Aspirations for Growth, Innovation, and Internationalization of the Early-stage Entrepreneurs

Dijana Močnik; Karin Širec

Dijana Močnik
Karin Širec

Keywords: early-stage entrepreneurs, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, growth aspirations, innovation orientation, international orientation

Abstract

In this paper, we empirically assess the relationship between early-stage entrepre- neurial firms’ growth aspirations and their innovative and international orientation. We obtained the data before the economic crisis from the 2003—2008 Global En- trepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey for eight southeastern European co- untries (SeEC) and five western European countries (WEC). The results show that a firm’s newness of its technologies used and its offer and international orientations inhibit growth aspirations. In the early stage, firms lack the resources, experience, skills, and networking necessary to grow. The extent of the negative relationships between growth aspirations and innovative and international orientation is bigger in WEC than in SeEC.

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Author Biographies

Dijana Močnik

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Slovenia
E-mail: dijana.mocnik@um.si

Dijana Močnik was born in Maribor. She studied economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), where she received her PhD in 1998. After gra- duating, she worked for eight years in the business economy. In 1993, she was employed at the FEB, and since 2001 she has been employed at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where she teaches courses in economics, management, and entrepreneurship. As a researcher, she coopera- tes as a member of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Mana- gement at FEB.

Karin Širec

Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia
E-mail: karin.sirec@uni-mb.si

Karin Širec received her PhD in economics from the Faculty of Economics and Business in Maribor (FEB). After graduating, she worked as a young counselor in a business firm. Since 1996, she has worked at the FEB. As a member of the research group at the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Manage- ment at FEB, she participates in two longitudinal studies in the field of entrepre- neurship—namely, the Slovenian Entrepreneurship Observatory and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. She is also a Slovenian representative of an internati- onal research group on female entrepreneurship research called DIANA.

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