Pierre-André Julien

Defining the field of research in entrepreneurship

Abstract Although the field of entrepreneurship is recognized as being of fundamental importance for our economy, and although many researchers throughout the world have turned their attention to it, there is, as yet, no agreement as to the research object in this scientific field. Empirical research has described the phenomenon from different standpoints. It has also shown that the phenomenon is much more complex and heterogeneous than was thought in the 1980s. However, to advance knowledge and produce tools that are useful in practice, it has become necessary to establish theories that will generate more productive empirical research. Some effort at definition is therefore needed. The definition proposed here takes a constructivist stance, and is at the service of a research project—that of understanding or forecasting the entrepreneurial act and its success or failure, and defining more accurately the environmental conditions favourable to that act. Here, the scientific object studied in the field of entrepreneurship is the dialogic between individual and new value creation, within an ongoing process and within an environment that has specific characteristics. This definition emphasizes the fact that we will not understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurship if we do not consider the individual (the entrepreneur), the project, the environment and also the links between them over time. It shows the entrepreneur to be not simply a blind machine responding automatically to environmental stimuli (interest rates, subsidies, information networks, etc.), but a human being capable of creating, learning and influencing the environment. This standpoint is consistent with the practical work done by the people responsible for helping entrepreneurs throughout the entrepreneurial process. It also shows that the phenomenon is heterogeneous and hence that discourse which is too general in nature will produce only truisms or artifacts, and that it is dynamic and sometimes unpredictable. Clearly, it would be paradoxical to suggest that the phenomenon is predictable and therefore situated within a deterministic framework, while at the same time admitting that entrepreneurs have the freedom and capacity to create innovations.

Specificity and Denaturing of Small Business

This article is based on a long consideration of the concept of small business after 30 years of conceptual development. Most, if not all, researchers in small business have accepted the idea that small business is specific (the preponderant role of the owner-manager, low level of functional breakdown, intuitive strategy, etc.). However, the somewhat excessive assertion of this idea may suggest that all small firms adopt a specific management method, with the result that management specificity becomes a universal principle. If we allow that small business management can be specific, we must also allow the corollary of this statement, namely the possibility of denaturing (loss of specificity). In other words, a small-sized firm does not necessarily have to adhere to the classical management method. The authors of this article advocate a contingency approach to small business managerial specificity that would allow for the definition of a validity framework for the thesis of small business managerial specificity.

Networks, weak signals and technological innovations among SMEs in the land-based transportation equipment sector

On apprend plus par la conversation des Doctes, que par la lecture de leurs livres Les épistres de Seneque Translation by François de Malherbe, Paris, Anthoine de Sommaville, 1639, p. 21 Small and medium-sized enterprises, because of their limited resources, use a variety of sources and are linked to different networks to obtain the information they need to develop their strategy and then to gradually organize their environment. Among other things, networks keep them up-to-date with changes in the economy and allow them to take advantage of opportunities to innovate, thus remaining ahead of their competitors. The networks – personal or business – with which these firms interact the most are usually geographically or sociologically close by, embedded in the environment, and are known as strong tie networks. They generally supply signals in a familiar language, based on habit as well a good reciprocal knowledge, which are easy to understand. In addition to this, however, the most dynamic firms also have contacts with weak tie networks, which are further removed from the usual behaviours of entrepreneurs and provide weak signals that, while difficult to grasp and decode, nevertheless offer new, pre-competitive information that can support major innovations. Very little empirical research has been done so far to test the probability of this theory. This paper reports on the results of a survey involving 147 SMEs, all in the land-based transportation equipment sector. It confirms the importance of weak tie networks as opposed to other types of networks, recognizing their complementary contribution to technological innovation. The organizations absorptive capacity is also found to be a significant intermediary factor in taking advantage of weak tie networks.

New technologies and technological information in small businesses

Abstract The use of new management and production technologies is essential for most small businesses if they are to improve their competitiveness and thus face up to increasing national and international competition. This presupposes access to scientific, innovative, and technological information, making firms aware of developments in technology and the resources available for obtaining and using the technology correctly. Many authors have already shown that small businesses lag far behind large firms in their use of new technologies. Some reasons put forward to explain this include the more generally limited resources of small firms and a national structure for the production and transfer of new information that is poorly adapted to small business needs. However, assuming that some gap between small and large firms actually exists, how can we explain that most small firms nevertheless not only survive, often for a very long time, but also produce a return comparable to large firms? One way of doing this is to study the situation of small businesses by using methods adapted to the small business sector and not developed for large firms. It is important to analyze not only the characteristics of the firms themselves, but also what they do to become competitive. Our own research in the small business field has shown that the lag in terms of new computer technologies has decreased considerably in recent years, and also that it tends to be smaller in many industries if specific advanced technologies are added. The perspective also changes if we examine the innovation capacity of small business, and its ability to develop niches or to work on smaller and more specific markets. The same applies to technological watch. An inquiry following a case study shows that small firms use different channels according to their objectives and turn to networks to overcome the limits of the information transfer system they use. They evaluate information by comparing different sources, and they use iterative techniques and intuition to complete their information and to decide on their investments. New technology acquisition by small and large firms cannot be compared; for small firms, it is an entrepreneurial act that in no way resembles the behavior of larger firms. However, to understand small businesses, further research is required into their behavior in different kinds of decision-making situations. To do this, we need tools developed specifically for the small business sector, free of any presumption of the supposedly better performance of large-scale production.

