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Research 2012 - 2016
Expanding the Boundaries of Effectuation
| Research Paper Title | Authors | Content | Outlet | Publish Date | Link To File |
| Why Metallica changed music world – Effectuation perspective | Erno Salmela | Business and non-profit organizations facing increased competition and growing customers´demand Vol. 15 | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| When Passion Fades: Disentangling the Temporal Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Passion for Founding | Veroniek Collewaert Frederik Anseel Michiel Crommelinck Alain De Beuckelaer Jacob Vermeire |
This study examines how and why entrepreneurial passion for founding changes over time. In particular, we propose that in the founding phase of a venture’s lifecycle entrepreneurs’ founding identity centrality will remain stable over time. We also propose, however, that in our sample and time period studied, entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding will decrease over time. On the basis of theories of positive illusion, self-regulation and role theory, we further hypothesize that venture idea change, change in role ambiguity and entrepreneurs’ feedback-seeking behaviour are factors that help explain the rate of change in entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding. Using a three-wave longitudinal research design, we find that among a sample of 112 entrepreneurs’ identity centrality does not change over time, whereas intense positive feelings for founding decrease over time. Moreover, the more entrepreneurs change their venture ideas, the weaker their decrease in intense positive feelings. Further, we show that entrepreneurs who frequently seek feedback suffer less from reduced positive feelings in response to higher increases in role ambiguity as compared to entrepreneurs who seek less feedback. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| What makes entrepreneurship research interesting? Reflections on strategies to overcome the rigour–relevance gap | Hans Landström Hermann Frank |
AbstractAs entrepreneurship researchers compete to have their work published and universities strive to attract the best entrepreneurship scholars, it is appropriate to examine what makes entrepreneurship research interesting. Interesting studies are usually defined as well-crafted and well-written studies that challenge established knowledge, and produce new theories and findings. This paper examines entrepreneurship scholars? views on the characteristics of interesting entrepreneurship research by means of a qualitative approach. Eight focus group interviews comprising junior and senior entrepreneurship scholars were conducted. A core finding is that interesting studies must be relevant to practice. However, the institutionalization of entrepreneurship as an academic field has favoured rigour at the cost of relevance, leading to scholars? frustration with the rigour?relevance gap. In this paper, we analyse various dimensions of interestingness and reflect on strategies for overcoming the rigour?relevance gap, with particular focus on the creation of applicative knowledge. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | PDF Download |
| What Can Scholars of Entrepreneurship Learn From Sound Family Businesses? | Danny Miller Lloyd P Steier Isabelle Le Breton-Miller |
Scholars of entrepreneurship have focused mostly on founder entrepreneurs, new ventures, venture capital, and entrepreneurial initiatives in larger firms. However, family firms, which account for a majority of new ventures, have received far less prominent attention from the field. Although family businesses, often rightly, have been portrayed as being conservative and even stodgy, many of them are successful and enduring, and enjoy advantages in the business founding, growth, and maturity phases of the life cycle. We discuss the resources that may be responsible for these advantages in successful family firms, and the lessons that may be drawn from such firms for quintessential topics in entrepreneurship such as effectuation, new ventures, venture capital, opportunity platforms, and entrepreneurial orientation. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Variable risk preferences in new firm growth and survival | Karl Wennberg Frédéric Delmar Alexander McKelvie |
Abstract We outline and test a decision-making theory of new venture growth and survival. Building upon research in entrepreneurship and decision making under risk, we hypothesize that entrepreneurs’ attention to survival and aspiration reference points changes based on venture age (experience-based learning), size (differences in decision complexity), and performance decision domain. Examining a panel of 14,760 new ventures in the professional services sector, our findings show how risk preferences change as a venture ages and increases in size. This approach offers a more nuanced view of decision making under risk and provides a theoretical explanation for the common patterns of new ventures’ probability of exit and growth diminishing with age and size. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Urban projects and managerial models: a creative approach | HERAUD Jean-Alain | 2016 | PDF Download | ||
| Trapped by the entrepreneurial mindset: Opportunity seeking and escalation of commitment in the Mount Everest disaster | Jeffery McMullen Alexander S Kier |
Abstract Building on regulatory focus theory and the theory of action phases, we propose that the opportunity seeking of the entrepreneurial mindset is fueled by promotion focus, but transformed from something that liberates individuals from sub-optimal goals into something that traps them in escalation scenarios depending on the stability of environmental conditions faced, the duration of the project, and the specificity of the goal being pursued. Our meta-theoretical process model of escalation of commitment suggests that the decision to persist is set into motion long before individuals engage in the cost-benefit analysis examined in most escalation studies. We argue that, when individuals seek opportunities in a promotion-focused state of goal striving, they are likely to forego contingency planning, which precludes the formation of an exit strategy and leaves them unable to disengage despite an emerging desire to do so. Worse yet, opportunity seeking under the aforementioned conditions delays detection of an action crisis, which increases risk exposure and allows resources, time, and reputation invested to further accumulate, making disengagement that much more difficult once the entrepreneur realizes that a decision is necessary. Using the events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster made famous by Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, we illustrate our proposed model and discuss its implications for entrepreneurship, escalation, and self-regulation research. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Toward An Integration of the Behavioral and Cognitive Influences on the Entrepreneurship Process | CHRISTOPHER PRYOR Justin Webb R Duane Ireland DAVID J KETCHEN |
Research summary Entrepreneurs develop innovations, fulfill customer needs, and spur economic growth by recognizing, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities. Despite progress, scholarly understanding of how entrepreneurs achieve these objectives may be incomplete. For instance, little explanation exists for why entrepreneurs may pursue activities seemingly at random, nor is there a clear endpoint to the entrepreneurship process. To address these concerns, we present a framework that integrates sensemaking and structuration perspectives to specify the cognitive and behavioral influences on the entrepreneurship process. Within this framework, entrepreneurs ultimately pursue opportunities through developing and deploying capabilities to create value for customers. Managerial summary While entrepreneurs’ initial insights regarding innovations and customer needs are important, these insights are only the beginning of an interactive, iterative path that ends with the formation of an organization that can reliably produce value for customers. One of entrepreneurs’ most important tools along this path is their set of scripts. Scripts help define how entrepreneurs act and interact so they can fully understand market needs and develop the means for solving these needs. In this paper, our objective is to describe how these scripts help entrepreneurs do the hard work of thinking and acting to effectively create new venture capabilities and to explain how entrepreneurs, who may possess similar sets of scripts, may nevertheless conceptualize different opportunities and solutions. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Theory Evaluation, Entrepreneurial Processes, and Performativity. | Dr. Raghu Garud Joel Gehman |
A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article “Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship” by R.J. Arend, H. Sarooghi, and A. Burkemper in volume 40 of the periodical. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| The Right People in the Wrong Places: The Paradox of Entrepreneurial Entry and Successful Opportunity Realization | CHAD NAVIS O. VOLKAN OZBEK |
We advance a model that highlights contingent linkages between overconfidence and narcissism, entrepreneurial entry, and the successful realization of venture opportunities. Overall, our proposals point to a paradox in which entrepreneurs high in overconfidence and narcissism are propelled toward more novel venture contexts—where these qualities are most detrimental to venture success—and are repelled from more familiar venture contexts—where these qualities are least harmful and may even facilitate venture success. To illuminate these patterns of misalignment, we attend to the defining characteristics of alternative venture contexts and the focal constructs of overconfidence and narcissism. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| The Motivational Readiness Model of Entrepreneurship | Steffen Jahn Mario Geissler |
Existing theories of the entrepreneurial process are rather static and place much emphasis on feasibility as a driver of entrepreneurial action. By contrast, literature highlights that entrepreneurship is dynamic and sometimes fueled by desires alone. Building on recent advances in psychology we develop a theory of entrepreneurship based on motivational readiness that synthesizes these perspectives. Our model also distinguishes between push and pull entrepreneurship, thereby acknowledging differential motivational processes depending on entrepreneurial motives. In case of pull entrepreneurship, motivational readiness is primarily driven by entrepreneurial Wants, while expectancy moderates this relationship. In case of push entrepreneurship, Wants mediate the effect of expectancy on motivational readiness. Linking motivational readiness with entrepreneurial action and respective feedback effects, the motivational readiness model of entrepreneurship (MRME) aligns and extends several research streams, including opportunity exploitation and effectuation. Introducing the concept of motivational readiness helps us to better understand why some entrepreneurs are more likely to initiate entrepreneurial activities and continuously engage in these activities, while others do not. We also discuss potential dark side effects that are associated with high levels of motivational readiness. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| The interplay of effectuation and causation in decision making: Russian SMEs under institutional uncertainty | Igor Laine Tamara Galkina |
The institutional context of Russia and the recent regime of foreign trade sanctions makes it a natural laboratory to study change in decision making regarding the international activities of SMEs. This research explores how the increased institutional uncertainty is evaluated, enacted and responded to by SMEs that are heavily involved in relations with international suppliers. This longitudinal multiple-case study reveals that although firms simultaneously use both causation and effectuation in their decision making, an increase of institutional uncertainty boosts effectuation. The study shows that the intensity of both types of decision-making logic varies along the studied period in accordance to changing perceptions of institutional uncertainty. Also, the studied firms use effectuation logic differently enabling us to distinguish two types of effectuation with contrasting performance implications: opportunity-driven effectuation and survival effectuation. | International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| The influence of an industry’s capital-intensity on the decision-making of entrepreneurs with regards to effectuation and causation: an empirical analysis | Manuel Ernst | The concept of effectual and causal thinking in entrepreneurial decision-making has been an emerging field for theoretical and empirical considerations in the past 15 years. Since the original introduction by Sarasvathy (2001), literature has proven that different approaches of decision-making have been observed in different people, depending on both external (environmental) and internal (cognitive) influences. In this analysis, a distinct focus is set on the influence of financial risk in entrepreneurial decisions, whether entrepreneurs follow one specific decision-making logic when particularly exposed to questions regarding risk. This paper takes the idea that environmental factors affect an entrepreneur’s notion in decision-making and analyzes the particular influence of the industry in which the venture operates. Industries are distinguished by the capital that is required in order to enter them and to start with operational activities. The analysis is conducted with a sample of 69 German entrepreneurs than founded their companies not longer than five years ago. Within both capital-intensive and less capital-intensive industries, a clear propensity towards one specific decision-making approach could be identified; yet, the same approach for both industry types. A univocal tendency towards one logic within an industry type would lead to the assumption that the industry is influential, however, none of the examined industry types shows a considerably stronger tendency towards causation than the other. Therefore, the industry of a venture cannot be identified as the driving influence in decision-making processes. It is expected that other factors have an influence on the decision-making logic of an entrepreneur as well. | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| The impact of family support on young entrepreneurs’ start-up activities | LINDA F EDELMAN Tatiana Manolova Galina Shirokova Tatyana Tsukanova |
Abstract In this paper, we use a social support perspective and hypothesize that the scope of start-up activities is positively associated with two types of instrumental family support, financial and social capital. We further argue that the effect of instrumental family support is enhanced by the level of emotional support, in the form of family cohesiveness. To test our hypotheses, we draw from the 2011 Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS), a survey of university students from 19 countries. We focus on those nascent entrepreneurs who are in the process of starting their new venture (n = 12,399). Our findings indicate that family social capital is positively associated with the scope of start-up activities, family financial capital is negatively associated with the scope of start-up activities, and family cohesiveness amplifies the effect of family social capital on the scope of start-up activities. Theoretical, practitioner, and public policy implications are discussed. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| The Impact of Collective Optimism on New Venture Creation and Growth: A Social Contagion Perspective | Aaron H Anglin Aaron F McKenny Jeremy C Short |
