Top ten blog posts in 2013 (6-10)

As I mentioned in my "Lessons” of blogging post in May (you can read here, readers seem to like lists. As the final days of 2013 countdown I thought it might be interesting – for me as much as for you – to countdown the top ten blog posts of the year as rated by number of views. (I know this places a bias on posts published at the beginning of the year, but hey, the world of lists is full of biases!)

Number 10:

There are three article snapshot posts that made it in the top 10. Coming in at number 10 with 136 views is the post Article Snapshot: Business Opportunities in the UAE. The post provided an excerpt of an article I wrote for a newly launched online magazine in Canada – Canadian Business Strategist Magazine. It outlined the many untapped opportunities available to Canadian companies (or really any company) in health care, adventure and eco-tourism, metals, convenience stores, fashion and food and beverage.

Number 9:

The ninth most read blog post at 145 views was Male Youth Entrepreneurship in the UAE: a Research Project. The project was to study the motivators and deterrents of young men to become entrepreneurs and also looked at the lessons learned from two Emirati entrepreneurs interviewed by Yousef Al Shehhi. Yousef (now graduated) did a great job and he presented his findings at the MIT-Masdar Institute Forum on Entrepreneurship and Innovation  to great interest by researchers and the general public. 

Yousef and his poster 

Number 8:

Looking back at the numbers I was kind of surprised at number 8... The post Joining the Conversation: How to get our voices heard from the Middle East (2/2), with 149 views, is all about research and becoming a bigger part of the global management research community. As we approach the deadline for 2014 Academy of Management submissions I hope there will be more submissions from the Middle East in 2014 than 2013... I know many in the group photo below are working towards that goal!

Caucus participants AOM 2013

Number 7:

The second article snapshot is an article wrote in collaboration with researchers in Tunisia and Yemen. At 165 views, Entrepreneurs and their networks in MENA: an article and project using big data (and policy recommendations too!) was the results of a much larger grant project supported by the IRDC involving 14 MENA countries looking at the networks used by entrepreneurs. (I wrote about the five day workshop we had in 2012 starting in daily blog posts - day 1 here). Taha, Lotfi and I found that there was significant difference between entrepreneurs at various stages of venture development for network size and network diversity and that entrepreneurs with larger networks (number of advisers and more diverse (from different environments, e.g. private, work, professional advisers are more likely to launch their business in a short time. However, most entrepreneurs in the region have shallow and narrow networks... which leads us to our policy recommendations... 

The number of networks used by entrepreneurs in the MENA region

Number 6:

The third article snapshot - in a way a culmination of a project begun in August 2010 in the very room I am currently working in in Lorraine, Quebec - had 178 views. Article snapshot: “Technological innovation in the United Arab Emirates: process and challenges” is about the innovation process of an Emirati inventor and entrepreneur - Mariam Al Hallami, the first author, found that while the process used by the entrepreneur in the UAE is similar to that of entrepreneurs in the West, the lack of Industrial Research Centers puts a hamper scaling up inventions and innovations.

R&D expenditure - the MENA region needs to step up spending!

So that was 10 through 6... the top 5 will follow shortly....

Entrepreneurs and their networks in MENA: an article and project using big data (and policy recommendations too!)

This is a snapshot of an article written in collaboration with Dr. Lotfi (working in Sousse, Tunisia) and Dr. Taha (working in Sanaa, Yemen), it is part of a special issue published in the International Journal of Business and Globalisation. If you would like to cite the information in this blogpost (e.g. too lazy to read the full article, or better yet all the articles in the special issue, but think we did great work) please cite:

Van Horne, C., Belkacem, L., & Al Fusail, T. 2013. “The composition of entrepreneurship networks in MENA: A comparative analysis” International Journal of Business and Globalisation. 11(4), 337-352.

Finally, our special issue and article are published! We started this journey almost two years ago now - an innocent request from Thomas Schott (our tireless leader) to collaborate with GEM teams working in MENA on entrepreneurs and their networks. This request was possible with a generous grant from the IDRC - or the Canadian International Development Research Centre (website in English) whose aim is "IDRC funds researchers in the developing world so they can build healthier, more prosperous societies". An initial meeting planned for Spring 2012 in Egypt, was move to Tunisia and then finally took place in Jordan.

Of course, being me I wrote about what we did each day and posted it on my blog. If you are curious of the dynamics of multi-national/cultural/disciplinary research, then it is worth a read. This was day 1 and if you are interested there are 4 more days to read :) http://uaestrategy.blogspot.ae/2012/06/idrc-paper-development-workshop-or.html

Each of the cross-country teams were given a topic (we gave our preferences) and my team looked at the general composition of the advisory networks around entrepreneurs operating in the MENA region and compared them across the 14 countries for which we had data. Table 1 illustrates the rich amount of data we had at our fingertips (APS stands for the GEM adult population survey):

