title: Entrepreneurial Dynamics of Internationalising Ventures: The Opportunity-Value Creation Nexus

authors: Peiris, Indujeeva Keerthilal

subjects: International Entrepreneurship

abstract: International Entrepreneurship (IE) theory has developed extensively over the last two decades by drawing on various theoretical perspectives. While this growing body of knowledge has provided rich insights into the internationalisation behaviour of firms from multiple theoretical perspectives, it has also rendered IE theory fragmented and devoid of a unifying theoretical direction.
Using a qualitative approach, this study intends to address the gap identified above by developing a framework for the entrepreneurial internationalisation process. As such, the study focuses on the entrepreneurial aspects of “opportunity identification and exploitation”: an area to which IE researchers have paid little attention. It is argued that this focus is appropriate as it can extend the scope of international business and IE research by strengthening the foundations of the entrepreneurial theory of internationalisation. 
The study findings extend key insights into the internationalisation process of entrepreneurial firms. The research context provided unique perspectives of how firms in the agriculture-base primary industry in a developing country internationalise. The case findings identified prior knowledge, creativity, selfefficacy, perseverance, and passion as drivers of the opportunity development process. Also, the study supported the idea that both access to resources and entrepreneurs’ social capital have significant influence on how opportunities are developed. 
The results elucidated a new concept – “entrepreneurial insight” − to explain how thinking, knowledge, and dynamic capabilities integrate to act as the core processes of opportunity development. These three factors can be identified as idiosyncratic entrepreneurial resources in the process of opportunity development and exploitation. The exploitation of opportunities thus leads to new strategic and operational paths and positions, which then affect the firm’s performance in terms of degree of internationalisation, growth, survival, and profitability. 
The findings provide a better understanding of internationalisation using three defining elements in the internationalisation process: entrepreneurial intention, opportunity development, and value innovation. These factors provide an insightful explanation of different international trajectories that firms take, and how these trajectories sustain their international activities over time.
Finally, the study provides managerial and theoretical implications that can guide practitioners towards an appreciation of the dynamics of individual capacities, the value of networks, and the resources that need to be harnessed by learning, adapting, and taking timely decisions to generate value-creating opportunities in international markets.

text: Entrepreneurial Dynamics of Internationalising Ventures: The Opportunity-Value Creation Nexus International Entrepreneurship (IE) theory has developed extensively over the last two decades by drawing on various theoretical perspectives. While this growing body of knowledge has provided rich insights into the internationalisation behaviour of firms from multiple theoretical perspectives, it has also rendered IE theory fragmented and devoid of a unifying theoretical direction.
Using a qualitative approach, this study intends to address the gap identified above by developing a framework for the entrepreneurial internationalisation process. As such, the study focuses on the entrepreneurial aspects of “opportunity identification and exploitation”: an area to which IE researchers have paid little attention. It is argued that this focus is appropriate as it can extend the scope of international business and IE research by strengthening the foundations of the entrepreneurial theory of internationalisation. 
The study findings extend key insights into the internationalisation process of entrepreneurial firms. The research context provided unique perspectives of how firms in the agriculture-base primary industry in a developing country internationalise. The case findings identified prior knowledge, creativity, selfefficacy, perseverance, and passion as drivers of the opportunity development process. Also, the study supported the idea that both access to resources and entrepreneurs’ social capital have significant influence on how opportunities are developed. 
The results elucidated a new concept – “entrepreneurial insight” − to explain how thinking, knowledge, and dynamic capabilities integrate to act as the core processes of opportunity development. These three factors can be identified as idiosyncratic entrepreneurial resources in the process of opportunity development and exploitation. The exploitation of opportunities thus leads to new strategic and operational paths and positions, which then affect the firm’s performance in terms of degree of internationalisation, growth, survival, and profitability. 
The findings provide a better understanding of internationalisation using three defining elements in the internationalisation process: entrepreneurial intention, opportunity development, and value innovation. These factors provide an insightful explanation of different international trajectories that firms take, and how these trajectories sustain their international activities over time.
Finally, the study provides managerial and theoretical implications that can guide practitioners towards an appreciation of the dynamics of individual capacities, the value of networks, and the resources that need to be harnessed by learning, adapting, and taking timely decisions to generate value-creating opportunities in international markets.