Social contagion research suggests that individual decision making is shaped by collective, social processes. We extend the entrepreneurial optimism literature by arguing that collective optimism—the shared, positive expectations about future outcomes—is salient to key entrepreneurial outcomes. We test our position by examining how fluctuations in U.S. collective entrepreneurial optimism influence venture creation and growth using 1993–2010 NFIB entrepreneurial optimism data. Results indicate that collective entrepreneurial optimism exhibits a curvilinear relationship with venture creation and growth, which is moderated by environmental dynamism. We validate the NFIB measure by constructing an alternative measure of collective entrepreneurial optimism using media reports. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| The analysis of the impact of Causation and Effectuation approaches on decision-making of IT startups | Olessya Vorontsova | This dissertation investigates the impact of two alternative ways of thinking: effectuation and causation logics on decision-making and strategic management in startup companies that operate in IT sector. Based upon the theory of effectuation introduced by Sarasvathy (2001), this study provides a critical examination of five effectual principles: bird-in-hand, affordable loss, patchwork quilt, lemonade and pilot-in-the-plane at the edge of their effect on new venture performance. Using a multiple case-study methodology, this study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the following research issue of effectual reasoning deliberated through the primary data and, answers following research question How do entrepreneurs perceive the contribution of an effectuation logic in defining a viable and successful strategy when compared to a traditionalplanned or causal logic? The findings suggest that effectuation and causation logics are often combined to overcome startup’s top challenges throughout a lifecycle; while there are still some stages where adoption of effectuation reasoning might enhance startup success. We also provided a startup typology with regards to the level of favorability to effectual reasoning and opened a discussion towards the results and hypotheses of prior studies on effectuation and entrepreneurial expertise, market newness level. Overall, the theoretical insights derived from the process-and-context analysis of this study have important practical implications for entrepreneurs looking for adequate and efficient decision-making strategy. | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Structure from Chaos: The Creation of Libyan Civil Society | nada basir ellen auster |
We explore the resources, actors and processes involved in the rapid emergence of civil society in Libya after the fall of a dictator regime. We conceptualize this context as one of institutional chaos, where political oppression suppressed civil society institutions, and the revolution then created an upheaval, a moment of instability and unpredictability. A multi-level process framework emerged from the findings, highlighting the important role of institutional brokers, actors embedded in multiple established institutions and the emerging field. These institutional brokers link actors and also transform ideas from other fields. We found that brokers engaged in a process of creative translation, recombining, transposing, and recasting institutional resources from other fields. However, once the resources were at play in the emerging field, brokers faced resistance, a not-invented-here syndrome. To overcome this barrier, brokers engaged in collaborative transmission, creating spaces to develop shared meanings and practices with grassroots organizations. This research contributes to our understanding of institutional work required in different contexts, and addresses a grand challenge of our time-creation of civil society after extreme political oppression. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Strategic thinking: intelligent opportunism and emergent strategy–the case of Strategic Engineering Services | Steven Pattinson | This case study focuses on strategic thinking and opportunistic approaches to business growth and diversification. It begins by examining the recent purchase of ‘Quickcover’, a remote-controlled sports pitch covering system, by engineering company Strategic Engineering Services and the company’s current dilemma – whether to continue to develop this type of product, or sell it and concentrate on its existing engineering services business. In recent years, Strategic Engineering Services has moved away from traditional heavy engineering and diversified into related areas such as engineering services, oil and gas industry recruitment, plant and equipment hire, instrument calibration and project management. The case considers the relationship between strategic thinking and entrepreneurial approaches to opportunity recognition, exploring the concept of intelligent opportunism as an approach that enables entrepreneurs to develop emergent strategies and take advantage of new opportunities. It explores these concepts in the context of the current dilemma of Strategic Engineering Services. | The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Social structure, reasonable gain, and entrepreneurship in Africa | GERARD GEORGE reddi kotha PRITI PARIKH TUFOOL ALNUAIMI ABUBAKR S. BAHAJ |
In the context of desperate poverty, characterized by households at subsistence level that experience economic loss and social fracture, explanations for why individuals undertake entry into entrepreneurship are limited. We find that individuals rely on their social relationships to enable entrepreneurial activities that have the potential to create a reasonable income gain. In a sample of 1,049 households in rural Kenya, we test whether the disintegration of social structure attenuates entrepreneurial behavior. When coupled with factors such as income loss, gender of the household head, and access to communal resources, social structure plays a pivotal role in entrepreneurial action. We propose that the search for reasonable income gain is a key driver of entrepreneurial action at subsistence levels, thereby adding to behavioral explanations of entrepreneurship. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Strategic Management Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Social Enterprise Emergence from Social Movement Activism: The Fairphone Case | ONA AKEMU Gail Whiteman Steve Kennedy |
Effectuation theory invests agency – intention and purposeful enactment – for new venture creation in the entrepreneurial actor(s). Based on the results of a 15-month in-depth longitudinal case study of Amsterdam-based social enterprise Fairphone, we argue that effectual entrepreneurial agency is co-constituted by distributed agency, the proactive conferral of material resources and legitimacy to an eventual entrepreneur by heterogeneous actors external to the new venture. We show how in the context of social movement activism, an effectual network pre-committed resources to an inchoate social enterprise to produce a material artefact because it embodied the moral values of network members. We develop a model of social enterprise emergence based on these findings. We theorize the role of material artefacts in effectuation theory and suggest that, in the case, the artefact served as a boundary object, present in multiple social words and triggering commitment from actors not governed by hierarchical arrangements. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Should We Require Every New Venture to Be a Hybrid Organization? | Jeffery McMullen Benjamin J. Warnick |
Critics of entrepreneurial capitalism have argued that entrepreneurship creates dysfunction in individuals, families, communities, and society because entrepreneurs neglect social and environmental dimensions of value in favour of financial value creation. By way of contrast, hybrid organizations, such as Benefit Corporations, are created explicitly to address social and environmental objectives in addition to their financial objective. Therefore, in this paper we explore the consequences of a world of blended value in which every new venture is required to be a hybrid organization. In doing so, we reveal the boundary conditions of current social criticism levied against entrepreneurship and suggest that blended value may best be relegated to the role of ideal or guideline as opposed to normative or legal obligation. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Response to Arend, Sarooghi, and Burkemper (2015): Cocreating Effectual Entrepreneurship Research | Saras Sarasvathy Stuart Read Nick Dew Rob Wiltbank |
Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Response to “Research on the Dark Side of Personality Traits in Entrepreneurship: Observations From an Organizational Behavior Perspective” | Danny Miller | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Qualitative Research In Entrepreneurship: Current Research Practices and Suggestions for Future | Golshan Javadian Alka Gupta Alexander R Knights |
Qualitative research has emerged as a popular approach to examining and understanding entrepreneurial phenomena. The present study investigates the state-of-science with regard to qualitative research in entrepreneurship. Specifically, we analyze and synthesize qualitative entrepreneurship research published in top-tier general and specialized journals over the past fifteen years. Articles were carefully coded using a robust multi-attribute framework and examined for impact on the field. Findings reveal that while qualitative research has grown in usage, notable biases and omissions remain in the body of research accumulating in the qualitative tradition of entrepreneurship studies. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Prediction- and Control-Based Strategies in Entrepreneurship: The Role of Information | Graciela Kuechle BEATRICE BOULU-RESHEF SEAN D. CARR |
Research summary Prediction- and control-based strategies are the two main hypotheses of how entrepreneurs deal with uncertainty in theories of entrepreneurship. Prediction-based strategies focus on estimating unknowns via sampling methods, whereas control-based strategies focus on shaping unknowns via proactive behavior. These strategies may lead to different propensities to undertake uncertain prospects, as they differ in terms of cognition and involvement. In an experimental test, we study the conditions under which prediction- and control-based strategies lead subjects to accept bets in ambiguous environments. Individuals who use control methods to mitigate uncertainty are more likely to accept the bet after a favorable outcome compared to those who use predictive methods. These results revert in the presence of unfavorable outcomes. We discuss the implications for entrepreneurship theory and practice. Managerial summary Entrepreneurs often adopt prediction- and control-based strategies in order to reduce uncertainty. Prediction-based strategies focus on gathering information to estimate future outcomes, whereas control-based strategies concentrate on taking actions to create a more favorable environment for the venture. Results from an experimental test show that these strategies can affect behavior differently. In particular, when the decision maker receives favorable information, control-based strategies are more likely to lead to the acceptance of an uncertain prospect than prediction-based strategies. This effect reverts when the decision maker receives unfavorable information. Our findings are valuable for entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers. Understanding the distinctive impact of strategy on behavior may help entrepreneurs and investors calibrate the potential of a venture, thereby avoiding the misallocation of valuable resources. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Organizational Entrepreneurship as Active Resistance: A Struggle Against Outsourcing | David Courpasson Françoise Dany Ignasi Marti |
This paper aims to contribute to the emerging perspective on organizational entrepreneurship by outlining how resistance to managerial policies and decisions can give birth to alternative organizational styles. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of a personal narrative of an R&D team manager opposition to hierarchical decisions, we link studies on resistance and organizational entrepreneurship to suggest that active resistance, which we define as the capacity to live beyond managerial control to create spaces of creativity and solidarity and alternative modalities of work in an organizational context, can actually contribute to the entrepreneurial process. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Offical Response to Arend et al: Co-Creating Effectual Entrepreneurship Research | Saras Sarasvathy Nick Dew Rob Wiltbank Stuart Read |
In the October issue, the Academy of Management Review published a critique of effectuation (Arend et al, 2015). Forthcoming from Read et al (2016) is a dialog piece in response to that critique. Until the dialog piece is published in the Academy of Management Review, it will be available for download here. Please note that our forthcoming dialog is accompanied by a non-peer reviewed document which adds detail to our response:Link to ASB Assumptions We understand that there are several more dialog pieces in the works from other authors, and as they become available, we will provide links to them here. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Much Ado About Nothing? The Surprising Persistence of Nascent Entrepreneurs Through Macroeconomic Crisis | Per Davidsson Scott R Gordon |
We hypothesize that a major macroeconomic crisis triggers four alternative responses among nascent entrepreneurs: disengagement, delay, compensation, and adaptation. We also suggest that commitment and ambition (or “high potential”) moderate these responses. Our most important finding is the relative absence of behavioral crisis responses. However, crises may make high-tech founders become more likely to disengage, whereas the opposite holds for founders far into the process. Our study sheds light on the mechanisms behind aggregate effects of crises on the number and type of start-ups in an economy, and can guide future research on the effect of crises on nascent entrepreneurship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Motivational Cues and Angel Investing: Interactions Among Enthusiasm, Preparedness, and Commitment | Melissa S Cardon Cheryl Mitteness Richard Sudek |
Angel investors often make investment decisions based on motivational cues communicated during pitches—including enthusiasm, preparedness, and commitment—to evaluate potentially important qualities of entrepreneurs. We tested the independent and interaction effects of these cues by having 72 angels complete 1,995 evaluations of 133 live pitches. We found a positive effect of preparedness on angel evaluations, an effect enhanced by one form of commitment. The relationship between enthusiasm and evaluations of funding potential varies depending on the type of commitment considered. Our findings suggest that enthusiasm, preparedness, and commitment should be treated as conceptually and empirically distinct. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Metallicalta oppia suomalaiselle elinkeinoelämälle – Kuinka raivataan tie autotallista maailman huipulle ja luodaan uudet markkinat | Erno Salmela | Tekes-uutiset in Finnish | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Measuring the social identity of entrepreneurs: Scale development and international validation | Philipp Sieger Marc Gruber Emmanuelle Fauchart Thomas Zellweger |
Abstract Social identity theory offers an important lens to improve understanding of founders as enterprising individuals, the venture creation process, and its outcomes. Yet, further advances are hindered by the lack of valid scales to measure founders’ social identities. Drawing on social identity theory and a systematic classification of founders’ social identities (Darwinians, Communitarians, and Missionaries), we develop and test a corresponding 15-item scale in the Alpine region and validate it in 13 additional countries and regions. The scale allows identifying founders’ social identities and relating them to processes and outcomes in entrepreneurship. The scale is available online in 16 languages. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Limits to and prospects of entrepreneurship education in the academic context | Bengt Johannisson | AbstractProcess philosophy has drawn attention to the world as ambiguous and ever changing, however also enactable. This makes entrepreneurship a processual phenomenon, rightly addressed as ?entrepreneuring?. Recognizing not only their cognitive, yet also affective and conative capabilities, makes it possible for human actors to mobilize forces that bring the world to a standstill long enough to create a venture for value creation. This, however, calls for the insight that is different to universal scientific knowledge ? episteme and techne ? namely, the situated insights that Aristotle addressed as m?tis and phronesis. M?tis then concerns alertness and shrewdness and phronesis is about prudence in the context of action. Academic education can only provide these competencies needed to train for entrepreneuring by letting the students travelling across the boundaries of the university. In addition, the dominance of management as an ideology must be proactively dealt with. Three cases in academic training for entrepreneuring, all in the Swedish context, which show radically different ways of dealing with these challenges, are presented in a comparative analysis. The lessons are summarized in general conditions for providing training that advances entrepreneurship students? situated and actionable insights. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | Link to Abstract |
| Learning to Create Value Under Conditions of Uncertainty | Ryan W Angus Matthew A Barlow |
