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We posit that the quality of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and the effectiveness of crisis-specific policy response are essential for entrepreneurial growth aspirations during major external shocks. Enhancing the quality of ICT infrastructure is a relevant strategy for building ecosystems that are resilient to multiple types of crises. It enhances entrepreneurs' growth ambitions during the crisis, and makes them less reliant on crisis-specific response policies adopted by governments. We provide empirical support for this, utilizing Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data from the pandemic period in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This virtual special issue includes research on the effects of crises, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic, on entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial responses to deal with consequences of crises. This issue highlights how crises affect entrepreneurs' well-being and reinforce the importance of agency of entrepreneurs and other citizens. The special issue also highlights the need for resilience; the ability of entrepreneurs, organizations, and economies to absorb and adapt to shocks; and how it can be strengthened. We discuss the importance of data in times of crisis and the greater need for engaged scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The workshop focused on entrepreneurship, innovation, and local-level policy initiatives aimed at stimulating economic development in post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. After the demise of the socialist regimes the countries of Central and Eastern Europe followed quite different policy approaches. The papers contained in this Special Issue are a selection of contributions presented originally at a two-day workshop that took place in November 2019 at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland. Over the last decades, Special Economic Zones (SEZ) were popular instruments of government intervention in numerous countries, including Poland. [Extracted from the article]

We model and test the relationship between social and commercial entrepreneurship drawing on social capital theory. We propose that the country prevalence rate of social entrepreneurship is an indicator of [...]

This article investigates the effects of foreign direct investment on employment generation in Central Europe. Foreign affiliates operate as a buffer to reductions in overall employment and show significant cross-country [...]

