Standard explanations of the decisions made by new firm founders when acquiring financing to start ventures tend to refer to the efficiency and economic rationales underpinning such choices. In this paper, a pecking order approach is applied to twenty-six cases of new venture creation to test...

Scenarios represent future possibilities or descriptions of ‘what might be’. This paper generates a series of possible futures based on an identified policy priority, namely the encouragement of increased levels of small business activity. Counterfactual thinking is used to challenge this...

Abstract: Purpose – This paper considers the models, methodologies, techniques and data utilised in articles published in The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation over the period 1999-2003, in an attempt to determine theoretical and methodological trends and themes emerging...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine state promotion of private sector development in China, with particular emphasis on local configurations of support and service provision. Design/methodology/approach – Via analysis of two cases, constraints on the development of small- to...

There is an ongoing debate within the academic literature about the value of the business plan in the development of the small firm. On closer inspection of the research, there appear to be clear benefits in the use of business planning as a process within the smaller business. This is in...

Although there is broad recognition amongst policymakers of the significance of new business start-ups to the economy, there is an ongoing debate in the research literature as to the feasibility and desirability of intervention at this stage of business development. Of particular concern is the...

The role of clusters and clustering in economic development is of current policy interest, in part because of analyses and studies that have associated these forms of collaboration with regional and local prosperity and development. Although some of the literature supports or starts from this...