Search

The entrepreneurial university is recognized as an organization capable of maintaining an active link with the actors of its environment and of impacting socio-economic development. However, while it should be noted that the entrepreneurial university concept has been developed from the experience of advanced economies in the West, there is a lack of theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on whether the entrepreneurial university model is applicable in the contexts of less developed countries. Building on the understanding that the evolution of an ideal entrepreneurial university model is facilitated by certain institutional logics in advanced economies, this paper takes the case of CAMES area in Africa (19 emerging countries) as an example to explore the entrepreneurial practices supported by the regulatory framework documents. It also looks at the practices in the field in order to identify those that are most common compared to the models found in the literature. Our study presents new possibilities of understanding for entrepreneurial university from Africa contexts. It shows that despite the absence of certain key factors characteristic of the entrepreneurial university in the regulatory and institutional documents, the actors have informal practices that contribute to some extent to the purpose of the entrepreneurial university. The conclusion reinforces the need to see entrepreneurial university through the lens of less developed countries' contexts, highlighting opportunities for future studies.

Building on social identity theory, the paper sheds new light on knowledge creation and performance within teams by enhancing our understanding of the role played by shared skill-based identity on knowledge creation and team performance. Besides addressing team coordination issues, this study helps bridge the gap between shared skill-based knowledge and knowledge creation as well as team performance. Based on two field studies, the authors found that (1) a shared skill-based identity leads to higher behavioral integration; (2) having skill-based knowledge enhances shared skill-based identity; (3) behavioral integration mediates the shared skill-based identity–team performance relationship. Overall, our findings demonstrate that shared skill-based identity plays a crucial role in team performance and knowledge creation by enhancing behavioral integration. However, although shared skill-based knowledge positively impacts shared skill-based identity, it has no direct effect on knowledge creation and team performance. The authors hence demonstrate that the factors influencing team performance are complex and individuals need to feel integrated in teams to create knowledge. Furthermore, the study provides empirical evidence that may advance the study of team performance and inform managers on how to form effective teams. For instance, the authors suggest that, when forming teams, managers should consider how each potential member defines their identity.

International audience; This paper reports on a field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the gender diversity of new venture top management teams (TMT) on research and development (R&D) intensity. Specifically, we study an entrepreneurship business game, played in groups of three, in which master’s-level business studies students play the role of top managers. We manipulated the gender composition of the teams and assigned students randomly to teams based on gender. We do not find any significant relationship between new venture TMT gender diversity and R&D intensity, regardless of the number of female managers on TMTs, the profitability of firms or the stage of development and growth of the firm. Consequently, we do not find any gender differences; there are no gender differences regarding decision making in terms of firm risk-taking. Our findings may belie the common perception that women are, in general, more risk-averse than men. The implication of our study is that we do not support (or deny) the “business case” for female managers on TMTs. Likewise, we find no evidence of any negative effect either. Our evidence implies that the representation of top female managers should be based on criteria other than innovation behavior in the early stage of a new venture growth and development process. The study extends our understanding of the effects of TMT composition and contributes to research on innovation behavior and new venture teams.

We investigated whether female representation in the upper echelons at the early stage of the firm development process affects strategic choice and start-up performance. We conducted a field experiment based on an entrepreneurship business game played in groups of three graduate students who took on the role of top managers. We randomly assigned students to teams conditioned on their gender. We found complex relationships with female representation in the upper echelons and the study variables. Female representation is negatively related to ROA, strongly mediated by leverage and R&D intensity; positively related to growth, strongly mediated by R&D intensity; and whereas CEO position is negatively linked to sales, strongly mediated by R&D intensity, female presence played a moderation mechanism causing the relationship to become positive.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the heterogeneity of the initial growth trajectories adopted by young firms, using an approach similar to Delmar et al.'s analysis, in order to better understand and describe the underlying development patterns.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyze the development during their initial years of existence of the population of all firms in Belgium which are more than three years old and have grown above micro‐firm size between 1992 and 2002 (n=2,152). The authors measure the evolution over time of three basic economic data (number of employees, sales and assets) and seven financial data (value added, operating income, current income, net income, cash flow, working capital and shareholders' equity).FindingsA taxonomy was identified defined around four stable typical growth trajectories. These trajectories were adopted by a majority of firms in the sample and were not related to firm size or industry affiliation.Originality/valueThe paper's findings confirm, using an original empirical approach, previous results related to early growth and highlight the oversimplification of the life‐cycle approaches often used by practitioners and policy makers. They also open interesting research avenues regarding the endogenous and exogenous factors explaining the adoption of a given trajectory by a firm as well as why the trajectories identified are relatively stable over time.

