Tsvi Vinig

Does Globalization Impact Entrepreneurship? Comparative Study of Country Level Indicators

The impact of increased level of globalization on entrepreneurship remains unexplored area within the domain of international business. In this paper we aim to explore the relationships between globalization and entrepreneurship based on a comparative study of globalization and entrepreneurship indicators at a country level. We use the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data for measuring level of entrepreneurship at a country level, and the KOF index of globalization for measuring level of globalization of a country. We find no statistical evidence for correlation between the level of globalization and the level of entrepreneurship at a country level when tested for all countries in our sample. When testing for low-GDP countries however we find a negative effect of globalization on entrepreneurship. The framework presented in this paper provides a starting point for study and analysis of the relationship between the level of globalization and the level of entrepreneurship.

China's indigenous innovation approach: the emergence of Chinese innovation theory?

Theory-driven and theory-based studies on innovation in China are relatively scarce. Most innovation studies about Chinese business are based on Chinese policy and government programmes and their results. This special issue of Technology Analysis and Strategic Management explores Chinas indigenous innovation strategy and suggests a research agenda that focuses on Chinese innovation theory building that incorporates Chinas efforts to move towards an innovation-based economy. Currently, China is developing its indigenous innovation capabilities (The Chinese term is 自主创新, pronounced zizhu chuangxin). We suggest that innovation studies of Chinese business could focus on these indigenous innovation ambitions. In addition to this, it could adopt, and be embedded in a Chinese theory of innovation instead of a traditional Western-centric theory of innovation. Our proposition is that to better understand Chinese indigenous innovation, a new paradigm of Chinese innovation should be developed. We therefore present a research agenda that can be a starting point for the development of such a theory, and present seven papers in this special issue that give content to this idea. Obviously no theory will have a monopoly on exploring Chinese innovation phenomena, but it is interesting to add a Chinese-centric view into the Western-centric scholarly view. We hope that will be one of the contributions of this special issue on innovation in China.

Entrepreneur online social networks – structure, diversity and impact on start-up survival

In this paper, we discuss the results of a pilot study in which we use a novel approach to collect entrepreneur online social network data from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. We studied the size and structure of entrepreneur social networks by analysing the online network industry and location diversity. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurs use multiple online social networks that form their network-of networks (NoN). We examined the entrepreneurs’ network size and diversity to gauge their impact on performance in terms of survival. Our findings suggest that the entrepreneurs’ LinkedIn network size has a positive relationship with entrepreneurial survival. However, the size of the entrepreneurs’ Facebook network is not related to their survival and the size of entrepreneurs’ Twitter network has a negative relationship with performance. We visualised the entrepreneurs’ LinkedIn network using industry diversity. Finally, we reflect on the implications for future research to uncover the structure of entrepreneur online social networks.

University Technology Transfer: Comparative Study of US, European and Australian Universities

We studied the factors that influence university knowledge commercialization through university Technology Transfer Office (TTO). We analyzed the resources associated with commercialization performance as measured by patenting, licensing, and spin-off activities in a sample of 124 Australian, European and US universities. Our analysis suggests that high levels of commercialization output are positively associated with the commercial resources of a university, the TTO age, the stock of technology, whether it is private or public university, TTOs director background and the presence of a business incubator and science park. The most significant finding in this study is the difference between Australian, European and US universities with respect to the resources associated with high commercialization output. An interesting finding is that no relationship is found between an entrepreneurial university culture and the success of commercialization initiatives.

Entrepreneurship, technological progress and resource allocation efficiency: a case of China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the role of entrepreneurship in promoting Chinas technological progress and efficiency improvement during the economic reform process of the past two decades. The paper contributes to our understanding of the drivers of economic growth in China during the economic reforms period through the study of technology development and efficiency of resource allocation.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses Malmquist productivity index and panel data cointegration covering 30 regions in China for the period 1992‐2007, to test the effect of entrepreneurship on Chinese technological progress and resource allocation efficiency.Findings – The analysis shows that the rate of entrepreneurship in China improves the level of technological progress and efficiency of resource allocation significantly. The increased level of entrepreneurship in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong and other developed areas is positively related to the...

Determinant of Successful Technology Sector

This study uses path dependence and analysis of feedback structures to identify the determinants for developing a successful technology sector in Israel during the 1990s. The four determinants introduced in the study are: Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Base in the form of academy R&D, industry R&D and military R&D, Financial Base in the form of venture capital and exit market and, Government programs that were specifically designed to stimulate the development of entrepreneurial technology sector. We present a Causal model of the development of technology sector in Israel and discuss its generic applicability.

