International entrepreneurship (IE) exists at the interface of two distinct research fields - entrepreneurship and international business (IB). However, IE studies typically fail to integrate research from both fields, leaning much more towards IB. This study uses core concepts from entrepreneurship to explain the export performance of early internationalising firms. It contributes to the network and international opportunity-based view in IE by incorporating the twin concepts of exploration and exploitation into a dynamic capability perspective, showing how these affect export performance. While early internationalising firms including born globals constitute an important component in IE, empirical interest in this field focuses on high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries from developed countries. In addition, research in the field is mainly of qualitative nature investigating small numbers of firms. Therefore, much is unknown about how early internationalising firms differ in their dynamic network capabilities and opportunity related capabilities. We investigate these aspects using structural equation modelling based on a sample of 647 SMEs and large, young and mature export start-ups operating in the traditional low-tech apparel industry from a South Asian developing country (Bangladesh). This study shows that both network exploitation and exploration capabilities positively influence international opportunity exploitation and exploration capabilities. In turn, international opportunity exploitation and exploration capabilities influence export performance. This study also demonstrates that the relationship between network capabilities and export performance is both direct and indirect through the mediation of the twin international opportunity capabilities. The moderation analysis of firm age and size sheds additional light on the liabilities of newness and smallness of early internationalising firms. Interestingly, we find that the liabilities of smallness and newness do not have the same influence in different stages of IE. The role of firm size is more pronounced at the earlier stage of IE. In contrast, firm age accentuates in the later stage of the twin opportunity capabilities-export performance relationship. One possible explanation of this may be that developing and managing networks for the purpose of exploiting and exploring international opportunities is the most effortful and resource demanding stage in the entrepreneurial process. During this stage, owner-managers assess their own organisational resources, explore the possibilities of attracting external network resources and match their own resources with those of network partners. This stage reflects what is called "resource orchestration" in the strategic entrepreneurship literature. In the later stage, when opportunities are already developed and exploited, only minimal resources are then needed to achieve performance advantage. Age becomes a dominant factor because older firms derive greater performance advantage than younger firms due to their accumulated experience and learning throughout the years. This study indicates that firms may overcome their liability of smallness by connecting with new foreign partners, especially customers, resulting in more export orders. Policy makers can also help them connect with new partners by organising trade fairs, trade missions and sponsoring other promotion programmes. With respect to the liability of newness prevailing in the later stage, owner-managers should work with prominent business partners to help them get good referrals and overcome the lack of legitimacy in establishing new relations. Finally, the managers of early internationalising firms should be empowered to develop relationships with external partners.

This dissertation provides evidence of the return to education in Iran as well as measurement of inequality of opportunity and the Human Opportunity Index using cross-section data of Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies and Harmonized Household Income and Expenditure Surveys of several Middle Eastern Countries. The first chapter studies the return to education and the effect of school availability on education attainment in Iran. The Census 2006 allows us to get closer to the district of schooling by focusing on non-migrants. We estimate the return to education and the effect of school availability both for migrant and non-migrant sub-samples. We employ school availability as an instrument to correct the ability bias. We find availability of school increases women's education attainment more than men's and it is higher among the non-migrant sample. Using instrumental variable, the return to education is 6.50% in 2012 suggesting an upward bias in OLS. The second chapter provides estimates of Human Opportunity Index (HOI) in the Middle East and North Africa. Our estimates show the HOI improve over time in MENA region and compare favorably with similar measures computed for other regions, notably Latin America. Using Shapley decomposition, we find that parental background and place of living are the most important circumstances explaining inequality of opportunity to access in basic opportunities. Understanding the change in HOI and factors that influence it most complement existing analyses of inequality of opportunity in education, earning, and consumption for MENA countries because they focus on aspects of inequality of opportunity that are largely provided by the state. The third chapter provides estimates of inequality of educational opportunity using TIMSS dataset. We estimate the index of IOP using the ex-ante approach both for the fourth and eighth grade. The computed index of IOP shows that there is an improvement in IOP both for mathematics and science from grade four to eight. The investigations about relevant inputs suggest that there is a negative relationship between educational expenditure and the level of IOP. The relationship between the index of IOP and average economic growth as well as GDP per capita is positive. / Ph. D. / This dissertation provides evidence of the return to education in Iran as well as measurement of inequality of opportunity and the Human Opportunity Index using cross-section data of Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies and Harmonized Household Income and Expenditure Surveys of several Middle Eastern Countries. The first chapter studies the return to education and the effect of school availability on education attainment in Iran. The results show school availability has a positive and significant effect on women education attainment. We also estimate the rates of return to education for men between 25-60 years old in Iran in 2006 and 2012. Our findings show that the returns to schooling decline in Iran between 2006 and 2012. The second chapter provides estimates of Human Opportunity Index (HOI) in the Middle East and North Africa. Our estimates show the HOI improve over time in MENA region and compare favorably with similar measures computed for other regions, notably Latin America. The HOI evaluates the basic opportunities which mostly publicly provided. This makes the HOI relevant for understanding the effectiveness of MENA governments in providing children with an equal chance to succeed. Our findings show the HOI improves over time in MENA. The improvement over time is not surprising because as a service expands, especially if it starts inequitably, it generally covers more of the less advantaged households. The third chapter provides estimates of inequality of educational opportunity (IOP) using TIMSS dataset. We estimate the index of IOP using variance decomposition method. Our estimates show that in most countries of our sample the index of IOP increases from fourth grade to eighth grade suggesting the circumstances out of the control of an individual play important role in higher level of education. We investigate the correlational relationship between the index of IOP and some economic characteristics. Our findings suggest that there is a negative relationship between educational expenditure and the level of IOP. The relationship between the index of IOP and average economic growth as well as GDP per capita is positive.

