Purpose Micro-businesses account for a large majority of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, they remain comparatively under-researched. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the extant literature on growth challenges and to distinguish growth constraints facing...

Purpose – Most of the research on international outsourcing of value chain activities focuses on larger firms. The purpose of this paper is to fill an important research gap by exploring how small firms manage institutional differences to enhance their international outsourcing success....

Purpose – The research aims to ask whether, in the absence of overarching innovative conditions, a small firm can have an innovative culture and what its scale and scope is. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs four exploratory case studies. This methodological choice is justified...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the fund raising ability of innovative new ventures/startups. Design/methodology/approach – The authors investigate a data set composed of 108 Italian innovative new ventures. Specifically, the authors run a Tobit...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator management in fostering social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and...

Purpose – The paper explores the composition of employment in new innovative firms. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the mixture of job positions at the firm level measured by employees’ occupational position, their qualification and specialisation, as well as their origin....