Anna Jenkins

Areas of expertise:

• The processes activities involved in creating high impact startups
• The development and evolution of startup ecosystems
• The impact firm failure has on small business owners’ well-being including their financial, and emotional well-being and how they respond to and cope with firm failure

Dr Anna Jenkins studies the startup process, the activities and processes which entrepreneurs engage in to explain why some startups emerge successful and growing and others either stagnate or fail. She currently holds an ARC Discovery grant for this project where she is leading a project following the development and trajectories of startups for over four years. She is also leading a research project on the development of startup ecosystems where the research team is conducting a longitudinal ethnographic study on how startup ecosystems emerge.

Her other area of expertise on how small business owners manage setbacks and failure. Her research focuses on how small business owners respond to failure, how they reduce the impact failure can have on their well-being, and the effectiveness of different coping strategies for their well-being and future employment. She was been awarded a number of prestigious research grants for this work including funding from The Swedish Retail and Wholesale Development Council and Swedbank.

She is familiar with a variety of research methods having conducted large scale longitudinal quantitative studies and narrative interviews with small business owners who have failed. As well as ethnographic field work and experiments.