Using the attention-based view, this study is concerned with two levels of board of directors’ interaction relating to strategic entrepreneurship: (1) how individual board members may affect the attention of the entire board, and (2) how the board may affect the attention and resource allocation of the firm. Unique to prior literature, this study considers contextual factors at each level of interaction and views the board room communications through unprecedented access. Multiple regression and negative binomial regression analyses are used to test the theoretical hypotheses.

This study probes into the process of new venture establishment from the perspective of entrepreneurship, such as discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities to actions taken to maximize the returns from these opportunities. Furthermore, the role of the entrepreneur in the process is also analyzed. The findings are summarized below: 1.In an ambiguous entrepreneurial environment, opportunities are not always clear from the beginning. Thus, new venture must take the ¡§exploration¡¨ action to find new opportunities. 2.After the discovery of new opportunities, it must take the ¡§exploitation¡¨ action to maximize return from these opportunities to create wealth, i.e. the gradual accumulation of resources to ultimately form its competitive advantage. 3.Both the ¡§exploration¡¨ and ¡§exploitation¡¨ actions can be further divided into different tacit strategies: systematic, guerilla, undisciplined, and autonomous tacit strategies. In addition, an entrepreneur has many different roles: chief, mentor, coach, and lord. However, no matter the actions taken, all new ventures must first perform risk assessments, from its internal resources to its external environment, before taking any actions in order to minimize failures.

Using the attention-based view, this study is concerned with two levels of board of directors’ interaction relating to strategic entrepreneurship: (1) how individual board members may affect the attention of the entire board, and (2) how the board may affect the attention and resource allocation of the firm. Unique to prior literature, this study considers contextual factors at each level of interaction and views the board room communications through unprecedented access. Multiple regression and negative binomial regression analyses are used to test the theoretical hypotheses.

Thesis(Ph.D.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2009 / Title from PDF (viewed on 2009-11-23) Department of Management Includes abstract Includes bibliographical references and appendices Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center

Entrepreneurial opportunities are found in literature to be discovered,recognized, and created by entrepreneurs. This thesis aims to explore andexplain the influences upon entrepreneurs in terms of knowledge, and knowledgesources, in the opportunity identification stage. However, even though it isfound in literature that knowledge is a main influencer in the first stage ofthe entrepreneurial process, the approaches to explain the influences onentrepreneurs for entrepreneurial opportunities are not consistent, whichcreates confusion about the sources of knowledge that influence entrepreneurs,in combination with the type of knowledge. In order to further explore andexplain the area, research is done, and cases are formed by interviewingentrepreneurs from eleven companies. The results from the interviews are thencompared, and related back to the literature findings. In the analysis it isfound that sources such as work-experience, education, hobbies, and role modelshelp entrepreneurs to gain knowledge in the industry where he or she havestarted a venture from an opportunity. These sources of knowledge havecontributed to market pull knowledge, and it is also found that there is arelationship between prior knowledge and alertness, which has to do with theability to find useful knowledge.

