Professional services are increasingly seen as an important foundation for future economic growth and prosperity. Yet research on innovative and entrepreneurial processes in professional services has been surprisingly scarce. This Handbook provides a collection of original contributions from leading scholars outlining the current stock of knowledge in the area as well as providing directions for further research. The expert contributors discuss entrepreneurship and innovation from a number of different perspectives, including the entrepreneurial professional team, the entrepreneurial firm and the institutional environment. The first part of the book looks at the challenges of entrepreneurship specific to the professional service firm while the second explores the creation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities in the professional service team. Part III turns to the organization and Part IV to the management and growth of the entrepreneurial professional service firm. The final part discusses the interplay between professions, firms and the institutional environment. Researchers, scholars and PhD students in the areas of entrepreneurship and professional service firms along with advanced students of management will find this volume of great value.

Challenging the traditional view that entrepreneurship is exclusively a private-sector concern, Governpreneurship presents a compelling argument for increased focus on entrepreneurship in public sector organizations. The only book to date to focus specifically on government entrepreneurship, this innovative volume combines Robert D. Hisrich's vast theoretical knowledge with the practical experience of Amr Al-Dabbagh, who applied entrepreneurship in the Saudi public sector with excellent results. Featuring forewords by former US President Bill Clinton and former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, as well as four case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of government entrepreneurship in action, this fascinating book breaks new ground in a rapidly growing field. In a time when government funds are being reduced and its services increasingly questioned, fostering an entrepreneurial spirit within the government becomes a vital concern. Although there is no ideal model for achieving government entrepreneurship, this volume outlines a number of innovative strategies designed to help public sector managers undertake their public mission while developing an entrepreneurial culture within their organization. The authors offer thorough and indispensible advice covering every aspect of government entrepreneurship, from framework to policy to funding and beyond. Finally, the book concludes with four case studies that explore successful government entrepreneurial undertakings in Ireland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland. Government officials and other leaders in the public sector will find this book an indispensible guide to establishing an entrepreneurial focus in their organizations. Professors and students working in entrepreneurship, public sector management, and other business-related fields will also have much to admire in this innovative addition to the literature.

This Handbook brings together pioneering, original work on organisational entrepreneurship. It provides a broad coverage and rich agenda for future research and teaching on the entrepreneurship-organisation relationship. Organisational entrepreneurship represents an interdisciplinary field of research that relates organisation, entrepreneurship and innovation studies in new ways. This Handbook establishes the scope of this interdisciplinary domain, challenges our perception of relationships between organisation(s) and entrepreneurship, and asks new questions central to our capacity to describe, analyse and understand organisational entrepreneurship. Providing a broad and rich set of examples of interdisciplinary research and bridging the fields of strategic management, organisation studies, entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, this important compendium will prove invaluable to graduate students and scholars in these fields.

This comprehensive Handbook provides an essential analysis of new venture creation research. The eminent contributors critically discuss and explore the current literature as well as suggest improvements to the field. They reveal a strong sense of both the `state-of-the-art' (what has and has not been done in new venture creation research) and the `state-of-the-could-be' (future directions the field should take to improve knowledge). The Handbook comprises nineteen chapters divided into four main sections: setting the agenda; theoretical perspectives; data and measurements; and new venture creation through contextual lenses. This path-breaking Handbook has allowed experienced new venture researchers to tell the world not only where the field has been, but also where it should be going. Their responses have provided an insightful and stimulating resource that will be of great practical value to researchers working in this vital and rapidly expanding subject. Students and practitioners interested in understanding leading edge thinking in the field of new venture creation will also find this Handbook invaluable.

