Extensiveness of business planning and firm survival: an examination into the drivers of success and survival for knowledge intensive start-up firms

A number of studies have found that writing a business plan increases the likelihood of firm survival. For instance, Liao and Gartner (2006) found that firms that completed a business plan were nearly three times more likely to launch their business than those that did not. On the contrary, other studies have found no association between writing a business plan and success. For example, Honig and Karlsson (2004) found evidence that entrepreneurs only write business plans because they are required to do so by investors, educators and advisors. While the evidence is mixed on the effectiveness of business planning, previous research has not examined individual elements of business plans. Thus, it is not clear which aspects (e.g., financial projections v. marketing strategy) of business planning are positively (or negatively) related to performance and survival. Our study addresses two main issues concerning the impact of business planning in firm survival: 1) Are surviving firms different in the extent of their business planning? 2) Which topical areas within business planning are more (or less) predictive of firm survival? To seek answers, we reconceptualize business planning along four dimensions: service/product description, marketing strategy, financial projections and organizational planning

Using experimental designs to study entrepreneurship education:A historical overview, critical evaluation of current practices in the field, and directions for future research

Over the last 20 years, there has been growing interest among scholars in conducting experiments in entrepreneurship education. In this paper, we first discuss how experiments as a research method have moved from the natural sciences into the social sciences and how the social sciences, including the educational sciences, have helped to address the challenges of using experiments in studying human behavior. Through the lens of the methodological advances made by the social sciences regarding conducting experiments, we systematically review the literature on entrepreneurship education research that has used experimental designs. By reviewing this literature, we provide an overview of what has and has not yet been studied using experimental designs and which type of experimental designs have been commonly used. Next, we critically evaluate current practices – both good and bad. Based on our critical assessment of the use of experimental designs in the field of entrepreneurship education research, we not only provide a future research agenda and call for experiments that (1) are more theory-driven; (2) answer more ambitious research questions, and (3) use more robust designs, but we also provide several paths forward for experimentalists with an interest in entrepreneurship education to do so