This study aims to define an architecture of opportunity within the context of everyday literacies. In the adaptation of an existing building, holding anonymity within the Pretorius Street skyline and the information overload, an architectural literacy should develop which promotes the continuation of the narrative of the city. Focussing on the re-use of space to connect with existing movement patterns, the investigation explores various forms of legibility to improve the everyday experience and awareness to the adaptation. Responding to the established nature of the city fabric, the investigation reveals the depths of a city block: exposing programmes, concealed spaces and layers of meaning which contribute to the notion of city as possibility. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

There is a gap in achievement between African American/Black and Latinx students and their White counterparts. An abundance of researchers has concluded that it is a result of a gap in opportunities of access. Some researchers have shifted the conversation from achievement gap to opportunity gap. In the discussion and creation around school policies used to address the opportunity gap that exist in affluent suburban school districts, the exchange between school and student cultures seldom receive attention because they are hard to measure, and interventions that may stem from their results are not necessarily generalizable (Carter, 2013). This study attempts to unveil the perceptions that Black and Latinx students who attend predominately White affluent suburban schools have regarding access to tangible and intangible resources and opportunities. Through the lens of students, insight into the feelings, beliefs, and identity, of Black and Latinx students toward education and the disparities of academic achievement in predominately White affluent suburban schools will be highlighted. / Educational Leadership

Social entrepreneurship (SE) has become a rapidly advancing domain of enquiry and holds a place in policy makers consideration around the globe. Opportunities have been regarded as critical in SE, but are often portrayed in abstract and unspecified ways. Research on this topic remains relatively scarce, theory building is not yet established and integrated, and the dearth of empirical studies further constrains theoretical development in SE. Researchers have thus called for more exploration and a comprehensive theoretical understanding of SE opportunities. The purpose of this study is to explore SE opportunities through empirical investigation and theoretical development. As an exploratory study, this study addresses two broad research questions: (1) What are SE opportunities? And (2) How do they emerge? To answer these questions, I draw on the broader entrepreneurship literature which provides two main alternative explanations: opportunity discovery (nexus theory) and opportunity creation (effectuation theory). While the discovery/creation debate is still ongoing, recent theoretical advancement has shown a possible path of forwarding entrepreneurial opportunity research, suggesting that research should incorporate structure and agency simultaneously in studying opportunities. Following this path, this study contributes to SE opportunity research by providing a comprehensive understanding of SE opportunities, it also helps address the discovery/creation debate in the context of SE. To make this contribution, this study first adopts critical realism as a research philosophy as well as methodology. Critical realism incorporates the effects of both structure and agency through its ontological assumptions of three domains of reality, while providing an explanatory framework to assess competing theories. Second, this study selects China as a context for empirical study. As a relation-oriented society, China provides a useful context for studying the causal relations between the social structure (guanxi) and SE opportunity. China s institutional context and fast growing social enterprise sector also provides a promising setting for exploratory research on SE opportunities. Based on critical realism, I used a three-step qualitative multi-case study to develop an explanatory framework in which guanxi and social capital theory provide theoretical explanations of the social structure and its causal powers, which lead to SE opportunity emergence in China. Data were collected from 45 interviews with Chinese social entrepreneurs, their employees and other key stakeholders in 36 organisations in Beijing, Hunan Province and Shanghai. My research findings show that SE opportunities develop in all of the three domains defined by critical realism. In the domain of empirical a world of human experience of social events a SE opportunity can be described as discovered, created, or as both discovered and created. In the domain of actual the social events under study a SE opportunity consists of three internal and necessary constituents: unjust social equilibrium (USE), social entrepreneurs beliefs (SEB), and social feasibility (SF). In the domain of real deeper structures, causal powers and mechanism that produce the social event the emergence of SE opportunities can be seen as the result of a resource acquisition and mobilisation mechanism whereby USE, SEB and SF are identified or formed through social entrepreneurs social capital embedded in guanxi. Building on these findings, this study concludes with a theoretical framework that offers a comprehensive explanation of SE opportunity emergence in China. This study is the first attempt to apply critical realism to the study of opportunities in the context of SE in China. It contributes to the SE and general entrepreneurship literature by developing a theoretical framework of SE opportunity emergence that provides an alternative explanation for the existence of discovery and creation opportunities, and by extending our theoretical understandings of some key concepts of SE. This research further provides an example of the use of qualitative methods to apply critical realism in SE and general entrepreneurship research, which contributes to the development of relatively rigorous research design and research methods in studying complex social events.