarity of actors, inspecting whether it is related to greater venture formations. In so doing, the study examines 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems. It finds that university entrepreneurial ecosystems that generate more ventures are associated with having a presence of actors of unfamiliar character, drawing attention to the openness of ecosystems' networks. The key implication of the study is in recognising the link between the ecosystem's openness to diverse actors and its entrepreneurial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The remarkable ascent of entrepreneurship witnessed as a scientific field over the last 4 decades has been made possible by entrepreneurship's ability to absorb theories, paradigms, and methods from other fields such as economics, psychology, sociology, geography, and even biology. The respectability of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline is now evidenced by many other fields starting to borrow from the entrepreneurship view. In the present paper, seven examples are given from this "pay back" development. These examples were first presented during a seminar at the Erasmus Entrepreneurship Event called what has the entrepreneurship view to offer to other academic fields? This article elaborates on the core ideas of these presentations and focuses on the overarching question of how entrepreneurship research impacts the development of other academic fields. We found that entrepreneurship research questions the core assumptions of other academic fields and provides new insights into the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of their respective core phenomena. Moreover, entrepreneurship research helps to legitimize other academic fields both practically and academically. Plain English Summary: Entrepreneurship research questions the core assumptions of other academic fields and legitimizes them both practically and academically. Since the 1980s, entrepreneurship research has seen tremendous growth and development, establishing itself as an academic field. Entrepreneurship is also taught extensively in leading business schools around the world. Indeed, few business schools do not address entrepreneurship in their curriculum. This represents a sea change: although entrepreneurs and new ventures had a remarkable impact on society, academia barely noticed it in the 1980s. Simply put: economics and business students rarely, if ever, encountered any mention of entrepreneurship during their studies. While entrepreneurship research has now developed its own methodological toolbox, it has extensively borrowed perspectives, theories, and methods from other fields. In the 2020s, we now find that entrepreneurship scholars are sharing its toolbox with other academic fields, questioning the core assumptions of other academic fields and providing new insights into the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of their respective core phenomena. Moreover, entrepreneurship research helps to legitimize other academic fields both practically and academically. Hence, entrepreneurship research now plays not just an important role in entrepreneurship education, practice, and policy but also throughout many other research fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an anthropological perspective on contextualizing entrepreneurship. We argue that interconnectedness is the quintessence of such a perspective and takes the form of (1) sociocultural ties between people; (2) interrelationships between micro, meso, and macro levels; and (3) connections between the past and the present. We illustrate this perspective through our research among ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia, identifying three kinds of sociocultural ties among the ethnic Chinese (kinship, spiritual, and patron-client ties) and positioning these ties in the historical and contemporary experiences of Chinese migration, settlement, and business venturing. In doing so, we show that an anthropological perspective broadens the empirical scope (including developing countries, minority groups, and "everyday" entrepreneurship), the methodological scope (employing ethnographic methods), and the conceptual scope (considering sociocultural ties at the interpersonal level) of entrepreneurship research. The contribution lies in operationalizing and theorizing context: we operationalize context through interconnectedness – comprising our three forms as well as ethnographic methodology to examine these – and theorize interconnectedness by elaborating how entrepreneurs "do" context through enacting the sociocultural ties that "embody" this context, while considering the micro-meso-macro and past-present connections that have engendered these ties. Our anthropological perspective presents a fine-grained and holistic analytical framework for contextualizing entrepreneurship. Plain English Summary: Anthropology can broaden current understandings of how context is perceived in entrepreneurship research. As the study of how people live and experience the world around them, anthropology explores social relationships and their cultural meanings – sociocultural ties – to provide insights into the everyday of the people and communities studied. Such sociocultural ties can also illuminate how entrepreneurs enact context, a missing link in entrepreneurship research. Based on research among ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Cambodia and Indonesia, three kinds of sociocultural ties are presented that play a key role in their entrepreneurship: kinship ties (shared family and ethnic background), patronage ties (interdependence of politicians and entrepreneurs), and spiritual ties (membership of religious communities). It is through these ties that context is enacted at the micro level and entwines with the entrepreneurial process. To debunk the idea that context equals external setting, we invite entrepreneurship researchers to include sociocultural ties to reveal how entrepreneurs enact context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many entrepreneurs face challenges in hiring employees, in part because of information asymmetries between start-ups and jobseekers. This paper argues that the prestigious organizational affiliations of founders act as signals that can convey two distinct unobservable attributes: (1) founder-related attributes and (2) venture-related attributes. We perform a series of randomized controlled experiments with respondents who are searching for jobs or will do so in the near future. Our results show that a founder's affiliations with prestigious organizations make a start-up venture more attractive to jobseekers, and that they do so by signaling founder-related attributes rather than venture quality. Furthermore, we also find that the effects of prestigious founder affiliations are likely to be particularly strong when recruiting jobseekers straight out of universities. Plain English Summary: Having a founder who is affiliated with prestigious organizations makes a start-up venture more attractive to young jobseekers and allows start-ups to hire them at a lower cost. Attracting talented employees is critical but challenging for start-ups, since jobseekers often know little about them. This paper argues that having a founder who is affiliated with prestigious organizations can act as a valuable signal to jobseekers. Our results suggest that a founder's affiliations with prestigious organizations make a start-up venture more attractive to jobseekers, and that they do so by signaling attractive founder-related attributes, rather than venture-related attributes. One implication is that, despite the debate about the usefulness of obtaining prestigious credentials, there are benefits for entrepreneurs of doing so, and that those who lack such credentials may need to overcome this disadvantage by obtaining other forms of personal achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Big Five personality traits and their influence on entrepreneurial action have been repeatedly studied using a trait-based approach. The present paper partly deviates from this perspective by analysing the role of personality prototypes in relation to entrepreneurship. This person-centred approach suggests that combinations of Big Five traits form individual personalities. By using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that at least three prototypes can be identified, one of which — the resilient type — can be hypothesized to significantly increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial action. Our regression results provide evidence of a positive impact of this prototype on the likelihood of and transitioning into self-employment but not the likelihood of exit. We also show that the prototyping approach explains individual self-employment decisions over and above what can already be explained by the profiling approach, another person-centred Big Five approach. The paper concludes with implications for policy and research. Plain English Summary: Identifying entrepreneurial personalities — an improved person-centred approach to the Big Five personality traits advances our understanding of self-employment decisions. Previous studies emphasize a positive influence of the personality traits extraversion and openness on entrepreneurship. The present paper shows that the interaction of personality traits is also important. A resilient personality type that combines high values in the aforementioned traits with higher levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability has a positive impact on the likelihood to become self-employed. We also show that a resilient personality type explains self-employment decisions beyond what can already be explained by profiling, another person-centred Big Five approach. As a practical implication, advice from career or start-up consultants should not be based on profiling alone. Otherwise, too many entrepreneurs may be discouraged from their entrepreneurial endeavours. Generally speaking, self-employment decisions should incorporate personality aspects only as one among many relevant factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between natural resource rents and new business formation (a critical measure of entrepreneurship) using a panel dataset of 28 African countries covering the period 2002–2014. The paper finds robust evidence that nations with high resource rents (i.e., resource rents exceeding 30% of GDP) significantly exhibit less entrepreneurial activity. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that high resource rents significantly promote rent-seeking behavior at the expense of entrepreneurship. Policies that reward productive entrepreneurship and reduce incentives for rent-seeking behavior are therefore important for reversing this negative relationship in African countries with high natural resource-derived income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RIS3 is a policy initiative aiming to achieve structural change. Structural change needs to consider the processes and means through which (innovation) policies can facilitate a radical transformation by substantially changing a regional economy's competitive bases. In this paper, we are interested in studying how certain policy instruments are actually implemented, and how the capabilities required for their effective rollout are built in practice. In particular, we focus on public procurement as a policy instrument that can foster regional innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth, while also transforming the industrial structure of a territory. The rationale for focusing on public procurement is threefold: (i) despite being identified as one of the relevant policy instruments to implement RIS3, little is yet known about how public procurement can be used for higher-order political purposes such as innovation-based diversification and transformation; (ii) public procurement remains an underexplored policy tool in sub-national innovation strategies; and (iii) public procurement links to the two key concerns of RIS3, namely, policy prioritization and the entrepreneurial discovery process. The paper provides evidence on two public procurement initiatives in Galicia (Spain), one in health and the other in unmanned aerial vehicles. We adopt a mixed-method approach, relying on a qualitative exploration of the factors leading to the institutionalization of public procurement in policy-making. Our results evidence that innovation-oriented public procurement has the potential to develop local priorities and strategies while also creating the necessary capabilities on both supply and demand. As a result, it can lead to the territorial transformation and to the emergence and further development of entrepreneurial firms. Plain English Summary: Public procurement can foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth while transforming the industrial structure, but... how to roll it out for its effectively? The paper provides the following implications for the practice of innovation policy. For an effective implementation, governments need to adopt a mission orientation that addresses grand challenges and provides directionality to the policy. It is also necessary to mobilize financial resources from supranational, national, and regional funds, what requires coordination and multi-level governance. When governments lack previous experience in innovation policy, they can conduct trial-and-error experiments that facilitate policy learning and lead to the development of capabilities, both on the demand and supply side. This experimentation should follow open innovation approaches by incorporating end-users, to open up policy definition to societal actors. At the same time, this facilitates the development of early market conversations that help to better frame the policy, institutionalize the policy definition process, and gain internal legitimacy. Policies also should seek for creating positive spillovers and knowledge transfer between large and small firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existential threat to small businesses, based on their crucial role in the economy, is behind the plethora of scholarly studies in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining the 15 contributions of the special issue on the "Economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship and small businesses," the paper comprises four parts: a systematic review of the literature on the effect on entrepreneurship and small businesses; a discussion of four literature strands based on this review; an overview of the contributions in this special issue; and some ideas for post-pandemic economic research. Plain English Summary: Responding to COVID-19 involves not just shielding small business jobs, supporting entrepreneurship, and raising government debt but also creating productive entrepreneurship and resilient location-specific entrepreneurial ecosystems. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented challenge for small businesses that also brings new market opportunities. The papers in this special issue of Small Business Economics Journal aim to shed light on the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at the macro- and microeconomic effects on entrepreneurship and small businesses as well as the role of financial support policies and well-being in both developed and developing countries. Future research should focus on the role of digitization and financial mechanisms supporting small businesses during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a seminal contribution to the ethnic entrepreneurship literature by analyzing the journeys of a single migrant community across three ethnic enclaves in three host-nation contexts. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 52 immigrant Punjabi-Pakistani entrepreneurs who started businesses in immigrant enclaves in the UK, Denmark, and Norway. "Three waves" of migrant entrepreneurs were identified based on their demographics, periods of migration, levels of education, access to social and financial resources, and the impact of the host country's social and institutional structures. The typology presented distinguishes the first wave, the older generation, as "pushed-displaced," the second wave of the mid-aged generation as "pulled-transnational," and the third wave of recent graduates and mid-career professionals as "pushed-frustraters." The findings revealed the raison d'être for cross-national embeddedness variation in the host country's economic, social, and institutional contexts, and individuals' experiences of racial discrimination and exclusion. The results highlight that adopting an ethnic enclave strategy by lending the social capital and access to an "acquainted mentor," usually from the first-wave entrepreneurs, has been the key success factor for the start-up, survival, and growth of the second- and third-wave immigrant businesses. The paper provide guidelines to make the appropriate social and regulatory interventions needed to eradicate racial discrimination and institutional barriers to stimulate immigrant entrepreneurship in these countries. Plain English Summary: Understanding the importance of immigrant entrepreneurship in today's globalised world is crucial for economic, political, and social development. This study is one of the first in the field to explore one immigrant community's entrepreneurship experiences across three different countries. A typology of three different types of immigrant entrepreneurs is identified based on time and space: namely, the displaced, the transnational, and the frustrated. The results show that the UK presents more adverse and racialised experiences for immigrant business start-up in comparison to Denmark and especially., Norway. This paper contributes to discourse of intra-ethnic variation, transnationalism, and mixed embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To foresee global economic trends, one needs to understand the present startup companies that soon may become new market leaders. In this paper, we explore textual descriptions of more than 250 thousand startups in the Crunchbase database. We analyze the 2009–2019 period by using topic modeling. We propose a novel classification of startup companies free from expert bias that contains 38 topics and quantifies the weight of each of these topics for all the startups. Taking the year of establishment and geographical location of the startups into account, we measure which topics were increasing or decreasing their share over time, and which of them were predominantly present in Europe, North America, or other regions. We find that the share of startups focused