Factors creating favorable conditions for activating innovative entrepreneurship and startups in post-war Ukraine

The outbreak of Covid-19 is the second most devastating event over a century. The pandemic, alongside deep health crises, has ushered the largest economic shocks, which require governments’ attention to ameliorate to avoid an economic downturn. The aim of this study is to measure the economic impacts of Covid-19 in Brunei by estimating the exposure, vulnerability, and resilience of the economy. This study deployed the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction framework to examine the economic impact empirically. The data related to variables of gross domestic product, oil prices, international merchandise trade, tourism, unemployment, consumer price index, money supply, and national accounts were collected from September 2019 to July 2020 and analyzed through the fixed effects panel regression technique. The findings show that the news of the Covid-19 outbreak has exposed the weaknesses in energy sectors by having a significant negative impact. Additionally, analysis discloses that the energy and tourism sectors are vulnerable to the shocks of Covid-19. During the peak of the pandemic outbreak, unemployment in Brunei has also escalated. Additionally, the energy and tourism sectors are less resilient to pandemic shocks. The findings indicated that the consumer price index has significantly escalated during the economic recovery process. The findings elucidate that the overall GDP growth rate, international merchandise trade, and the financial sector continue exhibiting better performance amid Covid-19. The findings of this study contribute to developing policy implications for the emerging economies concerned with the economic recovery process during the pandemic.

While the most important financial and accounting issues of early-stage enterprises with fast growth potential (startups) are widely covered in practice-oriented literature, academic studies do not deal with this subject. In the author’s opinion, this subject should receive more attention in academic writing, as inappropriate financial management can make it more difficult for startups to raise capital at a later stage of operation and, thus, to grow further. This paper is based on a sample of financial and tax due diligences of Hungarian startups. The authors intended to present some of the issues identified and relevant also to startups operating outside Hungary. The sample shows that due to a loss making operation in the early years, this type of companies can quickly use up their equity and, therefore, they need continuous ownership (equity) financing. The sample demonstrates that debt financing is not a viable option for this group of companies, the only option for them is venture capital financing. The authors confirmed the positive relation between startups and R&D&I. In their opinion, compliance with the rules and the optimization permitted by the rules themselves is highly significant for startups to manage their high upfront losses and to attain their general aim to raise investment capital. The financial and tax due diligences at startups allowed to identify several inappropriate practices due to complicated accounting and tax laws.

Multiple factors such as human capital, amount raised in the first round, innovation etc. have an impact on the funding prospect of new ventures. This paper explored the influencing factors that drive multiple rounds of funding for new venture firms and provided a much broader perspective of funding drivers during the early stages of the new venture firm. Using signalling theory and human capital theory, this paper analyzed signals that influence the acquisition of funds in the first round and whether those signals persisted for the second and third rounds of funding when information asymmetries between the investors and new venture firms reduce. This study disentangled the signalling effects of the human capital factors across three funding rounds and proved the diminishing value of signals across each subsequent round of funding. Finding showed that the signal effect from premier institution education was the only human capital signal that persisted across each round of funding, while other signals did not persist beyond the first round of funding. In addition, new venture firms with founders educated from premier educational institutions were able to attract more investors and close more funding rounds. This study also proved that the amount raised in the first round of funding positively impacted the amounts raised in the second and third rounds stressing its importance for new venture firms. Empirical demonstration of the propositions was done with 156 new venture firms in India, the fastest growing and third largest startup ecosystem in the world.