This impressive book outlines the complexities peculiar to the field of social entrepreneurship. Such complexities manifest at different moments in the development of a social entrepreneurial venture. It ties together many of the pressing issues and questions often encountered by social entrepreneurs and innovators as they identify, create, develop and sustain their own solutions throughout the life-cycle of their ventures. The contributors expertly focus on the individual, organizational and institutional levels of social entrepreneurship. They address the role of personal values and leadership in the conduct of social entrepreneurial initiatives while stressing the importance of stakeholders in relation to human resource management, innovation or opportunity discovery. Finally, they analyze the role of institutions in legitimating social entrepreneurs' actions. Social entrepreneurship, as a multi-disciplinary field, presents a unique opportunity and environment for researchers to contribute to academic-focused knowledge on both theoretical frameworks and practical skills on a holistic level. This volume offers a comprehensive foundation for this endeavor.

This authoritative collection presents the most important and influential contributions to the study of entrepreneurial opportunity. The first section investigates the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity. The second presents the best work of the last ten years on the dynamics and nature of opportunity emergence. The careful selection of articles, alongside an original introduction by the editors, concludes by highlighting the varying contexts in which entrepreneurial opportunity can occur and strategies for researching it.

This insightful book presents leading-edge European research on entrepreneurial processes in a changing global world. The contributors take a closer look at what constitutes entrepreneurial processes; how entrepreneurs develop their businesses and access critical resources in times of crisis; and which roles knowledge and innovation play in continuous venture development. The chapters included in this volume give a flavour of the themes and approaches featuring in contemporary entrepreneurship and small business research in Europe. Entrepreneurial Processes in a Changing Economy will prove invaluable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of entrepreneurship and small business. Entrepreneurship and small business researchers as well as policy makers will also find plenty of relevant information in this important resource.

This much-needed book draws together Howard Aldrich's key contribution to entrepreneurship research over recent decades. In an original introduction, the author first lays out the evolutionary approach, examining the assumptions and principles of `selection logic' that drive evolutionary explanations. The book then expands on evolutionary theory as applied to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the role of historical and comparative analysis before focusing on the importance of social networks, particularly as they affect the genesis of entrepreneurial teams. Professor Aldrich takes a strategic approach to the creation of new organizational populations and communities, using examples from the commercialization of the Internet and the collapse of the Internet bubble. The book then presents his contributions to gender and family, offering a `family embeddedness' perspective before focusing on the implications of entrepreneurship for stratification and inequality in modern societies, combining an evolutionary with a life course perspective. Finally, he concludes the book with another original essay, reflecting on future directions for entrepreneurship research. This mix of groundbreaking papers that introduced new concepts into the entrepreneurship literature will prove invaluable to scholars - graduate students and faculty members - interested in research on entrepreneurship. Professors of entrepreneurship and strategy as well as academics teaching organizational sociology courses will also find plenty of invaluable information in this important resource.

The very foundation of the economy is changing. Across the United States, primary and secondary sector industries are no longer as viable as they once were - because the particular businesses are no longer profitable, because the underlying resources are no longer as plentiful or desirable, or because human activity is not essential to various aspects of an industry's operations. As economies evolve from traditional industrial resources, such as mining and manufacturing, to `new' resources, such as information and content, innovation and entrepreneurship are key. Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Evolving Economies examines the role of law in supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in communities whose economies are in transition. It contains a collection of works from different perspectives and tackles tough questions regarding policy and practice, including how support for entrepreneurship can be translated into policy. Additionally, this collection addresses more concrete questions of practical efficacy, including measures of how successful or unsuccessful legal efforts to incentivize entrepreneurship may be, through intellectual property law and otherwise, and what might define success to begin with. Expertly researched and widely accessible, Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Evolving Economies will appeal especially to students and scholars of innovation, law, and entrepreneurship.

