Abstract Problem: Once a business is running, simultaneously the treat of loosing the entrepreneurial spirit is occurring. The team is not as passionate and people do not seem as enthousiastic, and what was once a mission is now seemingly nothing more than a job for you and for them. Many factors cause the damage; however, the structure and the human resource management are two particularly factors involved in that damage. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the structure and the human resource management serve as rescuers to force and keep the entrepreneurial spirit. The authors findings will help them give suggestions on how these two basic fields help in stabilizing the entrepreneurship. Method: The data collection is based on theories related to findings from the real life business world. To assemble qualitative and reliable research, the authors conducted seven oral interviews with professionals working in different positions. In addition, the interviewees were selected from four different companies and different industries. Conclusion The structure in growing firms needs regular adjustment to hold a clear communication and clear definition of responsibilities which are crucial for the survival of the firm. Firms relying on innovativeness need to find the balance between openness of communication, flexibility and the degree of bureaucratization. In addition, firms based on innovation should be aware of tolerance of failure. Trust between management and employees also tend to influence the overall performance of the firm. As the business develops, HRM practices also follow a certain change and update. An established firm needs to have clear competences of what is needed in the organization. Besides that, the firms need to emphasize training and development. In addition to keep people motivated and sustain the entrepreneurial spirit, firms need to be aware of rewarding. Eventually the authors also discovered a need to include internationalization in their thesis and how it is related to sustain the entrepreneurial spirit in growing firms.

Confronted with an increasing diversity of social and global challenges, innovation competitions become an increasingly important tool to spur innovation amongst entrepreneurs. Based on a case study on three finalists of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Clean-Up XChallenge, this thesis aims to investigate what factors motivate entrepreneurs to take part in an innovation competition. Due to the fact that four years after the closure of the challenge nine out of ten finalists were still actively in the oil clean-up business, the authors further investigate on what the main motivational factors for continuing business after participation in an innovation competition are. Data was collected via in-depth interviews and analysed by applying the model of entrepreneurial motivation by Naffiziger, Hornsby and Kuratko (1994) as well as Gimeno, Folta, Cooper and Woo’s (1997) threshold model. Further, the authors conducted a case study on the finalists of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Clean-Up XChallenge, which was an innovation competition, initiated by the XPrize Foundation in 2010. The competition was a reaction to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 and aimed for finding better and more efficient oil clean-up solutions. Ten finalists were selected to test their inventions at one of the world’s largest testing facilities for oil spill clean-up technology. The findings suggest that the motivators for participation in an innovation competition include a desire for increased publicity and reputation, as well as the opportunity to test the technology. It was also found that factors such as the goal of the organisation and the perception of one’s product and business idea play key roles in the decision to participate in an innovation competition. Furthermore, the research shows that the business environment and a need for achievement influence the decision to partake. With regards to the motivational factors that encourage sustained entrepreneurship after participating in an innovation competition, it was found that the correlation between expectations, both regarding the outcome and the implementation process, upon entering the competition and the actual outcome, does not have a large impact upon whether operations are continued after the innovation competition has ended. Instead, it was found that the main motives for continuing operations are a strong psychic attachment to the business, as well as high costs of switching to another area of commerce.

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Enhancing levels of innovation and entrepreneurship to grow a more competitive economy is the focus of much government effort. Attention is paid to changing a culture seen as antagonistic to entrepreneurship through initiatives designed to promote an entrepreneurial spirit. Universities, aware of the importance of developing entrepreneurial potential, are focusing on equipping students with the skills and abilities to contribute to innovation within organisations they join upon graduation, while also providing opportunities for the development of student aspirations. Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) has developed a one week event designed to influence deep personal values and the underlying motivations of potential entrepreneurs. This paper reports on the Connections course content as it was offered at the University of Strathclyde in 2003, content premised on the belief that students are motivated to start new enterprises through enhancement of self-confidence in their entrepreneurial skills. Measures of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and other outcomes are offered, followed by a report of the results found at the end of the event and then six months later. The programme is found to have created enduring improvements in entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and a related strengthening of pre-entrepreneurial awareness and exploration of ideas for starting companies. Other assessment results are presented suggesting the need to include explicit course content on entrepreneurial career paths. The implications of the Connections findings for entrepreneurship teaching in general are discussed.

