Tatiana Kukova’s Book Gives Entrepreneurs a Shift in Understanding to See Others in a New Light
(Feb. 2, 2021) – Tatiana Kukova, Ph.D., is publishing a groundbreaking business book that solves the psychological problem of how tech startup entrepreneurs deal with strategic decision-making processes in their ventures based on how they see themselves.
“In my book, I show how the entrepreneur’s identity operates in everyday situations and what kind of entrepreneur’s identity standard influences the founders’ decisions. My book’s content is grounded in the findings from a pioneering doctoral study, which I have conducted at Aston Business School (ABS) in the UK by interviewing digital technology entrepreneurs at one UK tech incubator. I have adapted my academic work to be clear and accessible to a wider business audience. For this reason, I have removed the unnecessary complexity, jargon, vagueness, and ambiguity. Overall, it is a practical book for startup entrepreneurs full of real-world examples from my interviews with the founders.”
Kukova brings value by taking early-stage startup entrepreneurs from one of the UK’s tech incubator programs to demonstrate how founders deal with strategic decision-making. Her book uncovers three types of identities according to what the entrepreneurs think about themselves and their strategic choices. One of the book’s most valuable features is a wide range of useful case studies that provide a better understanding of the entrepreneur’s role in a startup and illustrate Kukova’s transformational thinking. She concludes that startup founders take actions to confirm their identity standard by revealing how specific identity standards impact what tech founders do and why.
Kukova was doing her Ph.D. research on tech entrepreneurs’ social psychology for seven years at Aston Business School (ABS) in Birmingham, England. During that time, Kukova was developing basic and advanced theoretical identity models for Aston Centre for Growth. One of her advanced identity models explained a conflicting relationship between a father as a former entrepreneur and a daughter as a successful entrepreneur in the context of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses UK program.
Kukova’s contributions have been received well by a group of academics at ABS because her pioneering research was the foundation for the 2015-2017 United Kingdom Science and Technology Parks Survey (UKSTP Survey).
Furthermore, Kukova’s research ideas have been adopted for the Interview Instrument of the Sociology of Enterprise research project from the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC), UK. That project was administered and funded by the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in the UK in August 2015. Based on her research methodology, Kukova has also contributed to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project at Aston. Specifically, her insights have been used to develop telephone surveys with the entrepreneurs from different sectors, including but not limited to tech.
After being awarded her doctorate, Kukova undertook market research by preparing and conducting one-to-one interviews with 21 tech entrepreneurs from the Entrepreneurs for the Future (e4f) Tech Incubator and the Serendip Smart City (more advanced) Incubator programs at Innovation Birmingham, Birmingham Science Park Aston (BSPA). (Innovation Birmingham has recently become the UK’s leading digital campus.) She conducted the interviews to determine the need for an e-venture, which could have linked academics with entrepreneurs at that time. Some of the best UK tech startups that participated in Kukova’s market research included Kaido Group, GiveVision, Medstars, Aptvision, Omawake, OneUp Sales, Sustainable Microclimates, ViVi Media Limited, DESIblitz, MyForefathers, Apps On The Move, and Liquidity Exchange.
If that was not enough, Kukova has also conducted a few more interviews with the student and graduate entrepreneurs from Aston University’s BSEEN (the Birmingham Skills for Enterprise and Employability Network) startup program to understand their entrepreneurial motivations and the reasons for participating in the program. Some of the incredible startups founded by young leaders from different sectors include Monique Lee Millinery, Beatfreeks, Class Careers, Etsy, UniGreenScheme, Codevate, Petalite, and LoopdLife.
Additionally, Kukova was engaged in teaching Entrepreneurial Strategy to undergraduates at ABS and Project Management Practical Sessions to the final year engineering undergraduates at the Electrical, Electronic and Power Engineering Subject Group, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Aston University, for more than five years. That was done in association with ABS.
Now, Kukova has reshaped her academic work specifically for the audience curious about startups and those who want to know more about tech entrepreneurs’ social psychology in their day-to-day social situations.
“My book is a profound but down-to-earth guide to effective startup leadership. The text is straightforward and useful to anyone interested in tech entrepreneurs because it could be applied to a wide range of stakeholders. Startups and the people who build them are the engines of a healthy society. That is why my book aspires to spark an interest in the entrepreneur’s identity. My mission is to shed new light on startup founders and make the readers think differently about them.”
With fast-paced developments in the startup ecosystem, new tech founders face increasingly fierce competition, which seems to make their entrepreneurial identity extremely fragile. Given these uncertainties, risks, and apprehensions, it seems that the topic of the entrepreneur’s identity introduced by Kukova is more relevant than ever before.
“The Entrepreneur’s Identity Standard” is available in paperback, hardcover, and eBook formats worldwide.
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About Dr. Tatiana Kukova
Dr. Tatiana Kukova holds a Ph.D. in Social Psychology of Entrepreneurship from the Department of Economics, Finance and Entrepreneurship, Aston Business School (ABS), Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Apart from Kukova’s involvement in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses UK program at Aston Centre for Growth and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project, she has also carried out market research at Innovation Birmingham, Birmingham Science Park Aston (BSPA), and another academic research with the members of the BSEEN (the Birmingham Skills for Enterprise and Employability Network) startup program.
It was not the first time Kukova had studied roles in organizations. Prior to her doctoral research, Kukova did the Master of Science (MSc) Degree in International Travel and Tourism Management at the Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England. Her MSc project was devoted to ‘The Evolution of the Financial Controller’s Role in Hotels.’ That was an interview-based study with senior executives (with 25 to 40 years of industry experience) of the leading hotels in the UK, such as Radisson Blu Hotel Manchester Airport, InterContinental Hotels Group, Heathrow/Windsor Marriott Hotel, Hilton International, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.
In addition to her research endeavors, she was engaged in university teaching and learning by delivering Entrepreneurial Strategy to undergraduates at ABS and Project Management to the final year undergraduates at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Aston University, for more than five years.
Kukova lived in the United Kingdom for 11 years before moving to Moscow, Russia, in 2018.
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