A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Carolyn Downs Lambros Lazuras and Panayiotis Ketikidis
most common source of capital with banks and financial institutions only relevant to a few cases, all of
whom had been living in their new country for significant numbers of years. This is an important
feature of the ELIE case studies, as it highlights the significance of cultural and social factors both in
encouraging and in hindering entrepreneurship. This paper will therefore focus on how the findings of
the ELIE project offer key indicators for policymakers seeking to encourage new entrepreneurs from a
wide range of social groups.
2. Background to ELIE project
The overall aim of the ELIE project is the development and piloting of a learning framework that
facilitates employability and entrepreneurship in a cross-cultural environment. Taking account of
previous research that has identified differences in outcome between self-employment and
entrepreneurship (Hamilton, 2000; Parker, 2004) it was nevertheless seen as important to incorporate
well-founded definitions of international entrepreneurship within the research parameters.
A working definition of international entrepreneurship within the context of the ELIE project is provided
by Oviatt and Phillips McDougall (2005); ‘the discovery, enactment, evaluation and exploitation of
opportunities across national borders to create future goods and services’ (Oviatt and McDougall,
2005:30). Following the work of Giamartino, McDougall and Bird (1993) the term international
entrepreneur within the ELIE project has several facets, allowing it to reflect the varieties of
entrepreneurial experience. We have worked mainly with people who are entrepreneurs in a country
not of their birth. However, we have also included entrepreneurs whose work is international in its
scope and a small sample of people whose initial business is based still in the country of their birth
but this has expanded into a new country. So for the ELIE project international entrepreneurship
relates to i) moving to a new country to live and becoming an entrepreneur in that country ii)
remaining in your country of birth but expanding your business to include overseas bases iii) having
an international reach for your business whether you were born overseas or in the country where the
business is based.
3. Overview of methods
An action research approach was taken that recognised the participants as experts in their own
experience and encouraged learning from entrepreneurs rather than simply learning about
entrepreneurs. This assisted in developing an in depth understanding of the processes involved in
immigrant entrepreneurship amongst the sample. It allowed areas of interest significant to
understanding social and cultural barriers to entrepreneurship to be developed including the nature
and role of support structures used to manage effectively across cultural divides, impetus for
entrepreneurship and personal explanations for success or failure. A range of methods were used to
help generate knowledge including knowledge cafes and interactive Ketso-based workshops.
Our approach generated a wealth of qualitative data and supporting biographical-type quantitative
data. Qualitative data was first analysed by in-country research teams, taking a reflective and iterative
approach with initial impressions from early interviews themselves feeding into the structure of later
interviews. This process allowed later interviews to pick up on the indications of socio-cultural barriers
to entrepreneurship noted in the first tranche of interviews and refine the interviewing process to
develop deeper understandings of this important aspect of entrepreneurship. Interview notes were
used alongside recordings to allow themes to be identified and material categorised appropriately.
Following Berkowitz (1997) and Bogdan and Biklin (1998) we were concerned to address the key
issues of the themes and patterns that emerged from our data that addressed our research questions,
how participants past experiences, environments and attitudes towards entrepreneurship were linked
to their entrepreneurial life-course and future plans. Coding categories were initially developed incountry,
with no restriction on number or types applied at this stage in the analysis. These categories
were refined at a partner meeting where all academics involved in the project developed the final
categories for the qualitative data from our 198 interviews, allowing the development of our 40 case
studies (10 per country) that reflected accurately the themes within our data. As a result of our
discussions on coding and the nature of the themes within our data, which were surprisingly
homogenous in terms of social and cultural issues, the academic team came to the conclusion that
our findings could best be expressed through a new taxonomy of international entrepreneurship.
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