This study focus on the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), Education and Economic and Management Science learning area of curriculum 2005 constructs in order to determine whether EMS education can impact on the entrepreneurial orientation of learners. A brief overview is given to see how the EO construct has been described in academic literature at firm level as well as societal level. Entrepreneurship and education in schools are discussed with emphasis on what has been reported in the literature. Problems to make comparisons between countries are looked at and why it is important to have entrepreneurial education. A comparison is made between the enterprising skills, behaviour and attitudes mentioned by Gibb and the five dimensions of EO to determine common ground in teaching for EO. EO and education is also discussed. Education is seen as the independent variable to improve learners performance because it reaches the youth for many years and a tool to develop EO through a curriculum. The implicit role of culture is referred to and EO is seen as the mediator between the national culture and entrepreneurship. An attempt is made to develop an understanding of what should be included in EO learning mode to effectively convey the EO dimensions to the learner. Comparisons of the creative steps of Driver, knowledge skills of Fayolle and the business mode of Gibb were compared to teaching for the EO dimensions. Finally the results of an empirical study that was done to determine if the EO of learners that went through the EMS learning area of curriculum 2005 from grade 7-9 did change compared to a control group that did not go through the EMS learning area of curriculum 2005 from grade 7-9.The results reported that innovativeness and risk taking are affected by the EMS learning area of curriculum 2005. / Dissertation (MPhil (Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Business Management / unrestricted

Yes / This article examines the entrepreneurial persistence of opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs in Ghana. Specifically, it develops a theoretical model focusing on the relationships among perceived institutional support, entrepreneurial persistence and small venture performance, including how entrepreneurial networks condition the relationship between institutional support and entrepreneurial persistence. Using time-lagged data from 373 opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs leading small ventures in Ghana, we find broad support for our hypotheses. The insights from our study provide an integrative understanding of the relationships among perceived institutional support, entrepreneurial persistence and venture performance in an adverse environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Purpose: This research aims to study the roles played by entrepreneurial human, social, cognitive capital and related process dynamics in venture emergence, exploring their main and combined effects on the model of the determinants of success in Nascent Entrepreneurship. This provides strong evidence for the connection from resources to process dynamics and ultimately to venture outcomes. Methodology Approach: An empirical model is developed to test a research's framework that focuses on formulating and testing coherent conceptual propositions utilising a longitudinal sample of secondary data from a mix gender sample of 816 nascent entrepreneurs in the United States who were tracked over four consecutive years. Findings: The empirical analysis showed significant support for the proposed conceptual model. The findings support the partial influence of the main attributes of nascent entrepreneurial capital (social, human and cognitive capitals) on the outcomes of new venture creation process, where the drivers of positive outcomes appear to coincide with variables that relate to cognitive capital. More importantly, the empirical analysis finds significant interaction effects between elements of nascent entrepreneurial capital and their interplay with the process dynamics confirming the conceptual proposition of an integrative framework encompassing significant associations that constitute the phenomenon of new venture creation. The integrative perspective has implications for Nascent Entrepreneurship theory and practice. First, the main effects of resource endowments should not be taken into account in isolation as predictors of new venture creation outcomes. Second, the role of process dynamics and cognitive capital is best theorised as a moderating variable between the startup capital's attributes and the venture creation outcomes. Therefore, the findings demonstrate a dominant role of the integrative modelling in driving the transition to the start-up phase. Limitations: There is no consensus on the measures of success for entrepreneurship research at the nascent phase of business venturing. There is substantial variation in the literature in terms of outcomes, definitions, conceptual works and design issues, and therefore further consideration to control for variations is deemed necessary to ensure valid, cumulative and definitive answers that must be built upon a solid and unified basis. ` Originality: Thesis is original in integrating cognitive abilities and process dynamics with social and human capital in a model of the determinants of success in Nascent Entrepreneurship. While we may consider alternative ways to look at interaction/moderation effects across the three different types of " start-up capital", integrating the three elements in a structured and dynamic model of Nascent Entrepreneurship is an original contribution.

Research on entrepreneurial motivation of university scientists is often determined by quantitative methods without taking into account context-related influences. According to different studies, entrepreneurial scientists found a spin-off company due to motives like independency, market opportunity, money or risk of unemployment (short-term contracts). To give a comprehensive explanation, it is important to use a qualitative research view that considers academic rank, norms and values of university scientists. The author spoke with 35 natural scientists and asked professors and research fellows for their entrepreneurial motivation. The results of this study are used to develop a typology of entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial scientists within German universities. This paper presents the key findings of the study (Sass 2011).

