Purpose This study aims to examine the pivotal role of returnee entrepreneurs (REs) in fostering innovation within an emerging country context, using Philippines as the research setting. It explores the heterogeneity of REs by understanding their personal profile, their entrepreneurial motivations and their transformative impact on local entrepreneurial ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach Based on an inductive qualitative multiple case study using constructivist grounded theory, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with Manila-based REs and experts and complemented by observations and secondary sources. Data were analyzed using the Gioia methodology, allowing the development of research propositions to link empirical findings with theoretical insights. Findings REs were categorized into four types: micropreneurs, freelancers, government-assisted and Ilustrados, based on their human capital and institutional integration. Ilustrados, with their high human capital and institutional support, lead innovation in the Manila entrepreneurial ecosystem through their innovative startup ventures. Practical implications Set in an emerging market context where there are resource scarcities, structural gaps and institutional voids limiting the ecosystem, this study offers actionable insights for policymakers to tailor support and maximize RE contributions to overcome these structural challenges as they create their ventures back home. Originality/value This study’s originality lies in introducing the Returnee Entrepreneur Opportunity Framework, which refines the mixed embeddedness approach by categorizing REs into four distinct types. Furthermore, it identifies the Ilustrado Premium, the preferential treatment that Ilustrados received upon reintegration, as a novel mechanism explaining how they get an advantage in early stages of venture building.

PurposeThis study, a systematic literature review (SLR), aims to synthesize the research findings and contribute to a deeper understanding of why women compared to men are less likely to found startups.Design/methodology/approachAn SLR was conducted, including 60 peer-reviewed articles published between 2012 and 2024. The SLR rests on Scopus and Web of Science as databases.FindingsThe findings reveal 11 types of different challenges and barriers to female entrepreneurship that fall into four categories: environmental challenges, challenges due to lack of resources, family challenges and personal challenges. Societal and institutional norms form the foundation of these issues, all of which are highly interconnected.Originality/valueBuilding on previous findings, this SLR focuses on the pre-founding barriers and contributes new perspectives to the field through a structured model, complementing prior SLRs and paving the way for more targeted research in underexplored issues.

This article explores the complex relationship between migrant entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) with a focus on how migrant entrepreneurs are (dis-)connected (from) to EEs. Based on 23 semi-structured interviews with migrant entrepreneurs (MEs) in a German city, the research uncovers subtle intricacies in this relationship. Beyond the expected connectedness, data surprisingly suggests that MEs face disconnectedness in four forms: entrenched segregation, resource deficits, lack of representation and alienation. Furthermore, the study scrutinises causal relationships, highlighting how discrimination as a fifth form perpetuates these elements of disconnectedness. This exploration enriches theoretical understanding by providing a nuanced view of (dis-)connectedness of MEs within EEs and related factors, including causal relationships. The findings advocate for addressing disparities in entrepreneurial landscapes to create sensible environments for MEs and their entrepreneurial avenues.

The political turmoil, civil war, economic crisis, and breakdown of the political systems in the Middle East and many African countries led to the global refugee crisis in 2015. Since then, policymakers and academics have recognized the entrepreneurial potential of refugees. Compared to migrants, due to forced displacement, refugees face significant adversities, such as psychological trauma and substantial institutional barriers. Consequently, refugee entrepreneurs need to develop and maintain a high degree of resilience to pursue an entrepreneurial path despite adversities. However, previous studies have treated resilience as a mere personal trait of refugees, neglecting its multi-layered, dynamic aspect. Against this background, this study examines how refugee entrepreneurs' resilience emerges and develops, and it analyzes the factors that influence the maintenance of their resilience. Based on 52 interviews with refugee entrepreneurs in Germany, this study finds that the fragile, unstable nature of refugees' resilience depends on various factors at the individual, relational, and institutional levels during venture development. Based on the findings, we theorize the dynamic process view of refugee entrepreneurs' resilience.