Types of technological scanning in manufacturing SMEs: an empirical analysis of patterns and determinants

As the component of environmental scanning that is concerned with science and technology, products, production processes, hardware and information systems, the concept of technological scanning, especially in small business, has received little empirical attention in the past. This paper aims to better define the different technological scanning practices of small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) and identify the main factors that determine these differences. This is done without relation to organizational effectiveness as technological scanning is but one of many potential influences on business performance. Using data obtained from a mail survey on the scanning practices of 324 SMEs, the study hopes to increase our understanding of how various entrepreneurs confront various environments in practice. The research model used is based on the notion that, to define different technological scanning practices in small business, four aspects must be considered: strategic orientation (objectives pursued); typ...

Globalization: different types of small business behaviour

The trend towards market globalization has accelerated in the last ten years. It can be explained by the growth in trade of goods and especially services, by new foreign investments and the presence of multinational companies throughout the world, but above all by an increase in exchanges of all kinds of information. This trend is likely to have a considerable impact on small business, by intensifying competition on local and domestic markets and by speeding up the process of product obsolescence. Research suggests that this trend affects small business not only in terms of markets, but also in terms of operation or production. Behaviour by small firms in response to the trend can be divided into six types. A few very small firms have been able to remain outside international markets, in special niches or in small or isolated regions. Others, however, are having to face up to the efects of globalization and increasing international competition. Many have become better able to resist growing globalization ...

The Entrepreneur and Economic Theory

ETAIL BUSINESSES in the UK have been relatively slow to invest heavily in information technology systems. However, this position has changed throughout the 1980s. All multiple retailers operating in mature markets are demonstrably committed to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of their existing in-store operations through the application of LT.. In distribution systems, LT. may be employed to perform three main groups of tasks; namely those of data collection, manipulation and communication (between some combination of stores, head office and suppliers). The accumulation, through LT. systems, of highly disaggregated historical sales data can enhance business decision-making at principally three levels (Table 1 ). The most immediate benefits accrue at the operational level of planning day-to-day in-store operations. At a higher level of sophistication, such information may be applied at the managerial level to, for example, enhance store design and layout. Finally, least immediate but of potentially the greatest value, is the use of detailed sales data in strategic decision-making, including questions of market positioning and segmentation strategies and branch opening programmes.

Towards the formalization of ‘small is beautiful’: Societal effectiveness versus economic efficiency☆

Abstract Economic efficiency criteria are often based on considerations of concentration, standardization and centralization of activities which may undertake or omit entirely various internal and external diseconomies of by-products associated with any growth process. This paper re-examines the context in which the efficiency criterion is usually applied. The notion of effectiveness is analysed theoretically from two perspectives. Social costs are introduced initially in a static framework and then the inertia of large organizations is discussed in a dynamic perspective. The flexibility of the system in adjusting to rapid changes in technology is analysed from a structural approach based on smaller and more decentralized organizations.

L’effet de l’âge et de la taille sur la performance financière et économique des PME

Résumé Les PME constituent un ensemble d’entreprises fort hétérogène qui se distinguent par le type de marché desservi, la stratégie poursuivie par leur direction, la performance dans le temps, mais aussi par l’âge et la taille. Cette hétérogénéité est souvent mise de côté par les chercheurs pour des questions de commodité, mais surtout par méconnaissance de l’impact de ce choix. Ainsi, dans leurs travaux, ces derniers rassemblent souvent des groupes de taille en ne tenant pas compte de l’âge, supposant, implicitement ou non, que les petites sont également jeunes, et que les grandes sont nécessairement âgées. Or, cette supposition ne convient pas à une grande partie des PME où les dirigeants ne souhaitent pas croître alors qu’une minorité évolue au rythme des gazelles, et que cette volonté influence nécessairement l’organisation de l’entreprise ainsi que sa performance financière et économique. Cette étude exploratoire réalisée auprès de 288 entreprises manufacturières québécoises révèle que l’étude de la performance des PME et de ses déterminants doit prendre en compte la taille et l’âge pour une compréhension affinée des comportements. Ainsi, la taille et l’âge n’apparaissent pas comme des variables substituables. Ces résultats devraient inciter à une certaine prudence chez les chercheurs qui ne distinguent pas ces facteurs clefs de différenciation ainsi que chez les gouvernements dans l’élaboration de leurs programmes de soutien aux PME qui sont souvent définis en fonction de l’un ou l’autre de ces critères.

GLOBALISATION DE L'ÉCONOMIE ET PME

ABSTRACT The trend towards globalization which has been increasing during the last decade can be explained by the growth of trade in goods and services, especially between the developing countries, by new foreign investment and expanding multinational firms with different kinds of alliances, by more and more patents and technological transfers and by the international migration of highly-specialized manpower. This trend can affect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a very important manner: the growing competition in the local markets upsets their export markets. But some studies have shown that SMEs, in innovating and modernizing their production process in a complex manner, can resist the growing competition. A part of them is increasing and is trying to widen and diversify export to new markets. We need more studies to understand the situation better and to see if this globalization trend will stop or stimulate the particular dynamics that SMEs have had for about 20 years now.