Table 1: Composition of data used from 14 MENA countries

	Years of APS surveys with networks	Adults in APS	Networks surveyed	Networks around future-start-ups	Networks around start-ups	Networks around owner-managers
Algeria	2009, 2011	5427	2187	1106	765	316
Egypt	2010	2769	996	496	125	375
Iran	2009,2010,2011	10061	3291	1470	620	1201
Jordan	2009	2006	326	0	124	202
Lebanon	2009	2000	610	0	143	467
Morocco	2009	1500	477	0	109	368
Pakistan	2010, 2011	4009	1534	907	298	329
Palestine	2009, 2010	4072	1057	468	234	355
Saudi Arabia	2010	2000	278	14	177	87
Syria	2009	2002	309	0	85	224
Tunisia	2010	2001	643	328	39	276
Turkey	2011	2401	680	156	178	346
U.A.E.	2011	2021	254	40	119	95
Yemen	2009	2065	570	0	555	15
All countries		44334	13212	4985	3571	4656

Through statistical modeling we found that there was significant difference between entrepreneurs at various stages of venture development for network size and network diversity and that entrepreneurs with larger networks (number of advisers and more diverse (from different environments, e.g. private, work, professional advisers are more likely to launch their business in a short time.

However, most entrepreneurs (read the paper to see country and environment specific detail) operating in the region have narrow and shallow networks... (see Figure 2). Most articles might end there, but we had bigger ambitions with this project.

Figure 2: Diversity of the network around an entrepreneur in MENA region

A primary goal of this research was to develop policy recommendations for programs governments, NGOs and other organisations could develop to foster greater and more successful entrepreneurship in this region. These are our policy recommendations (again, read the other GREAT articles in the special issue for a more complete story) that are based on "big data" - the biggest data base available in the region in fact.

Policy recommendations

While further study into all aspects of entrepreneurship in the MENA region is needed, the roles of networks are an important concept to support given the findings of this paper. The following recommendations are drawn from the analysis of the data provided in the GEM APS and the literature on entrepreneurs and their networks.

1.      Local governments, supported by NGOs, private foundations and private companies, should provide an “entrepreneurial space” in community centers or places of worship – where future or new entrepreneurs could have access to information about the process to start a new venture and also come to seek advice from other budding entrepreneurs or advice from professionals who would donate their services.

2.      With the heavy reliance of private networks, and the often times extremely limited resources of pre-start-up and start-up entrepreneurs, professionals should be encouraged to provide pro-bono advice which could be made available to entrepreneurs at local community centers.

The networks used by entrepreneurs, especially in the MENA region are mainly from the private sphere, however, efforts made from local, national and international agencies could supplement these networks for additional entrepreneurial activity currently and in the future.

This was an amazing project and I look forward to continue working with these researchers and this data into the future. En'shallah we will!

Entrepreneurs and their networks

You are an entrepreneur – or you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur… who do you go to for advice? Who do you trust for advice? Why?  Well, according to the research in the UAE and MENA (Middle East and North Africa) I have participated in (and as soon as the articles and reports are published I will write about the specifics of our findings) – entrepreneurs in the region turn to family and friends first and professionals (accountants, banks, professional services firms) last.

We tend to think about entrepreneurs as independent beings, succeeding and failing solely by their own efforts. Of course, this is not a totally accurate view. Entrepreneurs are part of a larger network made up of social and professional actors. These actors provide resources and support which entrepreneurs capitalize on to achieve their goals. Networks are the  relationships that each entrepreneur as an individual is involved in that provides resources – for the subject of this blogpost: knowledge/information/advice – one resource commonly needed across all phases of the entrepreneurial process.

A network is the “set” of contacts (individuals, organisations,  around an entrepreneur who provide a resource (advice) to an entrepreneur. Networks should be considered as social entities.  An entrepreneur’s social network supports her business network (in fact it could be the same network viewed from two different angles) as these networks promote trust and reduce transaction costs (for services, resources, etc.).  This is done through superior information gathering and a reduction in opportunistic behavior – because network actors could and would lose reputation through a misuse of information or erroneous information/advice. 

Networks are also a key means of accessing external knowledge, knowledge we don’t possess.  This knowledge involves both formal and informal exchanges and the exchange and creation of both tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is know-how, know-why and our instincts developed through experience. Explicit knowledge is what is written down, but which also often needs interpretation.

Trust of course is the key to these networks working – which is maybe why entrepreneurs turn to family and friends before the professionals – at least in developing economies where professional infrastructures are not as “trustworthy” or are simply unknown to entrepreneurs.

From research we know that the use of different kinds of networks leads to different results. For example, the more contact a person has internationally, the more innovative their products or services and of course the more likely they are to export their products or services internationally.

More innovative products and services are also more likely to come from entrepreneurs with closer and a greater number of links in their industry/market. When an entrepreneur knows what her competitors are offering, the more likely she will try to be a little different – offer something newer, better – more innovative! Also, links with suppliers (e.g. a fabric manufacturer for an abbaya designer) will although the entrepreneur to know more about what will be available in the future – raw material wise – which will help her creative more innovative designs which better incorporate the new materials.

My PhD thesis was about knowledge and technology transfer from universities to industry – well, you can imagine not many entrepreneurs in the MENA region use the results of university research … hopefully that will change, because a knowledge economy is built on – uhm, well knowledge – and the most cutting edge knowledge is produced by universities and working researchers… Yes, the Google guys are university “drop outs” – but they dropped out of a PhD program and Google is a direct result of their (and their professors) research there…

Finally, an entrepreneur or future entrepreneur can seek and gather advice for years – but it is making the leap which is the most difficult part – which is perhaps why the support we receive from our family and friends (and professors J) might be the best resource any network can produce.