on data analytics, social platforms, and financial transfers, and time management has risen, while an opposite trend is observed for mobile gaming, online news, and online social networks as well as legal and professional services. We also identify strong regional differences in topic distribution, suggesting certain concentration of the startups. For example, sustainable agriculture is presented stronger in South America and Africa, while pharmaceutics, in North America and Europe. Furthermore, we explore which pairs of topics tend to co-occur more often together, quantify how multisectoral the startups are, and which startup classes attract more investments. Finally, we compare our classification to the one existing in the Crunchbase database, demonstrating how we improve it. Plain English Summary: We propose a novel classification of more than 250 thousand startups registered in the Crunchbase database based on machine learning algorithms and free from expert bias. We find that the share of startups focused on data analytics, social platforms, and financial transfers, and time management has risen, while an opposite trend is observed for mobile gaming, online news, and online social networks as well as legal and professional services. We also identify strong regional differences in class distribution, suggesting, for example, sustainable agriculture being present stronger in South America and Africa, while pharmaceutics, in North America and Europe. Our classification can improve analysis of the Crunchbase data further promoting the popularity of the platform, while the trends identified will be useful for investors and policy makers. Last not least, this paper presents the first application of topic modeling to startup companies, providing thus a new direction for academic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that an entrepreneurial state can inadvertently crowd out entrepreneurship. Using the context provided by Singapore, the paper finds that coordinated policies that prioritize and target capital, knowledge, and human capital accumulation in particular industries, sectors, technologies, and firms have created a formidable societal knowledge filter, which in turn can impede endogenous entrepreneurial activity. By serving as the entrepreneur, Singapore's entrepreneurial state imposes its vision by assuming the core entrepreneurial values and traits of opportunity recognition, discovery, and action. The entrepreneurial state, at least in the case of Singapore, retards the transition to an entrepreneurial society, which, paradoxically, is the vision of Singapore's entrepreneurial state. Plain English Summary: States increasingly engage in entrepreneurial activities. This paper explains how the policies and activities of such entrepreneurial states may inadvertently create barriers to a more inclusive entrepreneurial society where entrepreneurship is embraced by diverse citizens. Drawing on the case of Singapore, this paper shows that it is not the individual state activities in the entrepreneurial sphere, but the mix of activities, which starves entrepreneurship. The article focuses on state activities in the areas of capital, knowledge, and human capital, and shows how such activities jointly have reduced the scope of private entrepreneurial endeavor. In doing so, the article provides knowledge on the relationship between entrepreneurial states and an inclusive entrepreneurial society. It draws attention to the effects of policy configurations and action on entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a systematic empirical study of covariates associated with the success of NIH Phase I SBIR-funded research projects, where success is defined in terms of the small, entrepreneurial firm conducting the Phase I research subsequently receiving a follow-on Phase II research award. We find that women-owned firms are especially disadvantaged in this regard. Our findings suggest that SBIR program managers consider recommendations to overcome these disadvantages. Our recommendations could enhance the rate at which follow-on Phase II research projects are funded and possibly the rate at which the developed technologies are commercialized. Plain English Summary: Women entrepreneurs who are awarded Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Awards are less likely than male entrepreneurs to receive follow-on Phase II Awards. We investigate whether women-owned small, entrepreneurial firms, funded through Phase I Small Business Innovation Research awards, are more or less successful than male-owned firms in obtaining follow-on Phase II funding. From an empirical examination of 2059 National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Phase I research projects, of which 12% are in woman-owned firms, woman-owned firms are less likely to receive follow-on Phase II research funding. In response, we suggest that woman-owned firms increase the diversity of their research base through a research partnership with a university. Thus, the principal finding of this study is our policy recommendations for how NIH can improve the Phase I to Phase II success rate of its funded research to small firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the state of the art of the research on corporate entrepreneurship, develops a conceptual framework that connects its antecedents and consequences, and offers an agenda for future research. We review 310 papers published in entrepreneurship and management journals, providing an assessment of the current state of research and, subsequently, we suggest research avenues in three different areas: corporate entrepreneurship antecedents, dimensions and consequences. Even though a significant part of the overall corporate entrepreneurship literature has appeared in the last decade, most literature reviews were published earlier. These reviews typically cover a single dimension of the corporate entrepreneurship phenomenon and, therefore, do not provide a global perspective on the existing literature. In addition, corporate entrepreneurship has been studied from different fields and there are different approaches and definitions to it. This limits our understanding of accumulated knowledge in this area and hampers the development of further research. Our review addresses these shortcomings, providing a roadmap for future research. Plain English Summary: This review analyzes the articles published in the corporate entrepreneurship field and presents the future research agenda. Research agrees that corporate entrepreneurship has a positive impact on firms' profits and growth. This has generated an increase in the number of research articles published in this area. However, previous literature has some limitations and areas that should be further explored. First, there are many different definitions and terms to refer to corporate entrepreneurship activities. This makes it difficult to understand the current state of corporate entrepreneurship research. Second, we lack up to date comprehensive literature reviews summarizing the knowledge and advances generated in the field in the last years. Overall, the objective of this research is to explore the content and evolution of corporate entrepreneurship research. This research contributes by summarizing and synthesizing the main findings in previous literature. It also contributes by identifying relevant inconsistencies and ambiguities in previous literature that have prevented the development of certain areas within the corporate entrepreneurship field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the extant literature suggests that an individual's occupational choice depends on the level of economic development, little is known about how the dynamics of education and social identity impact self-employment choice over time in a developing country setting. The pseudo-panel regression results presented here suggest that higher education decreases the likelihood of individuals' choice of self-employment over time in India, but increases it in most developed cohorts. Such transitional dynamics are more prominent amongst individuals who belong to historically determined backward classes. Furthermore, the results suggest sectoral differences in self-employment choice—individuals with higher education and wealth have a greater likelihood of transiting into self-employment over time in agriculture while similar individuals in non-agriculture exit self-employment. In both sectors, however, education moderates the impact of social identity on self-employment choice. The paper underscores the need for policy shifts towards entrepreneurship along the path of economic development. Plain English Summary: University education helps overcome social barriers to self-employment in India. While it reduces the transition into self-employment over time, educated individuals are more likely to move back into self-employment in the most developed cohorts. We examine the occupational dynamics over ten years using large-scale databases by tracking self-employment in cohorts of individuals across India. The results suggest that university education enables individuals from socially backward classes to overcome barriers to self-employment in both non-agricultural and agricultural sectors. Although university education decreases the likelihood of self-employment over time, it increases