Can organizations learn to create value under conditions of uncertainty? This paper seeks to provide an empirical answer to this question by drawing on two theoretical literatures that provide different answers. The organizational learning literature suggests that organizational efforts to learn from uncertain experiences are not likely to improve future performance. On the other hand, the opportunity creation literature suggests that organizations can learn under conditions of uncertainty and that learning is an important determinant of success. Using the Google Play App Store as an empirical setting, the paper finds that within- opportunity learning is important to the creation of value under conditions of uncertainty – but that many organizations fail to learn this lesson as a result of their past value creating experiences. Past value creating experience may be a poor substitute for within-opportunity learning when seeking to create value under conditions of uncertainty – especially when that past experience resulted in failure. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Knowledge as the source of opportunity | Truls ERikson Steffen Korsgaard |
Abstract In this paper, we show how Davidson’s theory of knowledge can be used to elaborate the objective, intersubjective and subjective components of knowledge. Departing from Hayek’s core insights about the dispersion of knowledge in society, we reiterate that opportunities involve subjective knowledge such as judgment and imagination, intersubjective knowledge of the social and institutional context, as well as knowledge about objective realities “out there”. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Growth: What Do We Know and What Do We Still Need to Know? | CHRISTIAN BJORNSKOV NICOLAI J FOSS |
We review the literature that links institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth outcomes, focusing in particular on empirical research. Most of the literature has an economics orientation, but we also review relevant literature from other social sciences, including management research. The review helps identify a number of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical gaps, calling for further research. For example, the literature narrowly identifies entrepreneurship with start-ups and self-employment; does not theorize many potentially relevant inter-level links and mechanisms; and suffers from sample limitations, omitted variable biases, causality issues, and response heterogeneity. We argue that theories in management research, such as the resource-based view, transaction cost economics, and strategic entrepreneurship theory, can fill some of the conceptual and theoretical gaps. | The Academy of Management Perspectives | 2016 | PDF Download |
| If we can’t have it, then no one should: Shutting Down Versus Selling in Family Business Portfolios | AKHTER NAVEED Philipp Sieger Francesco Chirico |
Research summary How does a business family manage its business portfolio in times of declining performance to sustain the portfolio’s long-term endurance? Drawing on social identity theory and six family business portfolios from Pakistan, we find that business families may prefer to shut down a satellite business rather than sell it, which is primarily driven by identity considerations. In addition, the family’s goal to recycle the assets, the aim to restart the business later, and the increasing decline in performance are important contingency factors. This study contributes to the literature on portfolio entrepreneurship, business exit, and the enduring entrepreneurship of family firms. Managerial summary Family business managers and practitioners can benefit from our work, which provides evidence of how family firm portfolios can respond to business decline and ensure enduring entrepreneurship. Shutting down a satellite firm instead of selling it is a promising turnaround strategy that can prevent a family’s identity loss while supporting the family business portfolio’s continuity. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Identity, identity formation and identity work in entrepreneurship: conceptual developments and empirical applications | Claire Leitch Richard T Harrison |
AbstractThis paper reviews the current status of research into entrepreneurial identity. Identities ? individual and organizational ? can potentially serve as powerful elements that both drive and are shaped by entrepreneurial actions. Identity is, of course, a complex construct with multidisciplinary roots and consequentially a range of conceptual meanings and theoretical roles associated with it. Building on a framework for identifying schools of thought in the social sciences, we highlight the need for more critical studies of entrepreneurial identity that recognize, first, that entrepreneurial identity is a dynamic and fluid rather than (relatively) fixed and unchanging feature, and second, that research attention should shift from the analysis of identity per se (the identity-as-entity position) to the identity work processes through which entrepreneurial identities are shaped and formed (the identity-as-process position). Following a summary of the key contributions of the five papers included in this Special Issue, we conclude with some pointers for future research. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | Download PDF |
| Human Capital and Entrepreneurship Research: A Critical Review and Future Directions | Matthew R. Marvel Justin L Davis Curtis R Sproul |
Human capital has emerged as a highly utilized theoretical lens through which scholars can better understand entrepreneurship. To synthesize the progress of this stream and promote its use, we review 109 articles in leading management and entrepreneurship journals over two decades. We organize our discussion in terms of multi-theory approaches, methods and analyses, constructs, and study focus. A number of research gaps and promising areas for inquiry are put forward. We develop a typology of human capital and discuss how future investigations of types of human capital related to the entrepreneurship process can benefit research and practice. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| How Social Entrepreneurs Facilitate the Adoption of New Industry Practices | Theodore L. Waldron Greg Fisher Michael Pfarrer |
This paper explores how social entrepreneurs use rhetoric to facilitate the pervasive adoption of new, socially focused, industry practices. Our conceptualization proposes that the nature of social entrepreneurs’ rhetoric hinges on perceptions of their relationships to the industry members they seek to influence. We develop a framework that explains the effects of two cognitive structures – identity and power – on social entrepreneurs’ perceptions of industry members and, in turn, the social entrepreneurs’ rhetorical strategies for persuading the industry members to adopt new practices. Our framework specifies mechanisms through which social entrepreneurs facilitate systemic social change and, in doing so, informs theory at the intersection of social entrepreneurship, sustainable social change, and rhetoric. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| HelppoAsu aikoo tehdä Metallicat ja valloittaa maailman effektuaalisesti | Erno Salmela Mia Patanen |
Tekes-uutiset in Finnish | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Get It Together! Synergistic Effects of Causal and Effectual Decision-Making Logics on Venture Performance | Katrin Smolka Ingrid Verheul Katrin Burmeister-Lamp Pursey P.M.A.R. Heugens |
Entrepreneurs rely on different decision-making logics when starting new ventures, including causal and effectual reasoning. Extant research suggests that venture performance is positively associated with both causal business planning and effectual action-orientation, but studies have not yet tested the synergistic potential of these two logics. We contribute to the debate on entrepreneurial decision making by exploring the interrelationship between causation and effectuation, detailing their main and interactive effects on venture performance. Using survey data collected on 1,453 entrepreneurs residing in 25 countries, we find that ventures benefit from using these two entrepreneurial logics in tandem. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| From Venture Idea to Venture Opportunity | Peter Vogel | Opportunities are a core construct in the field of entrepreneurship. Despite recent advances suggesting the separation of ideas from opportunities, the field still suffers from conceptual deficiencies. This article builds on this distinction and leverages insights from creativity and innovation management literature to propose a framework that allows tracing the evolution of a venture from first insight to exploitation. It discusses real-time/longitudinal and retrospective measurement techniques from the fields of entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation management to empirically capture the framework. Several research questions for future studies are provided, concluding with a discussion of implications for research and practice. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| From resource munificence to ecosystem integration: the case of government sponsorship in St. Louis | Yasuyuki Motoyama Karren Knowlton |
AbstractGovernment sponsorship of entrepreneurship has become a popular policy tool in the last 15 years. Despite this popularity, past academic studies have largely focused on firm-level survival rates and treated the effects of government sponsorship in isolation, which fails to capture the full effect of the sponsorship. That is, the objectives of the public sector include enhancing the macro-level entrepreneurial environment of the region as well as the success of individual firms. We expand research in this area through a case study in St. Louis, Missouri. We focus on the Arch Grants, a public?private coalition that provides $50,000 to 20 winners through their annual competition. Based on interviews of 46 recipient firms and 15 support organizations, we first demonstrate how government sponsorship can create a cohort of entrepreneurs who are able to learn from each other about business strategy, local mentors and other resources. Second, we uncover the process through which sponsorship can facilitate coordination among local entrepreneurship support organizations. Thus, we conclude that the evaluation of government sponsorship should go beyond the traditional firm-level performance measurement and consider the integration and enhancement of the local entrepreneurship ecosystem. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | link to abstract |
| Fail but Try Again? The Effects of Age, Gender, and Multiple-Owner Experience on Failed Entrepreneurs’ Reentry | Massimo Bau Philipp Sieger Kimberly A Eddleston Francesco Chirico |
We investigate what leads failed entrepreneurs to reenter entrepreneurship by taking a developmental career perspective. Specifically, we hypothesize that the age of failed entrepreneurs has a nonlinear relationship with the likelihood of reentering entrepreneurship that follows different career stages (early, middle, and late). The gender of failed entrepreneurs and multiple-owner experience in the failed firm are hypothesized to be moderators of this relationship. We test our hypotheses using a database consisting of the Swedish population, including 4,761 entrepreneurs who failed between 2000 and 2004. Analyzing their career paths over the years following their failure offers support for our theoretical expectations. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Extending the Role of Similarity Attraction in Friendship and Advice Networks in Angel Groups | Cheryl Mitteness Rich DeJordy Manju K. Ahuja Richard Sudek |
Although similarity attraction theory is often utilized to explain why people form relationships with similar others, we utilize diversity research to look beyond surface-level demographic characteristics similarity to explain situations when angels form interpersonal relations with angels with dissimilar deep-level personal characteristics due to a strong desire to receive information and cognitive benefits. We use data collected from a chapter of one of the largest angel organizations in the United States. Our results show that although individuals often form relations with similar others, conditions exist when angels exert the extra effort required to form relations with dissimilar others. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Exploring Environmental Entrepreneurship: Identity Coupling, Venture Goals, and Stakeholder Incentives | Jeffery York Isobel O’Neil Saras Sarasvathy |
On the basis of a qualitative study of 25 renewable energy firms, we theorize why and how individuals engage in environmental entrepreneurship, inductively defined as: the use of both commercial and ecological logics to address environmental degradation through the creation of financially profitable organizations, products, services, and markets. Our findings suggest that environmental entrepreneurs: (1) are motivated by identities based in both commercial and ecological logics, (2) prioritize commercial and/or ecological venture goals dependent on the strength and priority of coupling between these two identity types, and (3) approach stakeholders in a broadly inclusive, exclusive, or co-created manner based on identity coupling and goals. These findings contribute to literature streams on hybrid organizing, entrepreneurial identity, and entrepreneurship’s potential for resolving environmental degradation. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Evolution of Entrepreneurial Judgment With Venture-Specific Experience | Sung Min Kim UGUR UYGUR |
Research summary This study advances research on entrepreneurial cognition by investigating how entrepreneurial judgment evolves during new venture creation. We conceptualize entrepreneurial judgment as a cognitive process in the minds of entrepreneurs that operates on the causal map—i.e., a knowledge structure concerning what factors they believe will help the chances of profitability under uncertainty. At the time of initial epiphany, entrepreneurs construct cognitive causal maps, which guide resource allocation decisions. Over time, venture-specific experience accumulates and entrepreneurial judgment evolves in response to their observations. Using a dataset of 524 nascent entrepreneurs, we find that entrepreneurs with more venture-specific experiences have more selective judgments, and they have stronger conviction in those judgments. We also find that perceived uncertainty and cognitive dispositions of the individuals affect entrepreneurial judgment. Managerial summary Entrepreneurs often have to exercise judgment due to limited information and resources when creating new businesses. Because they cannot effectively make progress in all aspects of a new venture at once, entrepreneurs choose the important success factors to focus on. Our findings suggest that it is important to understand the cognitive mechanisms underpinning their judgments. As entrepreneurs gain more experience with the venture, their chosen set of success factors narrows and their confidence increases. Additionally, their self-efficacy and decisiveness encourage them to make stronger judgments. This may imply a precarious scenario because of the risk of overconfidence in their judgments. Similarly, investors are also advised to check if the entrepreneur’s conviction is supported by accumulated experience in the context of the venture. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entry and Technological Performance in New Technology Domains: Technological Opportunities, Technology Competition and Technological Relatedness | BART LETEN RENE BELDERBOS Bart Van Looy |
Entry and success in new technology domains (NTDs) is essential for firms’ long-term performance. We argue that firms’ choices to enter NTDs and their subsequent performance in these domains are not only governed by firm-level factors but also by environmental characteristics. Entry is encouraged by the richness of opportunities for technology development, while technology competition by incumbent firms discourages entry and render entries that do take place less successful. Firms are expected to be positioned heterogeneously to recognize and capitalize on technological opportunities, depending on the presence of a related technology base. We find qualified support for these conjectures in a longitudinal analysis of entry and technological performance in NTDs by 176 R&D intensive firms. While opportunity rich technology environments attract entries by firms even if these NTDs are distal from firms’ existing technologies, firms require related technological expertise in order to exploit technological opportunities post-entry. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship under adverse conditions: Global study of individual resilience and self-efficacy | Maija Renko Amanda Bullough SAADAT SAEED |
