Successful entrepreneurs need a range of management and leadership skills, including marketing, financial management and fund raising, strategic planning, and leading entrepreneurial teams. Our academic staff at Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship carry out research in many of these core areas, contributing to the very firm foundation upon which our teaching and training work is built.
Our current research & projects
The first stage in the entrepreneurial process is making the decision to found, acquiring motivation, and choosing an entrepreneurial career. Hunter Centre contributions in this area include:
- Eleanor Shaw‘s research concentrating on marketing and entrepreneurship. In particular, she's interested in entrepreneurial marketing and small firm networks. Her work in this area has considered small creative firms as well as social enterprises and women-owned small firms.
- Paul Ferri has a special interest in sales education for entrepreneurs.
- Claudia Smith’s PhD investigates how entrepreneurs are using the power of emerging online networks to their advantage.
Financing for entrepreneurship is a key element in entrepreneurial management, and several members of the Hunter Centre have carried out research in this area. Topics include:
- Investors’ judgement of high technology founders (Jonathan Levie)
- Bank lending as a source of finance for diverse entrepreneurs (Eleanor Shaw and Sara Carter)
- Ekaterina Murzacheva’s PhD research deals with the relationship between demand and supply sides of informal investor capital provided by informal investors, and possible mechanisms that could put them in a socially efficient balance
- Russell Matthew’s PhD thesis focuses on the formation and development of top management teams in peripheral region high technology ventures
- Brad McMaster’s overarching interest in his PhD research is in enhancing the performance of entrepreneurial teams through researching the factors and outcomes related to exemplary performance
The Hunter Centre studies aim to extend understanding of strategic management and leadership in entrepreneurial firms.
- Lucrezia Casulli studies opportunity creation in internationalising SMEs
- Jonathan Levie studies entrepreneurial exit, including the stigma of entrepreneurial failure and myths around business mortality rates
- Sergio Costa’s PhD research explores business model change in early-stage entrepreneurial firms and how it relates to firm performance
- Mark Johnson’s PhD investigates academic entrepreneurial intentions, including knowledge exchange choices and channels, and their attitude to risk
- The overall objective of Eleni Kesidou’s PhD research is to draw the framework needed to increase understanding of the role entrepreneurial leadership skills play in business growth and organisational performance in the context of the Scottish Economy
- Eko Suhartanto current PhD research interests lie in understanding aspects of corporate entrepreneurship across different kinds of organisation
Our key publications
Entrepreneurial Motivation & Career Choice
Simmons, S.A., Wiklund, J., and Levie, J. (2014) Stigma and Entrepreneurial Failure:
Implications for Entrepreneurs’ Career Choices. Small Business Economics 42:485–505.
Summers, J. Eikhof, D. and Carter, S. (2014) Opting Out of Corporate Careers: Portraits from a Women's Magazine Employee Relations, Vol. 36 No.1, pp.33 - 48
Entrepreneurial Finance & Funding
Freel, M., Carter, S., Mason, C. and Tagg, S. (2012) The Latent Demand for Bank Debt: Characterizing ‘Discouraged Borrowers’ Small Business Economics Vol. 38, No.4, pp. 399-418.
Carter, S. (2011). The Rewards of Entrepreneurship: Exploring Entrepreneurial Incomes, Wealth and Economic Well-being, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Vol. 35, No.1, pp.39-55.
Bank loan officers' perceptions of business owners: the role of gender Wilson Fiona, Carter Sara, Tagg Stephen, Shaw Eleanor, Lam Wing, British Journal of Management Vol 18, No. 2, pp. 154-171 (2007)
Mixed Signals: Why investors may misjudge first time high technology founders
Levie J.D., Gimmon E., Venture Capital Vol 10, No. 3, pp. 233-256 (2008)
Vos, E. Jia-Yuh Yeh, A. Carter, S. and Tagg, S. (2007). The Happy Story of Small Business Financing Journal of Banking and Finance. Vol.31, No.9 pp.2648-2672.
Gender, entrepreneurship, and bank lending: the criteria and processes used by bank loan officers in assessing applications Carter S.L., Shaw E., Lam W., Wilson F., Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Vol 31, No. 3, pp. 427-444 (2007)
Entrepreneurial Marketing
Felzensztein, C. Gimmon, E. and Carter, S. (2010) Geographical Co-location and Social Networks: An Exploratory Analysis of Marketing Cooperation in Entrepreneurial Firms. Long Range Planning Vol.43, No. 5/6, pp.675-690.
Conflict and advertising planning : consequences of networking for advertising planning Grant Ian, McLeod Charlotte, Shaw E., European Journal of Marketing Vol 46, No. 1-2, pp. 73 - 91 (2011)
Exploring opportunity creation in internationalising SMEs : evidence from Scottish firms Casulli Lucrezia, In : Internationalisation, entrepreneurship and the smaller firm pp. 20-36 (2009)
Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Marketing: Myth or Reality Shaw E., Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal Vol 7, No. 3, pp. 194-205 (2004)
The interface between transactional and relational orientation in small service firm's marketing behaviour Hultman C., Shaw E., Journal of Marketing: Theory and Practice Vol 11, No. 1, (2003)
Entrepreneurial marketing : a historical perspective on development and practice Collinson E.M., Shaw E., Management Decision Vol 39, No. 2, pp. 761-767 (2001)
