Fredrick Agboma

This book offers novel and contemporary thinking of entrepreneurship and change. It espouses the distinct but reciprocal nature of both concepts to unravel high levels of transformation, both in terms of social structures and social relations, inherent in new venture creation. It provides insights from a theoretical, educational, and industrial context with emphasis on holistic approaches to change. Each chapter illuminates distinct elements of the entrepreneurial landscape and the importance of learning, creativity and innovation as tools for practice and knowledge management. This book is an essential resource for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers because it provides new outlooks and dimensions on the transformational powers of entrepreneurship and change.

This chapter is an attempt to bring about completeness to the entrepreneurship and change literature by articulating a view for entrepreneurship as an outcome of change. In achieving this task, enterprise culture, creativity, and innovation are posited as building blocks of entrepreneurship and taken to reflect the cloudy, contained, and concrete phases with varying levels of specificity and ambiguity that institute entrepreneurship. In developing the 3Cs view of entrepreneurship as outcome of change model, the discussion first outlines the distinct facets of change embodied in each of the building blocks before going on to delineate how the sequence of change in the three phases collectively serves to establish entrepreneurship in practice. The 3Cs view of entrepreneurship as outcome of change model is a useful practice-based tools for articulating the role and nature of change in relation to the formation and sustenance of entrepreneurship in practice. From this perspective, entrepreneurship can be viewed as an outcome of change as well as agent of change, bringing about harmony, complementariness, and completeness to our understanding of entrepreneurship and change.

This is a follow up paper on the dwarfed giant: impact of trade and related policies on SMEs in the Nigerian textile industry. This study uncovers how the dwarfed giant can be undwarfed through the creation of shared value. To achieve this, the study examines areas of SMEs collaborative partnership in the Nigerian textile industry. SMEs in the Nigerian textile industry are faced with challenges that limit their abilities to compete favourably due to growing pressures from the liberalisation of international trade. These challenges have been an issue of concern, especially for SMEs fabric manufacturers operating in the Nigerian textile industry who are faced with the fundamental task of attaining long-term sustainability while simultaneously creating value for their customers and the society. The study identified some elements of collaborative partnerships between SMEs, customers and the government. It also identified the absence of on-going collaboration between SMEs and educational institutions in the country. However, these collaborative efforts have yielded little or no result due to the lack of shared understanding and values among key stakeholders in the industry. In bridging this gap, the study suggests that the principles of shared value creation be embedded into SMEs business strategy in inter-organizational relationships with key stakeholders in and out of the textile value chain. This way, they can effectively co-create shared value in the internal environment and adequately tackle the challenges of the external business environment.

This chapter explores the factors affecting women entrepreneurial attitudes across a range of European cultures. It acknowledges that women's socio-cultural profile across Europe has become an interesting issue to consider. The findings show that getting an insight into the world of women entrepreneurs helps us to understand their roles, expectations, and the factors that influence their entrepreneurial attitudes across different cultures. In addition, gender-based differences and stereotypes are noted as prevalent in the enterprise and entrepreneurship. Despite the challenges, this chapter indicates the women's success in business ventures and why they are perceived as entrepreneurs operating in a European culture. This chapter concludes by calling for a change from the traditional masculinity and femininity validation to the modern perception of women entrepreneurship as the way for innovation and economic growth.