The drivers of entrepreneurial decisions in adverse environments remain poorly understood. In this study we empirically examine the effects of an adverse society (country-level) as well as the effects of individual-level resilience and self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intentions. Eight countries are included in the analyses, and primary survey data has been collected from each country (total n=2,591). Our findings suggest that adverse social conditions in the country impede the development of entrepreneurial intentions among its citizens. Furthermore, adversity dampens the positive relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy (belief in one’s entrepreneurial skills) and entrepreneurial intentions, but strengthens the importance of resilience (ability to grow from adversity) for the development of these intentions. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship as a Platform for Pursuing Multiple Goals: A Special Issue on Sustainability, Ethics, and Entrepreneurship | Gideon D Markman Michael Russo Thomas Lumpkin P. Devereaux (Dev) Jennings Johanna Mair |
The great challenge of sustainability is addressed by firms with varying levels of social and environmental responsibility and performance. Though traditionally, firms sought a balance, we argue that this is not enough. Rather, we advocate that the natural environment be the foundation on which society resides and the economy operates. Sustainable, ethical, entrepreneurial (SEE) enterprises are moving in this direction, seeking to regenerate the environment and drive positive societal changes rather than only minimizing harm. We also note that sustainability is justified and motivated by ethical considerations and pioneered by entrepreneurial engagement. The eight articles included in this Special Issue draw from cross-disciplinary scholarship to elaborate how SEE enterprises approach sustainability through new organizational forms, business models and innovation, and new governance mechanisms. They also emphasize the roles of institutional forces and logics, government policies and social movements for promoting or impeding sustainable practices. Collectively, they reveal new and compelling insights while spotlighting the great questions for SEE enterprise that await study. | Journal of Management Studies | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship and psychological disorders: How ADHD can be productively harnessed | Johan Wiklund Holger Patzelt Dimo Dimov |
Abstract Amidst predominant focus on positive traits for entrepreneurship, this paper explores how disorders such as ADHD influence the decision to engage in entrepreneurial action and the success of entrepreneurial action. Based on a multiple case study of fourteen entrepreneurs previously diagnosed with ADHD, our inductive model highlights impulsivity as a major driver of entrepreneurial action and hyperfocus as a major catalyst for its consequences, both positive and negative. By drawing attention to the positive implications of symptoms commonly seen as negative, the paper opens several major avenues for future theoretical development and empirical research. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurs’ social identity and the preference of causal and effectual behaviours in start-up processes | Gry Agnete Alsos Tommy Høyvarde Clausen Ulla Hytti Sølvi Solvoll |
This paper examines how the social identity of an entrepreneur influences his or her behaviour when engaged in new venture formation. Building on the typology of entrepreneurial identities developed by Fauchart and Gruber, this study examines the relationship between the social identity of the entrepreneur and subsequent entrepreneurial behaviour using a mixed-method approach. Based on interviews with entrepreneurs in six start-ups within the tourism sector and on previous literature, three hypotheses were developed regarding the relationship between entrepreneurial identity and entrepreneurial behaviour (causation, effectuation). Subsequently, the hypotheses were tested using a survey among a sample of entrepreneurs who registered a new firm in 2013. The study finds that the entrepreneurial identity influences whether the individual predominantly engages in effectual or causal behaviour. Hence, the study contributes by focusing on entrepreneurial identity as an important factor shaping the behaviours of entrepreneurs. In addition, we add to the understanding of entrepreneurs as a heterogeneous group. Entrepreneurs vary in terms of their identity, and this variation has consequences for their entrepreneurial behaviour. Finally, by adopting a mixed-method approach, this study benefits from and contributes to the interaction of qualitative and quantitative data in entrepreneurship research. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial Team Composition Characteristics and New Venture Performance: A Meta-Analysis | Linlin Jin Kristen Madison Nils D Kraiczy Franz W Kellermanns T. Russell Crook Jing Xi |
Upper echelon theory highlights the importance of top management teams in large and established firms; however, effects are not always clear outside of this context. Due to the unique nature of new ventures, the composition of entrepreneurial teams and its effects on performance is worthy of investigation. Accordingly, we meta-analyze the effect of three characteristics of entrepreneurial team composition (i.e., aggregated, heterogeneity, team size) on new venture performance. Our meta-analysis, which includes 55 empirical samples and 8,892 observations, finds significant and unique effects of entrepreneurial team characteristics on new ventures. Based on our findings, we derive avenues for future research. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial Orientation: do we actually know as much as we think we do? | Kathleen Randerson | AbstractThe focus of this paper is on firm-level entrepreneurial behaviours and the processes that lead to them, known as Entrepreneurial Orientation. Despite the popularity of this construct, we argue that extant EO research suffers from major limitations linked to definitional inconsistencies and measurement issues. We present five distinct conceptualizations of EO in order to frame further research in the positivist mode. Moreover, we show that to gain a holistic and robust understanding of firm-level entrepreneurship, works from other research traditions and philosophies of science are needed. In this respect, the European research tradition and its wide variety of fields of research and research methods can offer a contextualized view of firm-level entrepreneurial behaviours and processes. Works embedded in the social constructionist philosophy of science might also offer an understanding of how, when, and why actors of different levels act do so and the likely outcomes of these actions as well as the interplay and divergence among these actors and levels. Works embedded in the pragmatic approach, illustrated by effectuation, could also contribute to a holistic understanding of the phenomenon. Finally, we call for researchers to be attentive to the need to align their conceptualizations, research methods and philosophies of science. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | Link to abstract |
| Entrepreneurial opportunities as propensities: Do Ramoglou & Tsang move the field forward? | Per Davidsson | Abstract Ramoglou & Tsang’s (R&T) article “A realist perspective of entrepreneurship: Opportunities as propensities” is a recent, potentially influential addition to the literature on “entrepreneurial opportunities”. This short communication argues that R&T’s intellectual exercise largely fails to move matters forward on the two most central problems with prior research on “entrepreneurial opportunities”, namely 1) lack of construct clarity and 2) slow progress regarding how characteristics of “entrepreneurial opportunities” give shape to entrepreneurial action and outcomes. I suggest that entrepreneurship researchers should avoid the detour of conceptually dichotomizing complex and empirically non-tractable sets of external circumstances into “opportunities” vs. “non-opportunities” and instead direct attention to multi-dimensional and continuous variation in “those [evolving] entities which entrepreneurs actually evaluate and [sometimes] act upon” (and which should not be mislabeled as “opportunities”). For this endeavor, the notion of “agency-intensity” is the primary take-away from R&T’s study. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Enrolling Stakeholders under Conditions of Risk and Uncertainty | BARCLAY L BURNS Jay Barney Ryan W Angus HEIDI NOELLE HERRICK |
Research summary Entrepreneurs often need resources controlled by stakeholders to form and exploit opportunities. While many of these resources can be acquired through simple contracts, the acquisition of some may require efforts on the part of stakeholders that go beyond what can be specified contractually. Such efforts—extra-role behaviors—generally involve the formation of deep psychological bonds between stakeholders and entrepreneurial endeavors. In an entrepreneurial context, the process of creating these bonds can be called stakeholder enrollment. Critical attributes of this process are shown to vary by the informational setting (risky or uncertain) within which entrepreneurship takes place. Managerial summary Entrepreneurs often need to gain access to resources controlled by other stakeholders to be successful. In some cases, entrepreneurs must induce these stakeholders to form deep psychological bonds in order to obtain the required resources. The process of creating these bonds is called stakeholder enrollment. This article notes that entrepreneurs can use information about the nature of the opportunity they are pursuing, information about themselves (i.e., the entrepreneurs’ charisma, trustworthiness, and reputation), or both, to enroll stakeholders. This article suggests that the more uncertain a particular opportunity is, the less entrepreneurs can use information about the opportunity and the more they must rely on information about themselves to successfully enroll stakeholders. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Enduring Entrepreneurship: Antecedents, Triggering Mechanisms, and Outcomes | PETER JASKIEWICZ JAMES G. COMBS DAVID J KETCHEN R Duane Ireland |
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Emerging Theories of Entrepreneurial Behavior in Uncertain and Resource Constrained Environments | effectuation | In the contemporary turbulent and constantly changing economic environments, it is difficult to predict the outcomes of an action and thus plan the societal, organizational end entrepreneurial goals beforehand. Certainly for a reason, in recent years, several different perspectives describing entrepreneurial behavior in uncertain and resource constrained environments have come to challenge the more traditional business plan- oriented, and goal – based perspectives in entrepreneurship. These theories explain “creative process in general and entrepreneurship in particular” (Sarasvathy 2008) and “shed light on the processes by which firms generate heterogeneous value from ostensibly identical resources” (Baker & Nelson 2005) as well as to how “to create innovative solutions within structural constraints using limited resources and imaginative problem solving” (Lampel, Honig & Drori 2014). Miner & Moorman (1998) and Miner, Bassof & Moorman (2001) also link improvisation closely to organizational learning, hence in addition to new venture creation, these theories shed light also to the processes of renewal in existing organizations. A recent perspective on founder identity as well has come to suggest that also founder identity might stand in a meaningful role in answering adversities (Powell & Baker 2014). The perspectives describing entrepreneurial behavior in uncertain and resource constrained environments relate to the conference theme, “Making Organizations Meaningful” in several ways. First of all, these perspectives are at the very heart of the action and meaningfulness, by researching and explaining entrepreneurial behavior. Second, these perspectives have striven to explain how enactment in organizations transforms objects, resources, goals and even thoughts in small steps. However, the overlaps, complementarities and for that matter, research gaps between and across these perspectives are not yet thoroughly explored by entrepreneurship researchers. Thus this symposium seeks to ignite the discussion in order to broaden it from e.g. Fisher (2012) by bringing along together more emerging theoretical perspectives explaining entrepreneurial behavior under uncertain and/ or resource constraints. This symposium seeks to clarify the overlaps and complementarities of the published theories on entrepreneurial ingenuity, entrepreneurial bricolage, effectuation, and improvisation as well as other possibly emerging concepts. The aim is to start a discussion in order to establish clearer boundaries and offer future research guidelines around these different conceptualizations. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | Link to Abstract |
| Effectuation, Not Being Pragmatic or Process Theorizing, Remains Ineffectual: Responding to the Commentaries. | Richard J Arend Hessamoddin Sarooghi Andrew Burkemper |
A letter to the editor is presented in response commentary featured in the issue on the authors’ article “Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship” in volume 40 of the periodical. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation Spectra in Chinese High-Tech Entrepreneurship: Domain-Specific Logic Orientations and Cross-Border M&A | Dr. Andrew Isaak Yipeng Liu |
the developing nations grow and experience rapid institutional transformation, research has begun to investigate the roles of culture, cognition and institutional context on entrepreneurship and innovation. This chapter aims to advance the entrepreneurial cognition literature by juxtaposing entrepreneurial effectuation, domain-specific expertise and ambiguity. By conducting a qualitative study of Chinese high-tech domestic and returnee entrepreneurs, the authors propose a spectrum between causation and effectuation and argue that the entrepreneur’s perceived level of ambiguity may better explain differing logic orientations among entrepreneurs, contributing to our understanding of entrepreneurial cognition. The authors theorize that (1) individual actors and the level of institutional development jointly comprise the entrepreneur’s logic orientation; (2) the level of perceived ambiguity mediates the strategy adopted by high-tech entrepreneurs; (3) the entrepreneur’s logic orientation can be regarded as a continual spectrum from effectuation to causation. Finally, the logic orientation concept is applied to the context of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from a process perspective and the implications and fit of logic orientation with the stages of cross-border M&A are discussed. Outlet: Technology, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Competitive Strategy, Vol. 15 |
2016 | PDF Download | |
| Effectuation & Causation Approaches and their effect on Business Performance: An analysis of Business Plans | Jos Lennips | This paper is about the influence of Effectuation and Causation, two entrepreneurial strategies, on the performance of companies. These terms were first coined by Sarasvathy in 2001 and in this research empirically tested on the survival of companies. Causation processes take a particular effect as given and focus on selecting between means to create that effect. Effectuation processes take a set of means as given and focus on selecting between possible effects that can be created with that set of means. According to the literature it is not yet known whether one approach is the preferable approach over the other in order to have a bigger chance of survival for a company, some literature hints towards effectuation as the most preferable but empirical prove does not yet exist. The same goes for a company that has survived an early phase of development. Literature suggests that causation is the better option, but empirical evidence is absent. Therefore, these two claims were tested after data on 382 business plans was gathered and coded. The findings do not give a clear and distinctive answer, but, Causation has the (slightly) better outcomes. This study poses a contribution to literature on causation and effectuation as concepts of early entrepreneurial strategy. It has made use of an extensive coding scheme and a rich database of coded business plans. However, further research on this subject is needed to validate the measures that were created, to check whether the results hold for bigger and different samples, and whether the same results come up if a different way of gathering data, not through analysing business plans, is used. | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Drawn to the fire: The role of passion, tenacity and inspirational leadership in angel investing | Charles Y. Murnieks Melissa S Cardon Richard Sudek T. Daniel White Wade Brooks |
Abstract Extant research affirms that angel investors seek passionate entrepreneurs but questions surround whether there is value in passion itself, or if it is instead used as a marker for other important characteristics like tenacity and inspirational leadership. Employing both a qualitative and quantitative study, we find that angels value passion in addition to tenacity, as well as both together, when evaluating entrepreneurs for investment. We also find that the entrepreneurial experience of angels positively moderates the value provided by passion and tenacity. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Does experience help or hinder top managers? Working with different types of resources in Hollywood | MICHAEL J MANNOR JAMAL SHAMSIE DONALD E. CONLON |
