Search Results (985)

Understanding the entrepreneurial profile is essential for developing effective regional policies that promote business growth. The path of an entrepreneur is shaped not only by individual decisions but also by the inherent risks of managing a business. This study aims to identify the characteristics of entrepreneurs at the regional level, specifically highlighting the impact of accumulated experience in their fields. Our central hypothesis asserts that entrepreneurial experience significantly influences how business owners perceive and respond to economic challenges. Utilizing survey data from 120 entrepreneurs in Romania’s Center Region (a NUTS 2 area), we reveal that entrepreneurial experience profoundly affects perceptions of key business challenges, such as legislative instability, taxation predictability, governmental support strategies, and access to SME financing. Importantly, our findings demonstrate that entrepreneurs with less than 10 years of experience express greater concerns about these challenges compared to their more seasoned peers. This novel insight highlights the need for tailored policy interventions aimed at enhancing regional economic resilience and fostering entrepreneurial sustainability. By addressing the specific needs of less experienced entrepreneurs, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of how experience shapes business dynamics in the region. Full article

This study explores the determinants of startup intention within the context of e-commerce platform-based startups in South Korea. We employ an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that integrates individual, social, and entrepreneurial characteristics. A two-step analytical approach is applied, combining variable extraction through data mining and hypothesis testing using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that personal and social factors—such as entrepreneurial mindset and social influence—positively affect perceived usefulness, while job relevance and exposure to successful startup models enhance perceived ease of use. In contrast, security concerns and technological barriers negatively impact these relationships, posing critical obstacles to platform-based startups. This study extends the TAM framework to the platform-based startup context, offering theoretical contributions and proposing policy implications, including promoting digital literacy, developing entrepreneurial networks, and addressing security and regulatory issues. These insights offer a deeper understanding of how platform environments shape entrepreneurial behavior, providing practical guidance for startup founders, developers, and policymakers. Full article

The age of entrepreneurship calls for the evolving of learning and development (L&D) models to meet the dynamic demands of innovation, sustainability, and technology innovation. This study examines the trends and issues of L&D models for entrepreneurs, more so focusing on how these models influence business success in a rapidly changing global landscape. The research employs bibliometric analysis, VOSviewer cluster analysis, and co-citation analysis to explore the literature from 1994 to 2024. Data collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database reflect significant trends in entrepreneurial L&D, with particular emphasis on the use of digital tools, sustainability processes, and governance systems. Findings emphasize the imperative role of L&D in fostering entrepreneurship, more so in areas such as digital transformation and the adoption of new technologies. The study also identifies central regions propelling this field, such as UK and USA. Future studies will be centered on the role of digital technologies, innovation, and green business models within entrepreneurial L&D frameworks. This study provides useful insight into the future of L&D within the entrepreneurial domain, guiding academia and companies alike in the planning of effective learning strategies to foster innovation and sustainable business growth. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally disrupted assumptions about entrepreneurship, career planning, and professional development. This study explored how the pandemic influenced the entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate business students in the United States. Using a qualitative methodology based on in-depth interviews with 31 students at a public Midwestern university, the research interpreted student narratives through the lenses of effectuation theory, resilience theory, and the theory of planned behavior. Findings revealed that many participants reframed entrepreneurship as a strategy for navigating economic uncertainty and enhancing personal agency. Students reported valuing adaptability, resourcefulness, and opportunity recognition, often experimenting with side hustles during the pandemic as a means of resilience. Their entrepreneurial thinking shifted from purely economic motivations toward aspirations for flexibility, self-fulfillment, and purposeful work. The study highlights the formative role of crisis contexts in shaping entrepreneurial identity among emerging professionals. It suggests that entrepreneurship education should move beyond traditional models, fostering skills for navigating complexity and building resilience. In doing so, the findings contribute to broader conversations about youth entrepreneurship, post-pandemic career development, and the evolving demands of the labor market in times of disruption. Full article

