In his seminal 1921 book, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, Frank Knight distinguished uncertainty and risk. This paper applies Knight's concept of uncertainty to knowledge generated in incumbent organizations to explain the inherent difficulty in assessing potential innovations along with the key role played by knowledge spillover entrepreneurship as a conduit for transforming new knowledge created by an incumbent organization but ultimately commercialized through the creation of a new firm and innovation. Knowledge is inherently uncertain and constitutes what is characterized as the knowledge filter impeding innovative activity in the context of incumbent firms and organizations. The organizational and institutional context and market uncertainty can either facilitate or impede the spillover of knowledge from the firm where it was created to the entrepreneurial startup where it is transformed into innovation. The empirical evidence based on a large, unbalanced panel of 9,126 UK firms constructed from six consecutive waves of a community innovation survey and annual business registry survey during 2002–2014. Implications for managers, scholars, and policymakers are provided.

While entrepreneurs are increasingly recognized as important participants in the medieval economy, their philanthropic activities have received less attention than those of the gentry and nobility. This article identifies the contribution that the study of medieval entrepreneurs can make to broader business history debates surrounding the identity of philanthropists and their beneficiaries, the types of causes they supported, and their impact on wider society. Philanthropic entrepreneurs used the profits of commerce to provide infrastructure, health care, and education to their local communities. Their patterns of philanthropy differed from those of gentry, lawyers, and administrators. Support for municipal infrastructure emerges as a distinctive feature of entrepreneurial philanthropy, reflecting a belief in the importance of trade networks and civic reputation.

Categorising something as a business judgment can provide directors with a powerful shield from accountability. It has been said that the courts in England and Wales defer to directors’ business judgments and directors’ decisions are protected from review in other jurisdictions by a business judgment rule. Yet what a business judgment is has never been addressed, and so precisely what is being protected, and why, is unclear. This paper analyses case law in England and Wales and key Australian and US cases to answer this question. It argues that the courts use the term judgment in two senses: an ability, and a decision sense, and that business judgment in both senses can be linked to Knight's concept of entrepreneurial judgment, and directors’ wealth creation function. Conversely, decisions that are linked to directors’ corporate governance function and are less easy to categorise as entrepreneurial are less likely to be viewed as business judgments.

Current labour markets are witnessing a proliferation of hybrid or quasi-employment status whereby company directors and limited liability partners are gaining access to employment rights. At the same time, legislation is creating new forms of employee shareholder status, where employees trade employment rights for shares in the company. New corporate structures are being developed to promote one-man companies, small and medium sized enterprises and hybrid company/partnerships. This paper examines some of these developments in the light of the theory of the firm and the jurisprudence of company and employment law and considers the implications for workers, employers and the self-employed.

The transition from agricultural producer to agribusiness entrepreneur is littered with obstacles not associated with traditional farming operations. Producers are typically faced with an established market for their products as well as defined production practices and budgets. These familiar industry institutions are not available for use in the agribusiness environment. As a result, entrepreneurs are faced with new, unfamiliar situations that can significantly affect the success of their proposed or fledgling business.

I compare networks of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in China and Russia by examining professional social networks of software entrepreneurs and private equity investors from the perspectives of institutional theory and culture paradigm. In the empirical study, I draw on survey data from Beijing and Moscow based on interviews of 159 software entrepreneurs and 124 venture capital decisions. I found that professional networks of the Chinese software entrepreneurs are smaller, denser and more homogeneous in educational specializations, compared with the networks of Russian entrepreneurs. Furthermore, I found that both ties and interpersonal trust in the referral tie are stronger in China than in Russia.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that entrepreneurial self-efficacy influences intentions and performance, but little research on ESE and actual activities. In this paper the possible dual impact of ESE on task effort is explored. On the one hand self-efficacy boosts motivation and persistence, but on the other hand high confidence in one's abilities can lead to decision-making shortcuts and reduced effort on key tasks (the overconfidence hypothesis). Propositions about the relationship between self-efficacy and effort on different types of tasks (action and judgment tasks) are developed and tested with a small sample of active entrepreneurs. Results support a positive impact of self-efficacy on effort regardless of the type of task, thereby raising questions about the overconfidence hypothesis. Understanding types of confidence (in one's ability, knowledge, and judgment) and effort (cognitive effort) may explain these results. Further research on these topics, and on entrepreneurial experience and the use of heuristics are suggested.

Entrepreneurial attitudes of individuals are determined by different variables, some of them related to the cognitive and personality characteristics of the person, and others focused on contextual aspects. The aim of this study is to review the essential dimensions of enterprising personality and develop a test that will permit their thorough assessment. Nine dimensions were identified: achievement motivation, risk taking, innovativeness, autonomy, internal locus of control, external locus of control, stress tolerance, self-efficacy and optimism. For the assessment of these dimensions, 161 items were developed which were applied to a sample of 416 students, 54% male and 46% female (M = 17.89 years old, SD = 3.26). After conducting several qualitative and quantitative analyses, the final test was composed of 127 items with acceptable psychometric properties. Alpha coefficients for the subscales ranged from .81 to .98. The validity evidence relative to the content was provided by experts (V = .71, 95% CI = .56 - .85). Construct validity was assessed using different factorial analyses, obtaining a dimensional structure in accordance with the proposed model of nine interdependent dimensions as well as a global factor that groups these nine dimensions (explained variance = 49.07%; χ2/df = 1.78; GFI= .97; SRMR = .07). Nine out of the 127 items showed Differential Item Functioning as a function of gender (p < .01, R 2 >.035). The results obtained are discussed and future lines of research analyzed.

Over the last decade, the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) approach has gained prominence as a tool of “inclusive” capitalism in sub-Saharan Africa. This approach reframes development as a seamless outcome of core business activities, one that can ameliorate poverty by bringing much-needed products and services to the poor and generating employment opportunities for informal and subsistence workers as “micro-entrepreneurs.” Yet while transnational capital has set its sights on Africa’s “underserved” yet potentially buoyant markets, BoP initiatives do more than seize upon the entrepreneurial talent and aspirations of Africa’s informal economies. This article argues, rather, that these initiatives create BoP economies through a set of market technologies, practices, and discourses that render the spaces and actors at the bottom of the pyramid knowable, calculable, and predictable to global business. The article describes how these technologies extend new forms of market governance over the informal poor, reconfiguring their habits, social practices, and economic strategies under the banner of poverty reduction.