Research summary: Research on the resource-based view has begun to place more emphasis on the ability of managers to extract better performance from the resources that are available to them. In this paper, we show that prior experience can both help and hinder their ability to generate performance from various categories of resources. Further, we argue that the fungibility of each resource influences the opportunities managers have to use their experiences in order to find the best method to deploy them. We test our hypotheses by examining the ability of Hollywood film producers to generate results from financial, brand, and human resources. Our findings show that experienced producers can generate better performance from more fungible resources, but they actually achieve weaker results with less fungible resources. Managerial summary: Do more experienced top managers get better results from their resources? We examine this question for Hollywood film producers. Our results show that experience can really help when producers work with resources such as cash (budgets) and brand resources (such as film sequels). However, such experiences actually reduce performance when they work with some human resources, such as highly talented directors. We argue that experience can be most helpful when managers work with more fungible resources, which can be used in a variety of different ways but can actually hurt when they work with resources that are more constrained in how they can be deployed. Under ideal circumstances, we find that experienced producers can generate nearly 40 percent more revenue with the right mix of resources. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Strategic Management Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Digital Entrepreneurship: Toward a Digital Technology Perspective of Entrepreneurship | Satish Nambisan | New digital technologies have transformed the nature of uncertainty inherent in entrepreneurial processes and outcomes as well as the ways of dealing with such uncertainty. This has raised important questions at the intersection of digital technologies and entrepreneurship—on digital entrepreneurship. We consider two broad implications—less bounded entrepreneurial processes and outcomes and less predefined locus of entrepreneurial agency—and advance a research agenda that calls for the explicit theorizing of concepts related to digital technologies. In articulating the promise and value of such a digital technology perspective, we consider how it would build on and enrich existing entrepreneurship theories. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Deepening the Dialogue: New Directions for the Evolution of Effectuation Theory. | Reuber, A. Rebecca Eileen Fischer Nicole Coviello |
A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article “Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship” by R.J. Arend, H. Sarooghi, and A. Burkemper in volume 40 of the periodical. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Corporate Entrepreneurship Managers’ Project Terminations: Integrating Portfolio-Level, Individual-Level, and Firm-Level Effects | Judith Behrens Holger Patzelt |
Corporate entrepreneurship managers often need to terminate projects to maximize their innovation portfolios’ commercial prospects. Drawing on the attention-based view of the firm, we develop a model for how past project failure experience, the firm’s growth rate, and their hierarchical level impact managers’ attention to a project’s fit with the corporate portfolio strategy and the balance of the portfolio when terminating projects. Using data from a conjoint study with 6,944 assessments of project terminations made by 217 managers, we provide insights into corporate entrepreneurship decision making and how portfolio-level, individual-level, and firm-level aspects interact in explaining project termination. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Converging Winds: Logic Hybridization in the Colorado Wind Energy Field | Jeffery York TIMOTHY J. HARGRAVE Desiree F Pacheco |
This study explores the hybridization of field-level logics, a process that integrates previously incompatible logics within an organizational field. Through an inductive study of the wind energy field in Colorado, we find that logic hybridization resulted when social movement organizations (SMOs), electric utility firms, hybrid organizations, and policy makers variously responded to incompatibility between economizing and ecologizing logics. After compromise with electric utilities and efforts to justify wind power in economic terms failed to reduce the dominance of the economizing logic, SMOs switched tactics to promote the ecologizing logic. Once SMOs succeeded in altering the balance of power in the field, hybrid organizations then emerged to legitimize a new set of frames, practices, and arrangements that integrated the previously incompatible logics. Electric utility firms and policy makers then formalized and embedded the new hybridized logic in the field. Our findings suggest that the hybridization of field-level logics is a complex process in which organizational actions and field-level conditions recursively influence each other over time. This process is critical to understanding how entrepreneurs, firms, policy makers, and SMOs each contribute to the emergence of environmentally relevant sectors. | Academy of Management Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Complexity Science at a Crossroads: Exploring a Science of Emergence | Benyamin Lichtenstein | Complexity scholarship has flourished in organization science for many years, with important implications for managers, organizations, and networks. But the academic expressions of complexity-current publications using complexity science-is dwindling: only 0.2% of papers at last year’s Academy of Management meeting were complexity- based. Has complexity ‘petered out’ in some way? Rather than redouble energy in that direction, this paper argues for a focus on the core phenomenon that is studied by complexity, namely emergence. Two steps are suggested toward a ‘science of emergence.’ First, emergence can be seen as a process and as an outcome; both explanations are equally valid and important. Second, the causes of emergence are not unitary: research suggests that we should see at least four distinct causal mechanisms for emergence. This paper presents those four ‘prototypes’, and reflects on the duality of process/outcomes in emergence, with the goal of incorporating them within a single discipline. Overall, my emphasis is on the flourishing literature on emergence in organization science. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Causation and effectuation vs. analysis and intuition: conceptual parallels in the context of entrepreneurial decision-making | Andre Hermes | In the past years there has always been the reoccurring phenomenon of reinventing something that had already been successfully researched. Open innovation, for example, is a term created by Henry Chesbrough referring to the use of both internal and external knowledge to improve internal innovation. Nothing new, yet a term that is used in business books until now. It is the phenomenon that organizations are constantly seeking for new answers to old problems. This study aims at analyzing this concerning Sarasvathy’s work of causation and effectuation comparing it with Allinson and Hayes’ earlier work of analysis and intuition in order to determine whether their terms have been replaced by allegedly “new” innovative terms of Sarasvathy having the same meaning after all. Results indeed show parallels in their terms and definitions. However, the terms diverge in terms of their application and use. Furthermore, the phenomenon in general seems to be underlaying a deep cognitive and behavioral approach that lacks in evidence but in return opens doors for further research. | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| Building Resilience or Providing Sustenance: Different Paths of Emergent Ventures in the Aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake | Trent Williams Dean Shepherd |
Disaster events threaten the lives, economies, and wellbeing of those they impact. Understanding the role of emergent organizations in responding to suffering and building resilience is an important component of the grand challenge of how to effectively respond to disasters. In this inductive case study we explore venture creation initiated by locals in response to suffering following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In exploring six ventures we found that two distinctive groups emerged in terms of their identification of potential opportunities to alleviate suffering, their access to and use of key resources, the action they took, and ultimately their effectiveness in facilitating resilience. We offer an inductive, grounded theoretical model that emerged from our data that provides insight into and an extension of literature on resilience to adversity and the disaster literature on emergent response groups, opening pathways for management scholarship to contribute in a meaningful way to this grand challenge. | Academy of Management Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Bridging Behavioral Models and Theoretical Concepts: Effectuation and Bricolage in the Opportunity Creation Framework | CHRIS WELTER René Mauer ROBERT J. WUEBKER |
Research summary Opportunity creation, effectuation, and bricolage are three concepts that describe value creation and the central role of entrepreneurial action in that process. Although research often conceptualizes these concepts as interrelated, precisely how they relate to and complement one another and where they diverge remains unclear. This article examines the roots of each of these concepts and their underlying assumptions, organizing them within a unifying conceptual frame. Our analysis reveals a set of entailing implications that can guide future conceptual and empirical work in entrepreneurship, and it advances our understanding of value creation and capture in strategy, organization theory, management, and related fields. Managerial summary What are entrepreneurs doing? At the highest level of abstraction, entrepreneurs are identifying and exploiting opportunities. Recently, several lines of research have examined how certain types of entrepreneurial action can result in forming, rather than merely encountering, opportunities. Scholars engaged in this work have used both deductive and observational approaches, which have been rarely examined jointly or integrated into a comprehensive framework. This article focuses on the literature on opportunity creation, effectuation, and bricolage, examining each of the approaches and their underlying assumptions, and it organizes them within a unifying conceptual frame. Doing so reveals avenues for future work, in particular the development of new theories of opportunity formation, and implications for research in related fields such as strategic management, organization theory, and economics. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Beyond cultural values? Cultural leadership ideals and entrepreneurship | Ute Stephan Saurav Pathak |
Abstract This paper offers a fresh perspective on national culture and entrepreneurship research. It explores the role of Culturally-endorsed implicit Leadership Theories (CLTs) – i.e., the cultural expectations about outstanding, ideal leadership – on individual entrepreneurship. Developing arguments based on culture-entrepreneurship fit, we predict that charismatic and self-protective CLTs positively affect entrepreneurship. They provide a context that enables entrepreneurs to be co-operative in order to initiate change but also to be self-protective and competitive so as to safeguard their venture and avoid being exploited. We further theorize that CLTs are more proximal drivers of cross-country differences in entrepreneurship as compared with distal cultural values. We find support for our propositions in a multi-level study of 42 countries. Cultural values (of uncertainty avoidance and collectivism) influence entrepreneurship mainly indirectly, via charismatic and self-protective CLTs. We do not find a similar indirect effect for cultural practices. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Behavioral disinhibition and nascent venturing: Relevance and initial effects on potential resource providers | Lerner Daniel | Abstract While relatively weak inhibition is often associated with unproductive behavior and pathologies, it may favor acting on entrepreneurial opportunities. Ultimately exploiting opportunities, however, goes well beyond individual action, requiring organizing/others. This raises the question of how others perceive and respond to disinhibition in an entrepreneurial agent. Triangulating from psychology and entrepreneurship literatures, behavioral disinhibition in an entrepreneur is hypothesized to have ambivalent, overall negative effects on potential resource providers. A randomized experiment tested the hypotheses. Results were significant, with moderate to large effect sizes. The findings suggest that behavioral proclivities facilitating individual entrepreneurial action may paradoxically undermine organizing. The work contributes to an emergent literature on ostensibly dark-side characteristics relevant to entrepreneurship, extends knowledge on entrepreneur behavior influencing potential resource providers, and highlights unresolved tensions relevant to opportunity pursuit (e.g., exploration/exploitation dilemmas). | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Balancing “what matters to me” with “what matters to them”: Exploring the legitimation process of environmental entrepreneurs | Isobel O’Neil Deniz Ucbasaran |
Abstract We extend current knowledge on new venture legitimation by focusing both on how environmental entrepreneurs enact their values and beliefs during the legitimation process and on the resultant business and personal consequences. On the basis of our longitudinal analysis of six cases studies we develop a staged process model of legitimation. Our findings suggest three novel insights. First, the entrepreneur’s (i.e. the legitimacy seeker’s) own values and beliefs are found to anchor initial decisions about how to gain legitimacy (the “what matters to me” stage) but are then toned down as attention shifts to gain legitimacy from diverse audiences (the “what matters to them” stage). Eventually, the entrepreneurs arrive at an approach that balances “what matters to me and them”. Second, we are able to explain how and why these changes in legitimation take place. The entrepreneurs learned to adapt their legitimation work by engaging in reflection and reflexivity about both the business and personal consequences of their work in each stage. Finally, we detail the significance of dissonance to this process as a trigger for changes in behavior. Overall, our three insights allow us to extend the notion of what a “skillful” legitimacy seeker might be. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| Are entrepreneurial strategies culturally biased? The role of culture as an inter-subjective perception-forming construct | Martin Stienstra Rainer Harms Aard Groen |
Scholars have asserted that national culture has an influence on strategic decisions during new venture creation processes. One of the more promising frameworks describing these processes is that of Sarasvathy, known as the Effectuation framework. Within this framework, the role of national culture has not been embedded. Research has been done in 16 countries around the world among 317 entrepreneurs using the Think aloud method to get further insight in the role of national culture if effectual processes are set in a different context. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis findings show that national culture has a significant relationship with Effectual processes. This study highlights the importance of including national culture in studying new venture creation in different countries in general and Effectuation in particular. | 2016 | link to abstract | |
