Tatiana S. Manolova

Bentley University · Department of Management

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make important contributions to sustainable economic growth, employment, poverty alleviation, local development, and human wellbeing in developed and developing countries [...]

Traditional theories from the international business and strategy literatures have posited that institutional distance constrains firm internationalization and that slack financial and managerial resources can be redeployed to help overcome this distance and facilitate growth. However, are slack resources equally effective when entering host market...

Purpose This study aims to examine how entrepreneurship education influences intentions for starting a technology venture among science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students with particular attention to gender differences. This study builds on the model of entrepreneurial event and social role theory to assess the impact of entr...

To better understand the role of context for theory development in entrepreneurship, we build a theoretical framework which captures four aspects of the “theory to context” and “context to theory” interplay. We use the results from a literature review of entrepreneurship research on Russia published in leading journals over the past 30-year period...

Entrepreneurship and innovation are social and relational processes that occur in diverse contexts involving multiple stakeholders. Recently, research in entrepreneurship has begun to explore entrepreneurial processes through the lens of gender. However, unlike its entrepreneurship counterpart, innovation research has paid limited attention to gend...

Women’s entrepreneurship is increasingly important for creating new jobs and contributing to the social and economic growth of their societies, yet the interplay and nuances of women’s entrepreneurship and culture are currently understudied. In this special issue, we present eight empirical papers that delve into different aspects of the dynamic in...

Women’s entrepreneurship is an effective way to combat poverty, hunger and disease, to stimulate sustainable business practices, and to promote gender equality. Yet, deeply engrained cultural norms often prescribe gender-specific roles and behaviors that severely constrain the opportunities for women’s entrepreneurial activities. This excellent new...

Anchored in signaling theory, we use a configurational approach to examine how new ventures credibly communicate their underlying firm quality, using a unique dataset of 117 new ventures that sought investment from a prominent angel group located in the Northeastern United States. Unlike existing research, which employs econometric models to reflec...

COVID-19 is unique in the severity of its impact as it is a humanitarian disaster that has caused both a supply and a demand shock to the global economic system. It has disproportionately affected women entrepreneurs as their firms are younger and smaller. In this commentary, we contend that while all businesses must pivot their business models in...

Situational factors may facilitate or frustrate the translation of entrepreneurial intentions into subsequent actions. In this study, we use data from two waves of a large-scale cross-country study of student entrepreneurship, the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students' Survey (GUESSS), conducted in 2011 and 2013/2014 (n = 1434 students...

A key strategic decision in international business (IB) is where to locate. While there is general agreement that institutions influence location decisions, less is known about the specific levels and mechanisms of institutional influence. To address these gaps, we systematically review and synthesize 106 articles published in 19 general management...

In this chapter, we explore the role of employee general and specific human capital for the accelerated internationalization of Belgian small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs). We test our ideas using a unique dataset of all Belgian manufacturing SMEs which internationalized between 1998 and 2005 and followed a strategy of accelerated internationa...

Motivated by the growing worldwide concern for sustainable development, in this study, we explore the antecedents of green consumerism in an economy driven by environmental sustainability concerns. Drawing on a survey of 705 Slovenian consumers, we find that consumers' environmental commitment, perception of eco‐products, and perception of barriers...

Underlying entrepreneurship ecosystems is the implicit assumption that all entrepreneurs have equal access to resources, participation, and support, as well as an equal chance of a successful outcome (venture start-up). However in practice, this is not always the case. Research finds that when it comes to many aspects of the entrepreneurship ecosys...

Institutional voids plague entrepreneurship in emerging economies. In this paper, we investigate how the social structure of the family can enable young entrepreneurs to navigate the institutional voids and progress through the venturing process. Findings suggest that both institutional voids and family support have a significant effect on startup...

Existing studies conceptualize entrepreneurial action as deliberate, goal-oriented behavior, driven primarily by entrepreneurial intention. Yet, the translation of intention into entrepreneurial behavior remains the least studied link in models explaining entrepreneurial action. Empirical evidence suggests that not every entrepreneurial intention i...

This study examines how digital technologies affect the international expansion of female‐led small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Digital technologies have the potential to democratize entrepreneurship by providing access to international market knowledge and facilitating interactions with customers and partners. Building on the original Pen...

