Selected Academic Resources  

This study shows that female entrepreneurs operate less productive new ventures as majority owners than their male counterparts. But the gender productivity gap substantially reduces when they operate new ventures with men as equal owners. Since female entrepreneurs are often less experienced than male entrepreneurs, gender-equal ownership can yield productivity gains by facilitating the flow of essential industry knowledge from experienced male co-owners to inexperienced female co-owners. We show that the gender productivity gap reduces from 16.5 to 5.9% if female entrepreneurs choose to co-own equally-owned ventures, rather than women-owned ventures. We also confirm that experienced female owners improve the productivity of women-owned ventures relative to men-owned ventures. Meanwhile, we show that equally-owned ventures yield productivity gains only when experienced male co-owners are matched with inexperienced female co-owners. Thus, less experienced female entrepreneurs should especially consider gender-equal ownership as an attractive ownership option, knowing that it can facilitate knowledge transfer and improve business performance.

Women-owned businesses are still underrepresented in terms of export activity. This study compares the financial returns that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) generate with women- versus men-owned export businesses. We examine competing hypotheses about how gender moderates the relationship between export intensity and SMEs’ financial performance based on differing perspectives of women entrepreneurs. Based on these theoretical elaborations, we analyzed the export activity and profitability of 7,761 Canadian SMEs with women versus men owners. We found that women-owned export businesses achieve superior financial performance when they adopt an intensive export strategy. We discuss the implications of this finding for international entrepreneurship theory, practice and policy.

Immigrants and sustained international migration are transforming developed Western countries at an unprecedented pace and scale. Sustained international migration is also further accentuating the already-dominant presence of immigrant entrepreneurs in the international business landscape. These immigrant entrepreneurs often operate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that primarily export to their country of origin. However, conflicting findings suggest theoretical ambiguity in how the level of country-of-origin export intensity influences the SMEs’ financial performance. Adopting a contingent perspective, we theorize how and when socially embedded immigrant owners derive superior performance from high country-of-origin export intensity. Based on a sample of 2584 immigrant-owned SMEs and 6391 firm-year observations, we find that SMEs led by immigrant owners with longer stays in their country of residence and whose country of origin is geographically proximate to their country of residence generate superior financial performance from high country-of-origin export intensity. These findings are consistent with the view that immigrant entrepreneurs’ international financial success is a function of network- and cognition-based advantages linked to their level of concurrent embeddedness in their countries of residence and origin. We also provide actionable insights for immigrant entrepreneurs and for policy-makers tasked to design suitable export promotion programs.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are strategically important investments that can drive corporate growth and development. However, they offer uncertain payoffs over the long term and could cost top executives their jobs when results are disappointing. As a result, risk-averse top executives can be reluctant to strategically decide to support even promising M&As. We integrate insights from upper echelon and managerial risk-aversion perspectives to determine whether and when antitakeover provisions can foster firms’ acquisition frequency. Drawing on a sample of 8438 M&As by 1301 public companies in the United States, we report evidence that these provisions positively affect firms’ acquisition frequency. We also find that the positive impact of these provisions on firms’ acquisition frequency is weaker when chief executive officers own a larger proportion of their firms’ equity and when firms operate in industries with higher competition. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of our findings.

Entrepreneurship is challenging, whatever your background, in the current science- and technology-driven Western world. However, unlike traditionally dominant, native-born, white male entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, those who face greater hurdles blocking their path to success primarily come from marginalized and minority groups, both real and self-perceived—including immigrants, refugees, women, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Despite their potential to innovate and add value in the global marketplace, they persistently struggle, or fail, because they lack the requisite code-breaking skills. This book helps these underdog entrepreneurs acquire those skills with actionable advice to achieve and sustain success.
It proposes a framework that pinpoints what the author calls the outsider problem—that is, situations in which individuals are primarily disadvantaged because they lack access to networks that facilitate superior learning and performance outcomes. He completes the framework by incorporating personal qualities and strategies that can solve this problem.
Along the way, Morgan distills insights and evidence from multiple fields, combined with a fresh look at the familiar stories of initially marginalized business leaders, such as Indra Nooyi, Jack Ma, Hilary Devey and Mike Lazaridis. He also shares the less known, but equally inspiring stories of others.

This book will help readers thrive while transcending their underdog status.

Immigrant owners possess valuable human and social capital from which small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) might derive advantages when internationalizing. According to this resource-based perspective, such advantages might be manifested in immigrant-owned SMEs' enhanced ability to identify, evaluate, develop and exploit opportunities in international markets. However, a cognitive perspective offers an opposing view: insofar as immigrant owners are more prone to overconfidence than their non-immigrant counterparts when making internationalization decisions, immigrant-owned SMEs might reap less financial rewards from potentially high-risk international markets. We pit the two perspectives against each other theoretically and empirically by evaluating; a) the relationship between business owners' immigrant background and SMEs' export intensity, and b) the extent to which such background moderates the relationship between SMEs' export intensity and (risk-adjusted) financial performance. Based on a representative sample of 9977 Canadian SMEs, we find that the presence of immigrant owners positively impacts export intensity, but negatively moderates the relationship between export intensity and financial performance. We interpret this evidence, combined with supplementary analyses, as support for a cognitive theory of international entrepreneurship in general, and particularly in relation to the role and consequences of entrepreneurs' immigrant background.