Search Results (44)

This exploratory study examines strategic communication in Galician start-ups led by women, with the aim of analysing reputation management mechanisms, the channels and tools used, and the challenges associated with building a differentiated identity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. A qualitative approach was adopted, combining a focus group with nine female entrepreneurs, documentary analysis and case studies. The results show that this ecosystem is structured around three relevant dimensions: institutional support provided by universities, accelerators and pioneering programmes; territorial roots, as a strategic resource for legitimacy and differentiation; and personal narratives that link innovation with everyday experience and strengthen empathy with audiences. There is a notable progressive professionalisation of communication as an instrument for growth, risk governance and identity consolidation, in which digital platforms play a significant role. Horizontal leadership styles, based on transparency and empathy, are configured as reputational attributes where the status of women founders can generate differential advantages in visibility and credibility, but also challenges in masculinised environments. The discussion identifies three key challenges: overcoming reluctance to public exposure, strengthening peer support networks, and promoting inclusive and understandable language. The findings highlight strategic communication as a cross-cutting resource for business and social legitimacy and sustainability in Galician female entrepreneurship. Full article

Despite growing scholarly interest in leadership within entrepreneurial settings, little is known about how relational leadership operates in informal, resource-constrained ecosystems. This study examines how entrepreneurial leadership fosters positive relational dynamics and collaborative resilience within Ecuador’s highly informal entrepreneurial ecosystem. Drawing on entrepreneurial cognition and relational leadership theories, it investigates how entrepreneurs act as informal leaders who cultivate trust, empathy, and mutual support in the absence of formal institutional structures. Using an original mixed-method lexical–clustering design, data were collected from 880 micro and small entrepreneurs in Quito, who categorized 75 entrepreneurial attributes using a forced-choice instrument. Two dominant narratives emerged: collaborative resilience (65%), defined by empathy, adaptability, and social cohesion, and structural vulnerability (35%), marked by bureaucracy, fear, and emotional strain. Gender differences revealed that women emphasize relational stress and communal coping, while men focus on structural barriers and operational constraints. The findings extend leadership research by demonstrating how positive relational processes enable entrepreneurs to transform adversity into collective strength. The study advances relational leadership theory by revealing its cognitive and emotional foundations in nontraditional contexts. It offers policy insights for designing inclusive, trust-based ecosystems that promote psychological safety, collaboration, and sustainable entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Full article

Entrepreneurial endeavors are pivotal to development and growth. Therefore, it is critical to recognize and prioritize the need for building new, sustainable businesses that will create and offer products and services aligned with the interests of diverse stakeholders. Considering that the success of early-stage firms is shaped by both internal factors and external conditions, the aim of this study is to examine the prospects for sustainability of entrepreneurial start-ups by assessing how their strategic ecosystem influences market performance, a key metric of their capacity to successfully compete and survive. To identify performance precursors, we surveyed the founders of 108 new ventures regarding a broad range of internal determinants—including strategic factors, human resources, networking with external partners, pre-entry funding choices, and board profiles—while controlling for external influences. Our findings suggest that the performance differentials across these firms can be largely attributed to their human assets, strategic foundation, and board heterogeneity, as reflected in gender diversity in decision boards and the number of founders. Service start-ups and those that have been found in urban centers were also associated with better performance compared to manufacturing new ventures and those located in a country’s periphery. In the opposite direction, funding choices and established partnership-based networks were not related to successful market penetration. Likewise, the impact of start-ups’ industry growth, the rate of technology obsoletion, as well as several other macro-environmental influences show limited impact. Full article

Crowdfunding has gained popularity among entrepreneurs who seek funding for their business projects on crowdfunding platforms. The success of these campaigns largely depends on the ability to attract and convince backers to support the fundraising initiative. Drawing on signalling, persuasion, and attribution theories, this study examines how campaign descriptions and visual features specifically word description length, spelling errors, images, frequently asked questions (FAQs), number of backers, funding target, flexible funding, and campaign duration. The study utilised econometric techniques such as ordinary least squares and logistic regression models on a dataset consisting of 854 small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurial projects collected from Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Fundraised databases. The probability of success is significantly increased by the length of project descriptions, the inclusion of images, and an increased number of backers. On the other hand, higher funding targets and flexible funding models decrease the probability of success. These results support the attribution and persuasion theories, indicating that detailed project descriptions can address information gaps and improve the project’s credibility and trustworthiness. This study contributes to the literature by providing an empirically grounded understanding of how textual and visual elements influence crowdfunding outcomes in the African context and offers practical guidance for entrepreneurs and investors on designing effective campaigns. Full article

