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We analyze the effect of previous intrapreneurship experience as a key determinant of becoming a new entrepreneur, and the role that it plays in driving innovation and performance in startups, as indicated by employment and exports, and discuss the role of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We use pooled cross-section data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for the years 2013–2018, with a focus on Canada and the US. The results indicate that previous intrapreneurship experience plays a key role in the decision to engage in the creation of a startup, and that previous experience brings higher innovation outcomes, and shows a higher impact in terms of generation of new jobs and exports, compared to similar startups by entrepreneurs without intrapreneurship experience. The findings suggest the potential to encourage better schemes that promote the acquisition of expertise in an existing organization, and to address those factors that prevent some population groups from engaging in entrepreneurial activity. We contribute to the discussion by estimating the effect that intrapreneurship plays in the decision to start a new firm, and the impacts generated by the startup in terms of innovation, generation of employment and intensity of exports, differentiating between spinoffs and other-new-entrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female entrepreneurs often have less prior industry knowledge or experience than male entrepreneurs. To ameliorate the adverse consequences for business performance, they could equally co-own ventures with their experienced male peers. Using a representative sample of 183,358 new ventures in Canada, we explore this under-investigated issue by analyzing the labour productivity of women-owned and equally-owned ventures, relative to men-owned ventures, from 2006 to 2017. We also quantify the influence of the principal owners' prior industry experience on the relative labour productivity of women-owned and equally-owned ventures. Our regression analyses show that women-owned and equally-owned ventures are 16.5% and 5.9% less productive than men-owned ventures, respectively. We also confirm that women-owned ventures realize productivity gains from having experienced female owners. Meanwhile, we find that equally-owned ventures yield productivity gains only when they comprise experienced male co-owners and inexperienced female co-owners. More generally, we contribute new evidence-based insights on the gender productivity gap and why gender-equal ownership can help. Plain English Summary: This study shows that female entrepreneurs operate less productive new ventures as majority owners than their male counterparts. But the gender productivity gap substantially reduces when they operate new ventures with men as equal owners. Since female entrepreneurs are often less experienced than male entrepreneurs, gender-equal ownership can yield productivity gains by facilitating the flow of essential industry knowledge from experienced male co-owners to inexperienced female co-owners. We show that the gender productivity gap reduces from 16.5 to 5.9% if female entrepreneurs choose to co-own equally-owned ventures, rather than women-owned ventures. We also confirm that experienced female owners improve the productivity of women-owned ventures relative to men-owned ventures. Meanwhile, we show that equally-owned ventures yield productivity gains only when experienced male co-owners are matched with inexperienced female co-owners. Thus, less experienced female entrepreneurs should especially consider gender-equal ownership as an attractive ownership option, knowing that it can facilitate knowledge transfer and improve business performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second quantum revolution has been producing groundbreaking scientific and technological outputs since the early 2000s; however, the scientific literature on the impact of this revolution on the industry, specifically on start-ups, is limited. In this paper, we present a landscaping study with a gathered dataset of 441 companies from 42 countries that we identify as quantum start-ups, meaning that they mainly focus on quantum technologies (QT) as their primary priority business. We answer the following questions: (1) What are the temporal and geographical distributions of the quantum start-ups? (2) How can we categorize them, and how are these categories populated? (3) Are there any patterns that we can derive from empirical data on trends? We found that more than 92% of these companies have been founded within the last 10 years, and more than 50% of them are located in the US, the UK, and Canada. We categorized the QT start-ups into six fields: (i) complementary technologies, (ii) quantum computing (hardware), (iii) quantum computing (software/application/simulation), (iv) quantum cryptography/communication, (v) quantum sensing and metrology, and (vi) supporting companies, and analyzed the population of each field both for countries, and temporally. Finally, we argue that low levels of quantum start-up activity in a country might be an indicator of a national initiative to be adopted afterwards, which later sees both an increase in the number of start-ups, and a diversification of activity in different QT fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a case for post‐graduate international students as an increasingly important category of immigrant entrepreneur in Canada. We draw our findings from an analysis of new provincial immigrant entrepreneur programs and interviews with international student entrepreneurs in a mid‐sized city in Atlantic Canada. We argue that three forces have become increasingly relevant in shaping immigrant entrepreneurs' opportunity structures: (1) the internationalization of higher education institutions (HEIs), (2) the corporatization of HEIs, and (3) the regionalization of immigration. We show how public policy shifts in immigration and education have expanded the