The Finnish paradox: The curious absence of high-growth entrepreneurship in Finland

This paper looks at how well Finland performs in high growth entrepreneurship and uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship monitor to benchmark Finland against other European countries. It is found that Finland's prevalence rate of high growth entrepreneurial activity lags significantly behind most of its European and all of its Scandinavian peers. That this weak performance in high-growth entrepreneurship goes hand in hand with Finland being a world leader in per capita investment in R&D may be described as a paradox. The reasons underlying the underperformance of Finland remain however unclear. At this point, explanations should be sought in culture, industrial traditions and systemic experience in high growth entrepreneurship

Institutional Influences on strategic entrepreneurial Behaviours

The purpose of this paper is to examine the existence of cross-level moderating effects between national appropriability conditions, individual level predictors and entrepreneurial growth aspirations. We test a multi-level model that connects the determinants of strategic resource allocation decisions at the individual level with the strength of the intellectual property rights regime at the national level. The results suggest that the strengths of the intellectual property regime will moderate negatively the relationship between an individual's education and her growth aspirations and moderate positively the relationship between an individual's income and her growth aspirations. The findings support claims that strategic entrepreneurial behavior cannot be fully understood without giving attention to the context in which those behaviors are observed.strategic entrepreneurship, multi-level analysis, intellectual property protection, growth aspirations

Internationalization as a Business Model Design Process

Digitalization is transforming the dynamic of entrepreneurial opportunity pursuit to the extent that traditional theories of internationalization may no longer effectively explain firms’ internationalization patterns. To test alternative perspectives, we introduce a business model design lens to the study of entrepreneurial internationalization in the digital age. Drawing on a multiple case study research of six new ventures, we induct a three-layer model of internationalization process, which distinguishes between digital, ecosystem, and country layers. While the country layer is extensively studied in traditional internationalization models, the digital and ecosystem layers are new. Our case evidence shows that the digitalization of the firm’s context enables it to extend interactions beyond domestic borders already at the value discovery stage, thereby enabling internationalization in the formative stages of business model design process. The internationalization layers also demonstrate how new ventures that start as global, narrow their foreign market scope at later states

Internationalization as a Business Model Design Process

Digitalization is transforming the dynamic of entrepreneurial opportunity pursuit to the extent that traditional theories of internationalization may no longer effectively explain firms’ internationalization patterns. To test alternative perspectives, we introduce a business model design lens to the study of entrepreneurial internationalization in the digital age. Drawing on a multiple case study research of six new ventures, we induct a three-layer model of internationalization process, which distinguishes between digital, ecosystem, and country layers. While the country layer is extensively studied in traditional internationalization models, the digital and ecosystem layers are new. Our case evidence shows that the digitalization of the firm’s context enables it to extend interactions beyond domestic borders already at the value discovery stage, thereby enabling internationalization in the formative stages of business model design process. The internationalization layers also demonstrate how new ventures that start as global, narrow their foreign market scope at later states

Institutional influences on strategic entrepreneurial behaviours

The purpose of this paper is to examine the existence of cross-level moderating effects between national appropriability conditions, individual level predictors and entrepreneurial growth aspirations. We test a multi-level model that connects the determinants of strategic resource allocation decisions at the individual level with the strength of the intellectual property rights regime at the national level. The results suggest that the strengths of the intellectual property regime will moderate negatively the relationship between an individual's education and her growth aspirations and moderate positively the relationship between an individual's income and her growth aspirations. The findings support claims that strategic entrepreneurial behavior cannot be fully understood without giving attention to the context in which those behaviors are observed

Comparación de indicadores subjetivos y objetivos para describir el contexto nacional para emprender: las contribuciones del Global Entrepreneurship Monitor y del Índice de Competitividad Global