Dans le but de comprendre ce qui pousse les entrepreneurs à agir, les chercheurs en entrepreneuriat utilisent depuis des décennies les modèles de l’intention dans leurs études. Les plus célèbres sont la Théorie de l’Action Planifiée d’Azjen et l’Evènement Entrepreneurial de Shapero et Sokol. Cependant, ces modèles restent perfectibles. En effet, ils partent du principe que l’intention est un bon prédicateur du comportement, alors que seules moins de la moitié des variations des comportements entrepreneuriaux sont explicables par l’intention. De plus, les modèles de l’intention se concentrent uniquement sur les antécédents de l’intention. La partie motivationnelle (le « pourquoi ») est donc couverte, mais la partie volitionnelle (le « comment ») est oubliée.Notre thèse, qui se compose de quatre travaux, a pour ambition de parer à ce manquement, dans le but de parfaire notre compréhension du processus entrepreneurial. Notre objectif est de mettre en lumière des facilitateurs qui permettraient de passer effectivement de l’intention à l’action. Nous relevons donc le défi de dévoiler en partie la boîte noire qui se trouve entre intention et comportement entrepreneurial. Nous avons sélectionné l’engagement et l’intention planifiée dans la littérature de socio-psychologie comme étant les chaînons manquants possibles, et nous les avons testés en contextes entrepreneuriaux.Ainsi, en se concentrant sur la partie volitionnelle, notre thèse complète les modèles de l’intention dans le but d’améliorer nos connaissances du processus entrepreneurial. Elle vise à servir les porteurs de projets, les politiques, les enseignants et les différents acteurs de suivi des entrepreneurs. En effet, tous peuvent utiliser ce que nous avons mis en lumière pour augmenter le taux de conversion de l’intention entrepreneuriale. Notre objectif est de manière générale de proposer de la matière nouvelle pour aider les porteurs de projets à concrétiser leurs intentions.Cependant, la taille de nos échantillons limite nos études empiriques à des études exploratoires. Nos résultats devront maintenant être confirmés de manière quantitative. / In order to understand what leads individuals to create new ventures, entrepreneurship researchers use intention models in their studies for decades. The most famous are the Theory of Planned Behavior of Azjen and the Entrepreneurial Event of Shapero and Sokol. However, these models are still perfectible. In fact, they stem from the fact that intentions predict behaviors, but only less than half of variance of entrepreneurial behaviors is explained by intention. Moreover, intention models only focus on the antecedents of intention. So the motivational part (why one acts) is addressed, but the volitional part (how to pursue actions) remains set aside.Our thesis, composed of four pieces of work, aims at addressing this gap in order to improve our understanding of the entrepreneurial process. Our objective is to shed light on facilitators that can lead from intentions to effective action. We thus took on the challenge of unveiling part of the missing links between entrepreneurial intention and behavior. We selected commitment and implementation intention in the socio-psychological literature as being the possible missing links, and we test them in entrepreneurial contexts.Thus by focusing on the volitional part, our thesis completes the intention models in order to improve our knowledge of the entrepreneurial process. It has implications for intended entrepreneurs themselves, politicians, educators and incubators. Indeed, they could use what we have learnt about commitment and implementation intention to enhance the entrepreneurial intention conversion rate. Generally speaking, our goal is to propose new materials to help intended entrepreneurs to enact their intentions.However, the size of our samples limits our empirical studies to exploratory papers. Further researches should now test our findings quantitatively.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (School of Business and Finance) / Entrepreneurial firms, entrepreneurial capital, entrepreneurial ecosystem and entrepreneurial economy are a few terminologies that have emerged since the resurgence of entrepreneurship, arising from the 1990's entrepreneurial revolution in the United States of America. Entrepreneurship education, a paradigm shift from the conventional, has been identifies as being critical to fostering entrepreneurship, building entrepreneurial capital, growing entrepreneurial economy and ultimately delivering sustainable economic growth and developmend for any nation - emerging or developed. From America to Africa, entrepreneurship modules with varies objectives and designs have multiplied in the last decade.