PURPOSE: Facing the research gap of entrepreneurial learning by self-expatriated technology-based entrepreneurs, the purpose of this research is to explore those entrepreneurs’ beliefs and experiences across expatriation to identify the enhancement of their competencies. METHODOLOGY: Within a qualitative and exploratory multiple case theory-building approach, data was collected from twelve technology entrepreneurs from Brazil, Mexico, Germany, and Israel that went to the following destination countries: Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, and the Netherlands. With interview data as the primary source, the data analysis rests on a qualitative content analysis. FINDINGS: Data allows structuring techpreneurs’ experience of expatriation along the following steps: (a) arrival in the destination country and initial process of socialization, (b) engaging in activities to get familiar with the culture of the destination country, (c) the gradual comprehensive understanding of the new context, and (d) comparisons between the home and destination country. Expatriation had an evident impact on the technology-based entrepreneurs that materializes in three groups of competencies: entrepreneurial competencies, knowledge and innovative competencies, and international competencies. Entrepreneurial competencies relate to relational and behavioral skills and the learning of doing business in different contexts. Concerning knowledge and innovative competencies, creativity, learning new techniques and international innovation environment stand at the fore. Finally, international competencies relate to the acceptance of different cultures (multicultural learning and perception of cultural differences), developing a sense of an international community and an international innovation culture. IMPLICATIONS: This study evidenced the influence of expatriation experiences on the training of skills of technology-based entrepreneurs, in a specific approach to entrepreneurial, innovative, and intercultural competencies. The research portrays self-expatriation as an opportunity for technology-based entrepreneurs to develop different competencies being helpful to innovate, to manage business and to operate in international markets. Universities and innovators may recognize their discretion to develop programs for people like former students who want to self-expatriate. In the same vein, government can design policy to attract self-expatriate in innovations hubs, considering that local inhabitants can benefit from the cultural exchange. ORIGINALITY AND VALUE: This study contributes to better understanding the influence of self-expatriation experiences on the development of skills of technology-based entrepreneurs. Compared to previous studies, it advances research through providing a wider range of learning from expatriation experiences beyond the effect of internationalization on market knowledge and cultural aspects. Furthermore, this study focuses the process, not the results of self-expatriation to understand entrepreneurs’ learning.

Purpose: While transnational entrepreneurship research considers its transcultural dimension, the role of vast cultural distance is largely ignored. Thus, this paper focuses on the following research question: how do the (cross-)cultural peculiarities of transnational entrepreneurship – in the light of cultural distance – influence the business development of transnational entrepreneurs? Design/methodology/approach: The paper employs a qualitative empirical design that rests on case study research framed by the ‘Gioia’ method. Findings: The paper identifies specific cultural challenges, cross-cultural drivers and general assets impacting transnational business developments in the case of vast cultural distance as aggregate dimensions. Implications: Transnational entrepreneurship in cultural distant settings has to be particularly aware of personal adversities between transnational entrepreneurs and host country people, the role of transnational networks, as well as the role of hope and resilience of entrepreneurs. Originality/value: The findings contribute to literature through specifying the role of personal discrimination, a specific network category called ‘transnational networks’ and stabilizing factors like resilience and hope.

Objective: Introduced in the 1980s in the USA, the search fund model as a niche financial instrument of entrepreneurship through acquisition has not yet become popular outside North America. This article responds to the question whether search fund could be an interesting model for Central European countries with an increase in business successions. Research Design & Methods: A qualitative content analysis of interview data from eight cases from Germanspeaking countries allows analysing the context and experiences, as this is the region with the most cases of applications within Central Europe to date. Findings: The results reveal the entrepreneurial intent of the searchers, the searcher's confirmation of the theoretical advantages of the search fund model, and the low popularity of the model in the German-speaking markets due to scepticism and hindering factors like the criteria catalogue, market idiosyncrasies, competition of private market investors, and lower control of choosing and running a target company. Furthermore, these markets offer well-established financing alternatives which makes searchers choose alternative models. Implications & Recommendations: Because the search fund model as niche model does not tap its full potential, a transfer of best practices between different regions in the world is beneficial. Moreover, platforms connecting successors, funders, and predecessors may be useful in this regard. Contribution & Value Added: The study offers first empirical insights on adoption factors of the search fund model in German-speaking markets: in so doing, it sheds light on preferences and concerns of the parties involved, with the aim to facilitate the model's future application all-over Central Europe.

Purpose: The research aim is to identify how the university campus influences students’ entrepreneurial starting conditions. Approach: The underlying paper is conceptual. The focus is to propose new relationships among constructs and bridge existing theories. In this paper, the entrepreneurial constructs regarding the venture foundation process are linked to extant literature on Higher Educational Institutions and bordering topics. We develop research propositions by connecting these two topic streams through causalities. Findings: We developed eight research propositions, arranged into two categories: university setting and student setting encompasses. The university setting comprises factors accentuating the specific, fertile university environment, whereas the student setting the specific status and related peculiarities. Research limitations/implications: Limitations arise, as the conceptual paper does not refer to data. Thus, there is a risk of being incomplete and biased based on the theoretical lens. The study adds to the contextual view of student entrepreneurship. It offers a sound set of causalities as a base for future empirical research. Practical implications: Through the insights, universities can adapt their offers in terms of support space and services and start tackling the students’ needs, as well as their weak points in terms of entrepreneurial starting conditions. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the current literature by presenting relations between the university environment and student entrepreneurship – the two areas that have not been connected before. This allows a deeper understanding of how students deal with entrepreneurial issues and what reasons lie behind their related behavior.

