Evaluations of microfinance and business training programmes that intend to stimulate women's entrepreneurship, empowerment, and poverty alleviation report a mixed impact, yet theoretical explanations for this conundrum are missing from existing literature. To better understand the various impacts of these specific types of policy intervention, this paper uses a realist synthesis of evaluation evidence to analyse how these programmes work. Guided by an entrepreneurial capital framework, our results highlight that initial programme capital alone (either financial or human) is rarely enough to generate sustained positive impact. Rather, we found that programmes with specific features which facilitate the conversion of economic, human, social, and symbolic capital are key to local economic and social empowerment. Our results highlight five mechanisms which facilitate capital conversion (self-development, collective agency, structuring, resource exchange, psychological membership) and two barriers which restrict it (power relations, resource dispersion). Overall, we contribute to a deeper understanding of women's empowerment through the design and delivery of women's enterprise policy programmes.

As ‘scaling’ has gained significant attention from different stakeholders, multiple definitions have emerged, endangering the legitimacy of the area as a distinct field of inquiry. Using a mathematics perspective, we define scaling in the business context as a time-limited process of exponential growth. We then identify drivers of scaling and show that scaling for competitive advantage requires increasing returns to scale in input-output relationships (superlinear scaling). This is followed by the application of graph theory, supported with findings from a Delphi study, to demonstrate why scaling requires internal transformation. Finally, we discuss our definition's uniqueness, how it can be operationalized, and opportunities for future research.

This chapter introduces the topic of this book: Transnational Diaspora Entrepreneurship (TDE) and its main actors, Transnational Diaspora Entrepreneurs (TDEs): entrepreneurs who have migrated to another country (or are descendants of migrants) but still retain commercial links with their own country. This is done through a set of vignettes of TDEs from around the world. Research gaps regarding TDEs are identified, and the objectives of the edited volume outlined. These objectives are: 1) to offer recent studies for discussions on theoretical and methodological development, 2) to provide deep thematic insights in the form of country and migration corridor chapters with empirical data and 3) to introduce studies that advance perspectives on the TDE policymaking. The chapter also introduces the four main parts of the book: 1) definition and empirical assessment of TDE, 2) country case studies of TDE, 3) TDE and migration corridors and finally 4) policy considerations.

In this final chapter, the findings across all 15 peer-reviewed chapter contributions are summarised, and conclusions drawn for research and policy. The multi-layered, multi-dimensional and transdisciplinary nature of TDE provides both challenges and opportunities for both research and policy and suggestions for further research and for policy are made, based around a number of themes. Sources of information on TDE for researchers and policymakers are provided. The diversity of policy approaches to TDEs around the world is highlighted. A plea is made to researchers to tackle the identified gaps in our understanding of TDEs, and to governments to work with and encourage TDEs as they generate economic and social value across nations.

In this article, we develop a gendered analysis of the expectations of venture growth by nascent entrepreneurs. Male entrepreneurs are notably overrepresented in the small cohort of firms that attain growth; to explore this phenomenon, we draw upon expectation theory during the nascency period to analyse the antecedents of growth outcomes. To refine this analysis, we factor in risk propensity, measuring the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on fundraising plans. Using UK data gathered between 2002 and 2020 from 5490 nascent entrepreneurs to test our hypotheses, we found that those with the greatest levels of start-up capital and high levels of risk tolerance had the highest expectations of growth and were likely to be male. This small cohort of growth-oriented entrepreneurs was termed 'deviant men' given their outlier status. Women became more cautious after the crisis, so even those with similar access to start-up capital as the deviant men had lower expectations of growth. We conclude by noting that at the nascency stage, expectations of growth are a critical influence upon future outcomes; a small cohort of deviant men has the highest expectations of growth, with women disadvantaged by gendered risk adversity.

This paper discovers early indicators of very long-term performance of high-technology new ventures (HTNVs). We tracked the progress of a sample of 142 HTNVs founded at the Israeli government's Technology Incubator Program in the 1990s through 2001, 2004, 2010, and 2018. The results demonstrate a surprisingly strong effect of early sales traction, signifying the achievement of early product-market fit in an HTNV's earliest years, on long-term (a decade) and very long-term (two decades) survival, and also on survival-at-scale (i.e., relatively high sales levels). In our sample, HTNVs that made sales in each of their earliest years reduced the hazard of closure, over a 20 year period, by around 90% compared with HTNVs who made no sales in their earliest years. It also significantly increased the chances of survival-at-scale among those HTNVs that survived over the long or very long term. In contrast, the effect of early external investment on survival was positive in the short to medium term but then faded over time. We propose an underlying mechanism to explain the surprising finding of distal effects of early product-market fit that builds on imprinting theory, resourcing theory, and the concept of market-based assets.

This paper re-visits the traditional model of the finance escalator, which outlines alternative financial pathways for entrepreneurs depending on their aspirations and stage of development. Building on social, spatial and institutional embeddedness perspectives, the dynamic and interactional challenges of financial decisions are captured through an exploratory interpretivist approach. Ten early funding journeys of entrepreneurs in Scotland, all of whom sought external funding, were scrutinized with the objective of revealing motivations, reasoning, and patterns behind funding decisions. Surprisingly, these entrepreneurs all initially sought value-added financial capital, but issues including control (perceived as ownership), speed of access, and external environmental pressures caused them to accept offers (often unsolicited) from familiar sources. As a result, a revised finance escalator is proposed. The extent to which these findings are context specific is discussed.

