What is this mysterious activity we call entrepreneurship? Does success require special traits and skills or just luck? Can large companies follow their example? What role does venture capital play? In a field dominated by anecdote and folklore, this landmark study integrates more than ten years of intensive research and modern theories of business and economics. The result is a comprehensive framework for understanding entrepreneurship that provides new and penetrating insights. Examining hundreds of successful ventures, the author finds that the typical business has humble, improvised origins. Well-planned start-ups, backed by substantial venture capital, are exceptional. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Sam Walton initially pursue small, uncertain opportunities, without much capital, market research, or breakthrough technologies. Coping with ambiguity and surprises, face-to-face selling, and making do with second-tier employees is more important than foresight, deal-making, or recruiting top-notch teams. Transforming improvised start-ups into noteworthy enterprises requires a radical shift, from "opportunistic adaptation" in niche markets to the pursuit of ambitious strategies. This requires traits such as ambition and risk-taking that are initially unimportant. Mature corporations have to pursue entrepreneurial activity in a much more disciplined way. Companies like Intel and Merck focus their resources on large-scale initiatives that scrappy entrepreneurs cannot undertake. Their success requires carefully chosen bets, meticulous planning, and the smooth coordination of many employees rather than the talents of a driven few. This clearly and concisely written book is essential for anyone who wants to start a business, for the entrepreneur or executive who wants to grow a company, and for the scholar who wants to understand this crucial economic activity.

​Research-based spin-off companies are a special subgroup of new technology-based ventures and play an important role for innovation and economic development. Executive teams of academic spin-offs face several challenges in building up sustainable and profitable ventures, because they often lack managerial and entrepreneurial skills. Based on a quantitative analysis of 193 German spin-offs RigoTietz examines the relationships between executive team characteristics, strategic decision making, and firm performance. The study contributes to the entrepreneurship and strategic management literature and has practical implications for entrepreneurs and managers, policymakers and practitioners of start-up initiatives and technology transfer organisations.

The authors describe educators who have entered the corporate world to market and develop products for the education marketplace, creating businesses for learning, including educational software, teaching tools, and special needs child care.

Using case studies from both Europe and the USA, shows how established companies can organize and structure for innovation in the new economy.

If you're a woman entrepreneur, think big-and get funded! Clearing the Hurdles shows how to overcome the obstacles that face every entrepreneur, and the unique challenges women face in finding investors. Five experts on women entrepreneurship guide you every step of the way, through concept development, planning, strategy, resource acquisition, deployment, and growth. Discover how to align your business around your personal goals, fill "gaps " in your expertise-and access the money and networks you need to grow fast.

Focus on management theory and practice

International Business in Times of Crisis classifies studies of crises relevant to international business research following a global pandemic which exposed systems failures and fragilities closely across global economic, financial, political, and social systems.