| Are current models of entrepreneurial decision-making and cognitive coping relevant to novice entrepreneurs? | Louise Elizabeth Pinfold | The objective of this research is to explore the extent to which current models of decision- making and entrepreneurial cognition are relevant to a sample of true novice entrepreneurs, those who are in the process of founding their first business venture. Novice entrepreneurs are recognised as being essential to sustaining the entrepreneurial churn in economies (Disney, Haskel & Heden, 2003) especially as the young firm population requires new entrants. The need arises because of the high rates of churning observed in populations of young firms that require a constant inflow of new ventures to renew the stock of businesses (Ganguly, 1985). Whilst some studies of the behaviour of entrepreneurs do focus on relatively young firms (e.g. Chandler, DeTienne, McKelvie, & Mumford, 2011) studies of true novice entrepreneurs are rare. The thesis seeks to address this gap in the literature. A sample of true novice entrepreneurs, that founded businesses in 2013 and 2014, is interviewed to explore their decision-making and cognition regarding a realistic new business case study. The approach replicates that used by other authors who have studied expert entrepreneurs (Sarasvathy, 2001; Sarasvathy, 2008; Chandler et al., 2011; Dew, Read, Sarasvathy & Wiltbank, 2009) using a think-aloud protocol to identify causation and effectuation styles. However, by using a mixed methods approach of concurrent and retrospective think-aloud aspects it was possible to identify novice decision-making and to capture the prior experiences that they referred to (Banks, Stanton & Harvey, 2014). The sample of 32 true novices was a randomised sub-set of 1128 business founders in the UK. The experimental protocol enabled a comparison with alternative expertise theories of feedback and linear thinking in decision-making (Winch & Maytorena, 2009). The key findings were contrary to the hypotheses; the true novices were both more effectual and more casual than expected; and furthermore were frequently using feedback loops in their decision-making. In addition, as the novice entrepreneurs reflected upon their experiences that informed their decisions, the literature predicts that novice entrepreneurs would have to adopt analytical approaches to decision making as they lack salient experiences to inform their decisions in the early years of trading. However, contrary to expectations, the novices used both analogical and heuristic sense-making approaches and were adept at switching between them (Jones & Casulli, 2014). The outcome of the experimental protocol offers insights into the extent to which the current literature captures the decision-making processes and entrepreneurial cognition of true novice entrepreneurs. The evidence is mixed, offering the opportunity for further refinement of existing theoretical constructs, and reinforcing the relevance of alternative theories of cognition and decision making for novice entrepreneurs, for government policies and the support networks and that provide resources to assist the creation and survival of new entrepreneurial ventures.In addition, for novice entrepreneurs, this research examined the relevance and influence of their prior experiences and emotions on their entrepreneurial decision-making. In founding their first business, the prediction for novices is that they would struggle to draw on appropriate experiences (Mathias, Williams & Smith, 2015). However, the results showed novices referencing a wide variety of experiences, with the majority of these based on personal events that they had directly experienced either in their current start-up or previous work activity. Emotions are believed to influence entrepreneurs’ abilities to cope with uncertainty in business decision making and to persist in their endeavours in the face of adverse experiences and entrepreneurs are predicted to be over optimistic (Koellinger, Minniti & Schade, 2007; Ucbasaran, Westhead, Wright & Flores, 2010). The research profiled the novices’ emotions using the internationally externally validated PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect) scale (Watson, Clark & Tellegan, 1988) and the findings showed the novices engaged consistently with their underlying trait emotions however, interestingly, they were not statistically more optimistic than the UK population (Thompson, 2007). The findings make a contribution to both the theoretical explanations and practical aspects of novice entrepreneurship and show the appropriateness of relating current research to widely used measures from other fields of study, particularly as the impact of emotions is currently influencing the future of entrepreneurship research (Cardon, Foo, Shepherd & Wiklund, 2012; Shepherd, 2015). | 2016 | PDF Download | |
| A theoretical and methodological approach to social entrepreneurship as world-making and emancipation: social change as a projection in space and time | Nicolina Montesano Montessori | This article presents and analyses three cases, which integrate features of both social movements and social entrepreneurship (SE). It is the result of a longitudinal study (January 2012 to September 2015). The study contributes new insights to the theoretical and methodological discussions on SE, focusing on ?the social? in SE literature. The three selected movements, active in the Netherlands, are: ?The Dutch Chapter of Zeitgeist? henceforth Zeitgeist (TZM), (2010?present), ?Giving is All we Have? (henceforth GIAWH, (2011?2014) and ?MasterPeace? (MP) (2010?present). Each movement shows a strong inclination towards social transformation, while being rooted in organizational structures, therefore considered ?social entrepreneurial movements?. Specific contributions entail: the presentation of these innovative cases, the design of a methodology based on critical discourse analysis, state theory, narrative analysis, political theory and discourse theory and a thorough analysis and interpretation of these cases in the national and global contexts in which they emerged. More specifically, it contributes to SE literature on emancipation, defined as ?breaking free? when further developing the method in the direction of world-making, defined as ?creating new worlds?. This study suggests that transition theory can be useful for the study of the impact of social entrepreneurial movements. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A Tale of Two Kirzners: Time, Uncertainty, and the “Nature” of Opportunities | Steffen Korsgaard Henrik Berglund Claus Thrane Per Blenker |
This paper discusses the influence of Israel Kirzner on the field of entrepreneurship research. We review Kirzner’s work and argue that it contains two distinct approaches to entrepreneurship, termed Kirzner Mark I and Kirzner Mark II. Mark I with its focus on alertness and opportunity discovery has exerted a strong influence on entrepreneurship research in the last decade, and helped catapult the field forward. We propose that Mark II, with its emphasis on time, uncertainty, and creative action in pursuit of imagined opportunities, complements the discovery view and can provide an alternative conceptual grounding for the decade to come. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A Stakeholder Capabilities Perspective on Entrepreneurial Performance and Value Creation. | Ishrat Ali Sharon Alicia Simmons Saras Sarasvathy |
Primary purpose of this paper is to better understand how entrepreneurs create value for different stakeholders. Combining concepts from stakeholder theory and capability approach in welfare and development economics, we theoretically develop the concept of “Stakeholder Capabilities” as unit of value. Using this lens, we examine performance of five Inc. 500 companies and six B-Corporations. By conducting detailed semi-structured interviews with 11 founders, we discovered that while interacting with multiple stakeholders they expended thought and effort to expand various stakeholder capabilities within economic, psychological, social, intellectual and physiological dimensions. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | link to abstract |
| A reconceptualization of fear of failure in entrepreneurship | Gabriella Cacciotti James Hayton J. Robert Mitchell Dr Andreas Giazitzoglu |
Abstract Fear of failure both inhibits and motivates entrepreneurial behavior and therefore represents a rich opportunity for better understanding entrepreneurial motivation. Although considerable attention has been given to the study of fear of failure in entrepreneurship, scholars in this field have investigated this construct from distinct disciplinary perspectives. These perspectives use definitions and measures of fear of failure that are potentially in conflict and are characterized by a static approach, thereby limiting the validity of existing findings about the relationship between fear of failure and entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to delineate more precisely the nature of fear of failure within the entrepreneurial setting. Using an exploratory and inductive qualitative research design, we frame this construct in terms of socially situated cognition by adopting an approach that captures a combination of cognition, affect and action as it relates to the challenging, uncertain, and risk-laden experience of entrepreneurship. In so doing, we provide a unified perspective of fear of failure in entrepreneurship in order to facilitate progress in understanding its impact on entrepreneurial action and outcomes. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A Realist Perspective of Entrepreneurship: Opportunities As Propensities | Stratos Ramoglou Eric W. K. Tsang |
The idea that entrepreneurial opportunities exist “out there” is increasingly under attack by scholars who argue that opportunities do not preexist objectively but are actively created through subjective processes of social construction. In this article we concede many of the criticisms pioneered by the creation approach but resist abandoning the preexisting reality of opportunities. Instead, we use realist philosophy of science to ontologically rehabilitate the objectivity of entrepreneurial opportunities by elucidating their propensity mode of existence. Our realist perspective offers an intuitive and paradox-free understanding of what it means for opportunities to exist objectively. This renewed understanding enables us to (1) explain that the subjectivities of the process of opportunity actualization do not contradict the objective existence of opportunities, (2) acknowledge the category of agency-intensive opportunites, (3) develop the notion of “nonopportunity,” and (4) clarify the ways individuals might make cognitive contact with opportunities prior to their actualization. Our actualization approach serves as a refined metatheory for guiding future entrepreneurship research and facilitates the revisiting of subtle conceptual issues at the core of entrepreneurial theory, such as the nature of uncertainty and “nonentrepreneurs,” as well as the role played by prediction in a scientific study of entrepreneurship. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A Process Perspective on Evaluating and Conducting Effectual Entrepreneurship Research. | Vishal K. Gupta Todd Chiles Jeffery McMullen |
A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article “Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship” by R.J. Arend, H. Sarooghi, and A. Burkemper in volume 40 of the periodical. | Academy of Management Review | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A Market for Lemons in Serial Entrepreneurship? Exploring Type I and Type II Errors in the Restart Decision | Saras Sarasvathy Kristian Nielsen |
Extant literatures on serial and habitual entrepreneurship contain inconclusive findings about the differential impact of learning from success and failure. Yet, there are no published studies combining both the restart decision and restart performance after previous failure or success with a first venture. Using a comprehensive longitudinal dataset of all one-time starts and restarts in Denmark from 1980 to 2007, we discovered the existence of a market for lemons in serial entrepreneurship. First introduced by Akerlof (1970), the market for lemons refers to a market in which low-quality products come to dominate. In serial entrepreneurship, this occurs due to Type II errors in the restart phenomenon. Type I error occurs when a potential entrepreneur endowed with the human and social capital necessary for restart success does not start a second venture. Type II error refers to the opposite and forms the basis for the market for lemons in serial entrepreneurship. Based on our empirical findings, we develop new theory relating these two types of errors to errors in learning attributions resulting in overconfidence bias and thereby impacting performance. | Academy of Management Discoveries | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing: Entrepreneurial experience and new venture disengagement | Rasmus Vendler Toft-Kehler Karl Wennberg Philip H Kime |
Abstract Existing research has offered conflicting narratives of how entrepreneurial experience influences whether founders will continue working on or disengage from their ventures. We theorize and test how entrepreneurs with varying levels of experience disengage from early-stage companies. Findings reveal a U-shaped relationship, such that novices and highly experienced entrepreneurs are more likely to quit their ventures, while moderately experienced entrepreneurs are more likely to persist in their pursuits. We offer both theoretical and empirical explanations for how the propensity to disengage from new ventures evolves with entrepreneurial experience. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2016 | PDF Download |
| A bureaucrat’s journey from technocrat to entrepreneur through the creation of adhocracies | Duncan M Pelly, R | AbstractHow we understand entrepreneurship is a function of the stories we tell. This article uses insights from process theory to explore the ways in which an entrepreneur can employ a story to mobilize others to shed conflicting viewpoints to converge with the abstract. In this story, regulation as a reification of past procedures did not fully account for organizational realities of mailroom inspections conducted by the military post office, so an appeal to foundational values was adopted to alter the shared vision of future potentiality and overcome bureaucratic barriers through the creation of adhocracies. As a result of overcoming interorganizational boundaries, a technocrat became an entrepreneur by changing the view of stakeholders from a fixed audience to active co-authors during the spawning of adhocracies. The creation of adhocracies in this story is explored through an autoethnographic layered account, which is a storytelling approach that mirrors the co-construction of the narratives found within this paper?s vignettes. The understanding of entrepreneurship provided in this paper challenges commonly held assumptions of entrepreneurship, in addition to corporate, organizational and public service entrepreneurship, as well as the methods and writing styles to explore these concepts. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2016 | link to abstract |
| “They help, yet they hinder: Duality of social networks and opportunities for Ghanaian Self-Employed” | Patrick Shulist Shulist | In this study, I seek to understand how subsistence entrepreneurs select specific replication opportunities to exploit, and the impact of this selection on growth. Replication opportunities are different from discovery, creation, and recognition opportunities, and are those opportunities that directly mimic readily observable businesses. While extant research points to the macro-level factors (such as a lack of education) that generally lead to countries’ dependence on replication opportunities, little is known at the micro-level; the level where interventions such as training programs work. I studied a group of self-employed across four research trips to Ghana, where I conducted 227 interviews and 233 hours of observation. My findings indicate that social networks both enable and constrain the selection of specific opportunities. They also indicate that opportunities are widely exploited based on the standard templates accessed through these networks. Similarly, social networks constrain and enable growth, as do the opportunities themselves. The combination of these two factors effectively focuses the microentrepreneur’s attention on growth opportunities that are marginal additions to the current template, and away from efficiency-seeking opportunities. These findings contribute theoretically to social networking theory, franchising, and theories of growth. They also have practical implications for entrepreneur training programs. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| “Sustainability, Ethics and Entrepreneurship” | effectuation | Environmental issues, poverty, inequality, corruption and social discontent are intricately linked with business activity, and as such, they cannot be disentangled or addressed in isolation. The needs to understand the Earth and its limited resources, security for humankind and justice for society mean that the demand for social science knowledge is increasing. The fact that sustainability and ethics are intertwined with the concepts of business and organizations (including NGOs) is no longer new. Indeed, ethical choices are critical to any business activity and thus influence how startups, small firms, medium enterprises, and large, multinational corporations-whether those are for profit or not- influence the sustainability of the environment and society. We actually suggest that sustainability, ethics, and entrepreneurship triangulate and give meaning to every ecological consideration, social value, and economic opportunity. The goal of the symposium, then, is to advance knowledge about the meaning and intersection of sustainability, ethics, and entrepreneurship. When Internal Representation Leads to Faultlines: A Study of Board Performance in Social EnterprisPresenter: Saskia Crucke; Ghent U.Presenter: Mirjam Knockaert; Ghent U.Crowding Out Effects of Well-Intended Environmental PoliciesPresenter: Richard Hunt; Virginia Polytechnic InstitutePresenter: Bret Ryan Fund; U. of Colorado, BoulderHow Social Entrepreneurs Facilitate the Adoption of New Industry PracticesPresenter: Theodore L. Waldron; Baylor U.Presenter: Greg Fisher; Indiana U.Presenter: Michael D. Pfarrer; U. of GeorgiaA Theoretical Exploration of Why Firms Delay Reaching True SustainabilityPresenter: Anton Shevchenko; Concordia U.Presenter: Moren Levesque; York U.Presenter: Mark Pagell; U. College Dublin”Environmental Entrepreneurship: Identity Coupling, Venture Goals, and Stakeholder Incentives”Presenter: Jeffrey G. York; U. of Colorado, BoulderPresenter: Isobel O’Neil; The U. of NottinghamPresenter: Saras D. Sarasvathy; U. of VirginiaKicking Off Social Entrepreneurship: How a Sustainability Orientation Influences CrowdfundingPresenter: Goran Calic; Purdue U.Presenter: Elaine Mosakowski; Purdue U.Selling Issues With Solutions: Igniting Social Intrapreneurship in For-Profit OrganizationsPresenter: Elisa Alt; Anglia Ruskin U.Presenter: Justin B Craig; Northwestern Kellogg School of ManagementSocial Enterprise Emergence from Social Movement Activism: The Fairphone CasePresenter: Ona Akemu; Erasmus U. RotterdamPresenter: Gail Whiteman; Erasmus U. RotterdamPresenter: Steve Kennedy; Rotterdam School of Management | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | link to abstract |