Purpose Women-led companies receive less than 5 per cent of early-stage equity investment. This paper aims to explore the disparity in equity funding between men- and women-led companies, using a social identity perspective, complemented by insights from signaling theory. We argue that in the angel group context, which is male-dominated, gender st...

This study explores the relationship between internationalization and firm economic performance by investigating the mediating effect of eco-innovation. Using data from 151 Slovenian internationalized companies and structural equation modeling, we find that internationalization is significantly and positively associated with firm-level economic per...

In this study, we augment Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with an institutional embeddedness logic to develop and test a mediated model of the effects of perceived corruption on attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioral control, which in turn determine entrepreneurial intentions. We test our three hypotheses on a sample of 231 aspir...

This book chapter highlights the major characteristics and unique aspects of the new venture creation process in the Islamic world. To organize our argument, we follow Hitt et al. (Academy of Management Perspectives 25(2):57–75, 2011) and take a mid-range theoretical lens, conceptualizing entrepreneurship as a socially-embedded and context-specific...

Even though scholars have amassed a large body of research on angel investors, few systematic and comprehensive reviews are available. The purpose of this monograph is to review this literature and then to offer suggestions for future investigation. To that end, we compiled a set of journal articles on angel investing. We start with Wetzel's (1983)...

Eco-innovation plays an increasingly important role for the competitiveness of companies. It opens up new market opportunities due to the growing demand for eco-friendly products and can increase business efficiency. Using a dynamic capabilities lens, this article analyzes the relationships between various types of eco-innovation (product, process...

We complement the resource-based view of the firm with agency theory in order to explore the link between R&D intensity and degree of internationalization of firms affiliated to Indian business groups. Results from the two-stage least squares panel regression estimation indicate research intensity is positively associated with the firm’s degree of...

In this chapter, we explore the effect of export exit on subsequent firm performance in a sample of 13,629 Belgian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We find that firms that stop exporting have lower profitability and profitability declines even further after they exit foreign markets. Firms that were highly dependent on revenues from expor...

Internationalization offers many strategic benefits to SMEs, but is not easy to accomplish. In contrast to much of the work on SME internationalization, which focuses on the role of the entrepreneur in the internationalization process, the premise of this study is that in SMEs, the investment in the human capital of the entire organization pays off...

The absence of specialized intermediaries, regulatory systems, and contract-enforcing mechanisms, more commonly known as institutional voids, plagues emerging markets. This paper explores the link between the institutional and family embeddedness of nascent entrepreneurial activity among student entrepreneurs. Specifically, we argue that the social...

This article explores the role of firm-level human capital for the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Building on the resource-based view of the firm and theories of SME internationalization, we hypothesize that the level of human capital will vary with SME internationalization strategy and will be of considerable im...

We combine insights from the strategic management and international business literatures in order to explore the moderating role of business groupcharacteristics on the link between innovation and internationalization in the context of the pharmaceutical sector in India. We test our three hypotheses on a sample of 219 Indian pharmaceutical firms af...

In this paper, we use a social support perspective and hypothesize that the scope of start-up activities is positively associated with two types of instrumental family support, financial and social capital. We further argue that the effect of instrumental family support is enhanced by the level of emotional support, in the form of family cohesivene...

This article examines the role of strategic intensity or commitment to a chosen course of action, and the impact of pure versus hybrid competitive strategies on competitive performance in transition economies, using survey data (N = 333) from Bulgaria. We find that strategic intensity is positively related to performance; firms that deviate from pu...

We take an organizational legitimacy perspective and use data from a large-scale nationally representative study on the state of small business in Saudi Arabia, in order to explore the antecedents to the formation of entrepreneurial ventures’ inter-firm networks in the context of an emerging economy (n = 331). We argue that entrepreneurial ventures...

To successfully target potential women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia, a better understanding of their entrepreneurial motivations is needed. In this study, we used economic, human development, and social learning perspectives to explore the entrepreneurial motivations among female university youth in Saudi Arabia and formulated three hypotheses on...

Angel financing is one of the most important but least well understood sources of early stage financing. Using signaling theory, we examine the entrepreneur – angel investor communication dyad, specifically examining the signals sent by the entrepreneur and those received by the angel investor. Drawing on a unique dataset of 170 presentation summar...