This study examined the impact of entrepreneurship education in sustainability on entrepreneurial intention using the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The MEMORE macro was used to analyze within-subject mediation and enabled us to examine how entrepreneurial intention is affected by changes in the factors of the theory of planned behavior (attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control). The survey follows a questionnaire-based, pre-test-post-test design (the research involved 271 business administration students in Athens). A paired sample t-test was used to analyze changes in attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and entrepreneurial intention before and after education. The results indicated that after the entrepreneurship course in sustainability, students indicated a significant positive change in entrepreneurial intention, attitude, and perceived behavioral control. MEMORE macro indicated that only the change in perceived behavioral control positively influenced the increase in entrepreneurial intention levels. Based on these findings, entrepreneurship education in sustainability enhances students’ entrepreneurial intentions by increasing their perceived behavioral control. As a result, students’ confidence and knowledge regarding sustainable entrepreneurship are fundamental to the development of sustainable entrepreneurial mindsets. This study emphasizes the importance of integrating targeted pedagogical approaches that enhance perceived behavioral control in sustainable entrepreneurship education by equipping students with practical knowledge and skills to overcome psychological barriers. The use of the MEMORE macro highlights this study’s innovation, uncovering new relationships between the examined variables. Full article

This paper introduces the concept of degenerative affordances to explain how social media can unintentionally destabilise family-run influencer businesses. While affordance theory typically highlights the enabling features of technology, the researchers shift the focus to its unintended, risk-laden consequences, particularly within family enterprises where professional and personal identities are deeply entangled. Drawing on platform capitalism, family business research, and intersectional feminist critiques, the researchers develop a theoretical model to examine how social media affordances contribute to role confusion, privacy breaches, and trust erosion. Using a mixed-methods design, the researchers combine narrative interviews (n = 20) with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) on survey data (n = 320) from family-based influencers. This study’s findings reveal a high explanatory power (R² = 0.934) for how digital platforms mediate entrepreneurial legitimacy through interpersonal trust and role dynamics. Notably, trust emerges as a key mediating mechanism linking social media engagement to perceptions of business legitimacy. This paper advances three core contributions: (1) introducing degenerative affordance as a novel extension of affordance theory; (2) unpacking how digitally mediated role confusion and privacy breaches function as internal threats to legitimacy in family businesses; and (3) problematising the epistemic assumptions embedded in entrepreneurial legitimacy itself. This study’s results call for a rethinking of how digital platforms, family roles, and entrepreneurial identities co-constitute each other under the pressures of visibility, intimacy, and algorithmic governance. The paper concludes with implications for influencer labour regulation, platform accountability, and the ethics of digital family entrepreneurship. Full article

Entrepreneurship serves as a vital engine of economic development, yet the mechanisms translating entrepreneurial intention into behavior have gradually emerged. This study employs bibliometric analysis of 61 SSCI-indexed articles (2014–2024) using CiteSpace to examine co-authorship networks, co-citation patterns, and research hotspots. Our findings demonstrate that individual-level factors (personality traits, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurship education) drive both entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial behavior. More importantly, environmental factors (university milieu, regional social legitimacy, and national cultural dimensions) moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and behavior. The study also identifies a temporal pattern in the entrepreneurial intention–behavior correlation. These results advance theoretical understanding of the intention–behavior transition and offer practical insights for entrepreneurship education and policy design. Full article

Based on the theoretical framework of systems thinking, this study investigates the mechanism of systems thinking in promoting entrepreneurial persistence among technology entrepreneurs in China’s digital economy development. From a dynamic complex systems perspective, 409 technology entrepreneurs from China, were measured using the systems thinking scale, the psychological ownership scale, the resource bricolage scale, and the entrepreneurial persistence scale. Systems thinking among technology entrepreneurs has been found to enhance entrepreneurial persistence significantly. Psychological ownership of technology entrepreneurs partially mediates the process of systems thinking influencing entrepreneurial persistence. Resource bricolage positively moderates the systems thinking process, influencing entrepreneurial persistence among technology entrepreneurs. This study innovatively introduces systems thinking into the field of technology entrepreneurship, reveals the relationship between systems thinking and entrepreneurial persistence of technology entrepreneurs, and provides theoretical guidance for Chinese technology entrepreneurs to enhance entrepreneurial persistence through systems thinking. Full article

