Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs who start and run new, initially small businesses, often experience obstacles and barriers that threaten their survival and limit their growth. New ventures often lack financial and managerial resources and rely on limited networks of local relationships. This limits the opportunities to attract skilled employees and scale operations, which requires substantial investments in building a network of trusting relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. New ventures commonly lack a track record of reliability and business performance, which make it difficult for potential alliance partners and investors to make well-informed decisions about them. The problems of entrepreneurial firms are often aggravated by shortcomings of their institutional environment, such as capital markets, intellectual property protection and environmental regulations. Together, these factors influencing the operation and evolution of entrepreneurial businesses create significant challenges for various stakeholders, such as the startup firms, employees and investors.

This research profile addresses a broad range of issues related to how entrepreneurial firms can build and use effective networks, get access to financial resources, attract qualified employees and deal with the challenges of the institutional environment. Our research provides insights at the levels of the individual entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial firm and the market, that help leaders to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurial businesses and stimulate a dynamic and sustainable economy. Research projects address topics such as:

• The problems of smallness and resource constraints
• Knowledge dynamics and entrepreneurial networks
• Market imperfections and institutional weaknesses
• Entrepreneurial finance