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Bootstrap financing refers to measures that entrepreneurial ventures undertake to preserve liquidity (e.g., reducing expenses, collecting receivables, delaying payments, preselling). Prior research shows that bootstrap financing is an important enabler for the growth of resource-constrained early-stage ventures. However, little is known about the use of bootstrap financing in crises, during which the preservation of liquidity is particularly salient. We investigate the determinants of bootstrap financing in the 2020 COVID-19 crisis using a sample of 17,046 German entrepreneurial ventures. We formulate hypotheses about the determinants of bootstrap financing from a necessity, human capital, and opportunity cost perspective. Among others, our results show that the severity of the crisis for the venture, the level of private consumption, and self-employment experience are positively associated with an increased use of bootstrap financing measures. Our study contributes to the literature on bootstrap financing and illuminates how entrepreneurial ventures maintain liquidity in crises.Plain English Summary Economic downturns or crises often lead to financial distress for ventures. To survive such tumultuous times, ventures need to preserve their liquidity. Bootstrap financing refers to measures that entrepreneurial ventures take to preserve liquidity (like sending payment reminders, paying invoices later, reducing tax advances, reducing commercial rent). Because little is known about how bootstrap financing is used during crises, we investigate how it was used during the COVID-19 crisis. Our study builds on a survey of 17,046 German entrepreneurial ventures and self-employed individuals. We find that the use of bootstrap financing is positively related to how severe the crisis was for the venture along with the level of private consumption and self-employment experience of the venture’s owner. In contrast, a negative association exists with private liquidity, business liquidity, how long before the owner retires, and part-time self-employment. The positive association between self-employment experience and bootstrap financing indicates that targeted entrepreneurship education programs or webinars should focus on inexperienced entrepreneurs so that these individuals are prepared to use bootstrapping methods to maintain liquidity during crises.

The COVID-19 crisis presents manifest threats for entrepreneurs since their business survival is often directly at stake given the alarming economic downturn. This existential threat, together with their crucial role in the economy, is the reason for the plethora of public financial support schemes being implemented throughout the entire world. However, support schemes for mental health are lacking. We aim to investigate, first, whether burnout levels have increased during the crisis and, second, whether burnout levels during the COVID-19 crisis depend on the threat of becoming ill, having to stay at home due to the lockdown, and/or having to file for bankruptcy due to the economic downturn. We do so using seven data sets of French entrepreneurs with a temporal comparison of averages and two data sets of French entrepreneurs with a cross-sectional analysis of individuals. Our findings show that indeed, the risks of burnout have increased during the pandemic and that the threat of bankruptcy is the dominant threat. As an increasing number of studies in the entrepreneurship literature indicate that entrepreneurs’ mental health influences their activities, as well as the growth and sustainability of their ventures, our study is important and timely in its contribution, as it takes a close look at the perception of burnout in general and more specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic.Plain English SummaryThe risk of burnout in French entrepreneurs has increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, which calls for not only financial support but also other forms of support. The COVID-19 pandemic presents many threats for entrepreneurs since their business survival is often directly at stake. These threats are not just financial but also related to health, such as the threat of burnout. The findings of our study show that for French entrepreneurs, the threat of burnout increased after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. This finding raises the question whether this outcome is due to the threat to health, the effects of the lockdown, or the threat of bankruptcy. It appears that all three factors play important roles, although the financial threat is the dominant threat. These findings call for the extension of entrepreneurial support systems beyond the financial area by also involving an “entrepreneurship care” aspect, which includes telephone support, webinars, and mental help facilities.