opportunity structure for international student start‐ups. These entrepreneurs are navigating multiple dimensions of risk that stem from being both temporary migrants and business owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'recycling' of people, capital, and ideas within an entrepreneurial ecosystem is a key process driving high-growth entrepreneurship. Skilled workers who leave firms after successful exits or firm collapse bring knowledge and insights that they can use to start new ventures or work at existing scale-up firms. This makes large anchor firms important actors in attracting workers who may subsequently recycle into the local ecosystem. However, there is limited empirical research on recycling into an ecosystem after the loss of an anchor firm. This paper develops a novel methodology using career history data to track recycling into ecosystems. The paper develops a study of Waterloo, Ontario, home to the smartphone manufacturer Blackberry, whose decline in 2008 represented a significant shock to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. We find that alumni of this firm engaged in very little high-growth entrepreneurship, instead entering the ecosystem as technology employees at high-growth scale-up firms. This was aided by the region's increased institutional capacity to match skilled workers with new ventures, ensuring the continued success of the ecosystem over time. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the role of anchor firms in entrepreneurial ecosystems and how recycling affects the dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth companies contribute disproportionately to Canada's job creation, economic development and innovation. Most growth companies can match neither the salaries nor the security of more established competitors for executive talent. This makes their only advantage--the growth prospects of their equity--particularly important part of their compensation arrangements. Canadian growth companies (and Canadian businesses generally) make less use of equity incentives than their American peers and the kind of incentive they use almost exclusively, stock options, are strongly criticized by politicians, academics, institutional shareholders, and corporate governance experts. Stock options are accused of contributing to income inequality and creating incentives for value-destroying behaviour in large established corporations, but it is not clear these critiques have much to do with their use by growth companies. As well, it is not clear why these companies should be restricted to the use of stock options as the only equity incentive scheme available to them without adverse tax effects. For example, there are good reasons American growth companies make extensive use of share grants. As Canada enters its fourth round of amendments in this century to the tax rules relating to equity incentives, it is time to consider a tax regime that begins to differentiate between growth companies and their larger, more established counterparts, and that ceases to differentiate between issuing an option to acquire shares and simply issuing shares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a qualitative study of the emerging field of HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada, we found that institutional entrepreneurship involved three sets of critical activities: (1) the occupation of "subject positions" that have wide legitimacy and bridge diverse stakeholders, (2) the theorization of new practices through discursive and political means, and (3) the institutionalization of these new practices by connecting them to stakeholders' routines and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combine theory and research on alliance networks and on new firms to investigate the impact of variation in startups' alliance network composition on their early performance. We hypothesize that startups can enhance their early performance by 1) establishing alliances, 2) configuring them into an efficient network that provides access to diverse information and capabilities with minimum costs of redundancy, conflict, and complexity, and 3) judiciously allying with potential rivals that provide more opportunity for learning and less risk of intra-alliance rivalry. An analysis of Canadian biotech startups' performance provides broad support for our hypotheses, especially as they relate to innovative performance. Overall, our findings show how variation in the alliance networks startups configure at the time of their founding produces significant differences in their early performance, contributing directly to an explanation of how and why firm age and size affect firm performance. We discuss some clear, but challenging, implications for managers of startups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1980s, the firm entry rate and the rate of new entrepreneurship have trended downward in Canada. This article documents these trends and discusses potential explanations. A shift-share analysis suggests that industrial and demographic structure changes cannot explain these long-term trends, although population aging accounts for part of the decline in new entrepreneurship since around 2000. The article discusses other factors that could contribute to the downward trends: increased industrial concentration, changing labour market conditions, increased college wage premium, higher student debt and government regulation. Some of these may be important, but more research is needed before firm conclusions can be reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