year: 2014

title: The sex or the head? Feminine voices and academic women through the work of Hélène Cixous

authors: Locke, Kirsten

subjects: academic writing

abstract: Hélène Cixous is perhaps best known for her paper, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ (1976) and her literary contributions outside academia. In this paper, we pick up a lesser known Cixous text, ‘Le Sexe ou la tête?’ that offers an interesting and provocative perspective on the traps associated with being feminine in a masculine environment. As we converse with Cixous, weaving our own words and experiences with hers, we link her work more closely with the feminine in modern-day academia. We suggest that Cixous’s remarks on decapitation and voice offer a way forward for academic women to be; to speak; to recognise the double jeopardy of decapitation in the university; and to use laughter as a strategic, powerful, political act of resistance and subversion against oppressive masculine power structures. We draw on and seek to enact Cixous’s notion of écriture feminine—a disruptive style of writing that provides a mode of being, speaking, and writing that subverts the power of masculine norms in order to be heard and to bring possibilities for change.

text: The sex or the head? Feminine voices and academic women through the work of Hélène Cixous Hélène Cixous is perhaps best known for her paper, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ (1976) and her literary contributions outside academia. In this paper, we pick up a lesser known Cixous text, ‘Le Sexe ou la tête?’ that offers an interesting and provocative perspective on the traps associated with being feminine in a masculine environment. As we converse with Cixous, weaving our own words and experiences with hers, we link her work more closely with the feminine in modern-day academia. We suggest that Cixous’s remarks on decapitation and voice offer a way forward for academic women to be; to speak; to recognise the double jeopardy of decapitation in the university; and to use laughter as a strategic, powerful, political act of resistance and subversion against oppressive masculine power structures. We draw on and seek to enact Cixous’s notion of écriture feminine—a disruptive style of writing that provides a mode of being, speaking, and writing that subverts the power of masculine norms in order to be heard and to bring possibilities for change.

year: 2023-06-09

title: Working at the interface: Indigenous students’ experience of undertaking doctoral studies in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: McKinley, Elizabeth

subjects: Māori

abstract: Māori (indigenous)¹ doctoral students in Aotearoa New Zealand face challenges not usually experienced by other doctoral candidates. We draw on data from in-depth interviews with 38 Māori doctoral candidates and argue that because of the tensions between academic disciplinary knowledge frameworks and knowledge drawn from te ao Māori (the Māori world) indigenous students have additional cultural, academic, and personal demands placed on them while aiming to produce research theses that meet conventional standards of academic scholarship. Complex methodological and ethical issues also emerge in undertaking doctoral research projects situated at the interface of academy and indigenous communities. Moreover, Māori students experience various degrees of tension between their sometimes strong cultural identities and their emerging and, therefore, less certain identities as researchers and scholars.

text: Working at the interface: Indigenous students’ experience of undertaking doctoral studies in Aotearoa New Zealand Māori (indigenous)¹ doctoral students in Aotearoa New Zealand face challenges not usually experienced by other doctoral candidates. We draw on data from in-depth interviews with 38 Māori doctoral candidates and argue that because of the tensions between academic disciplinary knowledge frameworks and knowledge drawn from te ao Māori (the Māori world) indigenous students have additional cultural, academic, and personal demands placed on them while aiming to produce research theses that meet conventional standards of academic scholarship. Complex methodological and ethical issues also emerge in undertaking doctoral research projects situated at the interface of academy and indigenous communities. Moreover, Māori students experience various degrees of tension between their sometimes strong cultural identities and their emerging and, therefore, less certain identities as researchers and scholars.

year: 2011