The reasons why small business development has been disappointing in Russia compared with other transition countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic are here analyzed. It is, however, suggested that the picture may not be so gloomy as official statistics suggest. As far as St. Petersburg...

In developing and transition economies, microlending has become an effective instrument for providing micro businesses with the necessary financial resources to launch operations. In the industrialized countries, with their highly developed banking systems, however, there has been ongoing debate...

This study examines the effect of network’s structural holes, i.e., the absence of a link between two contacts who are both linked to an actor, on product development and profit growth of software ventures in two different institutional contexts of China and Russia. Using interview data of 159...

Why are female entrepreneurs so rare? Women have both to a lower entry rate into selfemployment and a higher exit rate in Germany. To explain the gender gap, a structural microeconometric model of the transition rates is estimated, which includes a standard risk aversion parameter. As inputs...

This article examines the contingent value of entrepreneurs' networks to survival likelihood of Internet ventures, and the dynamics of entrepreneurs' networks over time. The empirical data are composed of the longitudinal surveys of 94 Internet ventures in Beijing, China. The study found the...

Although the development of a new private sector is generally considered crucial to economic transition, there has been rather little empirical research on the determinants of startup firm growth. This paper uses panel data techniques to analyze a survey of 297 new small enterprises in Romania...

The transformation of East-Central Europe deepens the debate about firm creation in a unique way: how do approaches to institutional creation impact the creation of firms? This paper theoretically and empirically explores this question by offering an alternative, embedded politics approach to...

Does entrepreneurial optimism affect business performance? Using a unique data set based on repeated survey design, we investigate this relationship empirically. Our measures of ‘optimism’ and ‘realism’ are derived from comparing the turnover growth expectations of 133 owners-managers...