bOK Systems Corp., a Canadian-based start-up, has been able to launch its product in the market but is looking to take it to the next level and increase the adoption of its service amongst the masses. The venture team is facing challenges such as a shortage of time and money. A dilemma is that time and money are substitutes; chasing capital takes the focus away from other areas that need attention. Raising funds for the venture is not easy given the lacklustre investment environment in Canada. The team is now considering multiple alternatives, such as focusing full time on bOK (i.e., quitting all other efforts), bringing in an external CEO, or liquidation and exit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation vouchers are widely used internationally by governments to support emerging small business. Traditionally, vouchers were used to subsidize social benefits such as food, education or health services, but are increasingly used to stimulate entrepreneurial effort. Innovation vouchers are usually given to small firms to subsidize the cost of business or technical services from external providers. This enables the company to have more control over their development activities, while sustaining the external service providers. International and Canadian experience suggests considerable congruence in program design but, in some settings, special features have been devised to address local business needs and development priorities. A largely untapped body of evidence could be used to assess the impact of this tool and opportunities for refinement and application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs that were employed by successful industry incumbents prior to founding tend to confer advantages on their new organizations. We propose and then demonstrate a similar "network progeny" effect rooted in the social relationships that form among entrepreneurs. Our analysis of new entrants into the Ontario wine industry shows that prefounding friendship ties of the founders of one especially prominent entrepreneurial firm led to significantly higher ice wine prices. This attests to the promise of a network progeny extension of the parent-progeny account of new firm success. Follow-on analysis indicates that this effect is not attributable to an entrant's ability to make ice wines of superior quality or to it having access to better distribution knowledge. We therefore conclude that having a social tie to this prominent entrepreneurial firm generated reflected prominence that enhanced the valuations and therefore prices of wines made by connected market entrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decades have witnessed an increase of the proportion of firms created by women in Canada. However, despite the increasing number of female entrepreneurs, research in the field keeps reporting that women are twice less likely to start a business than men; when they do start a venture, it is smaller in size and shows a lower growth level than male-controlled firms. The purpose of this research was to examine how female and male entrepreneurs participating to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Canada survey compared in terms of their motives to start a business. Motivations were compared using the "push-pull" dichotomy among a sample of owners of recently created firms across Canada. In general, the results of this study show a relationship between success at launching a business and some characteristics of opportunistic entrepreneurs such as: level of education, skills, self-confidence, income and networking. As men tend to have acquired these characteristics in a higher proportion than women, it would not be surprising to see women obtaining on average lower results than men when these characteristics are measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian policymakers and regulators have been praised for avoiding many of the policy blunders that, when combined with excessive risk-taking by the banks, nearly brought down the U.S. financial sector. But, as the global economy begins to recover, policymakers everywhere need to find ways to stimulate the creation of new ventures. On that score, Canada's record is not encouraging. The returns on Canadian venture capital investment have been dismally low, particularly in its government-run funds. In a recent survey, 40% of U.S. venture capital partners identified Canada as having the least favorable treatment of investors of any country they had dealings with. And perhaps most troubling, half of the Canadian corporate executives responding to another survey cited “inability to retain talent” as the biggest threat to their firms. The authors begin by suggesting that these findings are all related. Without investors and the know-how and networks they bring with them, a country's ability to attract, develop, and retain top talent—business and managerial talent in particular—is significantly reduced. And as the authors go on to argue, the key to building a successful venture capital industry is to match talent with capital in such a way that all three parties—talent, capital providers, and the “matchmakers” who bring together talent and capital—are rewarded for superior performance and held accountable for failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The main purpose of this study is to identify features and trends shaping the business models currently prevailing in the Canadian biopharma industry, by disaggregating the business model analysis into four key areas: value creation, investment strategy, business strategy, success factors Design/methodology/approach — Results arise from an empirical fieldwork of qualitative nature, undertaken by the end of 2004, involving deep interviews to a broad variety of key stakeholders of the biopharma industry in the Quebec region, including biopharma firms, large pharma firms, venture capital funds, research centers and recognized experts from consultancy firms and Universities. Findings — Biopharma firms encounter difficulties to bridge the gap between the research innovation focus to the large scale production focus. The biopharma firms need to announce achievable and promising hits in the near future, mainly by filing patents and also through scientific publications, and making believable their prospects to reach the release phase. Venture capitalists and private investors claim for original, innovative and marketable results, keeping away from just imitative enterprises. The one product firms