Lynn M. Martin

Purpose: This study examines how entrepreneurial mindset (EM) is enacted and reconfigured under conditions of prolonged crisis, and how this enables entrepreneurs to sustain action and create value under persistent uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach: Adopting a constructivist grounded theory approach, the study draws on 23 in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs operating in Palestine. Data were analysed iteratively through line-by-line initial coding and constant comparison, supported by a Gioia-informed analytical structure. Findings: The findings show that prolonged crisis activates EM as an enabling system for action through the interaction of cognitive flexibility, emotional adaptability, and adaptive action. Rather than facilitating opportunity expansion, these dimensions support continuity-oriented decision-making, sustained engagement, and selective action under constraint. Value creation is reframed beyond growth to include economic survival, social responsibility, and community stability, supporting value preservation. Originality/value: The study contributes to EM literature by conceptualising entrepreneurial mindset as a dynamic enabling system for action under prolonged uncertainty. In doing so, it extends entrepreneurship research beyond growth-centric and episodic crisis perspectives, highlighting forms of entrepreneurial action that are often overlooked in unstable contexts.

Purpose: This micro-level study investigates how early career researchers (ECRs) in science disciplines navigate the institutional push toward commercialisation and entrepreneurial identity adoption. While entrepreneurial university institutional discourse encourages a seamless transition from scientist to entrepreneur, ECRs may experience this process as an ongoing negotiation marked by identity ambiguity and oscillation. The study addresses a gap in the literature by theorising the temporal and relational complexity of entrepreneurial identity formation in academic settings by key actors within entrepreneurial universities. Design/methodology/approach: The research employs a longitudinal narrative inquiry focused on ECRs participating in a UK university's commercialisation programme. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, the study captures how participants construct, contest, and reconfigure their identities over time in response to intersecting legitimacy demands. Findings: The study introduces the concept of Oscillatory Entrepreneurial Identity Formation, theorising identity work as a multi-phase, recursive process. Rather than progressing linearly toward a stable entrepreneurial identity, participants move through three recursive overlapping phases: (1) legitimacy disruption and identity tension, (2) threshold activation and agency assertion, and (3) long-term reconciliation of plural identity futures. Identity formation is enacted provisionally, relationally and contextually, shaped by socio-institutional, collective, and internal legitimacy dynamics. Originality/value: This study advances a processual model of entrepreneurial identity that challenges linear transition frameworks by recognising oscillation as a legitimate developmental trajectory. It introduces the concept of legitimacy architectures, showing how institutional, relational, and disciplinary factors shape the credibility of entrepreneurial identity claims. The findings suggest that universities can better support ECRs by reshaping socialisation processes and recognising commercial activities, enabling researchers to pursue societal impact and value creation without relinquishing their disciplinary identities.

Purpose: This longitudinal qualitative study examines how sustainable entrepreneurship opportunities emerge and are enacted within established small firms. While most research focuses on startups or entrepreneurial intentions, far less is known about how opportunities unfold within ongoing businesses. To do so, the study took a micro-foundational approach to capture processes occurring in opportunity development and implementation. The study challenges linear and individualised assumptions and develops an alternative process-based perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Quarterly semi-structured interviews, focus groups and review of documentation occurred in six UK small firms over 18 months. This enabled process narratives to be constructed and recursive behaviours to be recognised. Thematic analysis was undertaken iteratively. Findings: Findings showed gaps in existing models, which did not adequately explain observed patterns, particularly in relation to iteration, distributed knowledge and the role of digital technologies – these were all found to be key to sustainable opportunity enactment in these existing firms. Research limitations/implications: (1) Cases examined were characterised by participative management structures and relatively open communication practices. The distributed recognition mechanism depends upon organisations legitimising bottom-up contributions and knowledge sharing. (2) Digital readiness and technological engagement played a constitutive role in enabling recursive opportunity cycles. In contexts with limited digital capability or restricted connectivity, this may not apply. (3) These firms demonstrated sustained environmental and community-oriented commitments. The model is therefore most directly applicable to sustainability-active SMEs rather than to firms with minimal environmental engagement. (4) In industries with low environmental salience or limited stakeholder scrutiny, the frequency and intensity of opportunity triggers may differ, potentially altering the recursive dynamics described here. Originality/value: Rather than a linear progression from recognition to implementation, the study develops a process model of iterative sustainable opportunity development, reconceptualising opportunity recognition and enactment in established SMEs as a recursive, firm-level cycles shaped by distributed knowledge mobilisation, participative management and socio-material infrastructures. It offers three advances: (1) opportunity recognition as collective and distributed, (2) recognition and implementation as intertwined and iterative and (3) digital tools and socio-material infrastructures as central mechanisms.

