Human capital has emerged as a highly utilized theoretical lens through which scholars can better understand entrepreneurship. To synthesize the progress of this stream and promote its use, we review 109 articles in leading management and entrepreneurship journals over two decades. We organize our discussion in terms of multi–theory approaches, methods and analyses, constructs, and study focus. A number of research gaps and promising areas for inquiry are put forward. We develop a typology of human capital and discuss how future investigations of types of human capital related to the entrepreneurship process can benefit research and practice.

No abstract

Organizational researchers have long recognized the important role that top managers play within entrepreneurial firms (Ireland, Hitt and Sirmon 2003). Utilizing Covin and Slevin’s (1989) conceptual framework, the current study explores three key entrepreneurial characteristics of top managers and the impact these characteristics have on firm performance. Specifically, we argue that top managers with a high tolerance of risk, those who favor innovative activities and those who display a high degree of proactiveness will positively impact firm performance. In addition, this study examines the influence of top managers’ prestige, structural and expert power on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. We conclude the study with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggestions for future research in this area of study.

This exploratory study examines the deal structuring stage of the venture capitalist decision-making process. Here, the primary issues of concern are investor confidence and potential control of a venture in relation to the level of financing the investor provides and the structure with which the funding is delivered. Confidence comes in support of the entrepreneur, the venture itself, or a combination of the two, prior to capital transfer, but after the initial "invest or not invest" decision has already occurred. Findings support a multicriteria perspective of the pre-investment decisionmaking process and a distinct difference between entrepreneur confidence and venture confidence in the deal structuring stage.