Against the backdrop of evolving innovation and entrepreneurship education, this study investigates the multifaceted factors influencing college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship in China. By analyzing 98 cases of student-led ventures and applying principal component analysis (PCA) via SPSS 19.0, the research identifies key determinants across individual, institutional, and societal dimensions. The empirical results reveal strong correlations between entrepreneurial risk levels and practical experience (r = 0.82), pre-market research (r = 0.84), participation in entrepreneurship courses (r = 0.72), university innovation platform utilization (r = 0.75), social financing intensity (r = 0.68), and regional economic development (r = 0.53). Individual-level factors demonstrate the most profound influence, with institutional and societal resources providing complementary support. Based on these findings, the study proposes targeted recommendations to enhance student engagement in practical training, optimize university–platform integration, and improve policy-backed financing ecosystems, thereby fostering the sustainable development of college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities. Full article

This study examines the relationship between fear of failure, entrepreneurial passion, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy among university business students from four emerging Latin American economies: Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. This research addresses the need to understand the psychological factors that influence entrepreneurship, particularly in developing economies. Using non-probability convenience sampling, surveys were distributed between June 2021 and August 2022, and 961 valid responses were obtained. Scales from renowned researchers were used, which were translated and semantically validated in Spanish to measure the three variables. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with PLS. The overall results reveal that fear of failure negatively affects entrepreneurial passion, while entrepreneurial passion has a positive and significant relationship with entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Furthermore, entrepreneurial passion has a positive and significant relationship with fear of failure and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, with substantial differences between countries. Gender differences were also identified: in women, all relationships in the model were significant, while in men, the direct effect of fear of failure on entrepreneurial self-efficacy did not reach statistical significance. These findings contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating that the relationship between these psychological variables varies by context (country) and gender, contradicting the notion of a universal effect. Full article

The present study examines the role of knowledge management practices in developing business intelligence systems (BISMs) and organizational sustainability (OS) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia. With the underpinning of the knowledge-based view (KBV) in the model of the study, the study employed a deductive approach. Cross-sectional data were gathered from CEOs, senior managers, and business intelligence officers using both offline and online survey tools. Finally, the study utilized 356 usable cases to support its conclusions. The study confirmed a positive effect on knowledge management practices, i.e., knowledge acquisition (KAG) and knowledge dissemination (KDM) on BISMs and OS. On the other hand, the impact of knowledge responsiveness (KRN) on BISMs is negative but positive on OS. Furthermore, BISMs have a positive effect on OS and entrepreneurial leadership (ELP). ELP also positively affects OS. Finally, ELP mediates the relationship between BISMs and OS. The study provides guidelines for SME managers and policymakers on how to invest in knowledge management initiatives to foster a culture of continuous learning and information sharing. The study directly supports Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which requires the development of the sustainability of SMEs. Finally, the study addresses the gaps in the integrated model, providing empirical evidence from a developing context. Full article

Exploratory innovation plays a crucial role in the high-quality and sustainable development of organizations, but how enterprises engage in exploratory innovation within volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) contexts remains unclear. Drawing on strategy choice theory and continuous innovation theory, this study explores the positive effects of technological capability on exploratory innovation via entrepreneurial orientation while considering environmental uncertainty as a moderating variable to elucidate the internal logic of continuous innovation within organizations. We conducted a large-scale survey of 313 Chinese firms and found the following: (1) technological capability has a significant positive impact on exploratory innovation; (2) entrepreneurial orientation plays a partial mediating role between technological capability and exploratory innovation; and (3) environmental uncertainty exerts a differential moderating influence within this mediating framework: technological uncertainty enhances the positive effect of technological capability on entrepreneurial orientation, whereas demand uncertainty intensifies the supportive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on exploratory innovation. This study reveals the internal mechanism by which technological capabilities drive exploratory innovation through entrepreneurial orientation under environmental uncertainty, providing theoretical support for enterprises to deepen their technological capability and pursue exploratory innovation and sustainable development. Full article