This article explores the role of the diversity of the domestic financial networks for the internationalization of entrepreneurial ventures in transition economies. Building on network theories of social exchange and resource dependency, it hypothesizes that the diversity of the entrepreneurial venture’s financial network will have a positive effec...

How conducive are the institutional environments in the BRIC countries to support entrepreneurship? We employ the Busentiz et al. (2000) survey instrument on a sample of 490 business students from Brazil, Russia, India and China to compare the perceived favorability of their regulatory, cognitive, and normative environments to entrepreneurship. We...

Drawing on literature from organizational behavior, strategic change and management of technology, we examine the new ventures’ readiness for funding by angel investors, using a dataset of 332 firms that sought investment from a prominent angel group located outside of Boston, MA during 2007–2008. Findings suggest that perceptions of venture readin...

The link between diversification and performance has become an important topic for research in diverse fields such as strategic management, industrial organization and financial management. However, a synthesis of the research done in developed and emerging markets is missing. This paper attempts such a synthesis by comparing and contrasting the pa...

Women are the majority owners of 30% (6.7 million) of all privately held firms in the US. The vast majority of these firms, however, are smaller than average with only 16% achieving annual revenues of more than $500,000. This suggests that women may have different expectations for the growth of their ventures than men. Using the US Panel Study of E...

We compare and contrast the perceptions of the institutional environment for entrepreneurship among university students in four transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, and Russia, using a survey instrument developed by Busenitz et al. (2000) for industrialized countries and validated in the context of emerging...

The formation of a new venture requires crucial choices that impact the future success of the firm. An important initial decision is whether or not to start the new venture from home or from a separate location. In this paper, we examine the impact of firm-location decisions on the resource assembly process. Resource assembly is the first step take...

Although personal and inter-firm networks are critical for the survival and growth of entrepreneurial ventures in transition economies, their role in new-venture internationalization has been understudied. Exploring the internationalization of entrepreneurial ventures (n = 623) in Bulgaria, we find that domestic personal networks have a positive...

Firm growth is widely considered to be a measure of success for entrepreneurial businesses. Data indicate that there are systematic differences between minority and nonminority-owned firms with respect to growth. Black entrepreneurs are 50 percent more likely to engage in start-up activities than white entrepreneurs, however, black-owned firms are...

This review maps research on entrepreneurship in transitional economies since the start of institutional reforms. Data came from 129 academic journal articles published between 1990 and 2009. 62 articles reported research on macro (country) level, discussing the nature and speed of reform, credit constraints, assistance programs and the role of sma...

This exploratory case study examines the challenges faced by the Norwegian Book Clubs, a well-established company in a small country's book distribution sector, and the company's strategic responses to the challenge of industry deregulation and related threat of foreign competition. The theoretical argument of the study is shaped by the “liability...

The process of new venture creation is central to the field of entrepreneurship. The effects of initial organizing have a direct influence on survival, yet empirical examination of the dimensions of emergent organizations is limited. Using longitudinal data on nascent entrepreneurs, this paper empirically tests four properties of emerging organizat...

Women are the majority owners in 30% of all privately held firms in the United States. These firms have $2.5 trillion in revenues and employ 19.1 million individuals. However, despite the large number of women business owners, little is known about the motivations that women have for starting their own firms. This study uses an expectancy theory fr...

The formation of a new venture includes initial choices that affect the process of start-up. Primary among these decisions is the choice of location whether to start from home or from an away location. This paper examines the impact of initial firm location choices and aspirations of the entrepreneur on the resource assembly process and the likelih...

While recent inventories and assessments of the entrepreneurship field examine the focus, purpose, and methods, one area receiving less attention is the outcome or dependent variable. The outcome variable is of critical importance in scholarship, as it is a leading indicator of the cumulative nature of the scholarship in our field. This paper revie...

Entrepreneurship courses are vital components of a business school curriculum. Although existing studies examine teaching pedagogy, very few explore the content of entrepreneurship courses. We compare start-up activities of nascent entrepreneurs in the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) dataset to data collected from a sample of entrepr...