self-employment in the most developed cohorts. The paper suggests that public policy should focus on facilitating industrial development in the initial stages of development as individuals are motivated to invest in professional human capital during these periods while encouraging entrepreneurial activities when a more developed economy can provide opportunities for greater returns in self-employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For rapidly urbanizing countries in Asia, entrepreneurial activity is a critical source of employment and economic development. This paper uses a panel dataset of 20 countries in Asia to examine the role of urbanization in moderating the process of knowledge spillovers leading to firm creation. It is one of the pioneering studies to examine whether the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE)—a prominent and empirically valid theory in Western economies—is also valid in Asian economies. Empirical analysis reveals that the extent and quality of urbanization plays an important moderating role that can enhance or retard the exploitation of knowledge by urban entrepreneurs. The paper has important policy implications for Asian countries to take advantage of rapid urbanization and make investments in research and development to create knowledge spillovers that promote firm creation. Plain English Summary: This study finds that a confluence of investment in research and development and the quality of urbanization in Asian countries boost firm creation. Moreover, employment in financial and business services helps in the creation and exchange of useful knowledge for entrepreneurial activities. This workforce acquires and generates knowledge to resolve challenges in business through interactions with multiple firms. It is important to understand the factors leading to a higher level of firm creation because the entry of new firms is one of the key sources of job creation and innovation. The principal implication of this study is that the countries should make investments in research and development and improve the quality and extent of urbanization to spur entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of human capital on fundraising problems for necessity- and opportunity-based entrepreneurs by using a survey of 3974 new firms in Japan. The major findings of this paper are as follows. First, necessity-based entrepreneurs are more likely to have fundraising problems than opportunity-based entrepreneurs. Second, industry-specific experience contributes to solving fundraising problems for both necessity- and opportunity-based entrepreneurs. Third, necessity-based entrepreneurs with industry-specific experience are less likely to have fundraising problems than opportunity-based entrepreneurs without such experience. Plain English Summary: Do high levels of human capital help necessity-based entrepreneurs overcome their disadvantages in startup financing? In this study, we investigate whether necessity-based entrepreneurs with high levels of human capital are less likely to have fundraising problems than opportunity-based entrepreneurs without such human capital. Our results show that former entrepreneurs tend not to have fundraising problems than latter entrepreneurs. This implies that (1) high levels of human capital can be an insurance for potential necessity-based entrepreneurs when they are forced to start businesses and (2) potential opportunity-based entrepreneurs might have difficulty fundraising if they do not have high levels of human capital. Therefore, all potential entrepreneurs should recognize the importance of acquiring high levels of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze how previously failed entrepreneurs fare with their current venture in terms of survival compared with novices. While previous studies have focused on the superior learning effects of failure experience, we point to the selection process that takes place before failed entrepreneurs become business owners again. One potential driver of this process is entrepreneurial talent. We find that failed entrepreneurs are less likely to survive with their current venture. This result persists for several subgroups of entrepreneurs, if we consider the number of past failure events, or if we control for the inclination of entrepreneurs to pursue high-risk projects. Overall, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that previously failed entrepreneurs are those with below-average entrepreneurial talent. Plain English Summary: It is often argued that failure is a particularly rich source of learning. It is reasonable to expect, therefore, that entrepreneurs who have failed once will do better the second time than those who try for the first time. In this paper, we compare the survival chances of businesses of entrepreneurs who failed with their ventures in the past with those of first-time entrepreneurs (novices). We find that entrepreneurs whose previous business has failed keep new businesses running for less time than novices do. This result remains even after a series of robustness checks in which we look at different subgroups of entrepreneurs. Thus, we cannot find evidence for the assumption that previous entrepreneurial failure is particularly valuable for entrepreneurs. To explain our result, we point to the selection process that takes place before we see failed entrepreneurs another time in business. Some of the failed entrepreneurs decide to start again, while others do not, and it is likely that this process is not random. A potential driver of this process is entrepreneurial talent and our results are consistent with the hypothesis that failed entrepreneurs are those with below-average entrepreneurial talent. Although this does not imply that all entrepreneurs who failed have poor talent, a general second-chance policy cannot be easily justified. A targeted search and support of high-profile entrepreneurs among the failed might be more sensible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association between high-growth firm status and global linkages with special focus on the role of imports. We rely on a rich panel data covering all formal firms in Tunisia between 1999 and 2015. Our results show that firms that import, export, have foreigner ownership, or benefit from offshore regimes are more likely to achieve high-growth status compared to other similar firms in terms of size, age, sector, and region. Among these channels, importing status has a robust positive association with high growth. We find that an increase in the import barriers led by changes in non-tariff measures reduces the likelihood of achieving high-growth status through import channel for firms that are in sectors facing relatively higher levels of exposure to the shock. Plain English Summary: Import is an important attribute of high-growth firms. Those are firms that achieve outstanding growth performance in terms of turnover or number of workers. They are more prevalent among small and young firms and are an important driver of job creation. This paper uses a very comprehensive data from Tunisia to analyze the relationship between trade and high-growth firm status. Our results show that firms more exposed to external linkages through importing, exporting, or foreigner ownership are more likely to achieve high growth. More specifically, we find that increasing import barriers negatively affect the prevalence of high growth firms. Imports are widely affected by policy decisions through tariff and non-tariff measures. These results imply that facilitating access to import should be a relevant component when designing and implementing policies aiming to support firms with high-growth potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because entrepreneurship entails uncertainty, business failure is a common outcome for entrepreneurs. When entrepreneurs encounter business failure, they carry a financial, social, and emotional burden associated with the failure. However, the magnitude of this burden differs by institutions, influencing entrepreneurial decisions and behaviors. Although institutions governing the rules of business failure are a topic for a rapidly growing field of research, research on this topic is highly fragmented. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to unpack the relationships between institutions—governing the rules of business failure—and entrepreneurial decisions/behaviors. The paper provides a fine-grained and comprehensive review of the relevant literature and develops an agenda to guide future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the moderating influence of home-country ethnic diversity in the relationship between migrant remittances and new business creation in developing countries. By employing the theories of transaction cost, social network, social identity, and trust, we argue that ethnic diversity is negatively associated with new business creation; nevertheless, it strengthens the positive association between migrant remittances and new business creation in developing countries. We test our hypotheses on 64 developing countries over an 11-year period (2006–2016). This paper contributes to entrepreneurship literature by emphasizing the importance of home-country ethnic diversity in channeling migrants' remittances to new business creation in developing countries. Plain English Summary Ethnic diversity leads to a stronger positive link between remittances and new business creation in developing countries. We show that higher remittance-receiving countries create a higher number of new firms on average. Furthermore, this positive relationship is stronger in countries with ethnically diverse societies. Our results underline the importance of the ethnic structure of the country for entrepreneurship and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of machine learning (ML) to operational data is becoming increasingly important with the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI). We propose a model where incumbents have an initial advantage in ML technology and access to (historical) operational data. We show that the increased application of ML for operational data raises entrepreneurial barriers that make the creative destruction process less destructive (less business stealing) if entrepreneurs have only limited access to the incumbent's data. However, this situation induces entrepreneurs to take on more risk and to be more creative. Policies making data generally available may therefore be suboptimal. A complementary policy is one that supports entrepreneurs' access to ML, such as open source initiatives, since doing so would stimulate creative entrepreneurship. Plain English Summary: Why generative AI and big data may make the creative destruction process not only more creative but also less destructive. We show that entrepreneurs should consider that challenging incumbents in the era of ML and big data will be more difficult since incumbents' use of ML for proprietary data makes them more formidable competitors. This fact implies that entrepreneurs need to become riskier and more creative in the future to find a competitive edge. They may therefore seek support from venture capital to become more novel in their ventures. Data protection and privacy issues became a flashpoint in the media due in part to the high-profile exposure of Facebook users' data to Cambridge Analytica in 2016 and 2017. The rapidly expanding adoption of generative AI is seen as a risk of locking in the market dominance of large incumbent technology firms. Partially in response to these events, government regulators have instituted tighter rules on data protection. The results derived in this paper suggest that a complementary policy might be to support entrepreneurs' access to and knowledge of ML technology since doing so would stimulate creative entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professor Saras Sarasvathy is the recipient of the 2022 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Her research contributions have fundamentally changed and invigorated the conversation in the domain of entrepreneurship research. Sarasvathy's work on effectuation emphasizes how entrepreneurs operate based on available resources, think in terms of affordable loss rather than profit maximization, leverage trustworthy partnerships, and treat unforeseen contingencies as opportunities rather than problems. It has led and inspired a new generation of researchers in the quest for a better understanding of how entrepreneurs make their decisions and the unfolding of the entrepreneurial process. Plain English Summary: The winner of the 2022 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, Saras Sarasvathy, has improved our understanding of how entrepreneurs make decisions and has developed new concepts and ideas about the entrepreneurial process. Professor Sarasvathy introduced the term "effectuation" to emphasize how (expert) entrepreneurs operate in uncertain, unclear, and ill-structured problem situations. In short, she developed five principles used by entrepreneurs to control rather than predict the future. These principles emphasize how entrepreneurs use available resources and trustworthy partners as well as think in terms of affordable loss rather than profit maximization. Entrepreneurs also often see unforeseen surprises as opportunities rather than problems. This view has now emerged as one of the key approaches in entrepreneurship theory, empirics, and practice within management research on entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of informal institutions on entrepreneurship. In particular, we follow a regional perspective to explore the role of social trust as a determinant of new firm formation, enhancing the flow of information and knowledge exchange across spatially embedded relational structures that underpin entrepreneurial processes. Also, we argue this bridging effect of social trust may be subdued in regions with higher levels of economic development characterised by stronger quality of governance and more defined entrepreneurial ecosystems. Combining data from Eurostat and the European Social Survey for over 200 regions across nine EU countries, the paper provides novel empirical evidence that social trust plays a significant role in fostering the formation of new firms. At the same time, the results indicate that the strength of formal institutions and the regional economy exert a critical moderating effect as the importance of social trust on new firm formation progressively increases in regions characterised by decreasing levels of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 30 years, the academic literature has legitimised the significant impact of environmental conditions on entrepreneurial activity. In the past 5 years, in particular, the academic debate has focused on the elements that configure entrepreneurship ecosystems and their influence on the creation of high-growth ventures. Previous studies have also recognised the heterogeneity of environmental conditions (including policies, support programs, funding, culture, professional infrastructure, university support, labour market, R&D, and market dynamics) across regions/countries. Yet, an in-depth discussion is required to address how environmental conditions vary per entrepreneurial stage of enterprises within certain regions/countries, as well as how these conditions determine the technological factor of the entrepreneurial process. By reviewing the literature from 2000 to 2017, this paper analyses the environmental conditions that have influenced the transitions towards becoming potential entrepreneurs, nascent/new entrepreneurs, and established/consolidated entrepreneurs in both developed and developing economies. Our findings show why diversity in entrepreneurship and context is significant. Favourable conditions include professional support, incubators/accelerators, networking with multiple agents, and R&D investments. Less favourable conditions include a lack of funding sources, labour market conditions, and social norms. Our paper contributes by proposing a research agenda and implications for stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of translational research on knowledge production and biomedical entrepreneurship across U.S. regions. Researchers have earlier investigated the outputs of translational research by focusing on academic publications. Little attention has been paid to linking translational research to biomedical entrepreneurship. We construct an analytical model based on the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach to examine the relationship between translational research, biomedical patents, clinical trials, and biomedical entrepreneurship. We test the model across 381 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas using 10 years of panel data related to the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program. CTSA appears to increase the number of biomedical patents and biomedical entrepreneurship as proxied by the NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants. However, the magnitudes of the effects are relatively small. Path analysis shows that the effect of translational research on regional biomedical entrepreneurship is not strongly conveyed through biomedical patents or clinical trials. Plain English Summary: Can programs designed to speed the transformation of research results into products/processes increase regional entrepreneurship in the biomedical sector? Translational research programs generally address the gap between basic science and clinical trials/commercialization. We examine one such program, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program, that has supported more than 60 U.S. universities and other institutions since 2006. We find that the program has positively affected regional biomedical entrepreneurship. Translational research also appears to increase the number of regional biomedical patents. The increased biomedical patents could not, however, be said to have "caused" the higher levels of regional biomedical entrepreneurship. Policymakers may intensify efforts to improve the utilization of knowledge produced by translational research activity by boosting efforts to enhance the entrepreneurial awareness and inclination of translational researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous estimates indicate that COVID-19 led to a large drop in the number of operating businesses operating early in the pandemic, but surprisingly little is known on whether these shutdowns turned into permanent closures and whether small businesses were disproportionately hit. This paper provides the first analysis