Edgar Nave

The literature demonstrates how Born Globals (BGs) make recourse to distinctive strategic intangible assets to accelerate their internationalisation processes while, nevertheless, broadly neglecting the role of International Entrepreneurial Culture (IEC) in generating and differentiating BGs despite its relevant role. This study examines the IEC as a driver of the early and rapid internationalisation of BGs and correspondingly seeks to capture the prevailing differences compared to non-Born Globals (non-BGs). Thus, we empirically tested and validated an IEC scale for a sample of 66 BGs and 102 non-BGs and deployed multivariate analysis techniques to identify the main differences among company profiles. The results reveal how BGs stand out from their peers in terms of autonomy (a dimension of the international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO)), international motivation, and international market orientation. Therefore, concentrating on developing these dimensions may return an effective means of boosting rapid and early internationalisation and thereby stand out from the competition. The remaining IEO dimensions, the international learning orientation and the international networking orientation were not relevant to this differentiating process. This research has important theoretical and practical implications, encouraging and guiding BG managers to adopt a strategic posture emphasising some particular IEC dimensions to differentiate themselves from their competitors and succeed in their early international involvement.

Purpose: Entrepreneurship is an activity of recognised economic and social interest, leading scholars to examine contextual factors that justify variations between economies and governments to configure more favourable conditions to entrepreneurial activity. In this sequence, this study aims to analyse the effect of reforms produced in the business environment on entrepreneurial rates of a set of 18 high-income economies.Design/methodology/approach: A panel data (2010–2019) methodology was adopted using 10 Doing Business indicators from World Bank and Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).Findings: In the light of institutional theory, the study shows that improving the business environment for entrepreneurs does not ensure an increase in TEA. Specifically, only the indicators Dealing with Construction, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts positively impacted the TEA.Originality/value: This is the first study that monitors and provides evidence regarding the effectiveness of business environment reforms towards entrepreneurship. The authors provide considerable theoretical-practical implications for scholars, entrepreneurs and policymakers to restructure public policies to support entrepreneurial activity.

Purpose: Engaging in international business (IB) is a particular challenge to small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), representing a condition to ensure growth and longevity. Due to their limitations of tangible resources, these companies make use of their levels of knowledge and capabilities to reach new markets. This study seeks to ascertain the role, the typologies of the knowledge and capabilities required for access to IB, and how benefits may arise for SMEs from their international experience.Design/methodology/approach: To achieve these objectives, the authors ground the insights on a qualitative study that gathered data from ten semi-structured interviews with leading entrepreneurs engaged in IB. The data were analysed resorting to the QSR Nvivo software.Findings: The results demonstrate how (1) knowledge and the development of dynamic capabilities all represent determinant facets to engaging in IB and that (2) the knowledge and learning capabilities acquired and developed in IB context also result in positive returns in domestic markets.Originality/value: Despite the rising of IB studies, the interaction between knowledge and capabilities from the perspective of accessing international markets has not received attention enough from scholars. The authors argue that both constructs must act together to reach and maximize the IB of SMEs and provide evidence that engagement abroad brings several other advantages beyond economic returns.

Family firms (FF) represent an important business segment worldwide, contributing greatly to their country's GDP and social well-being, giving employment and contributing to communities' development. Due to their particularities, these organizations also face various challenges, one of the most relevant being inter-generational succession – transversal to all FF and their consequent sustainability over time. Given the importance of this issue, through a systematic literature review (SLR), the intention is to provide a general, wide-ranging view of the succession strategies most used by FF, mapping the existing literature. A total of 84 articles from the Scopus database were analysed. Through content analysis and bibliographic coupling techniques (VosViewer), four thematic groups of articles were identified, namely: (i) socio-emotional wealth and corporate governance, (ii) leadership and inter-generational conflicts, (iii) managing succession process and (iv) succession planning drivers. These themes/clusters originated a theoretical framework that depicts the investigation status of the field, and detailed suggestions for future investigations by cluster were also provided. Despite the relevance and long age of succession in FF, this is the first SLR to directly address succession strategies, offering implications for academics and practitioners, to guide a smooth succession.

Purpose: International entrepreneurship (IE) has received a considerable amount of attention in the recent decades as a result of globalization enabling access to new international markets and business opportunities. Despite the growing increase in academic publications, IE still faces certain inconsistencies, with doubts remaining as regards its boundaries and the thematic groups making up the field. The purpose of this article is to systematically analyse the IE, mapping the intellectual territory and the evolution of the field.Design/methodology/approach: Indexed to Web of Science( WoS) database until 2021, from 52 journals, 130 articles were selected, applying content analyses techniques to identify the main research lines.Findings: The results reveal that IE presents four conceptual themes/clusters: (1) international business networks and opportunities; (2) institutional environments; (3) the characteristics and motivations of entrepreneurs; and (4) internationalisation drivers and processes. Extant analysis show that IE has progressed immensely, concentrating a good diversity of subtopics and research trends. An integrative framework bringing together 27 years of publications and 67 future research lines, detailed by cluster, were also presented in this study to improve understanding and guide future studies.Originality/value: This review makes a broad contribution to the IE literature, assisting in consolidating the academic field, expanding and complementing the results of previous theoretical–conceptual studies. We reflect and individually discuss the state of the art of the four streams that characterize IE to identify key themes, points of convergence and advance new subfields.

This study seeks to find out the main achievements of a cross-border cooperation project (INESPO III) in terms of innovation and university-firm knowledge transfer in a region situated in the central region of Portugal and Castile and León, Spain. To achieve this aim, research of a qualitative and exploratory nature was chosen., that is, case study method. Data collection was based on seven interviews with several project actors, and content analysis was also used. Through interviews with project beneficiaries, empirical evidence suggests that this type of cooperation allows access to new sources of external knowledge, with the network benefiting globally from each partner’s type of specialization. This study makes an important contribution to the literature on cross-border cooperation by extending its field of research to knowledge transfer and innovation, analysing a project that has produced good results. It can be determinant for government institutions responsible for administering cross-border incentive systems, and for partner networks in drawing process of similar projects for benefit of their own regions, besides the clear academic interest in business cooperation networks. Final results and main contributions of the project are also presented.