This study examines the impact of trade-related policies on SMEs fabric manufacturers operating in the Nigerian textile industry. The Nigerian textile industry was the third largest in Africa and the second largest employer of labour after the government. However, from the 1990s, the industry started experiencing some challenges often linked to trade liberalisation policy under the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This placed SMEs textile fabric manufacturing firms under immense pressure to attain long-term sustainability as the productivity and competitiveness of the domestic industry were being threatened by foreign/external competitors from international markets. In identifying and addressing the issues posed by trade policies as part of achieving the research objective, a qualitative mode of inquiry with a case study approach was employed. Semi-structured In-depth interviews were conducted with the managers of three formally registered SMEs fabric manufacturing firms in Lagos State, Nigeria. The findings were interpreted using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the challenges faced by SMEs in the Nigerian textile industry are linked to the lack of supportive and measurable policy and regulatory frameworks to accompany the implementation of liberal policy in the country. These findings point to the fact that in order to revive and boost the productivity and competitiveness of SMEs in the Nigerian textile industry, and to reap the full benefits of international trade policy on liberalised markets, the government has to engage in restructuring the business environment through the implementation of effective and stable macroeconomic, trade-related infrastructural and institutional policies.

Differentiation is discussed as a teaching and learning strategy used to enable and encourage better educational outcomes in the Higher Education context. As we examine differentiation within our practice in Early Childhood Studies and Business Studies, we take into consideration factors such as stage of learning, institutional structure and student characteristics. The aims of this paper are to explore the individual differentiation practices within the two disciplinary areas through personal reflection; to explore the opportunities and limitations to differentiated practices in the HE context, specifically from the point of view of students; and to compare the views from two different academic disciplines in order to highlight similarities, differences and good practice. This is achieved in semi-structured interviews with students in their final year who reflect on their learning journeys in a widening participation university.

The continued political and academic interest in small firms is allied to the belief that new independent small firm lay the foundation for innovation and growth in the private sector and wider socioeconomic developments (Alsos et al., 2006; Davidsson, 1995; van Gelderen at al., 2008). This interest is particularly relevant in today’s business landscape plagued with diminishing opportunities for sustained formal sector employment and individual work preferences which increasingly favour self-reliance, self-direction and entrepreneurship (Hall, 2002; van Gelderen at al., 2008). All of which compel us to increase our understanding of these individuals and the factors that contribute to their entrepreneurial decisions. The entrepreneurship literature has mainly focused on intentions as the best predictors of individual entrepreneurial behaviours (Bird, 1988; Krueger at al., 2000). Entrepreneurial intention is defined as the cognitive representation or disposition for individuals to establish new independent small firms (Fini et al., 2009; Guerrero et al., 2008; Nabi, et al., 2006; Remeikiene et al., 2013), where the cognitive dimension is described as the complex and intricate mental processes of perceptions that underline action (Linan, 2008). It adopts the universal condition of intentionality for all human activity and helps us understand why and how individuals respond to situational factors and the incentives that motivate them to actively seek-out and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities.

Purpose: This paper seeks to examine and understand how country institutional environments differently determine the Human Resource Management (HRM) of Multinational Companies (MNCs) from developed countries operating in developing countries, as well as MNCs from developing countries operating in more advanced market economies.
Approach: It adopts a qualitative desk-based research to provide an extensive review of relevant literature. The review focuses predominantly on the following strands of literature: (1) Institutional theory and the environment; (2) HRM practices and systems; (3) Path dependency and MNCs within the context of developed and developing countries.
Findings: The effort reveals that a gap exists in elucidating the impact of institutional environments on the HRM practices of MNCs, between developed and developing countries. The last few decades has seen a plethora of research on the HRM practices of MNCs which originate from developed but operate in developing countries. Most of these, however, tend not to consider in an explicit way the dynamics of the HRM practices of MNCs from developing economies operating in more developed and different institutional contexts where path dependency is also a crucial root for both groups of MNCs and its competitive edges.
Research limitation: The findings are based solely of secondary data and is a theory based paper, therefore, it is limited in terms of empirical evidence.
Practical Implications: A more complete understanding of the dynamic influences of institutional environments allows MNCs both contexts to orient HRM practice in a way that aligns with key institutional features in order to more effectively fulfil wider organisational objectives.
Value: The paper contributes to the comparatively sparse literature in term of the impact of institutional environments on HRM practices in both developed and developing country contexts. In particular, it examines institutional influences on the HRM practices of MNCs from developing countries operating in developed contexts.