In an increasingly complex global context, higher education faces the challenge of preparing professionals who are innovative, committed, and socially responsible. Entrepreneurial competence is particularly prominent among the key skills required to meet this goal, given its significant personal and social impact. This study examines how final-year undergraduate students at the University of Deusto (Spain) perceive the importance of entrepreneurial competence—defined as a set of transversal skills, knowledge, and attitudes enabling initiative and opportunity recognition across various contexts—rather than entrepreneurial competence strictly understood as business creation. The sample included 267 students from different faculties. Descriptive, comparative, and ordinal logistic regression analyses (SPSS) were used. The results show that, while entrepreneurial competence was given significant importance, it was ranked comparatively low relative to other competencies. Significant differences by gender were observed, with women rating entrepreneurial competence more highly than men. The faculty variable showed slight disparities, and there were no relevant differences between campuses. These findings highlight the need to reinforce the integration of entrepreneurial competence into educational curricula on a transversal basis, adapting the teaching of this competence to the sociocultural context of students, as well as the need to increase students’ awareness of the importance of entrepreneurial competence. It is proposed that further research should focus on the relationships between intrapreneurship, gender, and academic disciplines, in order to enrich entrepreneurial competence education and its impact on the employability and social commitment of students. Full article

The examination of government intervention in rural tourism within developing countries remains a critical area of academic inquiry. This study investigates the relationship between government intervention in rural tourism and the income growth of rural residents by utilizing a Difference-in-Differences method based on county-level data from the China County-Level Statistical Yearbooks from 2006 to 2022. The findings indicate that government-supported rural tourism development significantly promotes income growth among rural populations. This effect can be attributed to three key mechanisms: stimulation of entrepreneurial activity, promotion of related industrial development, and optimization of resource allocation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the income-enhancing effect is more pronounced in counties with stronger economic foundations, more developed agricultural sectors, and favorable geographic conditions. However, the intervention has not significantly reduced the urban–rural income gap or reversed the declining trend in the labor income share, suggesting that more targeted and inclusive strategies are needed. These findings offer important policy implications for developing countries aiming to foster rural revitalization through industrial policy instruments. Full article

In today’s evolving society, meaningful development cannot be fully realized without acknowledging the vital role of the electronics sector, especially as it functions within informal markets. These markets have become more than just centers of commerce; they serve as informal learning grounds where many young people acquire entrepreneurial skills, develop resilience, and find alternatives to social vices. For many, informal entrepreneurship is not just an option but a means of survival and self-empowerment. Despite their growing relevance, the link between the entrepreneurial abilities nurtured in these informal markets and actual business performance has not been adequately examined. This study, therefore, aimed to explore how informal electronics entrepreneurs in a developing economy navigate their environment, overcome challenges, and create wealth through vision, innovation, and calculated risk-taking. Anchored in institutional theory, the research employed a qualitative approach, using cluster, purposive, and simple random sampling to select participants from key informal business units. Interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using QSR NVivo 12, allowing for deep insight into the lived experiences of the entrepreneurs. Findings revealed that 78% of participants emphasized practical suggestions that aid informal business survival, such as customer-driven innovations, adaptive strategies, and avoiding confrontations with regulatory agencies. Key attributes such as foresight, adaptability, and risk management accounted for 66% of the variance in corporate success. Strategic and innovative approaches are enabling informal firms to endure and prosper, since 61% of respondents associated these competencies with organizational success. The new BSP framework, which integrates institutional and contingency theories, illustrates how informal enterprises endure by conforming to or opposing institutional pressures and adjusting to environmental changes. The results indicate that, when properly understood and supported, the informal electronics sector may develop sustainably. This study demonstrates that informal entrepreneurship is influenced by formal regulations, informal norms, and local enforcement mechanisms, therefore enhancing institutional theory and elucidating business behavior in developing nations. The Business Survival Paradigm [BSP] illustrates how informal enterprises navigate institutional obstacles to endure. It advocates for policies that integrate the official and informal sectors while fostering sustainable development. The paper advocates for ongoing market research to assist informal firms in remaining up-to-date. It implores authorities to acknowledge the innovative potential of the informal sector and to provide supportive frameworks for sustainable growth and formal transition where feasible. Full article

