Strategies and Tools for Entrepreneurial Resource Access: A Cross‐disciplinary Review and Typology

Abstract

Given that gaining access to external resources is a critical component of entrepreneurial activity, a great deal of research has been done in an attempt to predict and explain this phenomenon. Unfortunately, this literature is largely scattered across a wide variety of somewhat disconnected research streams, which makes interpreting the insights that have been hitherto gained challenging. In response, the authors identify a sample of 76 relevant articles from the leading management and entrepreneurship journals that examine entrepreneurial access to resources. Using a narrative synthesis approach, they then organize these articles based on the strategies (projective and/or interpersonal) and tools (words, actions, associations and/or intangibles) by which entrepreneurs gain access to resources. Based on this categorization, the authors discuss the major themes in the extant literature and offer suggestions for how to move research on entrepreneurial access forward in the future.

The Improvisational Entrepreneur: Improvisation Training in Entrepreneurship Education

“…Entrepreneurial self‐efficacy has been used to describe entrepreneurs who can adapt to the unexpected and manage, or even thrive in uncertainty. Such moments could occur with great frequency in the early stages of entrepreneurship, for example—how an entrepreneur recovers after providing an incorrect answer to a question from potential investors or reacts to a new customer’s unusual requests (Chen, Greene, and Crick ; Kuratko, Hornsby, and Naffziger ; Rawhouser, Villanueva, and Newbert ). Entrepreneurial self‐efficacy has been identified in tandem with improvisation as it relates to opportunity development (Hmieleski, Corbett, and Baron ) as well as creativity and idea generation (Fisher and Amabile ; Neck ).…”

Grit as Predictor of Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment in Spain

“…In this vein, the resources entrepreneurs count on to launch a new business, including public policies and programs (Tosun et al, 2016), play a crucial role in the success of the entrepreneurial endeavor and further business development (Baker and Nelson, 2005; Rawhouser et al, 2017). In a sample of nascent American entrepreneurs, Gartner et al (2012) found that entrepreneurs’ personal contributions represent 57.34% of all financing used.…”

“…The small number of studies about the role of grit in entrepreneurship, though informative, have taken a strictly psychological approach to modeling entrepreneurship, controlling mainly for cognitive factors, traits, and socio-demographic characteristics but ignoring how other structural factors such as socioeconomic background and status might moderate the grit-entrepreneurship relationship. A consideration of such factors is particularly important in the context of entrepreneurship, as the resources entrepreneurs count on to launch a new business, including public policies and programs (Tosun et al, 2016), play a crucial role in the success of the entrepreneurial endeavor and further business development (Baker and Nelson, 2005; Rawhouser et al, 2017). Moreover, some preliminary evidence indicates that structural factors such as socioeconomic status might play an indirect role in the development of grit.…”

Main Factors for Understanding High Impacts on CSR Dimensions in the Finance Industry

“…Consequently, companies have developed sustainable activities to contribute to the non-financial impact of the private sector, reporting social and environmental results in addition to their economic results. Thus, the purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of some routes to positive impact in financial sector firms, potentially helping to overcome a still relatively scarce implementation of impact assessment methods [4], partially resulting from the absence of consensus in both academics' and practitioners' spheres [5].…”