"Investigating what characterizes women’s entrepreneurship and what type of enterprise development support they need sheds light on the importance of understanding what drives exclusion and inclusion in social, political and economic processes in societies. This paper aims to contribute to the debate by discussing the importance and practicalities of gender-aware WED. Gender-aware WED recognizes the gendered risks and uncertainties in which women operate their businesses and assists women in coping with these insecurities at home, in the community and in the business environment. In addition, it strives to create a level playing field by ensuring access to, and control over, resources and opportunities for all entrepreneurs, regardless of business type, industry choice, gender, age, health status, location or ethnicity."

"Many investors and entrepreneurs are using creative ways to deploy financial capital in service of the world’s most intractable challenges, achieving both financial and social returns. This practice is known as “impact investing.” As impact investing spreads and becomes more commonplace, education and training will be increasingly crucial for investors and practitioners to access the knowledge and skills they need for success."

"This report offers a first set of insights, distilled from the knowledge of leading practitioners, on how to successfully integrate smallholders into value chains through effective service delivery and smallholder aggregation models. It uses case studies from five African and Asian countries."

"Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success? A random sample of customers of India's largest women's bank was offered two days of business counseling, and a random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention significantly increased participants' business activity, but only if they were trained with a friend. Those trained with a friend were more likely to have taken out business loans, were less likely to be housewives, and reported increased business activity and higher household income, with stronger impacts among women subject to social norms that restrict female mobility."

"Through the efforts of the irene|see network, the researchers have contributed to both theoretical and empirical knowledge around social enterprise and social economic empowerment that is pluralistic in disciplines, as well as methodology. The multidisciplinary studies presented in this volume contribute to the effort to understand the diversity of social enterprise experiences at national and local levels, as well as the way third and private sector enterprises and organizations are embedded in their respective societies. This volume aims to presents some of the findings, results, and recommendations of the researchn conducted through the irene|see network."

"In this brief, we respond to a question from Nesta about entrepreneur mobility: Obviously, there is a well-known flow of startups towards the United States (driven in large part by the availability of venture capital and higher valuations at IPO), but does your data show any movement of entrepreneurs to and from developing countries?"

"In this brief, we respond to questions from Acumen about what social enterprises think of measurement approaches that impact investors have created, specifically: Are entrepreneurs who have received impact investment funds using tools such as IRIS and B Impact Assessment? If they are, what factors are driving this adoption? If not, why not? And are they using other approaches instead?"

"O objetivo deste artigo é realizar, de forma pioneira, uma análise dos impactos dos programas de apoio às atividades inovativas nas pequenas empresas brasileiras. Utiliza-se o método Propensity Score Matching para avaliar os impactos dos incentivos fiscais, dos programas de financiamento, da concessão de bolsas e de capital de risco, com microdados da PINTEC (2010). Os resultados apontam que o conjunto dos programas de apoio à inovação estimula os gastos com atividades inovativas das pequenas empresas. Dentre os programas, os que se mostraram mais efetivos foram os de financiamento e os de apoio à aquisição de máquinas e equipamentos."

"Asia is facing simultaneously huge growth potential and increasing inequalities, with often weak national solutions to the social issues at hand. Social purpose organisations (SPOs) – which includes but are not limited to non-profit organisations, charities and social enterprises - are seen to solve these issues sustainably. Social incubation is seen as a tool to help SPOs grow and potentially build a pipeline for social investors. Yet, how does social incubation in Asia work? The insights presented here are the first insights from surveying 15 social incubators in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore which have existed for at least two years."

"A fundamental challenge for new ventures is overcoming liabilities of newness - particularly, lack of relevant knowledge. Accelerators, intense, time-compressed entrepreneurial programs, attempt to alleviate these liabilities by providing ventures with intensive learning. While accelerators have rapidly emerged as prominent players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and other practitioners have continued to raise questions about their efficacy. Mirroring such concerns, extant organizational theories offer competing predictions about whether and for which ventures accelerator participation might be beneficial. Drawing on hybrid empirical methods that triangulate across multiple quantitative and qualitative analyses, we consistently find evidence that many accelerators do indeed aid and accelerate venture development and that their effects are neither due purely to selection or credentialing. Intriguingly, our results also indicate that accelerator participation complements rather than substitutes for many forms of prior founder experience (e.g., having worked for a company that produces a lot of startups). Overall, we contribute by pioneering work on the nature and outcomes of accelerators, offering insight into the fundamental value of intensive indirect learning (vs direct learning) in new ventures and extending understanding of how organizations may speed products and services to market."