Hannu Littunen

Entrepreneurship and the characteristics of the entrepreneurial personality

Examines the characteristics of the entrepreneurial personality and the effects of changes in the entrepreneur’s personal relationships. According to the empirical findings, becoming an entrepreneur and acting as an entrepreneur are both aspects of the entrepreneur’s learning process, which in turn has an effect on the personality characteristics of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur’s drive to solve problems (= mastery) had increased, and control by powerful others decreased since the start‐up phase. Changes in the entrepreneur’s relations with others were also observed to have an effect on the entrepreneur’s personality characteristics. The empirical findings also show that as the number of co‐operative partners decreased, control by powerful others also decreased, and that, since the start‐up phase, entrepreneurs whose personal relations had increased also showed a clear increase in mastery.

Networks and Local Environmental Characteristics in the Survival of New Firms

This study seeks firstly to clarify which networks at start-up situation and early in life influence the survival of new firms. Secondly the study examines regional differences in the success of new firms. The subjects were firms which had closed down during their fourth to sixth year of operations, and they were compared with firms continuing in business. The results indicate, firstly, that it is networks internal to firm that create competitive advantage, innovation and efficiency. Secondly, management based on working in groups was emphasized in the firms that continued in business. In a typical family enterprise, ownership, management and family are united in a single entity. In other types of firms networks are seen as participating in the strategic management of the firm. Thirdly, close-downs were often caused by uncontrolled risks. A firm which fails after a successful start-up often tends to grow rapidly in the beginning, leaning on its product idea, but this rate of growth is too high from the viewpoint of the financing and the management of the firm. In firms which closed the growth objectives were too ambitions compared with the resources of the entrepreneur.

The Early Entrepreneurial Stage in Finnish Family and Nonfamily Firms

This study examined factors influencing the survival and success of 200 Finnish family and nonfamily firms in the metal-based manufacturing industry and business services over the first three years of their operation. The features that this study reviewed include owner-manager personality attributes, entrepreneurial competence, and motives for the start-up. Strategic choices of the firms were also examined. The study found that family firms were better equipped to survive beyond the early entrepreneurial stage than were nonfamily businesses. The entrepreneurial abilities and resources of the family business owners enabled them to operate relatively successfully in the nearby market, often with one unique product. The family firms were more conscious of survival and family well-being than profitability or market position. A higher mortality rate was discovered among the nonfamily firms. Failed firms were often established with unrealistic expectations, and their performance deteriorated rapidly after their early success.

The survival of firms over the critical first 3 years and the local environment

The aim of this study was to examine the success of new firms in different environments and the factors affecting it. In this study the criterion of a successful firm is that of continued functioning, and firms are divided into two groups: those that have closed down and those that continue after the critical first 3 years. As the basis for a regional analysis the authors look first at the differences between these two groups in terms of the characteristics of firms and entrepreneurs. The regional distribution of the firms that closed down is then examined, followed by an analysis of the regional differences in the characteristics of all the firms and entrepreneurs studied. Regional differences were found in the closing down of firms as well as in the factors explaining the continuation/closing down of business activities. Explanations for the success of firms were found in the characteristic of the entrepreneur, the success of the start–up phase, and in the characteristics of the firm itself. The effects...

THE INDICATORS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN THE SMALL BUSINESS CONTEXT

There have been divergent opinions as to the suitability of the various indicators of locus of control in business management research. This study examines how the indicators of internal locus and strategic locus of control function in the small business context. The study examines first the interrelations between these indicators and then relation between each of the indicators and the firms strategic factors. The indicators of locus of control differed from each other in their relation to external control. The indicator of strategic locus of control correlated with the firms targets, strategic decision-making and success. On the other hand the indicator of internal locus of control is useful in research on entrepreneurship and the birth of new firms.