Do entrepreneurs create ventures or do venture experiences create entrepreneurs? The authors of Entrepreneurship as Experience propose that the answer is `both'. This important volume examines how individuals experience the creation of a venture as it happens and how that experience determines the types of entrepreneur and venture that ultimately emerge. In essence, entrepreneurship is an experience consisting of large numbers of key events such as a first sale, hiring a first employee, losing a big account - events that are processed and made sense of by the entrepreneur. They produce cognitive, emotional and physiological responses, which impact decision-making and behavior. The result is an experience that is purposive, diverse, uncertain, ambiguous and transformative - and unique to each individual. Here, the authors argue that as experience unfolds both entrepreneur and venture are being constructed and emerge in unique forms. This experiential view introduces an entirely new lens through which entrepreneurship can be examined. Entrepreneurship as Experience comprises chapters dedicated to sociological, anthropological and psychological research related to human experiencing; the volume presents a new frame for understanding the role of emotions and feelings in venture creation and lays out a conceptual framework for understanding how real-time experiencing informs the entrepreneurial process. New insights are provided regarding how the entrepreneurial mindset and an entrepreneurial identity are formed, and why entrepreneurs take on certain traits and develop certain competencies. Further, the authors put forth new approaches to conducting research on the entrepreneurial experience. Students - advanced as well as undergraduate - and scholars of entrepreneurship, innovation, strategy and management will find themselves turning often to the ideas and research presented here.

Bringing technologies to the market, thereby creating profits, high-qualified jobs and industrial upgrading is one of the means by which China can fuel its brand new growth model based on innovation and sustainability. Much is known about the mechanisms of technological entrepreneurship. But how does this happen in China? Who is doing what? Is there a `Chinese way' to do technological entrepreneurship? This thought-provoking book provides readers with a closer look at these issues and clarifies them through a number of case studies discussed from the perspectives of both Chinese and international contributors. Technological Entrepreneurship in China offers a comprehensive and practical assessment of technological entrepreneurship in China. Exclusively based on cases, the book tackles the issues of technological entrepreneurship in China from a systemic view. In so doing the book provides an account of the main factors at work behind Chinese technological entrepreneurship and their interplay, the past and present transitions facing Chinese technology-based enterprises, and how those transitions were and are being dealt with. It offers a glimpse in a huge natural experiment that will prove insightful for both scholars and policymakers.

The groundbreaking game rules contained in this book have inspired thousands of business owners to embark on the journey towards Extreme Business Success.

As small and medium business owners, we often make achieving outrageous success far harder than it should be. If you know the rules of the business game, it's so much easier to achieve success in every aspect of your business.

In this book you will discover:
•  the 12 Laws of Extreme Business Success, and how by understanding and applying them you can turn your "mind" into "millions"
• that the bigger your "promise", the bigger your business can become
• that to achieve success, you must move your passion from practicing your craft to creating an enterprise
• why the right timing and rhythm creates momentum for your business, and how you can use this momentum to achieve Extreme Business Success
• that when you take yourself and your business too seriously, you lose the pleasure of the journey
• the importance of playing to win and leading your field

This book historicizes entrepreneurship research, its primary thesis being `history matters'. Expert contributors discuss the field's long history and explore whether it has developed a mature and comprehensive knowledge base. The intellectual roots of several important theories are then examined in depth because, as entrepreneurship research has become more theory driven, and scholars have borrowed theories from many different fields, it becomes increasingly important to understand their origin. Finally, the book demonstrates how economic history research (for example, the historical and institutional context of entrepreneurial behaviour) can contribute to our understanding of entrepreneurship. Providing a broad overview of myriad theories and both their development and utilization in extant entrepreneurship research, this book will prove a fascinating and illuminating read for students, researchers and academics in the field of entrepreneurship.

