International Small Business Journal, Ahead of Print. This article illustrates how lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) entrepreneurs engage in identity construction from an intersectionality perspective. Our empirical findings suggest that the sexual identities of our interviewees are essential aspects of their daily business lives in terms of their entrepreneurial identities and their motivations, key success factors and the barriers they face. By analysing their experiences from an intersectionality perspective, we illustrate how the sexual minority entrepreneurs in our study internalise ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Ahead of Print. This article extends the discussion of the predictors of job crafting to include small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working in an information and communication technologies (ICT)-based mobile and multilocational manner. Based on a survey (N = 412) conducted in 43 Finnish SMEs, the job and personal resources-related predictors of approach and avoidance types of job crafting were analysed. From job resources, co-working, multilocality, the resources in the physical work environment, useful ICT and social support predicted the approach ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Ahead of Print. What makes some families more entrepreneurial than others? How are they able to nurture entrepreneurship across generations? These are fundamental questions for family business and entrepreneurship research. In particular, the multigenerational dimension of entrepreneurial families (EFs) and the new family logics that emerge as the family grows may lead to different types of entrepreneurial activities. To shed light on these questions, we conduct a systematic literature review of 90 peer-reviewed articles focusing on the characteristics and ..read more

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International Small Business Journal, Ahead of Print. In 2012, the UK government made the decision to offer loans to new entrepreneurs who were excluded from the credit market through the start-up loan (SUL) scheme. By 2021, loans totalling £759 million have been issued to 85,809 new start-ups. A disproportionate share of these SULs was issued to previously unemployed people to support their transition into self-employment. This paper questions whether those who started with the fewest resources achieved better or worse outcomes than those who started from a more beneficial position. Our findi ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Volume 40, Issue 6, Page 671-683, September 2022. This is an introductory article to the special issue In Search of the Next Growth Episode: How Firms Catalyse and Sustain Periods of High Growth. The article reviews alternative streams of research on firm growth, including ‘random growth’, ‘responsive growth’ and ‘resourceful growth’. The themes of, and contributions to, the Special Issue are presented. Finally, we identify a number of directions for future research, including the importance of unpacking the drivers and causes of high growth episodes (HGEs ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Volume 40, Issue 6, Page 768-798, September 2022. High-growth firms contribute disproportionately to the creation of employment, wealth and economic development on a global basis. Yet, knowledge of the circumstances under which such growth patterns occur is limited, and the findings with regard to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are inconclusive. Adopting the behavioural agency model, we analyse the effect of family control and related nuances (i.e. degree of family ownership and presence of a family chief executive officer (CEO)) on SME growth ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Volume 40, Issue 6, Page 710-741, September 2022. The growth of the mid-sized enterprise arguably facilitates the resilience and stability needed for a thriving economy, even though such firms are comparatively overlooked or underrepresented in the scholarly literature. Further, the process of how mid-sized firms grow is seemingly unexplained. We address this gap in the literature through qualitative research and unveil a growth process model for mid-sized enterprise, illuminating the interaction of relationship and resource variables that are orchestrated ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Volume 40, Issue 6, Page 684-709, September 2022. Recent contributions to the literature on small firm growth have been marked by a growing sense of frustration with the state-of-the-art and what it implicates in both theory and policy. In short, while growth episodes appear relatively common, a tiny proportion of firms sustain growth and ‘scale’. This calls into question the very basis upon which policies seeking to target high growth firms (HGFs) rest. In addition, it cautions against perspectives that view growth as the essence of entrepreneurship. In t ..read more

International Small Business Journal, Ahead of Print. Drawing on resource dependency theory and the resource-absorbing perspective of risk-taking, this article examines how political connections provide firms with opportunities to gain government funding support to enhance financial slack, which can in turn benefit their entrepreneurial risk-taking. We employ both symmetrical (partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM)) and configurational approaches (fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)) using a sample of 202 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China ..read more