How do Venture Capitalists Screen Business Plans? Evidence from The Netherlands and the US

This study investigates and compares the screening process of business plans by venture capitalists in The Netherlands and the US. We studied the criteria used for screening business plans and their relative importance for the decision making process during the screening process. Empirical data collection in the USA and The Netherlands was done by interviews and through questionnaires. All the VCs who were interviewed are involved with early-phase ventures for which a business plan is the main input for their investment decision. The criteria for evaluating business plans have been identified from literature and from experts in the field. Subsequently these criteria have been divided into four main criteria each having between five and six sub-criteria. The main criteria identified are: The ntrepreneur, The Product or Service, The Market and Financial Considerations including investment and exit considerations. These criteria are consistent with business strategy research and venture capital research findings as factors that impact the survival of new ventures. The findings suggest that overall agreement exists on the relative importance of the main criteria (Entrepreneur, Product, Market, Financial) among Dutch and US VCs. Both Dutch and US VCs consider the Entrepreneur as the most important criteria in evaluating business plans. US VCs rank the criteria of Product, Market and Financials at the same level of relative importance. Dutch VCs rank Product and Market at the same level of relative importance and the Financials as least important criteria. The relative importance of the sub-criteria reveal some differences between Dutch and US VCs. Dutch VCs rank the relative importance of innovative product/service high whereas US VCs rank proprietary, protected products with high relative importance. The organizational processes behind the business plan screening process have also been examined in this study. VCs with passive deal flow generation tend to relay on a hierarchical screening approach whereas VCs with active deal flow generation have a less hierarchical screening process and tend to use more domain experts and senior staff when screening business plans. This study contributes to understanding of, and provides insight into the screening process of the US (NY) and European (The Netherlands) VCs. It can help venture capitalists to better structure the screening process and therefore their decision making and can help entrepreneurs seeking capital better address their request to those criteria venture capitalist find most important.

Employee involvement in ideation and healthcare service innovation quality

ABSTRACT This study hypothesizes and empirically tests the influence of involvement of (1) frontline employees and (2) top managers in ideation process on healthcare service innovation quality. Based on data from 168 service innovation projects in Dutch healthcare organizations, the empirical results indicate that frontline employee involvement and top management involvement in, respectively, idea generation and idea application both improve the quality of healthcare service innovation. We find that the positive effect of frontline employee involvement is stronger under the condition of higher service innovativeness. In the direct relationship of top management involvement and healthcare service innovation quality, our data do not show such a moderating effect. The key and general managerial implication of the findings is that healthcare organizations are inspired to involve frontline employees in the idea generation processes and involve top managers in the idea application processes of service innovation projects, in order to improve innovation quality.

Service innovation quality in healthcare: Service innovativeness and organizational renewal as driving forces

Drawing on an integration of service-dominant (S-D) logic and the dynamic capabilities approach, this study focuses on the relatively under-researched issue of service innovation quality in healthcare services. We propose a conceptual framework for the relationships between user-induced and organisation-based renewal, and service innovation quality in the healthcare sector. By putting service innovativeness and organisational renewal at the input side of the healthcare organisations’ value creation process, and treating service innovation quality as an output, this study hypothesises direct relationships between these two ends. We conducted an empirical study in the Dutch healthcare sector. Based on data from 168 service innovation projects in Dutch healthcare organisations, the empirical study verifies these hypothesised relationships. The results reveal that both service innovativeness and organisational renewal are significant antecedents of quality improvement of the healthcare service innovations in these projects. This study provides theoretical and managerial implications for improving the quality of healthcare service innovations. The key managerial insight is that healthcare organisations are implicated to pay more attention to continuous renewal of value propositions to their users/patients, as well as to continuous renewal of their organisations’ functioning.

Hedonic value and crowdfunding project performance: a propensity score matching-based analysis

Purpose - In the existed literature on crowdfunding project performance, previous studies give little attention to the impact of investors’ hedonic value and utilitarian value on project results. In a crowdfunding setting, utilitarian value is somehow hard to satisfy due to information asymmetry and adverse selection problem. Therefore, the projects with more hedonic value can be more attractive for potential investors. Lucky draw is a method to increase consumer hedonic value and it can influences investors’ behavior as a result. We hypothesize that projects with hedonic treatment (lucky draw) may have higher probability to win their campaign than others. Design/methodology/approach - A unique self-extracted two-year Chinese crowdfunding platform real dataset has been applied as our analysis sample. We firstly employ propensity score matching (PSM) methods to control for the endogeneity of hedonic treatment adoption (lucky draw). We then run, OLS regression and Probit regression in order to test our hypotheses. Findings - Our analysis suggests a significant positive relationship not only between project lottery adoption and project results but also between project lottery adoption and project popularity. Originality/value - Our results suggest that an often ignored factor – hedonic treatment (lucky draw) – can plays an important role in crowdfunding project performance.