25 Steps to Found and Scale a High-Growth Business The Startup Checklist is the entrepreneur's essential companion. While most entrepreneurship books focus on strategy, this invaluable guide provides the concrete steps that will get your new business off to a strong start. You'll learn the ins and outs of startup execution, management, legal issues, and practical processes throughout the launch and growth phases, and how to avoid the critical missteps that threaten the foundation of your business. Instead of simply referring you to experts, this discussion shows you exactly which experts you need, what exactly you need them to do, and which tools you will use to support them and you'll gain enough insight to ask smart questions that help you get your money's worth. If you're ready to do big things, this book has you covered from the first business card to the eventual exit. Over two thirds of startups are built on creaky foundations, and over two thirds of startup costs go directly toward cleaning up legal and practical problems caused by an incomplete or improper start. This book helps you sidestep the messy and expensive clean up process by giving you the specific actions you need to take right from the very beginning. * Understand the critical intricacies of legally incorporating and running a startup * Learn which experts you need, and what exactly you need from them * Make more intelligent decisions independent of your advisors * Avoid the challenges that threaten to derail great young companies The typical American startup costs over $30,000 and requires working with over two dozen professionals and service providers before it even opens for business and the process is so complex that few founders do it correctly. Their startups errors often go unnoticed until the founder tries to seek outside capital, at which point they can cost thousands of dollars to fix...or even completely derail an investment. The Startup Checklist helps you avoid these problems and lay a strong foundation, so you can focus on building your business.

This informative Handbook examines successful women small business owners in both developed and emergent countries around the globe and, in particular, focuses on women entrepreneur success stories. The contributors expertly identify the issues that underpin the success of women small business owners around the globe. Each chapter provides an up-to-date, country-specific review of women's position in employment and small business ownership and addresses the structural and contextual barriers. They also highlight two cases studies about successful women business owners, and consider strategies relating to the development of women's business ownership by exploring practical initiatives that have worldwide transferability. International Research Handbook on Successful Women Entrepreneurs will prove essential reading for students and academics in the fields of entrepreneurship, international business and gender studies. It will also be of invaluable interest to policy-makers, government officials, and those in traditional markets who wish to understand the nature of small business ownership for women in developing and emerging countries.

The early years of the 21st Century could well be called the `decade(s) of the entrepreneur'. Entrepreneurship is an often-featured topic in magazine and newspaper articles, popular television shows and major films. Universities have added courses, departments, and even schools of entrepreneurship to their catalogs, and governments at all levels are competing to develop programs to encourage entrepreneurship. A key reason behind this growing interest is the widely held belief - supported by economic data - that entrepreneurship is a powerful engine of economic growth. By presenting accurate knowledge about entrepreneurship itself, this book serves to convert the rising tide of interest in entrepreneurship into advice and guidance that can actually assist entrepreneurs in achieving their goals. In order to do so, this book presents evidence-based information concerning the factors that encourage entrepreneurship's emergence, including the conditions that shape its outcomes and how it unfolds as a process. This text draws on two key sources of knowledge - input from entrepreneurs and the findings of systematic empirical research. As the sub-title suggests, however, emphasis is placed on the latter whenever possible because the information individual entrepreneurs possess cannot readily serve as the basis for general principles or guidelines since it is unique to each entrepreneur. By combining evidence-based knowledge with the hard-earned wisdom of experienced entrepreneurs, this volume offers a balanced and inclusive guide useful to both current and aspiring entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is indeed a driving force of economic growth. But beyond that, it is also a key mechanism through which human creativity, ingenuity, skill, and energy are converted into tangible outcomes that can, and often do, change the world in ways that enhance and enrich human welfare. This volume will be of particular interest to students of entrepreneurship in a broad array of fields ranging from business and management to engineering and governance. Suitable for undergraduate courses and graduate programs alike, this book is frontier blazing in its own right and will help those who read it be so as well.

