Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus with the university-based business plan competition (BPC) and proposes how the theory of effectuation might inform a new model. Such a purpose is timely ...given the under-challenged nature of the BPC methodology. Design/methodology/approach: Extant literature pertaining to business planning and the business plan within entrepreneurship education and effectuation is reviewed; numerous conceptual issues which undermine BPC provision in its traditional form are then identified. In response to these identified issues, a series of principles which could underpin the introduction of an effectuation-led business coopetition (EBC) are outlined. Findings: Strong emphasis on business plan production within a conventional BPC model raises questions about its capacity to release the entrepreneurial potential of the higher education institution student and provide them with an authentic and relevant entrepreneurial learning experience. Through using the ideas of effectuation to rethink provision, the action of business plan production can usefully be replaced with the action of business implementation. As well as facilitate a beneficial shift from competition to coopetition-based entrepreneurship education. Originality/value: This paper valuably critiques the efficacy of a commonly employed yet under-challenged methodology for entrepreneurship education; the BPC. The propositions offered can guide competition provision in a more authentic, realistic and relevant way that is potentially better suited to inspiring and supporting entrepreneurial new venturing amongst students and graduates now rather than in the future. The paper thus has practical value to those designing and delivering competition-based entrepreneurship education.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how nascent entrepreneur perspectives towards the utility of the formal written business plan (BP) change before and after start-up competition (SUC) ...participation. Such focus is pertinent and timely given the enduringly contentious matter of BP creation for nascent entrepreneurs. Despite mounting criticisms, considerable resources continue to be expended on promoting the BP within educative and start-up support provision; the globally ubiquitous SUC phenomenon provides a prominent example of such promotion.
Design/methodology/approach
In-depth open-ended interviews were undertaken with nascent entrepreneurs at the start, end and six months after participation in a UK university-based SUC. An inductive thematic content analytical approach was taken to identify patterns across participant accounts at each wave of data collection.
Findings
Upon entering the competition, the nascent entrepreneurs held highly positive views towards the BP, believing that it provided legitimacy and served as a means of sense-making. Immediately after the competition, views were more ambivalent, with the BP viewed as secondary to action but remaining an external expectation. Six months after the competition, the BP was viewed as underutilised and internally irrelevant; an unnecessary feature of an action-led approach and only useful when needed by external parties.
Originality/value
Contributing to the limited body of SUC research, the enduring centrality of formal BP production within competition provision is challenged given its limited relevance to the nascent entrepreneur beyond the competition context. Emphasis on BPning within a competition need not automatically require BP creation; this has implications for business competition organisers.
This paper aims to analyse whether the entrepreneurial competencies acquired by students when they work on a business plan have any kind of influence on student learning process results in terms of ...gender. To do so, we used data obtained from questionnaires distributed among 425 students on the Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Comparing men and women, we performed exploratory factor analyses on competencies and learning process results, and linear regression analyses to determine the influence of gender and competencies on learning. Our findings indicated that women reported poorer learning results than men using the business plan methodology. Another key finding was the highly positive influence on learning process results of time-management and entrepreneurial competencies in particular. Finally, we found no significant differences between men and women in terms of the impact of competencies on learning process results.
We explore a well-known instance of fast decision making under high uncertainty, venture capital (VC) opportunity screening. We analyze a sample of 722 funding requests submitted to an American VC ...firm and evaluate the influence of the form of the submission and content of business planning documents on VC funding decisions. We improve on prior literature by a) using a large sample of known representativeness, b) relating request characteristics to actual VC decisions, and c) developing an inferential logic that takes account of the multiple sources of information to which VCs have access. We find that the presence of planning documents and some information contained therein are weakly associated with VC funding decisions. Based on our inferential strategy, we find that this information is learned independently of its inclusion in the business planning documents.
Research shows that entrepreneurial activities significantly promote economic development, which enhances the importance of the innovative entrepreneurial potential of college students. This study ...analyzes the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention from the perspective of planned behavior theory. By examining the significant role of entrepreneurship education at colleges and universities on economic and social development, we established a conceptual model. To understand the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention, the hypotheses propose the intermediary role of entrepreneurial ability, and the study provides evidence from China the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention. Improving entrepreneurial intention and encouraging college students to establish businesses through entrepreneurship education in universities is crucial. This study proposes a hypothetical model of the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial intention in entrepreneurship education at universities. Using a questionnaire survey of college students with practical experience in the Yangtze River Delta of China, the bootstrap method in the SPSS macro program process software verifies the hypotheses. The results show that entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, and entrepreneurial practice support positively affect entrepreneurial competence. In addition, entrepreneurial competence plays an intermediary role in the relationship between entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, entrepreneurship practice support, and entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurship education improves the ability to establish a business in the present and in entrepreneurial activities in the future. Entrepreneurial competence obtained through entrepreneurship education continuously affects entrepreneurial intention.
This study analyses the importance of business plans for founders and professional equity investors in the process of acquiring venture capital. How do the founders' efforts spent on writing a ...business plan relate to obtaining the equity funding asked for? Based on a sample of 301 nascent ventures, we first ran a two-step selection model. This quantitative analysis shows that, while a founder's effort to write a business plan positively correlates with the likelihood of the founding team seeking external financing, business plans are no longer a determining factor for actually obtaining external equity funding. Through additional qualitative analysis, we shed light on this finding and point to other tools venture capitalists increasingly use to forecast venture performance, thereby substituting business plans as core documents of venture assessment. Our study thus contributes to a better understanding of new matching tools between entrepreneurs and investors, thereby adding new knowledge to entrepreneurship scholars and policy-makers alike.
Drawing on previous literature proposing that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) reflects a disposition toward, rather than actual involvement in, entrepreneurial activity, and on the resource–based ...view of the firm, we complement the literature concerning the EO–performance relationship with the introduction of exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation as mediating variables accounting for entrepreneurial behavior. Data from 228 adolescent companies indicate the existence of an EO–entrepreneurial behavior gap and support the predicted mediating effects. In this context, the constituent dimensions of EO differ in their effects on exploration and exploitation, and performance, calling for an exacting consideration of the interplay of orientation, activity, and performance.
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