Elco van Burg

Creating the future together: : toward a framework for research synthesis in entrepreneurship

To develop a body of evidence–based knowledge on entrepreneurship, findings and contributions from the positivist, narrative, and design research traditions in this area need to be combined. Therefore, a framework for research synthesis in terms of social mechanisms, contextual conditions, and outcome patterns is developed in this paper. Subsequently, a synthesis of the existing body of research findings on entrepreneurial opportunities serves to illustrate how this framework can be applied and provides results that inform entrepreneurial action. Finally, we discuss how this synthetic approach serves to systematically connect the fragmented landscape of entrepreneurship research, and thus gradually build a cumulative and evidence–based body of knowledge on entrepreneurship.

Dynamics of Resource Slack and Constraints: Resource Positions in Action

Previous studies of the effects of resource slack and constraints on creativity and performance offer contradictory findings. To resolve this debate, some authors operationalize resource slack and constraints in ways that actually may have concealed their underlying complexity and dynamics. This study seeks to demonstrate how perceived resource positions influence entrepreneurial decision making and creativity by drawing on in-depth case studies of three high-tech start-ups. The authors show that resource positions are perceived, relative, transient and multidimensional; that is, they reflect the entrepreneur’s perception of available resources relative to demand. Moreover, perceived resource positions are not static but change over time, and entrepreneurs can experience different types of resource constraints and slack simultaneously. The influence of perceived resource positions on decision making in turn depends on individual, temporal and resource position dynamics. These findings link perceptions of resources to the emergence of organizational ingenuity, by explaining how perceived resource positions influence decision making.

Religious beliefs and entrepreneurship among Dutch protestants

Religious beliefs are known to correlate with a wide range of socio-economic behaviours. The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between religious beliefs and entrepreneurship. Empirical evidence that entrepreneurship rates differ among religions suggests that religious beliefs influence the pursuit of entrepreneurship. However, how and which specific religious beliefs play a role in this relationship remains unknown. Therefore, we study the relation between two key religious beliefs and entrepreneurship within one specific branch of Christianity, namely, Protestantism. Using a unique sample of 756 Christian protestant entrepreneurs and employees from the Netherlands, we show that protestant entrepreneurs have a stronger belief than comparable protestant employees that their work is a calling from God and that protestant entrepreneurs are more likely to perceive a duty to add value to society through their occupational work.