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Business incubators (BIs) provide entrepreneurs with access to critical resources (for example, physical, financial, knowledge, social, legitimacy, and so on) that support venture development. Little is known about how support needs differ between entrepreneurs pursuing technology-based (TB) and creative-industry (CI) opportunities. Yet these differences may affect their ability to benefit from incubation. This is the first comparative study addressing this gap. Focusing on university BIs, our qualitative analysis reveals that TB entrepreneurs benefit from physical capital supporting proof of concept, financial grants, and technical and industry-specific knowledge capital. In contrast, CI entrepreneurs benefit from physical capital supporting product development, financing of smaller-scale projects, and knowledge capital focused on business basics. External legitimacy was more important to TB entrepreneurs, while internal social capital mattered more to CI entrepreneurs. We draw on value creation and capture to explain these differences. The findings have implications for research and practice concerned with incubation and university-based entrepreneurial support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We explored how incubated entrepreneurs conceptualize mentoring, and how mentoring affects venture progress. This qualitative study involved semi-structured interviews with 18 entrepreneurs incubated in four Canadian Bis. Interview data was transcribed and analyzed using NVivo software. The conceptual model suggests that the 'fit' between entrepreneur's needs and the provided mentoring services matters to the outcomes of business incubation. Mentoring fit is conceptualized along three dimensions: content, quality, and availability. When fit is high, incubated entrepreneurs learn important lessons directly and vicariously from mentors. But when fit is low, it is inadequate to support social learning and will not have positive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, business incubators and accelerators have been embraced as important mechanisms to support the growth and development of new ventures. Several typologies have been proposed as a means of classifying their alternate forms. Within these typologies university business incubators (UBIs) are often recognized as a separate, but homogeneous class. Yet taking an isomorphic approach fails to acknowledge that differences among UBIs have implications for how they function and how their performance should be evaluated. Performance evaluation is an important issue as universities come under increasing pressure to demonstrate that the public funding they receive in support of their incubation activities is being put to good use. This paper offers a new perspective for the study of UBIs that focuses on their heterogeneity. We develop a framework that posits two competing narratives for UBIs, commercial and educational, that represent extremes on a continuum where hybrid configurations are also possible. Our framework demonstrates that these narratives offer a systematic explanation of differences in UBIs, have implications for performance evaluation, and suggest directions for future research aimed at advancing our understanding of variation in the way UBIs are configured and managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although never a straightforward task, the 'drawing of lines' between industry boundaries is becoming ever more difficult in today's economy. The blurring of interindustry boundaries has been attributed to such factors as deregulation, globalization, fundamental breakthroughs in science and the strategic importance of information technology. While this explanation certainly has face validity, it falls short of providing a systematic framework for explaining why firms engage in activities that lead to the blurring of inter-industry boundaries and why/how the nature of boundary crossing actions differs between firms. A conceptual model is developed which integrates economic and behavioral perspectives in an effort to address these issues within the context of the telecommunications industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although few in number, rapidly growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make a disproportionate contribution to employment and wealth creation in the North American economy. Unfortunately, periods of rapid growth are usually short-lived. The strains associated with managing a fast growing venture often produce performance problems. This article explains how these management challenges can be addressed by coupling complex systems thinking with illustrative examples from a series of interviews with CEOs of high growth companies. I identify five management practices that are built on the concept of self-organizing that can help firms cope with the continuous and unpredictable change that characterizes daily life in a fast-growing enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the third contribution to our Crosstalk series, a collaboration between The Executive and European Management Journal created to encourage dialogue and exchange of ideas among leading management scholars in North America and Europe. Crosstalk spans the two journals, and the content of each journal complements, rather than duplicates, that of the other. In this Crosstalk, Arnold Cooper from the U.S. and Sue Birley from the U.K. discuss their contributions to the field, as well as their thoughts on the future of the field of entrepreneurship. Arnold C. Cooper is the Louis A. Weil, Jr., Professor of Management at the Krannert Graduate School of Management, Purdue University. Recognized as one of the pioneering scholars in entrepreneurship, Dr. Cooper received his DBA from Harvard Business School and has contributed to the field for over 30 years. He received the 1987 Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Council of Small Business, the 1997 International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research (a $50,000 prize, which he donated to scholarships at Purdue), and numerous best paper awards. He has served as a member of the faculty or visiting scholar at Harvard, Stanford. 1MD. Manchester Business School, and the Wharton School. He is a member of the Academy of Management's Society of Fellows, and served as chair of the Business Policy and Strategy Division in 1978-79. He has won five teaching awards from Purdue, the 1999 Richard D. Irwin Outstanding Educator Award, and the 1993 Coleman Entrepreneurship Mentor Award. He was also the major professor for five doctoral students who wrote award-winning dissertations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]