Digital Commons Network^™

Digital Platforms And Entrepreneurial Support: A Field Experiment In Online Mentoring, Saurabh A. Lall, Li-Wei Chen, Dyana P. Mason

Management Faculty Publications

The benefits of entrepreneurial mentorship are well documented, but there is limited research on how entrepreneurs connect with mentors, especially in digital settings. We partnered with an online platform that connects entrepreneurs to potential mentors to conduct a field experiment in online mentoring. Drawing on literature on entrepreneurial mentorship and Social Cognitive Theory, we compared the effects of three interventions on the likelihood of reaching out and making a connection with a mentor in a digital setting. We find that showing entrepreneurs a video of a successful mentor–mentee relationship increases the chances that they will reach out to a potential …

Transitional Entrepreneurship: Unleashing Entrepreneurial Potential Across Numerous Challenging Contexts, Golshan Javadian, Anil Nair, David Ahlstrom, Kaveh Moghaddam, Li-Wei Chen, Younggeun Lee

Management Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] We are pleased to publish the special issue of the New England Journal of Entrepreneurship on transitional entrepreneurship. Transitional entrepreneurship refers to the practices of entrepreneurs from communities facing adversity who navigate substantial life transitions as they launch and manage new ventures in response to various changes and challenges in their environment. Entrepreneurship is not only a critical driver of economic growth and social development (Ahlstrom et al., 2019; McCloskey, 2010) but can also represent a life-changing transition for most, if not all, of the entrepreneurs themselves. Transitional entrepreneurship entails strategic pivots or transformations that enable entrepreneurs to …

Entrepreneurship Education Relation To Mathematical Proficiency Amongst Secondary Youth, Mariam Abdelhamid

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Mathematical aptitude in the United States has been a concern over the past few decades, not only from an international perspective but from a student proficiency perspective. This phenomenon is also further negatively impacted due to COVID-19 associated learning loss. Correspondingly, there are calls for students to develop entrepreneurial skills to thrive in the 21st century economy. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine whether participation in an entrepreneurship class was related to mathematical proficiency (Algebra II) in high school. Data on students from two school districts were used, consisting of 2,741 and 1,172 Algebra II students in …

Building Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (Ese): How Undergraduate Students Make Meaning Of Their Entrepreneurial Experiences, Amy Kurfist

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative, interview-based research study explores how undergraduate students at a single research university make meaning of their experiences in curricular and co-curricular university entrepreneurship programming. The study focuses on the developmental relationship between entrepreneurship education and feelings of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and how feelings of ESE relate to future entrepreneurial intentions. I explore three of Bandura’s (1977) predictors of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, and social persuasion interwoven with the six dimensions of ESE developed by De Noble, Jung, and Ehrlich (1999) to determine how undergraduate students make meaning of their entrepreneurial experiences.

Through the analysis of data collected …

Two Essays On The Impact Of Institutional Structures On Entrepreneurship: Country Level Analysis, Mehdi Sharifi Khobdeh

Management Theses & Dissertations

Entrepreneurship has long been viewed as an engine of innovation and economic growth; however, there is limited understanding of cross-national differences in rates and types of entrepreneurship. This dissertation mainly uses an institutional theory framework to investigate whether shared social knowledge, value systems, and regulations influence differences in rates and types of entrepreneurial activities among countries.

This dissertation’s central research question is addressed in two essays. In Essay 1, I examine what factors explain the recovery of entrepreneurial activities in countries after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). Nearly all countries experienced a sharp drop in entrepreneurial activities during the …

Presidents' Perceptions Of Entrepreneurial Strategies In Community Colleges: A Disruptive Innovation, James Tyler Hart

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The community college, like all of higher education, has been significantly impacted by a shifting business model and changes in funding. The purpose of this mixed methods, sequential study was to examine community college presidents’ perceptions of entrepreneurial strategies in the higher education industry. The shifting business model requires presidents to look for alternative ways to innovate and adapt as community college funding models change. Community college leaders have also been proactively seeking out alternative revenue streams in order to help offset decreased state funding. Findings of this study show that community college presidents perceive that they must be entrepreneurial …

Encouraging Entrepreneurship: Resources Supporting Small Business Startup And Growth, Karen A. Eagle