Policy makers have for many years taken for granted that implementing dedicated structures aimed at supporting start-ups had a positive impact on the development of those start-ups. Indeed, building on insights provided by the literature on National/Regional Innovation Systems (Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993; Cooke et al. 1998; Asheim et al. 2003) and Incubations mechanisms (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Hackett and Dilts, 2004; Phan et al., 2005; Bergek and Norman, 2008; Bruneel et al, 2012) policy makers perceive such “business incubators” as a way to promote regional economic growth through the support of young and innovative firms. The underlying assumption is that incubators help young firms to develop their innovative products, commercialize them, and maintain a sustainable growth during the start-up period. As a consequence local policy makers have been and still are very enthusiastic in establishing and/or granting financial supports to incubators. For example, the National Business Incubation Association estimates that the number of incubators in the United States has increased from 12 in 1980 to 1,250 in 2012 and that there were about 7,000 such structures across the world. However, there is surprisingly little empirical validation of the positive impact of those structures, with few or no evaluation of their long term performance in helping incubated firms (Vanderstraeten et al., 2014; Schwartz, 2011). As a result, there is evidence of potential political pressure to keep some results under the radar (Fromhold-Eisebith and Eisebith, 2008; Amezcua, 2010; Bergek and Normann, 2008; Mian, 1997). Indeed, some studies indicate that among the new firms incubated, few became fast-growing firms and/or reached the status of middle-sized companies (Schwartz, 2011; Amezcua, 2010; Barringer, Jones and Neubaum, 2005; Phan, Siegel, and Wright, 2005). Besides the above-mentioned mixed research results (Amezcua, 2010; Phan, Siegel, and Wright, 2005), related methodological, theoretical, and empirical limitations (Yu and Nijkamp, 2009) raise criticism about incubator performance studies. Furthermore, those studies rely upon either quantitative (accounting) data available about the incubated start-ups to measure their development, or the qualitative coding and interpretation of interviews using standard content analysis techniques (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). (See for example Barringer, Jones and Neubaum, 2005, with both suffering from the typical limitations of such approaches). In particular it remains largely unknown whether incubation really helps overcoming the resource deficiencies that young firms face in the first years after their market entry (Hannan and Freeman 1984; Stinchcomb, 1965). Overall, an assessment of public policies regarding incubators is still needed (Bergek and Norrman, 2008; OECD, 2006; Mian, 1996a; Mian, 1997). Moreover, there are few studies investigating the impact of incubation on incubated ventures’ performance from their own point of view (Fromhold-Eisebith and Eisebith, 2008; Schwartz, 2013; Vanderstraeten et al., 2014). As a consequence, research call for more qualitative bottom-up approach (see Diez, 2001) to explore the impact of incubators’ support on incubated firms. In particular, how do incubators create a context that helps firms bring together the various resources they need (Hellmann & Puri, 2002)?