In recent years, entrepreneurial learning in higher education institutions has been promoted and supported to help students become job creators rather than job seekers. The main purpose of entrepreneurial learning is to develop entrepreneurial competencies in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to attain the entrepreneurial goal of new value creation. This value extends beyond only economic value and job creation; it can, therefore, also benefit students who do not become entrepreneurs but who choose to think entrepreneurially. However, an enduring problem is ensuring that the entrepreneurial learning process is interactive, effective, and meaningful to the students. Correspondingly, self-directed learning (SDL) can be used in higher education to enhance entrepreneurial learning. This paper discusses the analyses of the role and importance of self-directed learning in the process of entrepreneurial learning for students in higher education institutions, informed by an exploratory systematic literature review. The findings reveal that SDL can play an important role in enhancing entrepreneurial learning by initiating the learning process to develop students’ entrepreneurial skills, mindset, motivation, creativity, and innovation, which serve as competencies for success as entrepreneurial thinkers. Based on the findings, the author concludes that SDL plays an important role in enhancing entrepreneurial learning in higher education institutions. Adopting SDL as a key strategy for teaching and learning in higher education can improve the effectiveness of entrepreneurial learning and help develop students into entrepreneurial thinkers. The practical implications are that the use of SDL in entrepreneurial learning can develop a spirit of creativity, create value on several levels, and empower students to become job creators instead of job seekers as higher education institutions prepare them for life after graduation. Full article

Leadership is often framed within Western paradigms, with limited focus on African business leadership. This study, part of a broader research project, aims to conceptualise African business leadership and its effectiveness, providing an integrated understanding from various perspectives. This article examines South African leaders’ views on African business leadership and its impact. Using an interpretivist approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior leaders from different racial groups in South Africa. The data were analysed through grounded theory, with a three-step coding process to identify themes relevant to African business leadership, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This study found that African leadership is characterised by entrepreneurial spirit, agility, and the value of ‘Ubuntu’, in contrast to the structured and regulated nature of Western leadership. Culture’s role in leadership effectiveness was debated, with some attributing success to personal traits. Corruption and poverty were identified as significant barriers. The research underscores the influence of culture on leadership styles, revealing diverse opinions on the effectiveness of African leadership in business. These findings highlight the importance of considering cultural factors, corruption, and poverty when evaluating leadership effectiveness in African contexts. Full article

Predicting the survival of startups is a complex challenge due to the multifaceted nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems and the dynamic interplay of internal and external factors. Despite advances in empirical research, existing models often lack integration with robust conceptual frameworks. This study addresses these gaps by developing a multivariate AI-driven model for predicting startup survival, leveraging Lipschitz extensions, neural networks, and linear regression. Using a dataset of 20 startups, selected across diverse industries and evaluated on attributes such as team dynamics, market conditions, and financial metrics, the model demonstrated high accuracy and clustering capabilities. Key findings highlight the pivotal role of team dynamics and product differentiation in determining survival probabilities. By integrating conceptual insights with empirical data, the study bridges gaps in existing literature and offers a practical decision-making tool for entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers. These findings underscore the importance of fostering collaborative, innovative ecosystems to enhance entrepreneurial success and societal well-being. Full article

Smart manufacturing is an important initiative to promote the transformation and upgrading of industries and the high-quality development of the economy. However, the current situation of digitalized smart transformation in manufacturing enterprises is not optimistic, which is primarily attributed to the ambiguity surrounding the pathways. This study is based on the technology-organization-environment-individual (TOE-I) analytical framework; it selects 20 case studies of advanced manufacturing enterprises; and employs case studies and necessary condition fuzzy set qualitative comparative research methods (NCA and fsQCA) to investigate the pathways through which technology, organization, the environment, and individual microelements synergistically drive smart manufacturing from a configurational perspective. The study reveals that digital technology breakthroughs, digital infrastructure, digital talent, digital sharing, organizational resilience, organizational culture, and the entrepreneurial spirit are the core influencing factors in advancing smart manufacturing for manufacturing enterprises, and four implementation paths driven by smart manufacturing are analyzed. Among them, digital technology breakthroughs and digital infrastructure have a potential substitutive relationship in the “technology + talent” empowerment organizational model. Organizational resilience, organizational culture, and the entrepreneurial spirit are important safeguards for successful advancements in smart manufacturing. In contrast, digital infrastructure plays a more indirect, supporting role. Accordingly, this paper provides theoretical reference and practical guidance. Full article