| “Differentiating Novice, Non-expert and Expert Entrepreneurs: A Self-regulated Learning Perspective” | Alexander Fust Christoph Winkler Tobias Johannes Jenert |
Entrepreneurial contexts are characterized by uncertainty, often requiring entrepreneurs to adapt in order to tackle the corresponding challenges and succeed. While entrepreneurial success may be explained by experiential learning, little is known as to why some experienced entrepreneurs are more successful at adapting to uncertain conditions. It has been suggested that these differences are due to enhanced cognitive resources that are analogous to those of experts. Since expertise can be developed through self-regulated learning (SRL), our paper seeks to explain the missing link between experience and entrepreneurial success. By drawing from advances in expert research and a social cognitive view of self-regulation, we develop a process oriented model of self-regulated entrepreneurial learning (SREL) in order to explain why expert entrepreneurs are better able to self-regulate and adapt their behavior during uncertainty (compared to novices and non-experts). We further develop empirically testable research propositions, and discuss theoretical and practical implications for aspiring entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs alike. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2016 | PDF Download |
| You Cannot Live of Love Alone – The Interrelation of Legitimacy and Effectuation in Nascent Markets | Franziska Günzel-Jensen Morten Rask |
This paper explores how success in legitimacy building can create restrictions and problems for new venture’s development in highly volatile settings. Through a longitudinal single in-depth case study in the nascent e-mobility market, we uncover unwanted effects of this process. In a nascent market entrepreneurs need to engage in legitimization activities targeted both at the emerging firm and the emerging industry in which it operates. The gaining of legitimacy from various stakeholders had two consequences: overconfidence which led to misunderstanding of commitment and a lack of learning as well as the loss of flexibility due to premature contractual and identity commitment. Through a longitudinal study, we illustrate how the gaining of legitimacy can blind entrepreneurs towards understanding their stakeholder’s motivations as well as their customer’s feedback, and highlights limits of the dynamic model of effectual transformation. We finish the paper by offering propositions for the refinement of effectuation and legitimization theory. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Why We Plan: The Impact of Nascent Entrepreneurs’ Cognitive Characteristics and Human Capital on Business Planning | Jan Brinckmann Sung Min Kim |
We examine the impact of nascent entrepreneurs’ cognitive attributes and human capital on business planning behavior. We find that entrepreneurial self-efficacy facilitates development of formal business plans and entrepreneurial perseverance promotes engaging in business planning activities. Further, advanced academic education leads nascent entrepreneurs to engage in business planning activities and create formal business plans, but prior work experience has a marginal effect on business plan formality. The results further indicate that a nascent entrepreneur’s striving for outside financing promotes business planning activities, while being in a supportive environment or a member of a business association does not impact business planning behavior. Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| What is an Attractive Business Opportunity? An Empirical Study of Opportunity Evaluation Decisions by Technologists, Managers, and Entrepreneurs | Marc Gruber Sung Min Kim Jan Brinckmann |
The subjective belief that an opportunity allows value generation is a key driver of entrepreneurial action. We advance research on opportunity evaluation by investigating how people may diverge in their views of what defines an attractive business opportunity; that is, we seek to understand heterogeneity among individuals’ ‘opportunity templates.’ Using unique data from a conjoint experiment with 141 respondents (6,728 opportunity evaluations), our analysis reveals significant differences in the opportunity preferences of individuals with technological, management, and entrepreneurship experience. We also find that people with specialist experience (technology) emphasize fewer opportunity dimensions than people with generalist experience (management, entrepreneurship). Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| What founders in developing countries learn about organizing microenterprise growth | Katharina Anna Poetz Nico Carsten |
Entrepreneurship holds significant potential for advancing developing countries but there is increasing recognition that these effects will not only depend on easing capital constraints and institutional support but also on entrepreneurial talent and learning. Based on analyzing nine case studies of microenterprise growth in Tanzania, this study therefore investigates what microenterprise founders learn about effective resource orchestration (RO) from organizational process experience. Our findings suggest that they first learn to orchestrate relatively simple and informal ‘micro-programs’ for gathering resources. Only upon organizational growth, they experience an internal ‘organizing shock’ that draws their attention to more effective RO. However, due to environmental conditions, this experience can take place comparably late in the growth process, thereby increasing the chances of unnecessary and costly organizational failure. In this regard, we find that only those founders that rapidly make sense of ineffective processes, gain management knowledge from different sources, and devote time and energy to managerial tasks, manage to sustain organizational growth by learning to make ‘fixes’ for internal problems and diversify more strategically. The findings lead to a set of propositions about founders’ learning from organization process experience in opportunity-rich, growth-constrained environments, and are integrated into a framework for microenterprise growth. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Unreasonable Assumptions in ASB | Stuart Read Saras Sarasvathy Nick Dew Rob Wiltbank |
In the October issue, the Academy of Management Review published a critique of effectuation (Arend et al, 2015). This page references two documents which address that critique. The first document is a formal response (Read et al 2016) that will be published in the Academy of Management Review. That manuscript is currently available for download on this website (http://old.effectuation.org/paper/response-arend-et-al-co-creating-effectual-entrepreneurship-research), and will continue to be until it is released by the Academy of Management Review. The second non-peer reviewed document offers a detailed discussion of assumptions made in Arend et al (2015) which we find inconsistent with both effectuation theory and with extant literature. That document is referenced in Read et al (2016) and is available for download from this page. If you have any additional questions, please email info@effectuation.org. | Academy of Management Review | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Understanding Dynamics of Strategic Decision Making in Venture Creation: A Process Study of Effectuation and Causation | ISABELLE M.M.J REYMEN Petra Andries H Berends René Mauer Ute Stephan Elco van Burg |
This study draws upon effectuation and causation as examples of planning-based and flexible decision-making logics and investigates dynamics in the use of both logics. The study applies a longitudinal process research approach to investigate strategic decision making in new venture creation over time. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, we analyze 385 decision events across nine technology-based ventures. Our observations suggest a hybrid perspective on strategic decision making, demonstrating how effectuation and causation logics are combined and how entrepreneurs’ emphasis on these logics shifts and re-shifts over time. We induce a dynamic model that extends the literature on strategic decision making in venture creation. Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The Study of Bias in Entrepreneurship | Javier Cueto Stephen Zhang |
Scholars use the theoretical lens of bias to research various behavioral phenomena in entrepreneurship. We assess this body of research, focusing on definitional issues and relationships. Furthermore, we discuss how the study of bias in entrepreneurship can be advanced, given the new development in related fields such as cognitive sciences. The assessments and discussions help reveal as well as address tensions in the literature, identify numerous research opportunities that may not be obvious by looking at previous work individually, and contribute to how the theory of bias can further help to understand entrepreneurship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The RICH Entrepreneur: Using Conservation of Resources Theory in Contexts of Uncertainty | Stephen E Lanivich | This research was designed to extend the scope and conversation of conservation of resource theory (COR) to contexts of uncertainty, including entrepreneurship. In doing so, the resource-induced coping heuristic (RICH) construct is introduced, developed, and validated. Results from two investigations, involving three samples and a total of 813 participants, indicated strong reliability, and internal validity for the theoretically justified, three-factor measure. Also, results of validity tests show the RICH as a robust predictor of factors pertaining to entrepreneurial success, including financial performance and perceived entrepreneurial success. Practical and academic implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The power of arguments: How entrepreneurs convince stakeholders of the legitimate distinctiveness of their ventures | Ruben van Werven Onno Bouwmeester Joep Cornelissen |
Abstract Entrepreneurs gain positive evaluations when their stakeholders are convinced that a new venture is simultaneously legitimate and distinct. Prior research highlights that analogies are a powerful device for constructing such legitimate distinctiveness. We extend this work by providing a more comprehensive typology of arguments that, besides analogies, contains five additional arguments that entrepreneurs can use to gain legitimacy and support for their ventures. We use this rhetorical typology in turn to consider how the nature of the business concept associated with a new venture constrains the choice, and effects, of certain arguments. Our typology provides a base for future research on the micro-discursive processes through which entrepreneurs claim, and in turn achieve, legitimate distinctiveness for their ventures. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The evolution of interorganizational relationships in emerging ventures: An ethnographic study within the new product development process | Tucker J Marion Kimberly A Eddleston John H. Friar David Deeds |
Abstract Emerging ventures rarely have the resources they need, which often force them to reach beyond their boundaries to access these resources. While the field has acknowledged how critical external relationships are in the emergence process, we lack an understanding of how these relationships evolve. Drawing on fourteen longitudinal case studies, this article begins to fill that gap by examining how emerging ventures use interorganizational relationships to discover, develop, and commercialize new products. We found that emerging ventures tended to establish outsourcing relationships early and that many outsourcing relationships progressed into alliances. This suggests that these early relationships are dynamic, evolve through the emergence process, and may be critical to the successful emergence of a venture. We also discovered that many entrepreneurs developed strong socioemotional bonds with their alliance partners. Unexpectedly, our study revealed that in many cases these socioemotional bonds clouded the entrepreneur’s judgment of the partner’s abilities and led to problems that threatened the venture’s survival. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The entrepreneurial journey as an emergent hierarchical system of artifact-creating processes | Paul D. Selden Denise E. Fletcher |
Abstract Entrepreneurial ‘process’ perspectives explain the events of an entrepreneurial journey in terms of mechanisms, such as ‘effectual logic’, ‘bricolage’, ‘dynamic creation’, ‘opportunity tension’ and ‘enactment’. Process theorists, however, have not as yet developed an analytical framework that explains an entrepreneurial event in relation to the entrepreneurial journey as the unit of analysis. Building on Sarasvathy’s (2003, 2008) and Venkataraman et al.’s (2012) conception of entrepreneurship inquiry as a ‘science of the artificial’ (Simon, 1996), we explain how this research gap can be addressed by conceptualizing the entrepreneurial journey as an ‘emergent hierarchical system of entrepreneurial artifact-creating processes’. From this perspective, entrepreneurial events can be explained in relation to the endogenous dynamics of prior patterns of artifact emergence. We discuss some research implications of focusing on artifact emergence as a key unit of analysis in process theory development. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The effects of opportunities and founder experience on new firm performance | JOHN C DENCKER Marc Gruber |
Much prior research in entrepreneurship has focused on the role of the founder’s knowledge in affecting new firm performance. Yet, little is known about how and why the entrepreneurial opportunity itself shapes outcomes in this arena. We begin filling in this critical gap in the literature by examining how the riskiness of the opportunity not only affects start-up performance, but also conditions the relevance of the founder’s distinct knowledge endowments. Analyses of a sample of 451 new firms show that the riskier the opportunity, the greater the performance of the start-up, above and beyond founder characteristics. Moreover, the value of founder knowledge is relative to the type of opportunity exploited: high-risk opportunities favor founders with managerial experience, whereas low-risk opportunities favor founders with industry experience. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Strategic Management Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The creation view of opportunities at the base of the pyramid | Misagh Tasavori Reza Zaefarian Pervez N. Ghauri |
