The role of entrepreneurship support partnerships in new venture development

HM政府产业战略（HM政府，2017）强调了英国的生产力滞后如何在一定程度上归因于年轻和小企业获得管理培训和指导的不足（Bloom, Dorgan， Dowdy和Van Reenen, 2007； Bloom和Van Reenen, 2006；国家统计局，2017）。政府的工业战略建议在小企业中更多地传播最佳做法，为解决这一培训和生产力差距提供一种解决办法。在申请博士后期间，我试图通过将我的研究成果传达给广泛的学术界、实践者和政策制定者，以促进基于证据的实践改进，来回应这一呼吁。我的工作计划以我在牛津大学完成的博士研究为基础。本研究探讨了商业环境，特别是促进、协调和提供商业支持的公共和私营部门合作伙伴的国家网络，如何影响由大公司下岗员工创办的企业的创业实践。在申请书的其余部分，我将提到政府和私营部门合作伙伴的网络，作为创业支持伙伴关系，促进、协调和提供商业支持。从实证角度来看，该研究探讨了大约300家企业的发展，这些企业源于2011年至2014年诺基亚在芬兰的企业裁员计划。我利用访谈和档案数据来研究与当地创业相关的企业如何支持伙伴关系，以及它们与伙伴关系的参与随后如何影响它们的发展和生产力。诺基亚裁员后的创业案例为观察商业环境在塑造年轻创业公司发展过程中的作用提供了一个很好的起点，因为创业公司的创始人反映出高度同一性的教育和专业背景。他们也都从平等获得当地创业支持伙伴关系的服务中受益。研究发现，企业家精神支持伙伴关系对新创企业的实践和生产力都有指导作用。与通常的假设不同，研究结果表明，企业家精神支持伙伴关系不是形成单一的实体，而是分裂成单独的集群。研究结果表明，创业支持伙伴关系集群可能反映了异质层次和实践，对新创企业的实践和生产力有直接影响。最后，研究结果强调了企业家精神如何支持伙伴关系，尽管其目的是鼓励企业发展，但实际上有时可能限制青年企业的进展。研究结果对创业的政策和实践具有启示意义。对于政策制定者来说，研究结果强调了企业家精神支持伙伴关系的某些方面可能会限制风险投资的发展。对于从业者来说，研究结果证明了对创业支持伙伴关系的等级和实践的敏感性的重要性，以便利用这些企业的全部利益。为了响应HM政府在其工业战略中对改进管理培训和传播最佳实践的呼吁，该研究因此为提高意识和提高政策制定者和从业者的技能提供了基于证据的基础。为了提高对研究的认识和最终的行为改变，我制定了一项详细的影响交付计划，让一系列学者、政策制定者和实践者参与讨论和传播研究成果。该计划包括在不同媒体上的书面和口头交流，培训活动的交付以及与当地企业合作伙伴增长中心的亲自参与。

The HM Government Industrial Strategy (HM Government, 2017) highlights how the productivity lag of the UK can to an extent be attributed to deficiencies in the access that young and small enterprises have to managerial training and mentoring (Bloom, Dorgan, Dowdy & Van Reenen, 2007; Bloom & Van Reenen, 2006; Office for National Statistics, 2017). The Government's Industrial Strategy proposes increased dissemination of best practice among small enterprises to offer one solution to address this training and productivity gap. During the proposed postdoctoral fellowship, I seek to respond to this call by communicating my research to a broad academic, practitioner and policymaker audience for evidence-based practice improvement. My workplan builds on the DPhil research that I completed at the University of Oxford. This research explored how the business environment, specifically the national network of public and private sector partners promoting, co-ordinating and delivering business support, influenced the entrepreneurial practices of ventures founded by laidoff employees of a large corporation. In the remainder of the application, I will refer to the networks of public and private sector partners promoting, co-ordinating and delivering business support as entrepreneurship support partnerships.Empirically, the research explored the development of circa 300 ventures that originated from a Nokia corporate redundancy programme in Finland between 2011 and 2014. I utilised interview and archival data to study how the ventures associated with their local entrepreneurship support partnerships and how their engagement with the partnerships subsequently influenced their development and productivity. The case of the Nokia post-redundancy ventures offered a good starting point to observe the role of business environments in shaping the development of young ventures, as the venture founders reflected highly homogeneous educational and professional backgrounds. They also all benefited from equal access to the services of the local entrepreneurship support partnerships.The research found the entrepreneurship support partnerships to direct both the practices and the productivity of the new ventures. Unlike commonly assumed, the findings showed the entrepreneurship support partnerships not to form unitary entities but rather to split into separate clusters. The findings propose that the clusters of entrepreneurship support partnerships may reflect heterogeneous hierarchies and practices with direct influence on the practises and productivity of new ventures. Finally, the findings highlight how the entrepreneurship support partnerships, despite being designed to encourage entrepreneurial development, may, in fact, at times restrict the progress of young ventures. The findings have implications for the policy and practice of entrepreneurship. For policymakers, the findings highlight how some aspects of entrepreneurship support partnerships may constrain venture development. For practitioners, the findings demonstrate the importance of sensitivity to the hierarchies and practices of the entrepreneurship support partnerships in order to utilise these to the ventures' full benefit. In response to the HM Government's call in its industrial strategy for improved managerial training and dissemination of best practice, the research thus offers evidence-based groundwork for increased awareness and improved skills of policymakers and practitioners. In order to achieve increased awareness of the research and ultimate behavioural change, I have put in place a detailed impact delivery plan that engages a range of academics, policymakers and practitioners in discussion and diffusion of the research findings. The plan covers written and spoken communications in different media, training activity delivery as well as in person engagement with a Local Enterprise Partnership Growth Hub.