Management Capabilities and Environmental Characteristics in the Critical Operational Phase of Entrepreneurship—A Comparison of Finnish Family and Nonfamily Firms

This study seeks to clarify which factors associated with the start-up and critical operational phase of family and nonfamily firms influence the ability of those firms to survive over the critical first three years of their existence. In search of potential differences in the structural characteristics between these two types of firms, this study compares owners of Finnish family and nonfamily businesses in motives for founding the firm, characteristics of the local environment, changes in strategic factors, changes in networks, and differences in style of management. The findings revealed marked differences in individuals’ motives for founding a business: for family business owners, the presence of negative situational factors were the more important motivating and precipitating factors in creating a new business. With respect to style of management, in a typical family enterprise, ownership, management, and family are combined in a single entity. In the surviving nonfamily firms, entrepreneurial teams were found to be important in bringing the skills needed for the strategy-development process. Finally, family firms were most commonly located in the capital area, although some were also found in rural areas, whereas nonfamily firms were most commonly found in service center regions.

SMEs and Their Peripheral Innovation Environment: Reflections from a Finnish Case

As it has now been widely argued, innovation is ever more seldom the product of isolated firms but usually requires a combination of multiple technologies, skills and competences, part of which have to be acquired from outside the boundaries of the innovating firm. As the literature on regional systems of innovation and other territorial innovation models suggests, the region is the most appropriate spatial level for investigating and understanding the nature of firms’ external knowledge acquisition in their innovation processes, as well as for identifying the critical actors and factors contributing to them. Unlike the majority of studies focusing on the innovation activities of firms at the regional level, this paper focuses not on the actual importance of different location factors, but on the perceptions of small- and medium-sized firms entrepreneurs of the quality of different factors in their regional innovation environment. By identifying differences between the perceptions of innovative and less-innovative firms, this study contributes to the literature on innovation as a regional-level phenomenon, and also tentatively puts forward some managerial and policy implications, as well as suggestions for further research.

Birth and growth in new metal‐based manufacturing and business service firms in Finland

This study examined factors influencing the growth of new firms in metal‐based manufacturing and business services in Finland over the three first years of their operation. The factors affecting the growth of a new firm were found in the start‐up phase, in the characteristics of the entrepreneur and of the firm, and in the firm’s environment. Growth was especially explained by the know‐how and changes in the strategic behaviour of the entrepreneur and by the firm’s environment. New firmshad equal chances for growth irrespective of their locality. Instead, growth was affected by changes in a firm’s competitive situation, and, especially in the more developed service centres, growth was dependent on a firm’s expanding its market area in the first three years of operation. The results also clearly indicated that in a small specialist firm personal relationships formed an important part of the entrepreneur’s management capabilities.

Knowledge networks in innovation among small KIBS firms

Supporting the commercialisation processes in small knowledge-intensive firms has been a primary objective of both national and regional innovation policies. This study provides empirical evidence of the external collaboration during commercialisation processes based on a survey of 213 small knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms. The findings show that these firms have used two types of network relationships for their innovation creation and commercialisation: Based on these classifications, policy implications and recommendations for both policy-makers and small KIBS managers are provided.

Entrepreneurial And Regional Growth Activity In Finland

Audretsch & Feldman (2004) argue that an agglomeration is a collection of localized firms with a common focus. As firms thrive, resources are attracted to the region. They state that, if entrepreneurship serves as a mechanism for knowledge spillovers, measures of entrepreneurial activity should be linked positively to regional growth performance. In Schumpeterian economics the engine of economic development is entrepreneurial innovation. Creative destruction makes way for new innovations and growth. In this study, we simultaneously examine the regional entrepreneurial activity and regional growth activity in Finland. A further aim of the study was to find out if entrepreneurial activity and growth activity also play a deagglomerating role. We find, first, that the indicators used are very well suited to measure the dynamic environment, especially in manufacturing, since the regions with the most dynamic environment were areas with high small-business activity. Furthermore, the study indicates that growth activity should be taken into account when examining regional development by means of the concept of the dynamic environment. Secondly, we find that entrepreneurial activity and growth activity decreases regional specialization, i.e., the regions with the highest regional specialization are characterized by the lowest levels of entrepreneurial activity and growth activity. Our study confirms with Finnish data the findings of Dumais et al. (2002) that new plant births play a deagglomerating role. The results of the study indicate also that growth activity tends to act to reduce regional specialization. As a whole, the results suggest that the regional specialization is the result of a dynamic process in which the combination of plant births and growth act together.