This research seeks to explain how particular conditions in the external environment are associated with market-driven entrepreneurship-more specifically, startup or early-stage business activity that addresses opportunities in the market (opportunity-driven entrepreneurship), and that which offers unique and novel products or services to customers (innovative entrepreneurship). We further acknowledge that environmental conditions can also affect existing organizations, and thereby identify a third form of entrepreneurial activity: corporate entrepreneurship. Analyses of 44 economies show that economies with basic institutional conditions (structures and rules that govern business activity), and efficiently functioning markets, have high rates of both innovative entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship. However, external contexts that foster innovation are negatively linked to both opportunity-driven and innovative entrepreneurship, while exhibiting a positive association with corporate entrepreneurship.

Despite the significant role played by serial entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial process, we know little about group differences in reentry decisions after business failure. Using an ecosystem framework and stigma theory, we investigate the variance in gender gaps related to the reentry decisions of 8171 entrepreneurs from 35 countries who experienced business failures. We find evidence of persisting gender gaps that vary across ecosystem framework conditions of public stigma of business failure and public fear of business failure. Our findings shed new light on ecosystem inefficiencies that arise from multiple interactions between entrepreneurs and institutions.

Since hitting the mainstream in the 2010s, the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has attracted substantial practitioner and policy interest in advanced and emerging economies alike. These rapid advances have left academic work playing catch-up. In this symposium, we seek to contribute to the theoretical consolidation of the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems by discussing and integrating insights from different theoretical perspectives. Responding to the global policy interest into the entrepreneurial ecosystem phenomenon, we will speci?cally explore how the different perspectives inform entrepreneurial ecosystems policy. To do this, the panel symposium brings together scholars representing different perspectives to (1) explore policy challenges raised by the entrepreneurial ecosystems phenomenon; (2) discuss differences between entrepreneurial ecosystems policy and ‘generic’ entrepreneurship policy; and (3) compare and integrate insights contributed by different theoretical perspectives.

Drawing on human capital, intersectionality and mixed embeddedness theory, we test hypotheses on the relationship between gender differences in human capital and gender differences in nascent entrepreneurial activity across geographical space, and the moderating effect of spatially concentrated deprivation on this relationship. Using UK data from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we find that the disadvantaged position of female nascent entrepreneurs arises from social exclusion, and specifically that the gender differences in nascent entrepreneurial activity are directly related to differences in general and specific human capital across locales. Moreover, in deprived locations, women as a group do not gain from any human capital advantage they might have over men, causing a double disadvantage for women. Our results make a novel contribution to the literature on disadvantage entrepreneurship, and we discuss policy options to tackle double disadvantage in deprived locales.

There is an increasing policy interest towards entrepreneurial ecosystems. Yet, little is actually known about how entrepreneurial ecosystem works and what the related policy challenges are. Drawing on research on ecological economics and community governance, we develop a theoretical framework for entrepreneurial ecosystem management. Using a Scottish entrepreneurial ecosystem initiative as an example, we conclude that policy approaches that emphasize deep stakeholder engagement are likely to give rise to better informed, targeted, and more effectively implemented policy initiatives in entrepreneurial ecosystems than will ‘market’ and ‘structural’ failure approaches.

There is an increasing policy interest toward entrepreneurial ecosystems. Yet, little is actually known about how an entrepreneurial ecosystem works and what the related policy challenges are. Drawing on research on ecological economics and community governance, this chapter develops a theoretical framework for entrepreneurial ecosystem management. Using a Scottish entrepreneurial ecosystem initiative as an example, the authors conclude that policy approaches that emphasize deep stakeholder engagement are likely to give rise to better informed, targeted, and more effectively implemented policy initiatives in entrepreneurial ecosystems than will market failure and structural failure approaches.

Start-up companies have been recognized as key drivers of wealth and job creation. Many students now in universities will therefore find their future employment in start-up companies, or will found them. Success in the start-up environment requires a specific set of skills. There is a growing supply of university education for new venture creation and an increasing demand for interaction between universities and start-up ventures so that knowledge can be transferred between them. This article evaluates the potential of a programme designed to enable holistic collaborative entrepreneurial learning between start-up companies and students. The authors measure the impacts of the programme on participants’ self-assessment of their capabilities and of critical capabilities for start-up success, comparing assessments before the start of the programme, at its end and 1 year subsequently. The results show that an impact on such assessments can be achieved and that the two distinct groups can learn together, but questions remain with regard to the retention of learning.

The European Commission, UK government and UK devolved administrations such as the Scottish Government are increasingly interested in the potential contribution of corporate responsibility (CR) and mission-led business (MLB). But what importance do UK owner-managers place on social and environmental goals relative to economic goals for their business, and has this changed over time? This paper addresses this topic by comparing the results of two equivalent large scale and representative surveys of UK owner-managers in 2009 and again in 2015.

Several attempts have been made to measure organizational factors that may influence entrepreneurial activity. While the best known is Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), less well known instruments include the Entrepreneurial Management (EM) Instrument and the Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI). This is the first study to simultaneously explore associations between dimensions of the EM and CEAI Instruments with each other and with the Entrepreneurial Intensity of business units across a large sample of organizations in multiple cultures. We used a sample of 904 managers from different levels in their organizations participating in an identical executive education program conducted by a large European business school in nine locations in the United Kingdom, Middle East and East Asia, 2012 and 2015. Results show that EM and CEAI have complementary dimensions. Two dimensions, one from each index, explained 36% of variance in reported Entrepreneurial Intensity of the respondents’ business units, while two other dimensions, one from each index, explained a further 3% of variance. The feasibility of combining the indices is discussed.