This article explores how learning occurs within the liminal spaces inhabited by university business incubator managers, whose roles require continual negotiation of institutional, spatial and social boundaries. Drawing on situated learning theory and the concept of communities of practice, the study examines how learning is socially constructed across shifting contexts rather than within a single, stable environment to determine how incubator managers learn to negotiate organisational and institutional boundaries and how and where such learning occurs. Using a longitudinal, ethnographically informed study of 12 incubator managers, a three-stage process was identified: learning about, learning by doing and recognising knowledge. These stages illustrate how individuals develop liminality competences that enable navigation of competing institutional logics. The findings show that liminality competence is not a static capability but a developmental learning trajectory; that learning and identity reconstruction are mutually reinforcing during sustained liminality and that belonging forms where learning occurs, not necessarily where one is employed. Learning was most actively situated in external communities such as science parks, business associations and regional networks, which became the primary locus of expertise and identification contributing to research on liminality, workplace learning and identity. This study introduces the ‘Trajectory of Boundary-Spanning Learning’ framework.

Contextual differences in entrepreneurship within a region or society are linked with its economic success (Engle et al., 2010; Webb et al., 2020) and to the role of institutions within that context (Bruton et al., 2010; Filatotchev et al., 2022). The nature and potential impacts of both formal and informal institutions signal how individuals can exercise entrepreneurial agency (Boettke & Coyne, 2009; Webb et al., 2020; Welter & Smallbone, 2011). This is particularly important in understanding immigrant entrepreneurship, where socio-economic context, together with its economic, regulatory, and policy factors and its normative and social institutions shape the nature of immigrant enterprises and support their survival and growth (Dheer, 2018; Villares-Varela et al., 2022; Ram et al., 2017).

Digital innovation is embedded across societies in how companies do business and how individuals live their lives. Across different countries, regions and industries, however, digital innovation has had very varied take-up, with some countries lagging behind others in implementing it. This chapter explores how institutional theory has been used to understand the impact of context on the take-up of digital innovation. In doing so, it identifies a research gap in existing literature, given the number of studies using partial components of institutional theory, rather than seeing it as an integrated system working within societies.

Purpose: This conceptual work examines how, in times of post-COVID-19 paradigm shift, the employee performance management (PM) process can help multinational corporations (MNCs) strengthen their talent management and, at the same time, meet their future needs.Design/methodology/approach: We take a conceptual approach and present our perspective on what we see as the most critical trends shaping PM and talent management. Contingency theory and Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) theory provide a sound theoretical framework for understanding and responding to the complex and rapidly changing business context post-COVID-19.Findings: Drawing on these theories, we create a framework providing a means of understanding why and how MNCs can maintain talent and, at the same time, develop new talent through the PM process.Practical implications: Importantly, our study emphasizes the critical role that project management and talent management techniques play for both practitioners and scholars. In order to gain and sustain a competitive edge in the ever-changing VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) landscape, these processes necessitate ongoing reassessment and adaptation. As Plato eloquently stated, “Our Need Will Be the Real Creator,” encapsulating our vision for the proactive and dynamic nature of effective project management and talent management practices.Originality/value: The study establishes the benefits of an agile and flexible PM approach to help develop talent and pave the way for future research in this increasingly critical area

This paper makes a novel contribution by turning an ‘asset’ lens onto social and technical innovation in the context of the small-scale generation of renewable energy. The authors draw on learning from an international project that aimed to develop innovative technologies for the micro generation of energy using wastes and residues. Variations on innovation that cut across the social and technical are introduced. It is noted that although emanating from different traditions, a common theme is emphasis on a distributed knowledge base in which the roles of innovator, producer and consumer overlap or merge. This implies that the (social) innovation process is also one of co-creation. The authors borrow from international development studies the Sustainable Livelihood Analysis (SLA) framework, which is usually used for working with poor households to foreground strengths and resources rather than needs and deficits. To illustrate the utility of SLA for social innovation at local and community level, findings are presented from UK fieldwork on socio economic barriers and opportunities affecting the feasibility of new community energy generation and enterprise options. The importance and the fragility of human assets are highlighted.

This paper is about evidencing the social value of co-produced public services. We use Mary Douglas's theory of cultural variation to frame conflicting assumptions about what kinds of information count as good and reliable. With its emphasis on active participation, equality and mutual decision-making, co-production fits what Douglas called an ‘egalitarian’ worldview. It aligns well with local, contextual, experiential forms of information such as storytelling. Yet in present-day public services, alternatives favour individual choice, hierarchical rules, or chance outcomes. It is comfortable but ineffective to share only information that meets the preferences of one worldview and fails to respond to others.

The study explores how boundary-spanning is carried out to further community engagement in 15 universities of differing sizes/ages across the United Kingdom. Fifteen interviewees participated in a series of four semi-structured interviews, aged between 35–50 and with a first degree (with almost half with an MSc). One third were women. All managed their own teams and felt these were their base in negotiating difficult internal territory.. Here, boundary spanning is found to be synonymous with identity work, carried out to enable individuals to adapt to different internal and external conditions and requirements through processes of interaction and learning. It also suggests the strategic construction of identities to address perceived threats and insecurities - and the impacts of change, dominant organisational discourse and senior management on this process. Their job titles were not useful as identity badges to signal meaning, due to these being outside ‘what universities are for’.