Nascent academic entrepreneurs and identity work at the boundaries of professional domains

Higher education institutions promote academic entrepreneurship through organizational arrangements such as innovation programs, incubators, and accelerators aimed at implementing the third mission of the university. While research has examined how these multi-professional arrangements support entrepreneurial efforts, less is known about their individual level implications which emerge as researchers are exposed to different professional values and practices. This article draws on a longitudinal qualitative study on an innovation program to investigate through what kinds of identity processes nascent academic entrepreneurs construct their professional identities and how as part of these processes they position themselves in relation to different professional domains. The analysis demonstrates three identity construction processes (hybridization, rejecting hybridization, and transitioning) and their associated identity work tactics (compartmentalizing, protecting, and reframing) at the boundaries of professional domains. Our contribution is in demonstrating how nascent academic entrepreneurs’ identity construction processes are influenced by internally and externally oriented identity work and their interactive dynamics. Moreover, the findings advance our understanding of how individuals can purposefully mould the fluidity of domain boundaries through identity work by making boundaries bridgeable, impermeable, or permeable. These findings have value for those developing organizational arrangements for the promotion of academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial identities.

Open innovation, dynamic organizational capacities and innovation performance in SMEs: Empirical evidence in the Tunisian manufacturing industry

In this paper, the main objective is to examine inbound open innovation adoption by exploring its antecedents in terms of dynamic organizational capabilities, its implications on innovation performance, but also its mediating role between these capabilities and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) innovation performance. Therefore, a conceptual model was proposed and empirically tested on the basis of data extracted from a survey involving a sample of 228 Tunisian manufacturing SMEs and analyzed through the Structural Equation Modeling method. In doing so, this paper adds to the existing literature on open innovation in SMEs and fills a neglected theoretical gap by proposing a link between dynamic capabilities theory and the open innovation paradigm, two literatures that have little overlap, to improve current understanding of innovation performance in SMEs. Ultimately, by empirically confirming the significant relationship between dynamic organizational capacities and innovation performance through the mediating role of open innovation, our results are mainly relevant for entrepreneurs and innovation managers in SMEs who can find valuable guidance on how to strengthen innovation performance under the nexus between the dynamic capabilities perspective and open innovation by focusing on the development of three capabilities that are dynamic capabilities, absorptive capability, and appropriation capabilities.

Social media entrepreneurship as an opportunity for women: The case of Facebook-commerce

This paper examines a new type of entrepreneurship conducted via social networking sites named as social media entrepreneurship. In Tunisia, the number of women entrepreneurs operating on social media platforms such as Facebook is noteworthy. Thus, in this study it is aimed to determine the factors that prompted women to develop businesses on Facebook, and how this social network is a venue for female entrepreneurship. Particular attention is paid to identify individual-related (push/pull entrepreneurial motivation), technology-related and institutional factors that bear on the use of social media. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 24 female entrepreneurs. The research findings provide relevant information and support the idea that social media has opened up new horizons and entrepreneurial opportunities for women to pursue their entrepreneurial intention. Pull motivations are really behind the decision to start up social commerce. Facebook advantageous features have empowered women to create customer networks, used nature marketing tool at no cost and acquire positive attitude towards entrepreneurship. Finally, although the informal nature of business on Facebook is attractive, formalization remains a challenge for the majority of women. It seems that ambition to grow their businesses brings them to formal economy.

Does Innovative Millennial Entrepreneurship have a role in fostering cyber learning on business performance? A perspective of entrepreneurial agility

Millennials have the uniqueness of active learners and work with freedom. Millennials are the first generation to put the fun in work-life. Social media is a strategic instrument in Cyber Learning (CL) in work-life and lifestyle. Learning on Business Performance (BP) in many studies has an insignificant effect and is still inconclusive. The purpose of this study is to offer Innovative Millennial Entrepreneurship (IME), which will be tested empirically in its role in pushing CL to BP significantly. Data collection was carried out by employing a purposive sampling method on 159 millennials who hold owner/manager positions in business organizations. Data analysis used a quantitative approach with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The empirical results in the model provide evidence that IME fully mediates, becoming a bridge that strongly fosters the role of CL (β = 0.83) on BP (β = 0.42) and Marketing Capability (MC) through Agile Teamwork (AT) provides an excellent total effect when compared with the direct effect between CL (β = 1.01) and BP (β = 0.79). In the Entrepreneurial Agility perspective, IME and MC through AT have encouraged millennials CL to be converted into better performance through opportunity foresight, systemic insight, and entrepreneurial mindset.

