Knowledge that Transforms

The contextual factors of entrepreneurship consist of social, political, and economic variables such as displacement, changes in markets, and government deregulation (Bird, 1988). Entrepreneurial intentions are further structured by both rational/analytic thinking (goal-directed behavior) and intuitive/holistic thinking (vision). These thought processes underlie the creation of formal business plans, opportunity analysis, and other goal-directed behavior. This paper further develops Bird's model of entrepreneurial intentionality by suggesting that individual self-efficacy, which has been defined as a person's belief in his or her capability to perform a task, influences the development of both entrepreneurial intentions and actions or behaviors.

Before there can be entrepreneurship there must be the potential for entrepreneurship, whether in a community seeking to develop or in a large organization seeking to innovate. Entrepreneurial potential, however, requires potential entrepreneurs. This paper discusses antecedents of such potential and proposes a model based on Shapero's (1982) model of the entrepreneurial event. We then discuss this model in light of supporting evidence from two different perspectives, corporate venturing and enterprise development.

Over the years much has been written about the organization life cycle, yet there has been remarkably little attention given to the underlying construct of a life-cycle stage. It is proposed in this study that each life-cycle stage consists of a unique configuration of variables related to organization context and structure. Cluster analysis is used to derive a taxonomy of growth stage configurations in a sample of 126 high-technology organizations. The derived configurations suggest a sequence of four growth stages.

This research presents a parsimonious model of venture performance that incorporates individual founder, firm, and environmental characteristics. Specifically, It examines the moderating effect of founder competencies on venture performance in a sample of 155 manufacturing firms in northwestern Pennsylvania. In support of our hypotheses, the results indicate that individual level competencies moderate the relationships between the quality of the opportunity and firm performance and access to resource-based capabilities and firm performance.