The role of human capital and strategic intent in internationalisation scope of new technology-based firms

This paper explores the internationalization scope of new technology based firms (NTBFs) during their early years of operation. Internationalization is considered as a growth strategy in its own right whose successful implementation requires relevant resources and capabilities. We focus on the role of human capital in the form of the international experience of the firm founders, and its interaction with the strategic intent to internationalize from the outset. Our analysis of a sample of 466 cases of UK and German NTBFs shows that human capital is a key success factor for international growth strategies. This human capital is an asset strongly facilitating the penetration of foreign markets, but it also appears that it is much more influential when backed up by a deliberate strategic intent to internationalize from the inception of the new venture. Similar conclusions can be drawn for the scale of entrepreneurial resources dedicated to the start-up: the higher they are, the higher the scope of internationalization, and scale is also leveraged by strategic intent

Understanding eINVs through the lens of prior research in entrepreneurship, international business and international entrepreneurship

In this chapter we examine the growing phenomenon of internet-based international new ventures, which we label “eINVS,” through the lens of previous research in the fields of entre- preneurship, international business and international entrepreneurship. Our purpose is to iden- tify where these existing bodies of research help us to understand eINVs, and where there are gaps that constitute important questions for future research. We define an eINV by adapting a widely used definition of international new ventures (INV) (Oviatt and McDougall 2005: 5): an eINV is a venture whose business model is enabled by a digital platform and that, from incep- tion, seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from international growth. With a focus explicitly on how extant research helps us understand eINVs, this review differs from that of Reuber and Fischer (2011b), who focus on firm-level internet-related resources that are related to the internationalization of ventures in general; that of Pezderka and Sinkovics (2011), who focus on risk and the online foreign market entry decisions of small and medium-sized enter- prises (SMEs); and that of Chandra and Coviello (2010), who focus on consumers using the internet to pursue international opportunities

Entrepreneurial strategies for sustainable development

Indice: Entrepreneurship and economic growth. On the nature of entrepreneurship. Strategic entrepreneurship. Sustainable development and entrepreneurship

Is innovation always beneficial? A meta-analysis of the relationship between innovation and performance in SMEs

The performance implications of innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have attracted considerable interest among academics and practitioners. However, empirical research on the innovation–performance relationship in SMEs shows controversial results. This meta-analysis synthesizes empirical findings in order to obtain evidence whether and especially under which circumstances smaller, resource-scarce firms benefit from innovation. We find that innovation–performance relationship is context dependent. Factors such as the age of the firm, the type of innovation, and the cultural context affect the impact of innovation on firm performance to a large extent

Entrepreneurial adaptation: Insights from existing literature and possibilities for new research.

Recent research shows that new ventures have great difficulties in defining a viable business model from the outset and that minor or major adaptations to this initial business model are needed as the venture evolves. Entrepreneurial adaptation or the entrepreneur's willingness and ability to make appropriate adjustments to the business concept become critical. If adaptation is so important for entrepreneurial companies, we need to ask ourselves a number of questions. (1) What causes this need for adaptation? (2a) What is the precise effect of adaptation on a start-up's performance or survival and (2b) is this effect similar for all start-ups? Also, (3) what do we know about the process of adaptation? And (4) what are factors enabling this adaptation process? Finally, we also need to determine (5) how the concept of adaptation in entrepreneurial companies is related to existing concepts of change and adaptation. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of different literature streams that are specifically relevant to entrepreneurial adaptation and the questions listed above, and to point out gaps in the existing literature requiring further investigation. We look at whether and how the existing literature can provide insight into each of those five questions. In a final section, we point out directions for further research.Innovation; Research; Model; Companies; Performance; Startups; Processes; Factors;

A Network Perspective on Inter-Organizational Transfer of R&D Capabilities: A Study of International Joint Ventures in Chinese Automobile Industry

Multinational enterprises' transfer of R&D capabilities to their international joint ventures in the less developed countries has been an emerging phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to understand the transfer of R&D capabilities between organizations embedded in drastically different organizational contexts using a network perspective. We identified different networks involved in the R&D capability transfer process from the perspectives of source organization, recipient organization and the interface between them, and analyzed the impact of different attributes of these networks on the effectiveness of R&D capability transfer, based on the notion that R&D capabilities are largely collective knowledge.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39746/3/wp362.pd

Ethics and taxation : a cross-national comparison of UK and Turkish firms

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

Are Business Incubators helping? The role of BIs in facilitating tenants’ development

Business incubators (BI) are among a variety of initiatives to stimulate economic growth by promoting the creation and development of new companies. The rapid growth of BIs in recent years confirms their importance in the economic fabric. In this study, we conceptualize BIs using insights from knowledge based theory of the firm, resource-based view thinking and capabilities literature. BIs will be seen as service providers geared towards helping their tenants in solving developmental problems. The more problems the BI helps to solve the bigger the incubation value for tenants; further, as tenant firms solve problems they develop important capabilities which will yield increase their chances of survival once they graduate. Results show that tenants unequivocally seek support after experiencing problems. Solving those problems is a function of BI support and other external sources part of each tenant firm’s network of contacts. Age and human capital of tenant firms have a negative impact in the total number of the problems solved, suggesting BIs’ deficiencies in helping more experienced and older tenants. Our main contribution is to shed light on the processes of delivering support to young firms within BIs. Importantly, we assess the value of the BIs’ intervention by measuring the amount of developmental problems they help tenants to overcome. Finally, we discuss the implication of our finding to BI managers, prospective tenants and policy makers