Chinese university patenting has gained importance in recent years. Using a comprehensive dataset of university patents by 155 leading Chinese universities from 1991 to 2009, our study pursues two objectives: First, we analyze the quantity and quality of patents filed by leading Chinese universities. Second, we analyze the role of subsidy programs with regard to university patenting in China. With regard to the first objective, our results show that university patents witnessed rapid growth in terms of quantity while patent quality did not increase to a similar degree. Regarding the second objective, we find that a subsidy program to promote research excellence at selected universities is a significant driver of patent quantity and quality. In contrast, a subsidy program that decreases the costs of patent applications seems to enhance patent quantity but not patent quality. We conclude that innovation policies which aim to stimulate patents of higher quality should focus primarily on increasing university R&D, and to a lesser extent on decreasing the costs of university patenting.

The idea that start-ups and young firms (hereafter entrepreneurial firms) create jobs is very popular among policy-makers and has led to a large number of studies investigating the effect of entrepreneurship on job creation. Recently, however, society and many players in the political arena have begun to care not only about job quantity and quantitative employment levels, but also about the quality of the jobs created. This study provides the first systematic literature review of research on the quantity and quality of jobs created by entrepreneurial firms. Our review shows that entrepreneurial firms have a long-lasting and positive effect on job creation. This effect seems to be due to a very small fraction of young, high-growth firms. With regard to job quality, however, the findings are less clear cut: while some studies indicate that entrepreneurial firms do create higher-quality jobs, a multitude of studies indicate that these jobs are of lower quality. We also show that entrepreneurial firms attract a different type of employee than established firms. For example, employees in entrepreneurial firms attach a lower weight to salary and job security than those in established firms, and instead assign greater value to responsibility, innovation, and challenges. Another finding is that many jobs in entrepreneurial firms are filled by formerly unemployed individuals. The review concludes with policy implications and avenues for future research.

Despite a worldwide increase in university patenting, empirical studies have largely focused on analyzing university patenting in individual countries and regions. We provide analyses from an international perspective, examining patents at the top 300 universities worldwide. By providing a patent ranking system and an analysis of the determinants of university patenting, we enable an international comparison not only between different countries but also between universities within countries. A ranking of the top-patenting universities shows a huge predominance of US universities: 18 of the top 25 universities are located in the US, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology being ranked first. Our results show that the propensity to apply for patents is very high among US and Asian universities, while European universities lag behind. In addition to the home country, further determinants of university patenting are the quantity of the universities’ publications and a technological focus in areas such as chemistry and mechanical engineering. However, the size of a university and the quality of its publications are not found to be significant determinants.

Societies around the globe respond to the contemporary technological and economic change by defining entrepreneurship and innovation as core principles for future competitive advantage. Does this rise of the \"entrepreneurial society\" also imply that entrepreneurial personalities are becoming increasingly wides-pread and powerful in political leadership? Joseph A. Schumpeter already argued that highly influential entrepreneurs are unique and show a certain personality pattern that can be described as being not only high in creativity and change orientation but also high in competitiveness and rule-breaking. It is interesting to ask whether such Schumpeterian personalities indeed play an increasingly important role in political leadership, given that daily routines of policy leaders, at least at first glance, usually require rather non-entrepreneurial strategies such as careful, risk-averse diplomacy. To address this question. we first survey the existing literature on personality and political leadership. We further present a novel personality analysis of an influential business leader that recently made a transition to political leadership: Donald J. Trump, the incumbent US president. Employing a language-based, computerized method of analyzing Twitter statements, we compare his online personality to the online personality of other influential entrepreneurs and business managers, who do not engage in political leadership. The results indicate that Trump is indeed distinct in that he shows stronger features of a Schumpeterian personality. However, he is also comparatively high in Neuroticism. We discuss these findings focusing on the potential implications of a concentration of entrepreneurial mindsets in political leadership.

We assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on venture capital (VC) investments, documenting a significant decline in investments using a dataset of 39,527 funding rounds occurring before and during the pandemic in 130 countries. In line with our theoretical considerations, we show that this decline is more pronounced for investments characterized by higher uncertainty, namely investments in seed-stage ventures, industries affected more heavily by the COVID-19 crisis, international investments, and non-syndicated investments. Investor prominence partially moderates these effects.Plain English SummaryA new study, investigating 130 countries, finds that COVID-19 influenced the global venture capital landscape in surprising ways. We assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on venture capital (VC) investments, documenting a significant decline in investments using a dataset of 39,527 funding rounds occurring before and during the pandemic in 130 countries. Our study shows that this decline is more pronounced for investments in seed-stage ventures, industries affected more heavily by the COVID-19 crisis, international investments, and non-syndicated investments. However, prominent investors are affected differently compared to less prominent VC firms.

Academic freedom is a critical norm of science. Despite the widely postulated importance of academic freedom, the literature attests to a dearth of research on the topic. Specifically, we know little about how academic freedom relates to indicators of societal progress, such as innovation. We address this research gap by empirically assessing the impact of academic freedom on the quantity (patent applications) and quality (patent citations) of innovation output using a comprehensive sample of 157 countries over the 1900–2015 period. We find that improving academic freedom by one standard deviation increases patent applications by 41% and forward citations by 29%. The results are robust across a range of different specifications. Our findings constitute an alarming plea to policymakers: global academic freedom has declined over the past decade for the first time in the last century and our estimates suggest that this decline poses a substantial threat to the innovation output of countries in terms of both quantity and quality.

The field of entrepreneurship has seen remarkable growth, increasing the expectations of academic audiences. Articles need to balance novelty with rigorous methodology, theoretical contributions, social implications, and coherent argumentation to succeed in the publication process. However, navigating these varied and sometimes conflicting expectations to achieve optimal distinctiveness in academic narratives is challenging for authors. To explore how authors can achieve optimal distinctiveness amidst these complex expectations, we studied academic narratives and related editorial decisions of two leading entrepreneurship journals, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice (ETP, 4,151 papers) and Small Business Economics Journal (SBEJ, 4,043 papers), using computer-aided text analysis. Our study debunks common assumptions about what makes a successful entrepreneurship paper, providing an empirical basis for understanding actual versus perceived publication requisites. Furthermore, we extend optimal distinctiveness theory by demonstrating that high distinctiveness is not uniformly advantageous, meeting numerous expectations is not necessarily beneficial, and clear language is crucial for complex narratives. Our study underscores that crafting narratives is more nuanced than traditionally believed.Plain English SummaryGetting published in Entrepreneurship Journals: Less is more! How can entrepreneurship scholars increase their chances of getting published? Our study delves into scholarly articles in entrepreneurship journals, investigating which papers are published and which papers are not. We challenge the assumption that authors must fulfil as many expectations as possible and emphasize the importance of addressing specific audience expectations. By analyzing narratives and editorial decisions from Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice (ETP) and Small Business Economics Journal (SBEJ), we uncover the key to publication success: tailoring articles to meet the targeted audience’s most pronounced requirements. Focusing on theoretical contributions when submitting one’s work to ETP and focusing on empirical contributions when submitting one’s work to SBEJ can increase the chances of getting your work published.

PurposePrior research has investigated the development of Islamic communities. The authors contribute to this line of research by analyzing the effects of Islamic values and Islamic religious practices on entrepreneurship intentions in Islamic communities. Using theory of planned behavior as a theoretical lens, they also take into account that the relationship between religion and entrepreneurial intentions can be mediated by individual’s attitude toward entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyze primary data obtained from a sample of 1,895 Pakistani university students. They also use structural equation modeling to perform a nuanced assessment of the relationship between Islamic values and practices and entrepreneurship intentions and to account for mediating effects.FindingsThe results show that both Islamic values and Islamic practices positively influence entrepreneurship intentions. Both effects are mediated by the attitude toward entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to prior research on entrepreneurship in Islamic communities by applying a more fine-grained approach to capture the link between religion and entrepreneurship. Further, they contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship intentions by showing that the influence of religion on entrepreneurship intentions is mainly due to religious values and practices, which shape the attitude toward entrepreneurship and thereby influence entrepreneurship intentions in religious communities.