In this article, we sought to empirically validate an instrument for measuring country institutional profiles for the promotion of entrepreneurship in a sample of 254 business students from three emerging economies: Bulgaria, Hungary, and Latvia. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis suggest high reliability, internal consistency, and const...

The objective of this review is to systematically map research on entrepreneurship in transitional economies since the start of institutional reforms. We build on Smallbone & Welter’s (2001) conceptual arguments on the distinctiveness of entrepreneurship in transitional economies and extend two recent surveys (Yang & Li, 2007 and Meyer & Peng, 2005...

Women are the majority owners in 30% of all privately held firms in the United States. These firms have $2.5 trillion in revenues and employ 19.1 million individuals. However, despite the large number of women business owners, little is known about the motivations that women have for starting their own firms. This study uses an expectancy theory fr...

Based on expectancy theory and social psychology perspectives, this study looks at the differential effects of men and women entrepreneurs' human capital and networking on their growth expectancies in the context of a transitional economy. Survey data from men and women new venture owners in Bulgaria (n = 544) suggest that growth expectancy among m...

Purpose – While trust is widely recognized as central to the establishment of an effective market economy, research on transition economies has not examined sufficiently its role in promulgating economic development. This study seeks to ascertain the links between supplier trust, asset specificity, and uncertainty reduction in the context of a tran...

This study looks at the differential effects of men and women entrepreneurs' human capital and network diversity on the likelihood of using external sources of financing (sources other than personal savings, family and friends) in the context of a transitional economy. Moderated logistical regression models using survey data from men and women new...

This article develops and empirically examines a model of governance and legality of organizations in countries under significant system transformation. While previous research has focused on issues of governance structures, this study suggests that organizational legality is equally important. An analysis of survey data from 127 Chinese managers d...

Small firms face unique challenges in crafting strategies that best utilize their resource bases. Research shows strategies that combine with resources lead to performance. The entrepreneurship literature finds the contingent effects, or moderating roles, of strategy and external factors, but the relationship between firm strategy and internal fact...

We develop a model of small business performance in transitional economies in which owners' human and social capital are expected to be directly and positively related to the firm's entrepreneurial orientation, and all three are hypothesised to have a positive impact on performance. In transitional economies, these factors are particularly salient...

Candida G. Brush has made an enormouscontribution tothe field of international entrepreneurship. This articleprovides an extensive literature review of Ms. Brush's work, includinginterviews with Ms. Brush describing her motives and findings. Initially, Ms.Brush's early research interests are explored, including her motivation tofocus her graduate d...

Household structure H ousehold structure is a broader unit of analysis than family structure. Members living in a household may or may not be family members but typically are part of a nuclear or extended family. Household structure has an impact on venture creation because it is a direct determinant of the starting resource base for the entreprene...

Smaller less “glamorous” firms are more prevalent in the US economy than high-technology companies. These small firms are known for their inability to erect barriers to imitation, making the development of competitive advantage difficult. In our paper, we study the relationship between firm resources and firm strategies. Based on the contention tha...

Previous research on entrepreneurship has largely focused on start-up firms in the relatively stable environment of developed economies, whereas scholarship on transforming economies has paid primary attention to large and established firms. Entrepreneurial efforts in a turbulent institutional environment during the radical reforms in the formerly...

Literature from export development and international entrepreneurship argues that personal factors, or the owner/founder's human capital, strongly influence the choice and degree of internationalization in small firms. Personal factors include a wide array of dimensions, including achieved attributes, environmental perceptions and business skills,...

In this paper, we investigate the role of personal and financial networks for new venture internationalization in the context of Bulgaria, an Eastern European transition economy. Our main premise is that personal and financial networks are instrumental in new venture internationalization. We further contend that the diversity of the financial netwo...

Entrepreneurial and strategic research links the growth and performance of the new firm to the degree of its entrepreneurial orientation (EO), or its willingness to innovate, take risks, and be proactive relative to opportunities (Miller, 1983; Covin & Slevin, 1989). In this study, we test the EO-performance relationship on a sample of small and me...

Drawing on literature from organizational behavior, strategic change and technology, we examine the new ventures’ readiness for funding by angel investors, using a unique dataset of 334 firms that sought investment from a prominent angel group located outside of Boston, MA during 2007-2008. Findings suggest that tangible, objective characteristics...