In this article, we argue that entrepreneur’s legitimizing activities are important process for decreasing uncertainties in the process of organization emergence in the case of an academic spin-off. In the prior research, external uncertainties are regarded as crucial influence for new venture survival in order to gain resources but we identified internal uncertainties are also important, especially at initial stages of the organization formation, for successful venture growth in our intensive single case study. Academic entrepreneurs’ team do not instantly establish a new firm, but create a series of action which includes various legitimizing activities in order to cope with uncertainties, and they could develop their business concept among stakeholders including the regional government officials and business partners. This character of strategic sociability in the business concept makes entrepreneurs possible to overcome the liability of newness in organization emergence. In the face of uncertainty, the coherent attitude and vision by founders based on their business concept evolve with the source of legitimacy such as norms, values, cognition that are socially connected with interpreting process of business opportunities. Our new conceptual framework not only shed lights on limitations of existing theories on academic entrepreneurship but also contributes to a deeper understanding of important issues on the industrial innovation and regional industrial policy in the view of social context.

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Female Entrepreneurs and business operators in Japan are generally not held in high regard. Prior studies concerning female entrepreneurs, such as Tamura(1995) and The National Life Finance corporation's overall review(2003), indicate that enterprises launched by female entrepreneurs are generally smaller than those of their male counterparts and tend to be concentrated within specific industries - particularly the service industry, retail and restaurants. In recent years, however, new types of female entrepreneurs have emerged in Japan. They conduct business in areas such as not deferent with male entrepreneurs, and often go public with their own ventures. Many have experience in project management of management consulting, or have studied abroad. In order to clarify the relationship between entrepreneurial activities and work experience, I prepared a questionnaire survey and conducted a quantitative analysis based on the result. 3,000 enterprises with female president/founder were identified and questionnaires were sent by mail. I have got 303 valid responses. The main results of the estimation indicated some interesting tendencies. It has been found that longer periods of holding a managerial post and of being engaged in project management correspond to greater capital amount or number of employees, greater most-recent annual sales, and greater operating earning rates. The present study has shown the number of years' experience in project management and holding a managerial post has positive effect on the size and relative success of business launched by female entrepreneurs in Japan.

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[in Japanese]

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