I.A.M. Wakkee

Effective Growth Paths for SMEs

How firms grow forms a key question in the research on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on a survey amongst 1,535 SMEs, we show that the presence of growth capability factors, such as, innovation capacity, financing capacity and human capital, offers inadequate explanation for differences in the level of growth between SMEs in a specific period of time. The utilisation of different growth paths however does seem to elucidate differences between low and high growth. Remarkably, we found that growth paths that are most commonly used by SMEs (market penetration and increasing efficiency) hardly lead to growth. Rather growth paths that are infrequently utilised like setting up a new additional venture and entering foreign markets lead to significantly higher growth levels. It seems however that these growth paths are not attainable for SMEs due to the more extensive investments required. Increasing the firms’ brand awareness was found to be the only path to growth that was both used frequently and that yields actual growth. Therefore, investing in this path to growth seems to be a sensible investment choice for SMEs that want to grow.

What about the entrepreneur? How static business models drive and hinder the development of self-sustaining local energy access ventures

The central assumption of publicly-supported market development programs is that providing resources to local entrepreneurs and strengthening the business environments fosters the emergence of self-sustaining local energy access ventures. We explore this assumption by applying a business model lens to analyze how participation in a market development program affects the development of local energy access ventures. Using the domestic biogas market development program in Rwanda as our case, we evaluate program design, the role of local entrepreneurs and interactions between participating ventures and the coordinating office to determine how market development programs contribute to a self-sustaining private energy sector. While providing a detailed framework for local ventures, the business model offers entrepreneurs few possibilities to act entrepreneurial and exploit local opportunities. Consequently, such programs will attract necessity-driven rather than opportunity- and growth-driven entrepreneurs, causing concern for the achievement of program objectives and the establishment of a self-sustaining private sector.

Managerial Mindset and the Born Global Firm

Abstract Using a series of case studies, we show that global mindset is at the heart of global growth and opportunity for entrepreneurial ventures. We review how having an entrepreneurial mindset and international experience influence the rapidity of internationalization by discussing the entrepreneurial process and how the global mindset of founders of born global firms influences their choices in the competitive landscape. This chapter closes with a discussion of a continuum — globalization frustrated (focusing on firms with entrepreneurs that have global mindsets but cannot internationalize) to globalization mandated (focusing on firms that are forced to be global).

The stigmatization of bankrupt entrepreneurs in Dutch newspapers

We examine to what extent bankrupt entrepreneurs are stigmatized in the mass media. Based on a decade of newspaper articles, we show that while overall the level of stigmatization is lower than expected based on popular belief, stigmatization increases in the years with many bankruptcies, and in the months following a prominent bankruptcy. These differences are caused by the distinctions made by journalists between entrepreneurs in charge of large and small firms respectively as villains responsible for the bankruptcy and its consequences, or as hard-working victims of the system. Findings are explained in terms of experienced peril and cultural factors.

The university as entrepreneur: the ingredients for valorization strategies

Valorization of research results is becoming increasingly important today. Since academic research should not only contribute to our “quest for fundamental understanding,” but it also needs to “consider use” (Stokes, 1997); these dual goals give rise to tension in academic institutes that need to carefully balance research and its exploitation (Ambos, Makela, Birkenshaw, & D’ Este, 2008). Nevertheless, valorization, commercialization, technology transfer, knowledge exploitation or exploitation of research are different labels for a similar activity and have become part and parcel of academic life. Most universities own the intellectual property rights of their research, meaning they have the legal rights (in some countries the legal obligation) to exploit it in a way they see fit. Research (e.g., Van der Heide, S., Van der Sijde, P. & Terlouw, C. (2010). Exploring ‘transnational’ university cooperation in technology transfer: A European perspective. Industry & Higher Education, 24(1), 17–27) shows that universities have different objectives (e.g. regional development, spin-off creation) for engaging in this process and every university has developed its own approach to deal with this in the sense of funding and support. On an abstract level, there are two scenarios for commercialization (Derksen, J. T. P. (2000). De Ondernemende Onderzoeker: Paradox of Pleonasme [The entrepreneurial researcher: Paradox or pleonasm]. Nijmegen: UBC). In the first scenario the university takes the role of “entrepreneur” and in the second scenario it is the researcher (or the research group) who is involved in research that takes this role with the university being the context in which entrepreneurship takes place. In this contribution our focus is on the university as entrepreneur and we regard valorization as an entrepreneurial process. In order to visualize how the activities of different actors associated with the university contribute to the entrepreneurial process of a university, we will build on ideas postulated by Wakkee and Van der Sijde (2010) regarding the fluid and moldable nature of opportunities. We conceptually elaborate the consequences of their approach for bringing knowledge (and technology) from university to the market.

International Opportunities and Value Creation in International Entrepreneurship

International entrepreneurship (IE) as a field of research has emerged at the intersection of internationalization and entrepreneurship theories. At this intersection it has come to emphasize the activities centered on international opportunities. International opportunities, then, are about value creation and competitive imperfections in international exchange. However, the activities of value creation in relation to international opportunity actualization have received limited attention. With a view that international opportunities take many forms and are generated in various of entrepreneurial processes, we develop theory-driven conceptualizations of international opportunities for future empirical probing. Building on knowledge of entrepreneurial opportunities in entrepreneurship research and prior research on international opportunities this study proposes four conceptualizations of value-creating international opportunities differentiating venture and market type of opportunities and opportunities of objective and subjective nature. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the different conceptualizations of international opportunities as different modes of value creation.