The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation

This paper explores the entrepreneurial motivations of older entrepreneurs, specifically the importance of affective motivations and the influence of family and personal wellbeing on older entrepreneurs’ decisions to start-up and their subsequent business model choices. Departing from the extant literature examining the effects of family on firm and vice versa, the focus here is on the influence of family outside the boundary of the firm. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), the paper reports a study of older entrepreneurs who report motivations that prioritise family-based affective value external to the enterprise itself. As such, the paper contributes new knowledge on motivations for entrepreneurship and the embedded nature of family and business, particularly for older entrepreneurs.

The role of entrepreneurship in alleviating poverty has been extensively researched by entrepreneurship researchers and policy makers. The focus of this research has mostly been in the context of business, for example, the links between value creation leading and economic poverty amelioration. We believe that poverty is multidimensional and requires attention to detail. Similarly, we argue that entrepreneurship is more than an engine for economic outcomes; rather it is a process for socioeconomic value creation and change. Therefore, we approach entrepreneurship as a verb – ‘entrepreneuring’, an unfolding value process which points at the inherent processual character of entrepreneurship. We argue that entrepreneuring enables the context of poverty by creating different values. To understand its nuances, we explore the concept of ‘value’ in entrepreneuring that offers a means of escaping poverty. To do so, we conducted a qualitative narrative study of entrepreneurs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in an impoverished part of northern Pakistan. This article initially reviews literature about entrepreneurship and poverty. Next, we propose a conceptual framework to understand how and why entrepreneuring happens in the context of poverty, and who is involved. Finally, we provide a theoretical framework as to how entrepreneuring creates values that allow individuals to enable the context of poverty.

Few studies have been conducted on the value and motives of social entrepreneurship with indigenous people. The purpose of this paper is to examine the values and motives of social entrepreneurship and how it is experienced by indigenous groups in Colombia drawing on Structuration Theory theoretical framework. This work draws upon evidence from a multiple case study of five indigenous communities (Curripaco, Puinave, Yanacona, Misak and Wayuu) in three geographic regions. The analysis of the multiple case study using NVIVO.11, discovered internal and external motives and values. The internal drivers identified are Cosmovision, Ancestrality, Knowledge, Identity and Language and Community and Family Wellbeing. The external drivers are Land Rights and Territoriality, Armed Conflict and Violence, Socio Economic Needs: Poverty and lack of employment and Funding Opportunities. This paper brings into attention the importance of understanding the values and motives of social entrepreneurship within indigenous groups in Latin America.

In the agricultural sector, the Law of Jante—a Scandinavian form of cultural intolerance towards standing out, being different and overachieving (akin to the Tall Poppy Syndrome and The nail that sticks out gets hammered down culture found in other countries)—may play an important role by influencing when entrepreneurship is an acceptable strategic choice to adversity. Based on a three group, between-subjects experiment of 122 Swedish university students studying agricultural and rural management, we tested whether the advice our participants gave to a fictitious farmer to pursue entrepreneurial activity depended on information regarding the farmer's motivation to pursue entrepreneurship (experimental treatments included motivation scenarios based on necessity vs. opportunity driven vs. control). Moreover, we test whether entrepreneurial advice is moderated by the participants own “Jante-ness”. Unexpectedly, we found that our participants did not adapt the entrepreneurship advice they give to the situational context, nor does Jante play a moderating role; instead we found that Jante had a significant and negative main effect on the entrepreneurial advice given. This finding suggests that Jante is still very much alive and may play an important role in explaining relatively low rates of innovation and entrepreneurship in (Swedish) agriculture.

This paper explores embeddedness in small firms from a foundational perspective and how these foundations effect resource dependency and business decision-making. Building on debates in firms embeddedness and its role in addressing questions of resource-limitation, the paper positions embeddedness as outcome of a value-set occurring within an organisation directly affecting resource decisions. Using case studies of six creative industries small and micro firms, it argues foundational embeddedness influences firm-based practices and relationships over conventional business logics. Certain flexibilities in this foundational embeddedness can be seen, responding to external challenges through formation of esoteric relations and iterative systems. The extent of this flexibility is however limited by the entrepreneurs’ willingness to compromise individual values. Foundational embeddedness is thus a necessary consideration in understanding entrepreneurial decision-making.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are suffering heavily from the Covid-19 pandemic. Pincode Telenet International (PTI) is a small company providing software solutions to the utility sector in the Netherlands. Its revenue depends entirely on outsourcing contracts given by utility providers. When the market environment is disrupted by the Covid-19 outbreak and its lasting impact, PTI is confronted with a 35% drop in revenue and many uncertainties. This case illustrates how PTI copes with uncertainties by focusing on one certainty: the available resources. The resource-based coping strategy presented in this case engages students to reflect on how different resources can be used to strengthen collaborations and expand a customer base. It thus advances our understanding of opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial behaviour in times of crisis.