The early years of the 21st Century could well be called the `decade(s) of the entrepreneur'. Entrepreneurship is an often-featured topic in magazine and newspaper articles, popular television shows and major films. Universities have added courses, departments, and even schools of entrepreneurship to their catalogs, and governments at all levels are competing to develop programs to encourage entrepreneurship. A key reason behind this growing interest is the widely held belief - supported by economic data - that entrepreneurship is a powerful engine of economic growth. By presenting accurate knowledge about entrepreneurship itself, this book serves to convert the rising tide of interest in entrepreneurship into advice and guidance that can actually assist entrepreneurs in achieving their goals. In order to do so, this book presents evidence-based information concerning the factors that encourage entrepreneurship's emergence, including the conditions that shape its outcomes and how it unfolds as a process. This text draws on two key sources of knowledge - input from entrepreneurs and the findings of systematic empirical research. As the sub-title suggests, however, emphasis is placed on the latter whenever possible because the information individual entrepreneurs possess cannot readily serve as the basis for general principles or guidelines since it is unique to each entrepreneur. By combining evidence-based knowledge with the hard-earned wisdom of experienced entrepreneurs, this volume offers a balanced and inclusive guide useful to both current and aspiring entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is indeed a driving force of economic growth. But beyond that, it is also a key mechanism through which human creativity, ingenuity, skill, and energy are converted into tangible outcomes that can, and often do, change the world in ways that enhance and enrich human welfare. This volume will be of particular interest to students of entrepreneurship in a broad array of fields ranging from business and management to engineering and governance. Suitable for undergraduate courses and graduate programs alike, this book is frontier blazing in its own right and will help those who read it be so as well.

The informal economy represents a significant share of output and employment in many developing countries. Yet little is known about this hidden engine of innovation. This pioneering study addresses some crucial questions, including: what is the role of the informal sector in economic development? How does innovation occur in the informal economy? How does it spread, who are the key actors and what impacts does it have? How do inventors and entrepreneurs in the informal economy reap benefits from their innovations? What stops informal sector innovation from scaling up? How can informal sector innovation in developing countries be measured? And what policies might support informal sector innovation and improve its impacts? This book will stimulate further work on this crucial but under-researched subject. As well as rich empirical evidence from several groundbreaking studies, it includes conceptual and methodological tools and policy recommendations to help researchers and policy-makers understand innovation in the informal economy.

Although there is an expanding body of literature on the characteristics, aspirations, motivations, challenges and barriers of mainstream entrepreneurs, relatively little is known about whether these findings can be applied to the entrepreneurial activities of minority groups. This book addresses this short-fall and presents an international review of the characteristics, motivations and obstacles of eight minority groups: younger; older; women; ethnic; immigrant; lesbian, gay and bisexual; disabled; and indigenous entrepreneurs. The expert contributors discover enormous variability between these minority groups, such as in the motivators that either `pushed' or `pulled' individuals into an entrepreneurial venture, as well as diverse attitudes toward `success': some groups wanted to achieve financial security - others wanted to enhance their sense of self-worth, or to change existing social and economic circumstances. However, some striking similarities were noted: initial disadvantage often created a powerful impetus to starting up a business venture, and accessing finance was extremely difficult for many. Including comparative cross cultural data and case studies on the various minority groups reviewed, both post graduate students and undergraduate students studying entrepreneurship will find this book an invaluable resource. In addition, it will also be of interest to policy makers, governments and all those who wish to comprehend the nature of small business ownership for a wide range of minority business owners.

Global Women's Entrepreneurship Research responds to recent calls from academic researchers and policy analysts alike to pay greater attention to the diversity and heterogeneity among women entrepreneurs. Drawing together studies by 26 researchers affiliated with the DIANA International Research Network, this collection contributes to a richer and more robust understanding of the field. Part I: `Diverse Settings' introduces research set in a range of contexts, from those rarely examined to those representing more familiar terrains. Part II: `Diverse Questions' explores new questions and reframes old questions in fresh, innovative ways. Part III: `Diverse Approaches' features studies with distinct methodological approaches that reflect and extend the rigour and creativity of research in this field. Together, the research assembled in this volume significantly advances knowledge about women's entrepreneurship around the world. While the book's primary audience is academic researchers and graduate students working in the areas of women's entrepreneurship, as well as entrepreneurship and family business more generally, it will also be of interest to scholars working in related research areas in the sociology of gender, work and organizations. Policy-makers in government and non-government agencies as well as profit and not-for-profit organizations that provide services to, or conduct research on, women entrepreneurs will also benefit greatly from the insights provided in this unique volume.

