The Process and Problems of Business Start-Ups

“… there is little known about the initial phases of the process (of entrepreneurship). The conception, birth and early development of new ventures are very much an uncharted territory”. (Reynolds and White, 1997:1). This paper sets out to examine the process and problems encountered by new business start-ups. A didactic overview, based on past and current literature in the field, identifies the most common theoretical frameworks frequenting the academic literature and assesses their contribution to explaining and understanding the Process and Problems of New Venture Creation. The founding of a new organisation is not instantaneous and the process is a largely complex one. The nature of this process - which is characterized by spontaneity and uncertainty - makes it more difficult to pin down an exact theory. As Gartner (1985) points out, entrepreneurial firms are too diverse to permit generalization, and the process of starting up a new business has become a multidimensional phenomenon. The different approaches, suggested in literature, explaining the process of new venture creation, have attracted much academic controversy, given the lack of consistent empirical research on the process of new business creation. In this light, the author suggests that a more holistic understanding of the process may be gained through the integrated theoretical frameworks of new venture creation presented in the literature, which aim to capture the most important variables and characteristics of the new venture creation process. The second part of the paper deals with the problems facing entrepreneurs in new venture creation. Many start-ups never reach establishment, and the majority close up within one year after they have become established. Embarking on a new business is one of adventure and challenge but it brings with it high risk and uncertainty. This paper does not seek to detail each and every industry-specific problem that start-ups experience, but aims to identify and examine the most common difficulties encountered by Start-Ups in the early stages of establishment, irrespective of sector or industry

Qualitative research methods – Insights into case method and Critical Incident Technique

The seminar will firstly provide and overview of qualitative research methods and some key lessons for publishing in qualitative data in academic journals. The core focus of the seminar will discuss different approaches to case methodology using single case and multiple case design and selection. The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) will be examined as an emergent and useful tool in qualitative data analysis and data presentation, particularly in a case study context.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Profiling the International New Venture -A literature review of the empirical evidence

International New Ventures (INVs) are defined as business organisations that, from inception, seek to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries (McDougall et al., 1994: 470). Globalisation, the dismantling of trade barriers, and the pervasive impact of new technologies have created unprecedented opportunities for young firms to go international early in their life cycle. This is also evidenced by the large number of long established firms that have recently internationalised. In light of these global trends, size of the firm is no longer a key determinant of internationalisation as it once was - the INVs are clear evidence of this. This paper presents a critical review of the empirical findings popular in the current !NV literature, with the objective of developing a profile of INVs which includes the basic characteristics, such as the competitive strategies, products and choice of market entry modes. There are certainly enough similarities in the empirical studies to generate a more comprehensive profile of the !NV than exists in the literature already. A review of theoretical contributions on the !NV is equally of interest but is outside the scope of this paper. The first section of the paper describes the emergence of the !NV firm, which has challenged traditional theories of internationalization. The second section identifies some of the key driving forces behind the firms. Then, drawing on empirical findings, a profile of the !NV is drawn up. Finally, noting the consensus in the literature, a conclusion is reached. This is followed by observations from the author and the recognition of research avenues, which may warrant further investigation

Port Performance from A Policy Perspective – A Systematic Review of the Literature

Owing to their diverse functionality, seaports as entities produce a mix of private and public goods that have significant welfare implications for the regions they serve. In effect, performance in seaports can be viewed as multi-dimensional. When forming policy that affects multiple stakeholders it is therefore desirable to measure performance across all relevant dimensions, as they are likely to have differing effects on concerned stakeholders. The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review of published studies on seaport performance measurement to identify, critically evaluate and integrate the various dimensions of seaport performance measurement. A review of the literature was carried out focusing on key questions in performance measurement system design outlining what to measure and how to measure it. Our study finds that measuring port performance has been expanding rapidly leading to significant advancement in the development of methods to create different measures of port performance. However, there has been less progress in advancing means to define what constitutes performance as a construct particularly when performance is perceived as multidimensional. In this review, five dimensions of seaport performance were identified. In addition, a formative construct of performance was proposed for the design of performance measurement systems to address policy concerns when performance is of a multidimensional nature

Local horizontal network membership for accelerated global market reach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain how some born global firms can leverage the rich social capital in their local (home country) horizontal network for accelerated international market entry and growth. Horizontal networks warrant separate attention from their vertical counterparts, which, along with those focussed on external international contexts, dominate most network studies in the realm of born global research. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilises a multi-level qualitative approach in the study of a multi-firm population of animators in Ireland that, due to the small domestic market for their product, needed to pursue global customers from inception. The case study domain was purposely selected as a critical exemplar of a local horizontal network operating in a highly globalised industry. The authors collected data through in-depth interviews with 16 company founders. This primary interview data were complemented by interviews with staff at the apposite industry association and triangulated with secondary data on the local and global industry conditions, members’ international successes and awards. Findings – The results demonstrate how active membership of a local horizontal network can be leveraged for the acquisition of international market knowledge and customers for born global ventures. This arises from the sharing of collective market knowledge and communal global customer information within the network to mutual benefit. Originality/value – Although limited by the specific conditions in this highly globalised, non-competitive industry context, this study is unique in that it finds that cooperative interpersonal and inter-firm relationships embedded in a local horizontal social network, and mediated in part by an institutional support actor, emerge as important levers for a born global’s accelerated acquisition of foreign market knowledge and of global customer

International Opportunity Discovery of Born Global Firms: The Role of Institutions

The study sets out to investigate the international opportunity discovery process of born global firms embedded in two different institutional contexts: an emerging economy, China, and a developed country, Italy. Drawing on the opportunity-based view and institutional theory, the study explores and draws comparative insights into how home country institutions of born global firms can influence the international opportunity discovery process. Using a case study approach, we examine the international opportunity discovery process of six born global firms from China and Italy. The findings reveal that home institutions played an influential, yet, differentiating role on the international opportunity discovery processes of the Chinese and Italian firms. The institutional context of the Italian firms shaped their opportunity discoveries through product innovation, whereas their Chinese counterparts discovered opportunities mainly through networks embedded their home institutional context

Unraveling business model innovation in firm internationalization: A systematic literature review and future research agenda

The international business literature has witnessed a rapid growth of studies examining business model innovation (BMI) in firm internationalization, particularly over the last decade. Despite this increased line of inquiry, the body of knowledge on BMI and firm internationalization remains largely fragmented and unsynthesized, thus compromising theoretical and empirical advancements in the field. Although past reviews have multiplied on BMI in the mainstream business literature, none have been conducted in the context of international business. The primary goal of this review is to synthesize and evaluate the research on BMI in international business and to propose a future research agenda. Accordingly, we take stock of the literature and critically assess and examine 70 peer-reviewed articles published between 1996 and 2021. This study contributes to the extant literature by capturing the current body of knowledge on this topic and further advances and cultivates the dialogue between BMI and international business. We provide greater clarification of the BMI construct by proposing more fine-grained BMI constructs to be used to advance theory and empirical testing in future IB research. We finally contribute to the literature by mapping out a future research agenda supported by an integrative framework to advance research at the interface of BMI and firm internationalization.© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Corporate governance in International new ventures and born global firms

Acknowledgements The authors are listed alphabetically, and all authors contributed equally to this article and the editing of the Special Issue. We are thankful to Professor Susan Marlow for her valuable editorial guidance, and to Valerie Thorne for her assistance. We also want to express our gratitude to all the authors and reviewers whose important contributions made this Special Issue possible.Peer reviewedPostprin