This study investigated the level of teacherpreneur competency among pre-service teachers (n = 400), with an additional 400 pilot participants from the same academic context invited for exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis. A self-reported questionnaire, adapted from the Teacherpreneur Competency Model (TCM), was used to assess participants’ competency across four key domains: pedagogical, social, personality, and professional. The findings revealed that pre- service teachers possessed high levels of teacherpreneur competency, with Personality Competency scoring the highest and Social Competency scoring the lowest. These results suggest that while pre-service teachers have a solid foundation in delivering instruction, targeted interventions are needed within teacher education programs to nurture their entrepreneurial spirit and foster the social and personal attributes associated with teacherpreneurship. This study underscores the importance of integrating comprehensive competency development into teacher education curricula to better prepare future educators for the dynamic demands of the teaching profession. Full article

This paper aims to describe a highly pervasive and under-reported context-specific phenomenon of entrepreneurship, specifically in light of the rise in different types of entrepreneurial activities in Africa. Explicably, this paper accepts that entrepreneurship typologies are different across the globe. Utilising the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), a total of 1230 articles were discovered from Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest databases. Subsequently, a screening for suitability was conducted, resulting in the exclusion of 1200 articles based on criteria such as publication year, jurisdiction, and abstract review. Ultimately, 30 journal articles were imported into Zotero Reference Manager and Atlas for further examination. This study found that a state of entrepreneurship mishap exists in Africa. The utilisation of a uniform approach in supporting entrepreneurs is identified as another challenge. Lastly, this study introduces nine novel entrepreneur typologies: Lifepreneurs, Part-timers, Hobbypreneurs, Entremployees, Empreneurs, Techpreneurs, Carte-blanche, Profeneurs, and Smartpreneurs. These typologies serve as a conceptual framework for categorising various entrepreneurial initiatives based on a true reflection of the African entrepreneurial ecosystem, attributes, and key success factors. Theoretically, our paper fills a gap in the academic literature regarding the study of entrepreneurship in developing countries and its classifications. Practically, this paper could offer African policymakers a blueprint for supporting startups at a local level. Significantly, this work stands out for providing a classification system that captures the authentic nature of entrepreneurial undertakings within African economies. Full article

We prove a fundamental attribution error connecting rule-breaking behavior to entrepreneurs. We do so in the research context of the US, where we recently sampled from medium-sized venture entrepreneurs and their corporate executive peers (as an applicable reference point). We chose the US not only for its high entrepreneurial activity, but also because of the not uncommon relationship between business leaders and religion. By including various measures of religiosity in the study, we could control for factors that would likely influence rule-breaking, which standard models like the fraud triangle do not explicitly consider. In fact, we add contingency theory ideas to the fraud triangle to determine whether it is the decision conditions that determine rule-breaking rather than the role of the person (i.e., as an entrepreneur). We find that once demographic, religious, firm and industry contingencies are controlled for, any statistically significant influence of being an entrepreneur (relative to being a corporate executive with similar opportunity, motivation, capability and rationalization) disappears when it comes to self-admitted value-bending behaviors at work. Our contribution consists of a novel analysis, results and discussion of the ‘bent’repreneur—adding to conversations on the under-researched nexus of entrepreneurship with religiosity and ethical decision-making. Full article

Creative social enterprises are increasingly emerging in rural regions, motivated by a desire to take social responsibility through creative approaches. These enterprises integrate entrepreneurial activities with creative social attributes and are sometimes set in rural collaborative workspaces (CWSs) facilitating entrepreneurial activities. Under the frame of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), we argue that CWSs can be seen as brokers, who (1) link resources as liaisons, (2) hold and pass resources as gatekeepers, (3) enhance resource flows as coordinators, and (4) reproduce experiences as representatives. Against this backdrop, this paper presents a case study of two creative social enterprises in a CWS with a cooperative structure in rural Upper Austria by analyzing entrepreneurial biographies about the demand and use of entrepreneurial resources. Through a comparison between before and after the emergence of the CWS, the findings suggest that the EE for creative and social entrepreneurship undergoes two different types of transformation, a radical and a gradual one. The brokerage process of the CWS enhances local resource networks’ transformation of EE and brings the transformation in terms of translocal resources and integral EE of enterprises in the CWS. Additionally, the CWS generates social impacts on the local community through social enterprises. This paper contributes to ecosystem literature by introducing an actor-centric perspective and giving new insights into social entrepreneurship and the transformative power of CWSs as brokers. Full article