Internationalisation and the small business
Kevin Ibeh 24.1 Introduction This chapter is concerned with internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It starts with some reflections on the now-established status of SMEs as international market …
Franchising and the small business
John Stanworth and David Purdy 23.1 Introduction At its best, franchising is an avenue into self-employment offered by franchisors (owners of a ‘tried-and-tested’ business format) to franchisees (typically aspiring small …
E-commerce and the small business
Nigel Lockett and David Brown 22.1 Introduction This chapter looks beyond the extraordinary developments in information and communication technology (ICT), particularly e-commerce and e-business, to the opportunities and challenges presented …
Strategy and the small business
Colm O'Gorman 21.1 Introduction This chapter introduces the concepts of strategy and competitive advantage and their relationship to the management of small firms. Within the study of organisations the strategy …
Labour management and the small business
Susan Marlow 20.1 Introduction Evidence indicates that the majority of people currently employed in the private sector work in small firms (DTI, 2003a). Yet until quite recently, we knew relatively …
Venture capital and the small business
Colin Mason 19.1 Introduction Firms pursuing significant growth opportunities are likely to find that their financial needs exceed their capability to generate funds internally while their ability to attract bank …
Finance and the small business
Robin Jarvis 18.1 Introduction The information available on how small firms are financed is limited because little is in the public domain. However, through a careful search of the literature …
Marketing and the small business
David Stokes 17.1 Introduction This chapter considers the role that marketing plays in the fortunes of small businesses and their owners. Although marketing is a key factor in their survival …
Networking and the small business
Stephen Conway and Oswald Jones 16.1 Introduction The study of entrepreneurship has often concentrated on either the personality traits of entrepreneurs or upon neoclassical views of rational economic activity. Critics …
The entrepreneurial leader
There are numerous definitions of what makes an entrepreneurial leader and, with reference to the work of Hitt et al. (1999), Kurakto and Hodgetts (2001: 516) have suggested that ‘entrepreneurial …
Leadership development
As with entrepreneurship itself, there is considerable debate over whether leaders are born or made. While it is generally accepted that the natural, truly inspirational leaders are probably born, there …
Leadership in practice
As mentioned earlier, the leader gets a task completed by developing good relationships with colleagues and harnessing their combined resources. According to Appell (1984: 173), it is the leader’s task …
Theories of leadership
Leadership theories are commonly grouped into four broad categories, as follows. 15.4.1 Theories of leadership traits This is one of the earliest approaches to the study of leadership. It assumes …
Concepts of leadership and entrepreneurship
To justify the contention proposed above, it is necessary, perhaps, to examine in more detail the concepts of leadership and entrepreneurship. This has been done, already, by Perren (undated) in …
Leadership, entrepreneurship and management of small businesses
David A. Kirby 15.1 Introduction Before it is possible to consider leadership and the management of small businesses, it is necessary to examine the concept of entrepreneurship and its relationship …
Learning and the intrapreneurial firm
An increasingly complex business environment, where rapid changes in technology, competition, regulation and customer needs are the norm, has led to the search for new ways in which large firms …
Intrapreneurial characteristics — who is the intrapreneur?
Studies have shown that managers and entrepreneurs vary considerably across a range of behavioural patterns. As Bouchard (2002) notes, their strategic orientation, the nature of their commitment, the way they …
Barriers to intrapreneurship within a corporate culture
The success of entrepreneurial practices within companies such as Apple and Microsoft in the US and Virgin and Marks and Spencer in the UK has resulted in attempts by many …
Climate for intrapreneurship within an organisation
As with independent entrepreneurs, many managers in a corporation are not capable of being successful intrapreneurs. Being an intrapreneur is not something that can be assigned to individuals within an …
Entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial ventures
Therefore, intrapreneurship does not merely mean the development of a small business within a large organisation, and there are significant differences between creating a new independent venture and establishing a …
Defining intrapreneurship
As the previous chapters in this book have already demonstrated, there are a number of definitions of entrepreneurship. However, these tend to describe the activities of the owner-manager within a …
Intrapreneurship
In many economies, large companies are a result of the favourable trading conditions enjoyed in the immediate years after the Second World War, with corporate bureaucracies set up to manage …
Corporate entrepreneurship
Dylan Jones-Evans 14.1 Introduction To compete effectively in dynamic and fast-changing world markets, many large organisations are adopting more innovative and enterprising approaches to management. One of these approaches is …
The technical entrepreneur
In considering the resources necessary to establish a technology-based firm, labour, capital and land are important, but the key ‘input’ is the entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs of their day include Henry …
The emergence of technical entrepreneurship
Technical entrepreneurship is not a new concept based on twenty-first century computer whiz kids. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, British technical entrepreneurs such as James Watt and Alexander Graham …
The study of technical entrepreneurship
Among studies in small business the investigation of firms in new-technology fields has been growing in popularity; while many of the early studies were conducted in the US, interest in …
The development of technical entrepreneurship
Over the past 25 to 30 years many economies have experienced marked structural shifts. Developed, western economies have seen the decline of many traditional industrial sectors and a dramatic increase …
Technical entrepreneurship
Sarah Cooper 13.1 Introduction This chapter explores some current issues in the field of technical entrepreneurship. Contrasting research approaches are discussed and issues that impact upon the entrepreneurial process are …
Social enterprise
The organisational landscape of social entrepreneurship can best be conceptualised as a dynamic continuum ordered by the range of available funding structures (see Figure 12.3). The boundaries of this continuum …
Drivers of social entrepreneurship
A range of diverse drivers behind the rise of social entrepreneurship in its modern form may be discerned (Bornstein, 2004: 6-10). On the demand side, these include a series of …
The social dimension
The second distinguishing element of social entrepreneurship, its ‘social’ dimension, is also problematic. Primarily, this is because there has yet to be sufficient critical analysis given to the underlying complexity …
The entrepreneurial dimension
The entrepreneurial dimension of social entrepreneurship is often articulated in terms of the established conceptualisation of the commercial, private-sector entrepreneur. Research into the latter has typically focused on two analytic …
What is social entrepreneurship?
Social entrepreneurship. . . combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon …
Introducing social entrepreneurship
Once in a rare while, the fundamental architecture of a significant part of society shifts. Over the last two and one-half decades, the organisation of the social half of society, …
Social entrepreneurship
Alex Nicholls 12.1 Introduction This chapter explores the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship. Whilst the term is increasingly to be found in public discourse there is still considerable confusion about what …