We posit that entrepreneurs who engage in strategic activities will have high growth aspirations. Our proposed mechanism is that strategic engagements, specifically product innovation, process innovation and internationalization, open entrepreneurial ventures to learning, and thereby greater growth opportunities. Furthermore, these learning effects are reinforced in research-intensive industrial environments. We apply multilevel random slope estimation for individuals from 74 countries, 2001–2015, to derive results consistent with our hypotheses. The findings are robust to potential reverse causality between strategic behavior and growth aspirations, and to selection bias resulting from strategic engagements being only observed for actual entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We posit that societal cultural values of creativity and security are associated with the likelihood that a person will engage in a business start-up. Creativity supports the opportunity identification and security the opportunity exploitation aspects of entrepreneurship. In contrast, both emphasis on performance and acceptance of risk-taking may not play the role that is typically assumed. To verify our hypotheses we construct a multilevel dataset, combining Global Entrepreneurship Monitor individual-level data with country-level data from the World Values Survey. We use a multilevel logit model to address the hierarchical structure of our data. We found that odds of start-up engagement are higher if people in a society value security, yet also appreciate thinking up new ideas and being creative. Our results support McCloskey's distinction between aristocratic and bourgeois values, and John and Storr's proposition that different cultural traits support different aspects of entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total factor productivity represents a dimension of output that cannot be attributed to factors of production; it is unique to the firm, and central to its competitiveness. We posit that ownership structure plays a key role in productivity. However, ownership structure has an effect on productivity which changes with a firm's age. Ownership structure that is optimal for new firms may not be optimal for older firms. We here consider the impact of ownership structure as defined by shares of individuals' versus (broadly defined) institutional ownership. Our empirical counterpart draws on the UK company data for 2008-2017, obtained from the Orbis database. Our key explanatory variables are the joint share of the individual owners in equity and its square, but we also control concentration of ownership indices, along with a range of other firm-level characteristics. Applying fixed effects models along with instrumenting ownership with regional level variables, we found that new companies with majority individual owners and minority institutional owners outperform others. As firms age, however, these differences begin to disappear, with individual owners losing their control-related advantage. The results of the relative advantage of individual owners in the early stage is consistent with the property rights theory, which emphasises that residual control rights should remain with those whose investment is critical. It can be argued, however, that for whom the investment is critical changes as firm ages. Our managerial implications emphasise ownership competence in optimising ownership structure, which should evolve along the stages of the life-cycle of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: We consider what configurations of historical and geographic dimensions influence entrepreneurial growth aspirations (EGA). Our theoretical framework combines geography (coastal location, resource dependence), long‐term colonial history (ethnic heterogeneity, legal origins), and postcolonial history (low levels of conflict and population displacement; not having "bad neighbors"). We employ abductive reasoning to link the social science and historical literatures via analytically structured histories of Ghana, Nigeria, and Angola. Next, we undertake a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis on sub‐Saharan Africa countries to investigate which particular configurations of these dimensions are important for EGA. We demonstrate the importance of configurations over individual variables and add context‐bound dimensions to the study of entrepreneurship in developing countries, through historical analysis. Managerial Summary: Our analysis may offer entrepreneurs a template for identifying potential opportunities and threats in order to calibrate their strategies for scaling up their venture in sub‐Saharan Africa. We argue that environments rich in entrepreneurial growth opportunities are associated with configurations where negative aspects are more than compensated by positive ones. For Botswana, the low levels of internal conflict compensate for unfavorable location. For Angola, the positive impact of coastal location and relatively low ethnic heterogeneity counterbalance the negative effect of resource rents. Resource‐driven economies are more entrepreneurial: better economic opportunities can sometimes result from having extractive industries. For African entrepreneurs it is not only relevant what happens in their own countries, as their opportunities are directly affected by economic or political turmoil in neighboring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article inductively builds theory on how transaction costs may be alleviated and institutional voids bridged in developing economies, based on the case study of successful migrant entrepreneurial involvement in Nigerian agriculture: Shonga Farms. We argue that the iterative process of building conditions of trust through long-term commitment, involvement of regional government, appropriate modes of financial contracts and the gradual transitioning of controlling interests to private actors are factors of success. We draw additional lessons by contrasting our case study with other similar migrant schemes that have failed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petty administrative corruption (bribery) can be seen as a regional phenomenon and investigated in the spatial context. By applying Heckman selection models with instrumenting to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (EBRD) Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) data, it is found that larger cities appear more prone to corruption. However, capital cities exhibit lower corruption, owing to differences in social and political structures and government accountability. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the importance of the meso-level social environment, exploring complementarity between bridging (across broader local society by institutional trust) and bonding trust (within more embedded communities) in alleviating bribery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is a critical component of our relationship with others. It forms a basis of not only social relations but also economic ones. Trust is necessarily linked to entrepreneurship because it is useful in conditions of uncertainty. An entrepreneur needs to gain trust of others who cannot obtain full knowledge on what is being introduced to the market as well trust others such as partners, employees and suppliers to deliver on promises. This study aims to examine the role of trust in entrepreneurship. After reviewing the conceptualisation of trust, we argue that trust should be seen in the context of a wider-set of entrepreneurship-supporting values. We then explore different types of trust and their role in entrepreneurship, moving from particular trust to extended trust, ending with a discussion on how new technology is enabling entrepreneurs to create a new form of distributed trust between strangers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the effects of immigration and ethnicity on entrepreneurship, distinguishing between the individual traits and the environmental characteristics. It looks beyond the resource-opportunity framework and occupational choice: culture and values matter. Yet, instead of assigning the latter to specific ethnic features, they are related here to both immigration and to the social environment defined by the share of immigrants, and by ethnic diversity. Empirical evidence provided in this paper is based on Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) UK data, 2003-13. Having more immigrants in the locality enhances entrepreneurship. With an increase in ethnic diversity the likelihood of being engaged in start-up activity decreases then increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions are often seen as slow to change yet help explain variance in entrepreneurship rates across countries. We develop a complementary perspective exploring how short-term institutional change in constitutional institutions -- the rule of law and property rights -- may affect entrepreneurial activity. We develop hypotheses about how change in these institutions impacts entrepreneurship utilizing the lenses of prospect theory and bounded rationality. These micro- foundations help us to explain the pattern of response in entrepreneurship: positive and negative constitutional changes have asymmetric effects on the likelihood to engage in entrepreneurship that differ over time and across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article offers information on anniversary issue of the periodical that completes 50 years in publication. Topics include observation of changes in global context related to regional studies management; impact of the 2008 financial crisis over enhancement of growth in several regions that leads to reduction in hyper-globalization; inhibition of foreign direct investment that provokes resurgence of industries; and concerns related to regional development along with infrastructure upgradation.