Despite its rapid proliferation, the extant literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems has not paid sufficient attention to the evolutionary nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems, mainly on account of the prevailing structuralist approaches in previous research. Particularly unclear is the early evolutionary context in which a region without rich entrepreneurial resources gains momentum and transforms into a nascent entrepreneurial ecosystem. The literature overlooks ecosystem dynamics in regions with limited entrepreneurial resources, as most studies have investigated more developed entrepreneurial ecosystems. This study illuminates one means to overcome resource scarcity on a regional level: resource injection by attracting transnational entrepreneurs, who transfer unique resources from one location to another. Based on an explorative qualitative study in the Santiago entrepreneurial ecosystem in Chile, where governmental actors incentivized transnational entrepreneurs to temporarily relocate to Santiago, this article proposes a three-step model of resource injection by transnational entrepreneurs with the following components: (i) stimulation of early ecosystem evolutionary momentum, (ii) evocation of institutional changes, and (iii) establishment of a resilient ecosystem. The findings offer practical implications for policymakers in emerging countries to utilize transnational entrepreneurs' resources for developing an ecosystem in their region.

PurposeThis paper aims to explain the dynamics of entrepreneurial decisions and actions (D&As) in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) growth process. The study focuses on the changing portfolio and relationship governance and captures these dynamics by using the concept of “enabling constraints” (ECs).Design/methodology/approachIn-depth, long-term and multiple-case study method was adopted based on six high-growth SMEs. Pattern-matching and alternative template approach formed a basis for developing a research framework, further corroborated and advanced in the empirical study.FindingsThe research provides empirical evidence of ECs as entrepreneurial perceptions that both limit (constrain) the range of accessible options and facilitate (enable) new opportunities. This study’s results point to how owner-managers' judgments about growth motives and rationales constrain their choices and how they enable new directions, acknowledging the changing context.Originality/valueThis work contributes to the research on SME growth processes by specifying their dynamics in terms of a creative mutual causality. Here, D&As stem from entrepreneurs' perceptions that are affected by the context, with the latter also shaped by prior decisions and actions. This theoretical contribution has been synthesized in the form of a framework of ECs in the SME growth process with related propositions.

Digitalization in small- and medium-sized (SME) family firms and processes of family-external business succession within these firms are under-researched areas. As SME and their future viability are important for many economies around the world, we aim to study the effects of succession processes on those companies’ digitalization activities. Utilizing a unique data set comprising of around 340 pages of transcribed interviews within a multiple case study involving four family firms in the DACH region of Europe, we perform exploratory research of this matter. Our findings indicate that incumbent and new owner-managers focus on efficiency-related digitalization activities during succession processes. More long-term issues such as changes to business models or the exploitation of external opportunities through digitalization are underrated and postponed. Our findings contribute to both digitalization and family firm literature and we provide suggestions for future research in this regard.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the under-researched family-external business succession process. It makes use of entrepreneurship theory in order to conceptualize this temporal process. This allows for an operationalization of entrepreneurial functions and tracking them during the two main phases of such processes. This study provides a starting point for further endeavors into researching family-external succession processes. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on an explorative, quasi-longitudinal, qualitative and multiple case-study approach. It became possible to create trust with stakeholders in three family firms and to conduct face-to-face interviews with a total of 12 interviewees, generating over 300 transcript pages. The case interviews were validated through two expert interviews. A priori research propositions were tested and modified, if deemed necessary. Findings Entrepreneurial functions during the two main phases of the process seem to be carried out and aligned depending on several influencing factors: delegation of responsibilities from owner-managers to qualified employees; incumbent owner-managers being heavily involved in the succession's facilitation and neglecting some entrepreneurial functions; and as a result new owner-managers being forced to prioritize certain functions in the second phase. Originality/value This paper benefits from a rather unique access to three family firms undergoing succession in the DACH-region. Therefore, it became possible to study the family-external succession process by including various stakeholders involved. Such an inclusion of perspectives has been suggested by family business scholars for a long time.