L’étude de la croissance des jeunes entreprises est constamment confrontée à des problèmes d’ordre méthodologique liés au caractère multidimensionnel du phénomène, entrainant souvent à des résultats contradictoires. Dès lors, divers travaux soulignent le besoin de nouveaux développements théoriques et méthodologiques à même de mieux affronter ces difficultés. Cependant la mise en oeuvre d’un tel dispositif reste un grand défi pour les chercheurs et les propositions concrètes sont rares. Sur base d’une comparaison des résultats de deux recherches récentes mais totalement distinctes, sur la croissance des jeunes entreprises belges, cet article montre que la combinaison d’une approche typologique (fondée sur des configurations conceptuelles) et d’une approche taxonomique (fondée sur des configurations empiriques) permet de rendre plus intelligible ce phénomène organisationnel complexe qu’est la croissance. Il propose ensuite de tendre vers une démarche originale intégrative de ces deux approches pour identifier les configurations. Selon Miller (1983), les configurations organisationnelles conditionnent les stratégies de croissance. Ainsi, dans le cas des jeunes entreprises, parvenir à bien les identifier constituerait ainsi un pas déterminant vers la maitrise de leur développement. Vu sous un autre angle, la recherche s’inscrit dans la lignée de la littérature sur les limites des approches de type ‘cycle de vie’ et répond aux appels des chercheurs qui se sont intéressés aux configurations ou proposent le développement d’une théorie plus générale fondée sur le système ouvert. Globalement, elle vise à proposer une base à de futurs travaux qui ambitionnent de parvenir à une meilleure explication du pourquoi et du comment de la croissance des jeunes entreprises.

While it is now widely accepted that new firms growth is essential for the foundation of economic dynamism, knowledge about this early growth is still scattered. Indeed, very little is known about how new firms grow and develop over time. What types of distinct growth patterns do those firms exhibit? How do these growth patterns and corresponding firms differ from each others in terms of development and strategic choices? To better understand the process of new firm growth, recent entrepreneurship research stresses that there is a strong need for a new conceptual scheme and new longitudinal research methods. This is actually one of the main entrepreneurship research challenges. In this context, our aim is to provide new insights regarding the process of new firm growth. In this research, we develop and test an original methodology allowing the empirical taxonomy of early growth trajectories across multiple sectors, integrating both the multidimensional and dynamic aspects of growth. Our approach applies principal component and cluster analysis to a large sample of firms, using financial and demographic data collected over time to identify in a systematic way distinct growth stages. We use then sequence analysis and a Markov chain approach to extract and compare the trajectories of individual firms over time. This allows the identification of a limited number of typical growth trajectories, which are adopted by the majority of firms in our sample. Finally, internal replication is performed to validate the growth trajectories identified and bivariate analysis is used to examine the link between the identified growth trajectories and the demographic characteristics of the corresponding firms. We have applied our methodology to a sample of 741 Belgian firms created between 1992 and 2002 and which have grown above micro-firm size. Our approach allowed identifying four distinct growth stages and seven typical growth trajectories, which remain valid for the six first years of the majority of the firms in our sample. This taxonomy of early growth trajectories is consistent with individual patterns already identified in the literature and appears not to be sector-dependent. The major contribution of this doctoral thesis is that, based on empirical evidence, early growth appears to be neither a continuous (or life cycle based) nor idiosyncratic (or completely random) process. It can be adequately described through a limited number of typical growth trajectories, valid across sectors. Thus, our research brings insight regarding how new firm evolve over time and therefore contributes to our understanding and appreciation of the heterogeneity of the growth trajectory phenomenon. Next, our research provides also an original methodological approach allowing the systematic analysis of growth trajectories, which deals with key limitations identified in the literature regarding the need for a multidimensional and dynamic study of growth across multiple sectors. Our findings indicate that this novel systematic approach is useful for taxonomy development and therefore contributes to reduce the gap between the complexity of new firm growth process and the standard approaches often mobilised to deal with it. Finally, while our findings provide empirical and methodological support in early development of new firms study, they also provide many implications to entrepreneurial research and practices. Further researches are needed to improve our understanding of the dynamic growth process of new ventures. [...] (IAG 3) -- UCL, 2008