Small business start‐ups: success factors and support implications

Abstract

This empirical study investigates the characteristics of a cohort of 166 small businesses which were set up during a period of recession by founders, all of whom had experienced a period of unemployment prior to start‐up. These new ventures were appraised and supported by their local Training & Enterprise Council (TEC) prior to start‐up and in their formative months. This paper analyses the appropriateness and success of support services in the light of an empirical investigation of the factors which appear to impact on survival/failure and growth prospects of surveyed businesses. Comparisons are made between those businesses which are still trading and those which have ceased trading and between businesses with high and low growth expectations. Factors which are investigated include the founders’ personal background and experience; reasons put forward for start‐up; early problems encountered in running a business; business objectives and expectations.

Effect of individual factors on youth entrepreneurship – a study of Uttarakhand state, India

“…This sparks the need to understand the 'favorable educational background' for a budding entrepreneurs or what type of education or majors, if any, are more helpful for a person in building entrepreneurial intentions. A lot of authors (Kolvereid & Moen, 1997;Noel, 1998;Dyer 1994;Watson et al 1998;Souitaris et al 2007) have emphasized upon entrepreneurship education as being critical for raising entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurship development. But on the contrary Brockhaus (1982) in his study has cited the study of Robidox & Garnier held in 1973 who studied the level of education of entrepreneurs in high-tech firms.…”

Exploring the Role of Perceived Contextual and Environmental Motivators in Venture Creation: Survey in South Asian Context

“…In addition, if contextual and environmental factors are similar to personality traits and play a role as essential facilitators of entrepreneurial activities (Hisrich & Peters, 1995;Pennings, 1997), thus affecting the entrepreneurial decision process of entrepreneurs in their countries of origin, then it could be argued that these same be have an influencing effect on regulating attitude and also impact on their perceived behavioural control, entrepreneurial intention and behaviour (Watson, Hogarth-Scott, & Wilson, 1998). Thus, contextual and environmental factors cannot be separated from physiological and demographical factors (Turker & Selcuk, 2009) and this strongly suggests the need to consider not only temporal issues (Bird, 1991) but also the contextual and environmental factors which may precipitate, facilitate or inhibit entrepreneurial attitude, intentions and behaviour.…”

The influence of entrepreneur characteristics on the success of pure dot.com firms

“…), and not because of opportunities detected. From this perspective, there are two different types of precipitating condition (Alstete, 2002;Watson et al, 1998). The first are the push factors (also called negative inducements), for example loss of employment, conflicts in the workplace, frustration, and so on.…”