of permanent business closures using confidential administrative firm-level panel data covering the universe of businesses filing sales taxes from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. We find large increases in closure rates in the first two quarters of 2020, but a strong reversal of this trend in the third quarter of 2020. The increase in closures rates in the first two quarters of the pandemic was substantially larger for small businesses than large businesses, but the rebound in the third quarter was also larger. The disproportionate closing of small businesses led to a sharp concentration of market share among larger businesses as indicated by the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index with only a partial reversal after the initial increase. The findings highlight the fragility of small businesses during a large adverse shock and the consequences for the competitiveness of markets. Plain English Summary: Small businesses were more likely to close permanently during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic than large businesses. Although they rebounded strongly thereafter, market concentration remains higher than before the pandemic. We obtain these results from analyzing administrative firm-level data covering all businesses filing sales taxes in California. Our analysis contributes to research by demonstrating the fragility of small businesses during a crisis relative to large businesses. Our findings imply that small businesses may need additional support given the trend toward purchases from large online retailers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship research has benefited from embracing three economic sociology lenses—networks, cognition, and institutions—but has treated power mainly implicitly. This paper pioneers how the concept of power can advance research into entrepreneurship. We illustrate how state actors, legacy firms, and entrepreneurs variously exert coercive, persuasive, and authoritative forms of power over entrepreneurial opportunities or exercise power to pursue them as free actors. We explicitly link context and opportunity-development processes through a power lens and show how power's interaction-focused and episodic nature that can transcend geographical and institutional boundaries might enrich entrepreneurship research. Plain English Summary: We argue that the field of entrepreneurship will benefit from more explicitly adopting the concept of power. We illustrate how different actors, namely, governments, legacy firms, and entrepreneurs, use various forms of power to shape entrepreneurial opportunities. While we argue that the power perspective helps understand how powerful actors might suffocate entrepreneurial opportunities, we also show that entrepreneurs are not powerless actors but can break free from and even modify existing power structures. In short, actors use "power over" entrepreneurial opportunities and have "power to" pursue them as free actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a country's quality of governance moderates the effect of natural disasters on start-up activity within that country. We test our hypotheses using a panel of 95 countries from 2006 to 2016. Our findings suggest natural disasters discourage start-up activity in countries with low-quality governance but encourage start-up activity in countries with high-quality governance. Moreover, our estimates reveal natural disasters' effects on start-up activity persist for the short term (1–3 years) but not the long term. Our findings provide new insights into how natural disasters affect entrepreneurship activity and highlight the importance of country governance during these events. Plain English Summary: Natural disasters encourage more start-up activity, but only in countries with high-quality governance. In countries with low-quality governance, natural disasters discourage start-up activity. Moreover, our estimates reveal natural disasters' effects on start-up activity persist for the short term (1–3 years) but not the long term. Our findings provide new insights into how natural disasters affect entrepreneurship activity and highlight the importance of country governance during these events. These findings have important implications for both researchers and policymakers. Researchers should note a nuanced effect of natural disasters on entrepreneurship activity that depends on country governance. Our study is also useful to policymakers who want to limit the adverse impact of natural disasters on start-up activity. Policymakers recognize these new firms are the backbone of new job creation, and they are more likely to invest in potential innovative breakthroughs, leading to more employment in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research established that religion shapes country-level entrepreneurial activity as well as individual-level entrepreneurial decisions. The organizational level has received less research attention. It is particularly unclear how the combination of entrepreneurship and religion is forged in established religious organizations. Through a historical case study of the Church of England's efforts toward developing an entrepreneurial orientation (EO), my paper sheds light on that issue. The findings indicate that, in religious settings, an entrepreneurial orientation materializes through a lengthy, contested process. Two mutually reinforcing mechanisms – polysemy dynamics and idea sedimentation – play an important role in this process. I theorize that these mechanisms, despite delaying EO development, address resistance and thereby drive progress toward a comprehensive entrepreneurial orientation. Plain English Summary: How do traditional religious organizations end up embracing entrepreneurial ideas? This historical case study of the Church of England answers that question. Religious organizations, especially those facing decline, are increasingly feeling the pressure to launch entrepreneurial initiatives. When such initiatives are seen as violations of religious beliefs, they tend to be resisted. How religious organizations overcome such resistance, and how they try to combine entrepreneurial and religious principles, is unclear. My study shows that the Church of England became more entrepreneurial after it (1) slowly arrived at a common understanding of what entrepreneurship meant to them and (2) continued building on entrepreneurial ideas that were previously accepted or rejected. The main implication of this study is that, while religious organizations may be slow to combine entrepreneurial and religious values, the process is difficult to stop once it has been set in motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secularization processes alongside supposed tensions between science and religion may partly explain the slow development of literature on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the overwhelming number of submissions we received for the present special issue of Small Business Economics suggests a profound interest in this topic by researchers from all around the globe. In many of these submissions, the researcher's own personal values or beliefs explicitly or implicitly motivated the research question, shaped the research design, and steered the interpretation of outcomes – regrettably, although this engagement often being at the expense of the study's analytical rigor. We explain how the Weberian distinction between value-neutrality and value-relevance can help to increase the rigor of studies on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Moreover, we propose a mechanism-based approach to explain and test the multiple interrelationships between religion and entrepreneurship because such mechanisms are often assumed rather than empirically tested. By drawing on and extending Saroglou's religious dimensions model, we structure potential mechanisms between religion and entrepreneurship as well as between entrepreneurship and religion. Plain English Summary: How can religion be so central to the everyday lives of most people around the globe yet receive so little attention in entrepreneurship research? The overwhelming response to the call for papers in this special issue of Small Business Economics on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship suggests that it is not a lack of interest in the topic that explains the slow development of the literature. Rather, it seems that the researcher's engagement with the topic often has a bearing on the analytical rigor of the study. We explain how the Weberian distinction between value-neutrality and value-relevance can help to increase the rigor of studies on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Value-neutrality emphasizes the importance of maintaining impartiality in social research, including the study of beliefs and religion, while value-relevance means that values, including religious values, may be present in the choice of research topics. Moreover, we argue for a closer examination and analysis of mechanisms to advance the study of interrelationships between religion and entrepreneurship because such mechanisms are often assumed rather than empirically tested. We also contribute to current and future research by offering a framework explaining the different ways in which religion and entrepreneurship are