Research Papers

The generation of new markets is an emerging area of interest among researchers working in the traditions of evolutionary economics. And true to those traditions, the current study incorporates empirical evidence from psychology and cognitive science to develop micro-foundations for evolutionary theories of new market generation.

This article outlines why highly confident entrepreneurs of focal ventures are better positioned to start and succeed with another venture; and therefore why overconfidence in one's capabilities functionally persists and pervades amongst entrepreneurs. By combining cognitive perspectives on confidence in decision making with Fredrickson's [Fredrickson, B.L. 1998.

We build upon a recent stream of research that has proposed entrepreneurship as a solution to, rather than a cause of, environmental degradation. Our proposition is that under certain conditions entrepreneurs are likely to supplement, or surpass, the efforts of governments, NGOs and existing firms to achieve environmental sustainability.

Venture investing plays an important role in entrepreneurship not only because financial resources are important to new ventures, but also because early investors help shape the ventures' managerial and strategic destiny.

Entrepreneurs and investors regularly wonder what the returns are in angel investing. The completion of this research project provides robust data on this subject that has never before been available. Our findings in this study are based on the largest data set of accredited angel investors collected to date, with information on exits from 539 angels.

This study explores a model of venture investing developed from the literature on formal venture capital research in the setting of angel investing in the United States. The model explores the role of venture stage, due diligence, deal flow, co-investing, and post investment participation on the distribution of returns to angel investors.

Is new market creation a search and selection process within the theoretical space of all possible markets? Or is it the outcome of a process of transformation of extant realities into new possibilities? We draw upon Goodman’s (1983) Grue paradox to explain the dynamics of a new network of stakeholders.

Several streams of research in strategic management and organizational theory build upon the early work of Herbert Simon, in particular, and the ideas of James March, Richard Cyert and the behavioral model developed by the Carnegie School in general.

In this paper I develop a critique of the strong adaptationist view inherent in the work of Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, as presented at the Ruffin Lectures series in 2002. My critique proceeds in two stages.

This essay connects four key ideas from Herb Simon's "Sciences of the Artificial" to recent research on entrepreneurial expertise: (1) Natural laws constrain but do not dictate our designs; (2) We should seize every opportunity to avoid the use of prediction in design; (3) Locality and contingency govern the sciences of the artificial; and, (4) Near-decomposability is an essential f

Ethicists and economists have always highlighted the tension between the individual and social meanings of the pursuit of the “good” life. Recently, entrepreneurship scholars too have acknowledged this as a key problem in value creation.

In some of his final papers on organization economics, Simon suggested building a new theoretical edifice of organizations and markets based on a “full-bodied” theory of the firm, as opposed to the “skeletal” view currently embraced by economics.

In this paper, we argue that the decision processes used by angels and VCs differ in their cognitive content and overall logic, and that this difference impacts their returns differentially. More precisely, while VCs tend to use a causal approach based on predictive rationality, angels are more effectual and make their choices based on the logic of non-predictive control.

A new type of strategic leadership is required to help firms successfully navigate the dynamic and uncertain environment in which they compete today. The strategic leadership needed in 21st century firms is involved with building company resources and capabilities with an emphasis on intangible human capital and social capital.

Current theories of the firm fail to distinguish between firm and entrepreneur and provide no explanation for entrepreneurial success except in terms of firm success. Even in current theories of the entrepreneur (psychological and otherwise) he or she is entirely cast as a bundle of traits or behaviors or heuristics and biases that serve to explain firm performance.

In their 1994 book, Rumelt, Schendel, and Teece identify four fundamental issues that comprise a research agenda in strategic management: (1) How do firms behave? (2) Why are firms different? (3) What limits the scope of the firm?

This study investigates how entrepreneurs in the Internet economy manage Knightian uncertainty during the early stages of the new venture creation process (Knight, 1921).

“The Innovators’ Dilemma” consists in the fact that by doing the right thing – i.e., listening to current customers, leading firms often end up losing their markets to upstart newcomers. Therefore, understanding how entrepreneurs successfully create such upstart firms and new markets ought to have direct implications for strategic management theorizing about this dilemma.

The paper presents a model of the pre-firm -- defined here as the entity that transforms an idea into a firm. The entrepreneur who undertakes the pre-firm process creates the firm through a set of entrepreneurial decisions that arise out of four interconnected decision domains.