The hubris tradition of research has been criticized for limiting its scope by associating hubris predominantly with detrimental leadership behaviours. To counteract this bias, we provide a more nuanced exploration of hubris and consider both beneficial and detrimental manifestations of hubris in start-up founders' leadership behaviours. Our analysis, based on qualitative data from expert interviews and two case studies, indicates that, whilst hubristic start-up founders are likely to fail overall, they also excel in creating and communicating visionary scenarios, steering employees through critical situations, and extracting commitment from third parties. These under-researched 'bright' manifestations of hubris allow start-up founders to lead their venture towards a stage, in which their visionary power and resilience become crucial prerequisites for economic progress. Our findings extend knowledge on hubristic leadership, offer new directions for the hubris tradition of research, and open up avenues for future research with a more balanced view of hubris.

The concept of startup ecosystems has received significant attention from policy makers, particularly in the hope of transferring Silicon Valley performance effects to their own region. Previous research emphasizes the need to consider the unique and distinctive nature of the specific regional ecosystem in focus when developing policies for ecosystem development without a thorough specification and theoretically founded explanations. In this article, we address this gap and develop propositions why each ecosystem is unique in nature by employing resource-based reasoning. The article concludes that ecosystems are highly idiosyncratic and are, therefore, inimitable and non-transferable to other regions due to working isolating mechanisms.

This article describes a research project that aims at investigating individual entrepreneurial founders concerning their shift tendencies of decision-making logics - especially during the respective phases of the venture creating process. Prior studies found that team founders show a hybrid perspective on strategic decision-making. They not only combine causation (planning-based) and effectuation (flexible) logics but also show logic shifts and also re-shifts over time. Due to the fact, that founders' social identity shapes early structuring processes, this article describes the necessity of elimination of in-group influences of multi-founding ventures and focus on individuals in order to make specific assessments on logic shifts and re-shifts. Based on an extensive literature review, a pre-selection-test and a qualitative case study design from the empirical body of the paper. Insofar, this study applies a qualitative design of a process research approach to investigate shifts of decision-making logics of individual founders in new venture creation over time.

This study sheds light on the uncharted phenomenon of regional management in coordinating services across borders. Based on a multiple case study of four German industrial manufacturing firms with servitization strategies we seek to better understand what kind of organizational challenges servitization poses for the MNC and whether these challenges can be met through regional management models. This chapter initiates a conversation on the available design options for running service operations regionally.

The concept of path dependence describes mechanisms which can lead organizations to a lock-in on a certain path of development. Sydow et al. (2009) describe four basic self-reinforcing mechanisms (learning effects, adaptive expectations, coordination effects and complementary effects) and argue how they can lead to organizational lock-in along three distinct phases. This study raises the research question of the influence of these mechanisms on the entrepreneurial venture creation process (Berger 2014) and concludes in an argumentation that this process is by no means a determined path. Instead, the forces of path dependence actually lead entities out of the entrepreneurial gestation process in each single step. Therefore, becoming an entrepreneur requires repeated processes of breaking the determined path, which explains another and still unexplored dimension why starting a venture can be so challenging. The study employs research on organizational path dependence and seeks to develop causalities that explain the need for path breaking in terms of venturing.

T he concept of path dependence describes mechanisms which can lead organizations to a lock-in on a certain path of development. Sydow et al. (2009) describe four basic self-reinforcing mechanisms (learning effects, adaptive expectations, coordination effects and complementary effects) and argue how they can lead to organizational lock-in along three distinct phases. This study investigates the influence of these mechanisms within the entrepreneurial venture creation process (Berger 2015c) and concludes in an argumentation that this process is by no means a determined path. Instead, the forces of path dependence actually lead entities out of the entrepreneurial gestation process in each single step. Therefore, becoming an entrepreneur requires repeated breaches of the determined path, which explains another dimension why starting a venture can be so challenging.

Objective: The objective of this paper is to investigate how diaspora and returnee entrepreneurs use networks in the country of origin (COO) and country of residence (COR) and which benefits they gain from such networks.Research Design & Methods: The exploratory case study research was chosen. Faceto-face semi-structured interviews with the entrepreneurs were conducted to identify their network dynamics.Findings: Ghanaian diaspora entrepreneurs benefit mainly from networks in the COR and Ghanaian returnee entrepreneurs from networks in the COO. These findings are not fully consistent with the assumption of previous scholars that diaspora and returnee entrepreneurs intensively use both COO and COR networks.Implications & Recommendations: The network usage of diaspora and returnee entrepreneurs varies to a large extent depending on industry, personal background and human capital. It is necessary to research more intensively the heterogeneity within diaspora entrepreneurship.Contribution & Value Added: This paper contributes to the development of understanding of heterogeneity in diaspora and returnee entrepreneurship. The cases present that the degree and balance of mixed embeddedness of returnee and diaspora entrepreneurs in COO and COR may differ to a large extent and they influence how they benefit from different type of networks in both countries.