Entrepreneurship research is progressing towards the construction of indexes that integrate the information of the three predominant approaches: the entrepreneurial activity output; the population’s entrepreneurial behavior, values and aspirations; and the context in which entrepreneurship takes place. In this study we compare the Global Competitiveness Index data, one of the objective sources of information selected among those recognized as descriptors of national contexts, with the national entrepreneurial context qualitative information provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The main purpose of this research is to contribute to the knowledge of entrepreneurial context sources of information by opening a discussion around the usefulness and contribution that could make the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor source in this field, and to determine if it is recommendable to proceed to its formal validation in the short time. The obtained results evidence that the two sources do not overlap to the degree of substituting one by the other and that the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor provides relevant qualitative details about the state of entrepreneurial context that are interesting to complement the Global Competitiveness Index information. The conclusion is to recommend the formal validation of this source, being also necessary to make comparisons with other relevant sources and to clear up its role in the progress of the integrated indexes construction.La investigación sobre emprendimiento está avanzando hacia la construcción de índices que integran la información de los tres enfoques predominantes en esta materia: el resultado de la actividad emprendedora propiamente dicha; el comportamiento, valores y aspiraciones emprendedoras de la población, y el contexto en que se desarrolla el emprendimiento. En este estudio se comparan los datos del Índice de Competitividad Global —una de las fuentes objetivas de información seleccionadas entre aquéllas más reconocidas como descriptoras de contextos nacionales— con la información cualitativa acerca del estado del entorno nacional para emprender proporcionada por Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). El objetivo principal de este trabajo es el de contribuir al conocimiento de las fuentes de información sobre el contexto emprendedor, abriendo un debate en torno a la utilidad y la contribución que puede hacer Global Entrepreneurship Monitor como fuente de información en este ámbito, y para determinar si es recomendable proceder a la validación formal de la herramienta que utiliza en el corto plazo. Los resultados obtenidos en esta investigación evidencian que las dos fuentes de información comparadas no se solapan hasta el punto de poder sustituir una por la otra, y que la fuente de Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, proporciona detalles cualitativos relevantes sobre el estado del contexto emprendedor que son interesantes para complementar los datos proporcionados por el Índice de Competitividad Global. La conclusión es recomendar la validación formal de la fuente de información GEM, así como la realización de comparaciones con otras fuentes de información relevantes, clarificando su papel en el avance de la construcción de índices integrados de emprendimiento

Researching ecosystems in innovation contexts

Purpose – The rapid adoption of the ecosystem concept in innovation contexts has led to a proliferation of differing uses. Scholars need to be crystal clear which concept of the ecosystem they are using to facilitate communication between scholars and allow for cumulativeness and creativity. This paper aims to introduce some clarity into the conceptual mist that surrounds the notion of “ecosystems” in innovation contexts. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the extant literature on ecosystems in innovation contexts to derive an integrated approach to understanding the variety of constructs in use. Findings – This paper introduces clarity into the conceptual mist that surrounds the term “innovation ecosystem”, showing there are three basic types of ecosystems, all of which have a common focus on the collective production of a coherent system-level output. Originality/value – Contributes through a comprehensive overview of the differing ecosystem types in innovation contexts and with a heuristic to disambiguate types of innovation ecosys tems

The role of prior domestic experience and prior shared experience in young firm internationalization

This article examines how the prior domestic experience of a founding team influences an entrepreneurial firm's ability to grow international sales. We argue that such experience leads to domestic mind-sets, which limit a team's ability to perceive and interpret international stimuli and impact negatively upon international sales growth. Previous studies have overlooked the shared component of such experience. Prior shared experience allows ventures to learn faster from internationalization as a result of team familiarity and transactive memory systems. In uncertain environments, such as geographically distant regions, ventures that have founding teams with prior shared experience are able to outperform those without such experience

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor United Kingdom 2008 Executive Report

This report compares Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) measures of entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspiration in the UK with participating G7 countries and the large industrialized or industrializing countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China ('BRIC'). It also summarizes entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspiration within Government Official Regions of the UK and, for the first time, demonstrates the pattern of entrepreneurial activity at the sub-regional (NUTS2) level