interrelated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between entry-regulation, corruption, and entrepreneurship is controversial in the literature. Using a broad cross-country dataset to deepen the investigation, this paper distinguishes opportunity and necessity-motivated entrepreneurship in different development contexts. Corruption might grease the wheels of ineffective administrative machinery in developing countries with heavy entry-regulation. Yet, the marginal effect of corruption will generally be non-significant in other developing countries and in developed countries. Moreover, our results suggest that corruption deters opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship—the type of entrepreneurship that may contribute the most to productivity, economic growth, and development—in developed countries. Plain English Summary: Corruption and regulation can have ambiguous relationships with entrepreneurship unless you take a careful look at it. We examine the impact of corruption and entry-regulation on opportunity and necessity-motivated entrepreneurship within different economic development contexts. Corruption and entry-regulation correlate negatively with entrepreneurship but might have a tempering effect on each other. Thus, we consider whether corruption reduces the negative impact of entry-regulation on entrepreneurship while remaining globally negative (i.e., the "weak view") or if it completely counterbalance the negative effect (the "strong view"). Exploiting a cross-country dataset on 105 countries over the 2003–2016 period, we find that, while corruption might somewhat temper the negative impact of a heavy administrative machinery in developing countries, this tempering effect of corruption will generally be non-significant. Furthermore, our findings suggest that corruption deters opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship—the type of entrepreneurship that may contribute the most to productivity, economic growth and development. Corruption and regulation would then be particularly harmful for economic development. The policy-maker tackling these issues would do well to consider direct effects and possible interrelationships according to context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextualisation research in entrepreneurship is on the rise. Scholars generally view it positively, as contextualisation allows for a better understanding of the bigger picture, whilst also concerns are voiced. However, contextualisation may lead to an overly fragmented field and its possible disintegration. This calls for 'the emergence of sensible approaches to contextualisation that provide guidance in balancing its benefits and costs' as reported by Welter et al. (Small Business Economics 52(2):319–330, 2019) which is the challenge we address in this Special Issue. More specifically, we argue that an investigation of the construction and enactment of contexts provides a path to better understand the identified tension. The aim of this Special Issue ties in with increasing calls in the entrepreneurship literature for going beyond agent centric views towards accounts that theorise the interconnections between agency and structure. Taken together, the articles in this special issue contribute to (1) a stronger grounding for entrepreneurship theories and concepts; (2) a more balanced conceptualisation of both agency and context; (3) a shift from the 'standard model' of entrepreneurship; and (4) context sensitive entrepreneurship methodologies and approaches. We end with identifying further research avenues. Plain English Summary: Contextualisation research in entrepreneurship is on the rise. With contextualisation we aim to understand the external environmental factors impacting entrepreneurial activities. Many scholars believe it provides a better understanding of the bigger picture, whereby others highlight that contextualisation may lead to an overly fragmented field and its possible disintegration. In this Special Issue, we argue that by investigating 'doing contexts', which are the making, unmaking, and remaking of sites for entrepreneurial action, we help to tackle this challenge. Taken together, the articles of this Special Issue contribute to (1) a stronger grounding for entrepreneurship theories and concepts; (2) a more balanced conceptualisation of both agency and context; (3) a shift from the 'standard model' of entrepreneurship; and (4) context sensitive entrepreneurship methodologies and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee entrepreneurship has recently entailed increased scholarly mobilization and drastic growth in the volume of salient scientific research. However, this emerging research stream is marked by fragmentation and incoherence, primarily due to the multidisciplinary and context-specific nature of its extant findings. While this process is natural for emerging fields, the current state of research necessitates a comprehensive review, synthesis, and organization of its subject matter. Hence, this study systematically and thematically explores the landscape of refugee entrepreneurship research and its intellectual territory across diverse disciplines to take stock of a repository of the literature and trace its emergence, nature, and development. By analyzing 131 publications, this paper thus lays a collective research foundation for building a coherent theory, making incremental adjustments, and forming the ontological and epistemological basis for refugee entrepreneurship research. The study also identifies gaps in the literature and opens pathways for future scholarly endeavors. Plain English Summary: Refugee entrepreneurship is an intriguing topic, providing a unique perspective for exploring the link between experiencing disruptive life events caused by being forced to leave one's homeland and founding a new business in an unplanned country of resettlement. Refugee entrepreneurship has been of recent interest to researchers due to its potential to alleviate the grand socioeconomic challenges triggered by the "refugee crisis" of mid-2010s. Vigorous scholarly engagement has generated many publications on the topic. However, refugee entrepreneurship is not a well-developed research area because current knowledge is scattered across different fields, and there exists no unified conceptualization to understand refugee entrepreneurship activities. Hence, this study makes a comprehensive analysis and organization of its subject matter to create a common academic basis for future research. The principal implication of this study is that the scope for designing better refugee-integration policies should also involve a nuanced understanding of refugee entrepreneur/ship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines effects of state Medicaid Expansion via the Affordable Care Act on the self-employed. We first examine impacts on the probability of self-employment and find small and not significant estimated effects of Medicaid expansion on the likelihood of being self-employed. We then examine effects of Medicaid expansion on the probability of having health insurance for persons who are self-employed. State Medicaid expansion increased overall health insurance coverage rates, with especially large impacts for the unincorporated self-employed. Impacts on health insurance rates of the self-employed also strengthened over time. The results indicate that Medicaid expansion does not affect entry into self-employment but it does provide significant health insurance benefits for many small business owners with low incomes who otherwise would face considerable difficulty obtaining health insurance. Plain English Summary: Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act did not increase self-employments rates, but it did increase health insurance coverage rates of low-income entrepreneurs. We compare states that expanded Medicaid to those that did not and examine how self-employment rates and health insurance rates changed over time. Self-employment rates followed similar trends in expansion and non-expansion states suggesting no differential effect of Medicaid expansion. Health insurance coverage rates for the self-employed increased in both expansion and non-expansion states due to various provisions of the Affordable Care Act, but Medicaid expansion states experienced larger increases. This has implications for entrepreneurship research and policy. The major social cost of poor health insurance access for the self-employed is not that it reduces self-employment but that it reduces health insurance coverage rates among the self-employed. Improved health insurance access can improve the health and well-being of the self-employed and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reflects on the last few decades' evolution of Ideas, Evidence, Concepts, and Methods in the multidisciplinary, multi-level, and multi-methodological field of entrepreneurship research. Using illustrations from my own career and how prior recipients of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research guided and inspired them, I describe the journey from early empirical exploration to understand the nature of the phenomenon to more recent, endogenous theory-development and -testing, heralding each as an indispensable steppingstone in meaningful knowledge development. The essay ends with an ode to the