still largely prevail. Research limitations/implications — Lessons learned through this fieldwork might in the future be complemented with a quantitative survey to biopharma firms in the Quebec region. Practical implications — When funding biopharma firms, private investors claim for original, innovative and marketable results, keeping away from just imitative enterprises. The business model must evolve, and take into account the quick changes in the environment, coming either from the market or from the technologies and research streams. Originality/value — Disaggregating the business model analysis into four key areas will make an original contribution to the limited knowledge about expectations and future prospects of the biopharma industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the nature and impact of gestation-specific human capital on successful start-up among a random sample of Canadian nascent entrepreneurs. Although much is known about the relationship between individual-level factors and the probability of becoming a nascent entrepreneur, the same cannot be said for the relationship between individual-level factors and success in starting a business. Previous studies of existing business founders indicate that general human capital (education and work experience) plays a role in opportunity identification, but at best plays a very weak role in opportunity pursuit. In light of these findings we sought to identify elements of human capital that would be specific to gestation–previous start-up experience, completion of classes or workshops in starting a business, and financial management capability (FMC). In documenting these elements, we found the majority of the sample had not taken any classes or workshops on starting a business, were novices to the start-up process, and were characterized by a wide range of financial management capability. Among those nascent entrepreneurs who succeeded in starting a business, FMC was found to be associated with sustainability. We conclude by discussing implications for researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some geographical locations have characteristics that create opportunities for de novo enterprises, but not all new firms can access the benefits presented by a potential location. The ability of new firms to appropriate benefit and avoid risk depends on the resources that entrepreneurs can marshal for their enterprise. This article develops a model of the interplay between the attributes of de novo entrants and their founding locations. The model assumes that de novo entrants tend to appear in the region where their founders live, but that founders choose among locations within their regions. The test of the model, using data on all de novo entrants in the Canadian manufacturing sector during 1984-98, reveals that entrants with greater resource and capability endowments are more likely to locate in areas with an agglomeration of similar firms, but this effect reverses at high endowment levels. Additionally, larger entrants are less likely to locate in areas characterized by intense local competition and potential entry deterrence, while smaller and well-endowed entrants tend to locate in areas where entry barriers are lower and asset turnover higher. These findings suggest that entrants choose locations strategically within their founding regions. They also indicate that the strategic imperatives of de novo entrants differ significantly from those of geographically diversifying firms, and thus suggest amendments to theories of location choice when modeling the decisions of new ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Information about the topics discussed during the conference sponsored by the Canada-U.S. Law Institute (CUSLI) on the comparative legal aspects of entrepreneurship in Canada and the U.S. is presented. The event highlighted the comparison where Canada and the U.S. fit in other countries around the world regarding entrepreneurship. The conference featured director Robert D. Hisrich of the Center for Global Entrepreneurship at the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

This article previews the September, 2006 issue of "Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice." The issue focuses on the topic of women's entrepreneurship, noting that thirty percent of all privately held firms in the U.S. are principally owned by women, controlling $1.2 trillion in revenue. The trend of women's entrepreneurship is even greater internationally, especially in countries such as Canada, Denmark, and New Zealand. The issue focuses on social perceptions of women entrepreneurs, building the female entrepreneurship community, and a discussion of research related to women-owned businesses.

Provides information on the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Financing Data Initiative program in Canada. Financing conditions for SME in 2001; Financial structure of Canadian SME; Profile of risk capital financing for SME.

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Systematic differences in the determinants of firm failure between firms that fail early in their life and those that fail after having successfully negotiated the early liabilities of newness and adolescence are identified. Analysis of data from 339 Canadian corporate bankruptcies suggests that failure among younger firms may be attributable to deficiencies in managerial knowledge and financial management abilities failure among older firms, on the other hand, may be attributable to an inability to adapt to environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the start-up company crowdfunding-related registration and prospectus exemptions that were adopted by the securities regulators in various Canadian provinces such as British Columbia and Manitoba which are members of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) agency as of 2015, and it mentions how the exemptions are intended to raise capital. Local Blanket Orders are examined, along with Canadian securities laws and regulations.