Over the past century, an extensive literature has developed, exploring the impact of entrepreneurship on economic performance. The active participation of entrepreneurs in virtually all aspects of business and economic activity has obliged policy makers within the global economy to consider entrepreneurship as a determining variable in any political force, not only for bodies and groups created specifically to this end, but also for any decision-making body. To this end, specific actions promoting entrepreneurship have already been established around the world.

However, the particular dynamics of entrepreneurship by women present unique opportunities and challenges. The women's perspective has often been overlooked in research, practice, and policymaking, and yet yields rich insights and implications. This volume features research from an international array of authors, global data, and in-depth analysis of women's entrepreneurial activity in Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Canada, to shed light on the positive impact of women's entrepreneurship on economic growth and development. The first part covers a broad range of concepts relating to the history and context of the female economic perspective. The second part focuses on performance and success factors, with respect to such issues as innovation, social needs, and entrepreneurial orientation. The third part addresses issues of financing, including discussion of access to capital, microcredit, and entrepreneurial behavior. The fourth part considers additional topics, such as work-family balance and access to education. Together, the chapters offer new perspectives on the unique characteristics of women entrepreneurs and their contributions to economic development in theory, practice, and policymaking. "

Miguel-Angel Galindo Martin, Joaquin Guzman Cuevas and Domingo Ribeiro Soriano University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain The economic growth and the progress of the nations have been two issues that have worried to the economists during centuries. The classical eco- mics books have developed different theories and considered several f- tors that could explain those processes. Unfortunately, a single answer has not been obtained and nowadays economists try also to achieve a response to the mechanism of economic growth. Economic growth has been considered as one of the most relevant e- nomic policy. As it is well known, the validity of an economic policy is measured in terms of economic growth rate. It is supposed that those countries that obtain a higher economic growth rate are designing more efficient economic policies than those that show lower rates. The main corollary to this hypothesis is that the developing countries must follow and copy the economic policies designed by the developed countries."

Entrepreneurship can, at times, seem like a veritable jungle where finding one's way can prove to be difficult. This book functions as a map locating the most important issues: those where an acceptable consensus already exists, and those that remain open to discussion. In so doing, we have presented the accounts of distinguished explorers in their own words.

This book connects entrepreneurship and psychology research by focusing on the personality dimensions of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial leadership, and gender behavior. It features state of the art interdisciplinary research offering a unified perspective on entrepreneurial psychology. Individual chapters address advances related to entrepreneurial intentions, complexity management, personality psychology, intrapreneurial behavior, entrepreneurial communities and demographic changes, among others. Laboratory experiments that study entrepreneurial behavior round out the coverage.

Over the past century, an extensive literature has developed, exploring the impact of entrepreneurship on economic performance. The active participation of entrepreneurs in virtually all aspects of business and economic activity has obliged policy makers within the global economy to consider entrepreneurship as a determining variable in any political force, not only for bodies and groups created specifically to this end, but also for any decision-making body. To this end, specific actions promoting entrepreneurship have already been established around the world. However, the particular dynamics of entrepreneurship by women present unique opportunities and challenges. The women's perspective has often been overlooked in research, practice, and policymaking, and yet yields rich insights and implications. This volume features research from an international array of authors, global data, and in-depth analysis of women's entrepreneurial activity in Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Canada, to shed light on the positive impact of women's entrepreneurship on economic growth and development. The first part covers a broad range of concepts relating to the history and context of the female economic perspective. The second part focuses on performance and success factors, with respect to such issues as innovation, social needs, and entrepreneurial orientation. The third part addresses issues of financing, including discussion of access to capital, microcredit, and entrepreneurial behavior. The fourth part considers additional topics, such as work-family balance and access to education. Together, the chapters offer new perspectives on the unique characteristics of women entrepreneurs and their contributions to economic development in theory, practice, and policymaking.

Entrepreneurship can, at times, seem like a veritable jungle where finding one's way can prove to be difficult. This book functions as a map locating the most important issues: those where an acceptable consensus already exists, and those that remain open to discussion. In so doing, we have presented the accounts of distinguished explorers in their own words.

This book connects entrepreneurship and psychology research by focusing on the personality dimensions of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial leadership, and gender behavior. It features state of the art interdisciplinary research offering a unified perspective on entrepreneurial psychology. Individual chapters address advances related to entrepreneurial intentions, complexity management, personality psychology, intrapreneurial behavior, entrepreneurial communities and demographic changes, among others. Laboratory experiments that study entrepreneurial behavior round out the coverage.

Miguel-Angel Galindo Martin, Joaquin Guzman Cuevas and Domingo Ribeiro Soriano University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain The economic growth and the progress of the nations have been two issues that have worried to the economists during centuries. The classical eco- mics books have developed different theories and considered several f- tors that could explain those processes. Unfortunately, a single answer has not been obtained and nowadays economists try also to achieve a response to the mechanism of economic growth. Economic growth has been considered as one of the most relevant e- nomic policy. As it is well known, the validity of an economic policy is measured in terms of economic growth rate. It is supposed that those countries that obtain a higher economic growth rate are designing more efficient economic policies than those that show lower rates. The main corollary to this hypothesis is that the developing countries must follow and copy the economic policies designed by the developed countries."

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 5th Annual Global Innovation and Knowledge Academy, GIKA 2015, held in Valencia, Spain, in July 2015. The theme of the conference was "New Knowledge Impacts on Designing Implementable Innovative Realities." The GIKA conference offers a unique opportunity for researchers, professionals, and students to present and exchange ideas concerning management, information systems, and business economics and see its implications in the real world. The 13 contributions accepted for GIKA 2015 were selected from 102 submissions and include research that contributes to the creation of a solid evidence base concerning new information and communication technologies for knowledge management, measuring the impact and diffusion of new technologies within organizations, and highlighting the role of new technologies and tools in the relationships between knowledge management and organizational innovation.