collective, co-creating nature of our knowledge-building enterprise. Plain English Summary: Over the past few decades, entrepreneurship research has developed an increasingly high-quality body of knowledge that is relevant to policy and business practice. This essay reflects on the co-creative nature of this development as well as my personal role in it. The main implications are (1) for research: contributions come in many flavors and are typically collaborative in one way or the other; (2) for practice: while some entrepreneurship research may seem esoteric to practitioners, it also offers solid research evidence on highly practice-relevant matters like how growth and profitability are related that practitioners ignore at their own peril; and (3) for society: entrepreneurship undoubtedly performs a very important, positive function in society; yet, we need to distinguish between those 'entrepreneurial' endeavors that make a net contribution to societal interests and those that do not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professor Per Davidsson is the recipient of the 2023 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Throughout an extraordinarily productive career, he has made invaluable contributions in building the field of entrepreneurship. His early studies on entrepreneurship and culture and his studies on the growth of small businesses played an important role in the emergence and development of entrepreneurship as a scholarly field of research. He has also, continuously, made more conceptual contributions by critically probing the development of the field, and engaged in writing foundational books that have been used extensively in higher education institutes. By probing and challenging traditional assumptions throughout his career, he has contributed to the refinement and renewal of the field. Plain English Summary: The winner of the 2023 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, Per Davidsson, has been a pioneer of influential and high-quality research contributions and has also been a community builder in the entrepreneurship field. Over the last 40 years, Professor Davidsson has provided insights into several of the field's main branches, including the diversity of high-growth firms, the value of networks and social capital, and the importance of regional aspects of entrepreneurship. Besides scientific articles, he has also written several books still widely used in higher education. Through a unique combination of skills and humility, Professor Davidsson has enabled researchers in the field to meet and interact, transforming the field of entrepreneurship into an academic discipline with relevance for the whole society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces narratives in entrepreneurial ecosystems as drivers of effectuation vs. causation. Drawing on 43 interviews with successful players in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore, we found ecosystem-specific narratives indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in each ecosystem, and these narratives encourage either effectuation or causation. Our findings indicate that the narratives in the ecosystem in Silicon Valley facilitate effectuation, in Munich causation, and in Singapore a cautious balance of both. Our research suggests that narratives can explain mechanisms how ecosystems influence entrepreneurship: the national culture, market characteristics, available resources, and networks in an ecosystem spark ecosystem-specific narratives, which in turn shape tendencies towards effectuation and causation. Thereby, we introduce a new ecosystem-focused perspective on predictors of effectuation and causation. Plain English Summary: The ecosystems in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore spark different narratives about entrepreneurship, which indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in the ecosystem and in turn encourage different kinds of entrepreneurial approaches. We conducted 43 interviews with successful players in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore. We found ecosystem-specific narratives indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in an ecosystem and encourage different kinds of entrepreneurial behavior and decision-making. Those narratives seem to shape tendencies towards specific strategic logics. The narratives either encourage "effectuation" (i.e., when they focus on building partnerships and utilizing the networks, and when they encourage confidence and speed) or "causation" (i.e., when they focus on developing systematics and structured plans, and when they encourage harmony and conformity). Narratives in Silicon Valley seem to facilitate effectuation, in Munich causation, and in Singapore both. Our research suggests that narratives explain mechanisms how ecosystems influence entrepreneurship: the national culture, market characteristics, available resources, and networks in an ecosystem spark ecosystem-specific narratives, which in turn shape tendencies towards effectuation and causation. Thereby, we introduce a new ecosystem-focused perspective on predictors of effectuation and causation. Our findings suggest specific strategies and success factors in each ecosystem. For example, the narratives prevalent in Silicon Valley have a sales focus, in Munich a need for detailed plans, and in Singapore value conformity. Thus, our findings provide insights for entrepreneurs for strategic location choices and on how to position their new venture at a specific location. VCs and policy makers gain from insights into how to leverage strengths and how to counteract problematic mechanisms in an ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurial universities contribute directly and indirectly to supporting all stages of entrepreneurship. The challenge for entrepreneurial universities is how they can best support academic entrepreneurs through these stages of entrepreneurship. This has led to the creation of different and often ad hoc organizational units within an entrepreneurial university. The organizational challenge for entrepreneurial universities is the selection of the appropriate formal organizational architecture to support the stages of entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the organizational architecture of entrepreneurial universities and how it supports the stages of entrepreneurship — latent, emergent, launch, and growth. Our conceptual organizational framework conflates the stages of entrepreneurship with the actual needs of university-based entrepreneurs and how these needs are supported through different formal organizational units within the organizational architecture of entrepreneurial universities. Therein, we categorize three types of formal organizational units — those that focus on exploration stages of entrepreneurship, those that straddle exploration and exploitation stages of entrepreneurship, and those that boundary span all stages of entrepreneurship. We conclude by discussing the resultant organizational tensions for entrepreneurial universities and highlight future avenues of research. Plain English Summary: One of the challenges that managers of entrepreneurial universities face relates to the necessary formal organizational structures that are needed to be put in place to support university-based entrepreneurs and meet their actual needs across the stages of entrepreneurship (latent, emergent, launch, and growth). We categorize three types of formal organizational units — those that have an exclusive focus on exploration stages of entrepreneurship, those that have a selective focus on exploration and exploitation stages of entrepreneurship, and those that have an overarching focus on all exploration and exploitation stages of entrepreneurship. We further highlight some organizational tensions as a result of these configurations that entrepreneurial university managers have to handle. Such tensions relate to resource, skill, and competence synergies, seamless organizational support for university-based entrepreneurs across the different stages of entrepreneurship, appropriate governance structures, alignment of organizational units with the wider entrepreneurship context, and the appropriate configuration and mix of organizational units to support the stages of entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing interest in the phenomenon of immigrant entrepreneurship. Despite the growing number of studies, the financing aspect of immigrant entrepreneurship is still an emergent subject. In this paper, we critically and systematically review the field of the entrepreneurial financing of immigrant entrepreneurs. For this purpose, we conduct a two-step analysis of 37 systematically selected articles. In the first step, we provide an overall description of the field, while in the second step we perform a SWOT analysis on different aspects of the field, including the units of analysis, the main questions, and the use of theories and methods in the field. The review identifies gaps and weaknesses in the field, suggests potential opportunities for future research, and highlights some threats that could impede the implementation of future opportunities. Finally, the review suggests further questions to be explored for future advancement of knowledge in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]