The Academic Spinoff Theory of the Firm

This paper reviews the key theories of the firm and considers their relevance to studying and understanding academic spinoffs as a special case of firms. The theory of the firm is an important aspect in entrepreneurship literature, as without clear understanding of the parameters influencing firm's behaviour, it remains difficult to predict its decisions to secure sustainable growth and ensure development of the economy overall. The paper considers the contribution of transaction cost theory, managerial theory, resource-based view, knowledge-based view, and dynamic capabilities, to the understanding of the academic spinoff. In essence, these theoretical explanations lend multiple perspectives that offer a greater insight into the academic spinoff firm by illuminating the issues of its boundaries, entrepreneurs, resources, knowledge, and networks. It is concluded that understanding academic spinoffs requires acknowledging this theoretical plurality. In response to this challenge, the paper proposes the Academic Spinoff Theory of the Firm.

The Square Inch quilting studio: Survival strategies for a lifestyle enterprise

This case focuses on how a lifestyle enterprise has used strategies to survive amidst the COVID-19 crisis. It explores how a lifestyle enterprise, ‘The Square Inch’, a quilting studio, (a) conducts teaching workshops, (b) stitches and sells quilts and (c) sells raw materials and accessories, including sewing machines required for quilting. The case provides a detailed account of the risks, uncertainties and crises faced by a lifestyle enterprise and its entrepreneur during its founding and growth. This case also highlights how resilience, entrepreneurial orientation and innovation can be used as survival strategies to overcome challenges. The case engages students to understand the survival strategies employed by a lifestyle entrepreneur in times of crisis.

The COVID-19 opportunity for Qure.ai

Qure.ai was a healthcare startup deep learning, a subset of machine learning, in healthcare. One of their products was used to diagnose tuberculosis and other lung ailments. With the spread of COVID-19, they were able to repurpose their product to also detect early onset of COVID-19 in patients. They were in a position where they had to decide whether to focus on COVID-19 or on the opportunities related to other lung ailments.

Entrepreneurship during crisis: Innovation practices of micro and small tour operators

Innovation as a response strategy to a crisis needs further understanding for small enterprises. This exploratory research investigates if, why, and with whom entrepreneurs in micro and small enterprises engage in innovation activities during the atypical context of the COVID-19 crisis in the tourism sector. The multiple case study with three German entrepreneurs in the tour operator market shows that micro and small enterprises despite their size hold the capacity to initiate and manage several innovation projects of different types and in different stages of the innovation value chain simultaneously during a crisis. To do so, the entrepreneurs preferably engage participants with strong social ties, independent from a place. The perceived benefits are both related to the innovation output (e.g. generate income), and the innovation activities (e.g. increased motivation of staff, increased trust of customers during the crisis). Further research is encouraged on the long-term effects of innovations resulting from a crisis.

Exploring a circular business model: Insights from the institutional theory perspective and the business model lens

Circular entrepreneurship is becoming a new, promising reality, in the manner of needed radical paradigmatic change in the era of Anthropocene. Circular entrepreneurs intend to create social and environmental value while they build financially viable businesses. They are embedded in multiple institutionalised value systems that they are expected to adhere to. Those institutionalised systems provide circular entrepreneurs with different, in many cases, contradictory norms, values and guiding principles. Substantial amount of research has been done to date to examine the impact of institutions on entrepreneurial endeavours. And yet, research lacks sufficient insights into how circular entrepreneurs engage with the institutional structures in designing business models on a financially feasible ground while creating social and environmental value. To address this, this paper investigates how circular entrepreneurs respond to the value systems of surrounding institutions in business modelling and how two fundamental aspects of embeddedness, namely resource integration and value cocreation, are achieved within a circular business model that is coherent in itself and with the entrepreneur's ambitions. Both the institutional context and the institutional logics surrounding entrepreneurs are examined to comprehend the surrounding institutional systems more in-depth and extensively. By analysing a longitudinal in-depth case study, this article aims to develop better insights into circular business modelling and underlying mechanisms of embeddedness. The case is a born-circular small cidermaker in Cornwall (UK), namely Wasted Apple. The findings show that the circular entrepreneur is surrounded by dominant normative institutions forming the principles of business model design. circular entrepreneurs mark fidelity to the institutional norms to obtain a range of microcompetencies and to manage integrated hybrid tensions within the value creation system. And therefore, a circular business model is a more holistic and inclusive structure as compared to a typical conventional linear business model. And yet, paradoxically embeddedness facilitates business survival but hinders strategic business planning as well as business profitability and growth.

Corporate entrepreneurs and collaborative innovation in crisis: The case of the Covid-19 ventilator shortage

This teaching case focuses on corporate entrepreneurship and collaborative innovation during an unprecedented crisis – the shortage in mechanical ventilators when the Covid-19 pandemic began. Based on secondary data sources, the case outlines the challenges of designing and manufacturing mechanical ventilators and introduces four initiatives, consisting of organisations with often limited experience in medical device manufacturing that attempted to address the predicted shortage of ventilators. By comparing the approaches used in these initiatives, the case sensitises students to the challenges of pursuing opportunities outside a firm's established domain of expertise and how inter-organisational collaboration affects such attempts. Although the case centres on an unprecedented event, the insights it develops make it suitable for a range of innovation and entrepreneurship-related under- and post-graduates courses.