This study investigates the relationships between entrepreneurial leadership skills (ELSs), ethical entrepreneurial leadership (EEL), corporate sustainable development (CSD), and competitive advantage (CA) in SMEs. Drawing on resource-based view theory, we examine whether entrepreneurial capabilities and ethical practices jointly contribute to sustainability and competitive positioning. Data from 312 SME leaders across manufacturing, services, technology, and trading sectors were analyzed using PLS-SEM. Results reveal that ELSs foster EEL (β = 0.684, p < 0.001) and enhance CSD (β = 0.453, p < 0.001). EEL significantly affects CSD (β = 0.527, p < 0.001) and partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and sustainability (indirect effect = 0.361). CSD strongly enhances CA (β = 0.612, p < 0.001). The findings demonstrate that integrating entrepreneurial capabilities with ethical leadership creates foundations for sustainable development and CA in resource-constrained environments. This research extends entrepreneurial leadership theory by showing complementarity between entrepreneurial and ethical orientations, advances sustainability theory by revealing ethical leadership’s mediating role, and enriches RBV by demonstrating how intangible leadership capabilities generate CA when traditional resources are scarce. Practical implications include developing integrated leadership programs and sustainability frameworks for emerging economy SMEs. Full article

The B Corp certification is a voluntary designation granted by B Lab. This nonprofit organization evaluates two main aspects of a company’s operations: the positive impact generated by its daily activities and how its business model reflects unique practices that yield positive outcomes for its stakeholders. Sistema B is at the forefront of the B movement in Latin America and the Caribbean, working to develop an ecosystem that enables B Corps to harness market forces to address social and environmental challenges. However, the B Corp movement in this region faces significant challenges, primarily due to a lack of government support, including tax benefits and legal recognition. This study aims to advance the existing literature on B Corps by examining sustainability-oriented hybrid organizations that strive to reconcile profit generation with social impact within the context of Mexico’s socioeconomic landscape. Additionally, it seeks to enhance the understanding of how ventures navigate trade-offs between financial and social objectives, and to identify factors that can help address these challenges. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with Mexican B Corps to explore the entrepreneurial motivations related to social objectives, the B Corp movement, and the internal organizational dynamics of balancing social and economic logics. We discuss how tensions arise and are managed, as well as the issues regarding regulatory tensions in Mexico and the challenges that stem from organizational complexities. Future research directions are also outlined. Full article

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly seen as central actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems, yet their support mechanisms do not always align with the needs of student entrepreneurs. This study investigates how key stakeholders, business students, professors, and experienced start-up founders perceive the relative importance of success factors for student-led start-ups within HEIs. Using a cross-sectional descriptive design, this study used a 34-item survey instrument developed through an extensive literature review and validated for content by a panel of experts. Triangulation between stakeholder groups enabled a multidimensional comparison of perspectives. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze patterns of agreement and variability, resulting in a three-tier framework of success factors based on perceived importance and consensus. High-impact factors included faculty entrepreneurial experience, student mindset, and access to mentorship, while traditional inputs such as infrastructure, legal support, and funding were ranked lower. The findings highlight a misalignment between institutional offerings and stakeholder priorities, highlighting the critical role of social and human capital. This research provides practical guidance for HEIs seeking to improve entrepreneurial support and contributes to theoretical discussions on stakeholder-informed ecosystem models. Although limited by its single-institution context, this study offers a foundation for future cross-institutional and longitudinal research. Full article