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Small business success drives the health of a local economy. The problem of this three phase mixed methods study was to encourage entrepreneurship by identifying the resources that support business startup and growth. In the first qualitative phase, the city business resource webpage was observed and 10 entrepreneurs were interviewed to identify which business resources were used for their recent startups. Using the data from the interviews, a survey instrument was developed for the Small Business Subcommittee (SBS) that was used in the second quantitative phase which included 351 business owners; 35% were women and 65% were men. The sample …

Three Essays On Institutions, Entrepreneurship, And Development, Adam Smith

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Each of the three essays contained in this dissertation examine the relationship between institutions and entrepreneurship. The underlying theory that institutions shape entrepreneurs' outcomes is well established. However, the ways in which they do so turn out to be quite nuanced and show marked dissimilarities where low income individuals are involved in the entrepreneurship process. Each essay seeks to understand and identify what contexts individuals are more likely to participate in meaningful, development-oriented entrepreneurship. In essays I and III, the focus is on individuals at the bottom of the economic spectrum.

Essay I links opportunity entrepreneurship to the presence of …

Introduction To The Special Issue: Towards A Theoretical Understanding Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship In India, Sanjay Jain, Anil Nair, David Ahlstrom

Management Faculty Publications

Over the past few decades, India has become one of the world’s most vibrant economies (Chari & Banalieva, 2015). While the first forty years after India’s independence in 1947 was characterized by a sluggish annual growth rate (of approximately 3%), economic reforms initiated in 1991 have resulted in the GDP growing at a rate of around 6.8% in the last quarter century (Chari & Banalieva, 2015;McCloskey, 2010). Conversely, while the pre-reform institutional environment generally underemphasized and undermined entrepreneurial and innovative activity (Bardhan, 1994; Baumol, Litan, & Schramm, 2009;Sivaraman, 1991), the post-reform period has been characterized by a much wider acceptance …

Three Essays On Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Kaveh Moghaddam

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Despite the saliency of immigrant entrepreneurship, our understanding of the unique challenges of start-up processes confronting immigrant entrepreneurs is quite limited. While entrepreneurship as a field of study is growing rapidly, it is criticized for the lack of commonly accepted and well developed research paradigms. To address this theoretical gap in the entrepreneurship literature in general and in the immigrant entrepreneurship research in particular this dissertation addresses the following overarching question in a three essay format: What are the start-up processes and outcomes associated with immigrant entrepreneurship? The first essay suggests a theoretical framework which exhibits how the social embeddedness …

Integration Of Market And Entrepreneurial Orientations; And Their Impact On Export Performance: A Contingency Approach, Ayse Nilgun Kaya

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Globalization has promoted worldwide exporting levels to soar and to account for more than 10% of global activity. Technological advances in information and communication technologies, production methods, transportation, and international logistics have led to the increase in the exporting activity. However, these advances have also resulted in highly competitive and turbulent markets, and sophisticated and demanding customers, which in return has required exporting firms to be both entrepreneurial- and market-oriented.

A review of the market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and exporting literature revealed three gaps that the dissertation sought to fill. First, the relationship between market orientation and entrepreneurship was not …

A Study To Identify Graduated Advanced Marketing Students From Kempsville High School Who Have Pursued A Career In Entrepreneurship, Vernon W. King Jr.

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The research goals for this study were: 1. Accumulate and analyze data on the graduated advanced marketing student who has pursued a career in entrepreneurship; 2. Determine if there is a relationship between the curriculum taught in the advanced marketing classroom and the number of graduated students currently employed in an entrepreneurship field.

A Marketing And Distribution Entrepreneurship Curriculum For Virginia, David L. Netherton

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

To answer this problem the following objectives were established: 1. Select a curriculum development model to insure the development effort would be systematic and complete; 2. Outline the foundations which guide the curriculum development effort; 3. Identify the competencies and tasks that must be performed to accomplish entrepreneurship responsibilities; 4. Identify the content that would insure that the skills, knowledge, processes, and values important to successful entrepreneurship would be covered; 5. Identify a curriculum format that would be acceptable to the Virginia Vocational Education Curriculum Laboratory for publishing marketing and distributive education curricula.