This impressive Handbook provides a dynamic perspective on the development of successful born global firms, including evolutionary phases and pathways of growth, emergence of entire born global industries, role of founders' linkages, experience, culture and training, as well as collaboration with large MNEs. The expert contributors and the editors explore the origin and evolution of born globals and the changing history of this sector. They outline the training involved in developing international intellectual entrepreneurs and study the effects of different cultures on the origin and growth of born globals. The Handbook focuses on the different types of born globals that emerge from the general set of SMEs - ranging from the pure born globals to the born again globals, the born regionals, and their sub group of born again regionals. It also innovatively differentiates these from internationalizing SMEs and international new ventures. Providing a dynamic perspective on the development of successful born global firms, this book will prove essential reading for researchers and students of international business. Founders of born global firms will also learn about novel management practices, whilst educational institutions and governments will find invaluable insights on how to foster the emergence of successful born globals.

The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index both captures the context features of entrepreneurship and fills a gap in the measurement of development. Building on recent advances in entrepreneurship and economic development, the authors have created an index that offers a measure of the quality of the business formation process in 79 of the most important countries in the world. Zoltan J. Acs and Laszlo Szerb expertly capture the contextual feature of entrepreneurship by focusing on entrepreneurial attitudes, entrepreneurial actions and entrepreneurial aspirations. The data and their contribution to the business formation process are supported by three decades of research into entrepreneurship across a host of countries. The unique index construction of individual and institutional measures integrates 31 variables from various data sources into 14 pillars, three sub-indexes and a `super index'. The relationship between entrepreneurship and economic development appears to be more or less mildly S-shaped. The findings suggest moving away from simple measures of entrepreneurship across countries illustrating a U-shaped or L-shaped relationship to more complex measures, which are positively related to development. The model has important implications for development policy. This unique book will be invaluable for researchers, policymakers and entrepreneurs themselves keen to expand their understanding of entrepreneurship and development.

Second tier high-tech regions are taking a different path than their well-known counterparts such as Silicon Valley or Route 128 around Boston. They may lack many prerequisites of growth such as a world-class research university or high levels of venture capital funding. Often, however, they can successfully leverage anchor firms and entrepreneurial spinoffs. This book explores the evolution of these regions in the United States. The author critically examines how they evolved as knowledge-based economies, how they leveraged entrepreneurship and innovation, and ultimately how they employed public policy to support economic growth. Filling a gap in the literature, the book speaks to researchers and policymakers across the fields of entrepreneurship, economic geography and economic development planning. Entrepreneurship researchers will find this book interesting because it focuses on the role of new venture creation in regional economic development.

The continuing success of the Asian Miracle relies on an entrepreneurial revolution that has increased the productivity and flexibility of economies across the region. Yet this revolution has largely been necessity-driven, traditional and vulnerable to erosion as the region becomes increasingly prosperous and well educated. How to educate the next wave of entrepreneurs is a pressing Asian question that resonates around the world and is the subject of this volume. Hugh Thomas and Donna Kelley draw on 24 scholars from 15 institutions to report on regional entrepreneurship education. They identify problems encountered by educators and describe solutions that stimulate students to create value. The approaches are hands-on, project-based and multidisciplinary, geared to develop educator-to-business entrepreneurial ecosystems. The entrepreneurial programs described in this book involve experiencing foreign cultures, working with major corporations, consulting to small and medium sized enterprises, travelling to distant lands, addressing environmental and social problems, and reaching out to the disadvantaged. Social entrepreneurship is combined with for-profit entrepreneurship in programs that extend the concept of value creation. This book eloquently and expertly describes how entrepreneurship education - whether in Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, China or elsewhere on the globe - can combine with community to help youth create a better world. Students and scholars the world over, along with administrators, researchers, and all those with an interest in education and entrepreneurship, will find much of interest in this enlightening volume.