This research aims to understand how multinational corporations (MNCs) enter the base of the pyramid (BoP) by adopting the creation view of opportunities. We employ actor?network theory and explore the key actors, the process and the opportunity development that enable MNCs to tackle the relative poverty of the BoP market. Our qualitative exploratory case study illustrates that, at the BoP, MNCs have to involve beneficiary stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations and BoP communities. In this process, they should be open to modifying their business model continuously to build awareness about the product among the poor and ensure affordability, availability and acceptability. At the BoP, opportunities do not exist in the external environment and they should be developed by identifying and addressing the real needs of the poor, enhancing their quality of life and being patient about earning a profit. This research contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by expanding the creation perspective of opportunities and provides implications for the managers of companies targeting the BoP market. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2015 | PDF Download |
| The best of both worlds: how rural entrepreneurs use placial embeddedness and strategic networks to create opportunities | Steffen Korsgaard Richard Ferguson Johan Gaddefors |
Entrepreneurial activities are strongly influenced by the context in which they occur. It is therefore imperative to understand how different contexts enable entrepreneurs to create opportunities. In this paper, we focus on the spatial context of rural entrepreneurs and explore how the rural context impacts on their opportunity creation. Based on a multiple case study, we find that rural entrepreneurs mix what we refer to as placial embeddedness ? an intimate knowledge of and concern for the place ? with strategically built non-local networks, i.e. the best of two worlds. Notably, the entrepreneurs seek to exhaust the localized resource base before seeking out non-local resources. Our findings thus contribute to our understanding of entrepreneurship in context and challenge future research to explore how different forms of contexts are bridged in different settings to create varieties of entrepreneurial activities. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2015 | link to abstract |
| The “heart” of entrepreneurship: The impact of entrepreneurial action on health and health on entrepreneurial action | Holger Patzelt Dean Shepherd |
Abstract Health is one of the most important topics in society. By exploring issues related to health we can gain a deeper understanding of the critical antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial action. Specifically, we take a psycho-social perspective on health and our knowledge of the entrepreneurship literature to begin a conversation about, and hopefully stimulate research on, how heath (of the entrepreneur and/or others) impacts entrepreneurial action and how entrepreneurial action creates (or diminishes) value (through the health of the entrepreneur and or others). We hope this article stimulates scholars’ curiosity on one of society’s most critical issues. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Start-Up Difficulties in Early-Stage Peripheral Clusters: The Case of IT in an Emerging Economy | Edward Kasabov | This paper studies the link between firm-level predicaments in high-technology start-ups and collective, cluster-level dynamics in early-stage peripheral locations. We investigate, first, the manner in which high-technology start-ups in early stage peripheral clusters accumulate and utilize resources; second, ways in which managers in start-up businesses and public sector officials work around inadequacies in order to move forward clusters composed mostly of high-technology start-ups; and third, the influence of such experiences on the development of clusters. Empirical findings from three IT clusters in Vietnam reveal resource inadequacies, private sector actors’ inability to resolve such shortcomings, entrepreneurial passivity, risk aversion, and lack of confidence in governmental initiatives. These findings and the comparison with earlier studies about start-up difficulties in other high-technology peripheral locations form the basis for a theoretical framework of high-technology start-up difficulties in early-stage peripheral clusters. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Social trust and angel investors’ decisions: A multilevel analysis across nations | Zhujun Ding Kevin Au Flora Chiang |
Abstract The decisions made by angel investors are embedded in and influenced by their institutional settings. This paper advances a multilevel model of the direct and indirect effects of social trust on individuals’ angel-investment decisions. It is postulated that two dimensions of social trust, namely the level and radius, can enhance information transmission, collaboration, and sanctioning mechanisms within a society. Consequently, they facilitate angel investment and moderate the relationship between it and individual factors. A multilevel model of data from 191,907 individuals across 25 countries shows that individuals in countries with a high level of trust are more likely to make angel investments. Whereas both the level of trust and the radius of trust are found to heighten the positive relationship between an individual’s perceived entrepreneurial skills and angel investment, it is interesting to note that these factors weaken the relationship between the perception of new business opportunities and angel investment. These direct and moderating effects are robust after controlling for wealth, cultural values, and other factors. This study contributes to the crossover between research on entrepreneurship and social-trust research. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Signifying Williamson’s Contribution to the Transaction Cost Approach: An Agent-Based Simulation of Coasean Transaction Costs and Specialization | Per L. Bylund | This article simulates Ronald Coase’s transaction cost approach to firm organizing using agent-based modelling, and contextualizes and contrasts it with a division-of-labour/specialization view of the firm that Coase challenged and sought to replace. The simulation tests the firm formation process based on the different implications of transaction costs and specialization as drivers of integration, focusing especially on Coase’s rejection of specialization as an explanation for integration in the firm. The results show little support for, and suggest an important shortcoming to, Coase’s transaction cost theory. My findings thereby indicate a potential relationship between the specialization theory and Williamson’s Transaction Cost Economics, especially the latter’s emphasis on co-specialization through relationship-specific investments, which helps shed light on TCE’s significant influence in the theory of the firm literature. | Journal of Management Studies | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Rule-Based Reasoning for Understanding Opportunity Evaluation | David W Williams Matthew S Wood |
Much research on opportunity in entrepreneurship and related fields centers on the origin of opportunities and the actions individuals take to exploit opportunities. However, our understanding of how individuals evaluate opportunities remains fragmented, with research spanning fields of study and using different terminology for similar concepts. Building on recent research suggesting that rule-based reasoning underpins how individuals evaluate opportunities, we integrate and synthesize the literature on opportunity evaluation and suggest rule-based reasoning as an overarching theoretical framework to understand opportunity evaluation across fields of study. Specifically, we illuminate how environmental factors, opportunity-related cues, and individual differences coalesce as one uses these factors as judgment rules to discern the personal attractiveness of an opportunity. Further, we explain how managers and entrepreneurs individuate opportunities, demonstrating why different individuals apply different rules and thus view similar opportunities differently. We conclude with implications of rule-based reasoning for opportunity evaluation across a broad set of management disciplines and offer directions for future research. | The Academy of Management Perspectives | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Robustness of the Theory of Planned Behavior in Predicting Entrepreneurial Intentions and Actions | Teemu Kautonen Marco van Gelderen Matthias Fink |
This analysis demonstrates the relevance and robustness of the theory of planned behavior in the prediction of business start-up intentions and subsequent behavior based on longitudinal survey data (2011 and 2012; n = 969) from the adult population in Austria and Finland. By doing so, the study addresses two weaknesses in current research: the limited scope of samples used in the majority of prior studies and the scarcity of investigations studying the translation of entrepreneurial intentions into behavior. The paper discusses conceptual and methodological issues related to studying the intention–behavior relationship and outlines avenues for future research. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Risking Enchantment: Meaning Making in Entrepreneurial Narratives | effectuation | Meaning making is one of the central functions of entrepreneurial narratives. (Garud & Giuliani, 2013). Yet, the research focusing on the topics of meaning and entrepreneurship has existed largely in parallel. In this symposium, we bring together scholars seeking to understand the meaning and meaningfulness of entrepreneurship (Pratt & Ashforth, 2003; Rosso, Dekas, & Wrzesniewski, 2010), extending research on how entrepreneurs communicate and coordinate to include not only sense giving processes as entrepreneurs attempt to secure resources for a business they are attempting to bring into existence, and deeper questions of significance, as entrepreneurs describe why they have chosen what can be a very difficult and demanding career, and how they ensure that the firms they have created contribute to their overall sense of purpose. The collected papers address meaning making in entrepreneurial narratives across a wide range of contexts and at levels ranging from individual entrepreneurs to entire emerging industries. Entrepreneurial Narratives within a Family-Founded VenturePresenter: Melissa Graebner; The U. of Texas at AustinPresenter: Philip T. Roundy; The U. of Texas at AustinPresenter: Suho Han; The U. of Texas at AustinMeaning and Money: A Qualitative Case Study of How Entrepreneurs Find Meaning in Their WorkPresenter: Rohini Jalan; Cornell U.”Selective Incentives, Entrepreneurshuip and Identity : Toward a Behavioral Theory of Collective Action”Presenter: Jeffrey G. York; U. of Colorado, BoulderPresenter: Saras D. Sarasvathy; U. of VirginiaPresenter: Isobel O’Neil; The U. of NottinghamDeep Impact: the Creation of New Firms and Technologies as a Mean to Leave a LegacyPresenter: Matthew J. Fox; Duke U. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Risk, Uncertainty, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment | Martin Koudstaal Randolph Sloof Mirjam van Praag |
Theory predicts that entrepreneurs have distinct attitudes toward risk and uncertainty, but empirical evidence is mixed. To better understand the unique behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs and the causes of these mixed results, we perform a large ?lab-in-the-field? experiment comparing entrepreneurs to managers (a suitable comparison group) and employees (n = 2,288). The results indicate that entrepreneurs perceive themselves as less risk averse than managers and employees, in line with common wisdom. However, when using experimental incentivized measures, the differences are subtler. Entrepreneurs are only found to be unique in their lower degree of loss aversion, and not in their risk or ambiguity aversion. This combination of results might be explained by our finding that perceived risk attitude is not only correlated to risk aversion but also to loss aversion. Overall, we therefore suggest using a broader definition of risk that captures this unique feature of entrepreneurs: their willingness to risk losses. This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics. | Management Science | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Putting Entrepreneurship Education Where the Intention to Act Lies: An Investigation Into the Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Behavior | ANDREAS RAUCH WILLEM Hulsink |
The growing attention to entrepreneurship education has caused a debate about whether entrepreneurship education can affect entrepreneurial behavior. We use a quasi-experimental design, comparing a MSc entrepreneurship program with a comparison group from a MSc supply-chain management program to test the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education, relying on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The findings suggest that entrepreneurship education is effective. Specifically, students participating in entrepreneurship education show an increase in attitudes and perceived behavioral control. Furthermore, they have higher entrepreneurial intentions at the end of the program. Finally, entrepreneurial intentions mediate the effect of entrepreneurship education on subsequent behavior associated with the creation of new business ventures. These results suggest that entrepreneurship education emphasizes increasing antecedents of intentions and behavior. | Academy of Management Learning & Education | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Pull the Plug or take the Plunge: Multiple Opportunities and the Speed of Venturing Decisions in the Australian Mining Industry | Rene M. Bakker Dean Shepherd |
Effectively capturing opportunities requires rapid decision-making. We investigate the speed of opportunity evaluation decisions by focusing on firms’ venture termination and venture advancement decisions. Experience, standard operating procedures, and confidence allow firms to make opportunity evaluation decisions faster; we propose that a firm’s attentional orientation, as reflected in its project portfolio, limits the number of domains in which these speed-enhancing mechanisms can be developed. Hence firms’ decision speed is likely to vary between different types of decisions. Using unique data on 3,269 mineral exploration ventures in the Australian mining industry, we find that firms with a higher degree of attention toward earlier-stage exploration activities are quicker to abandon potential opportunities in early development but slower to do so later, and that such firms are also slower to advance on potential opportunities at all stages compared to firms that focus their attention differently. Market dynamism moderates these relationships, but only with regard to initial evaluation decisions. Our study extends research on decision speed by showing that firms are not necessarily fast or slow regarding all the decisions they make, and by offering an opportunity evaluation framework that recognizes that decision makers can, in fact often do, pursue multiple potential opportunities simultaneously. | Academy of Management Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Prospective sensemaking: Strategy-making in a pioneering firm | Shubha Patvardhan | I employed a longitudinal, grounded-theory approach to investigate the processes by which firms not only try to “see” the future, but seek to shape it, as well. My investigation of the strategy-making processes in a pioneering firm that is widely acknowledged to have shaped the future of its industry over five decades showed that “creative enactment” – generative, reflexive interventions by which agents attempt to structure the environment towards desired ends – was a pivotal process. The findings help to extend the traditional sensemaking perspective, which is rooted in retrospective processes, to account more fully for prospective or forward-looking activities—especially those intended not merely to anticipate, but also to influence the future. The resulting “forward-looking” sensemaking model highlights not only the importance of creative enactment, but also the significance of “creative rationality” in understanding how firms can work to influence future environments. The resulting “forward- looking” sensemaking model also complements the dominant discourse in strategic management literature, which has historically focused on “fit” and ‘adaption” processes, by emphasizing processes that create the possibility of “shaping” environments. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Proposing Social Resources as the Fundamental Catalyst Toward Opportunity Creation | NEIL TOCHER SHARON L. OSWALD DIANNE J HALL |
The growing body of research on the creation view of opportunities suggests that social processes between potential entrepreneurs and interested parties often account for why many technically brilliant business ideas are abandoned sometime between conceptualization and market launch. Surprisingly though, few studies have comprehensively examined the different roles various categories of social resources play at different stages of the opportunity-creation process. Hence, the present article fills this gap by outlining how the unique resources of social capital and social competence facilitate entrepreneurs’ ability to guide imagined ideas through the multistage, path dependent, socially complex opportunity-creation process. Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Positive Institutional Work: Exploring Institutional Work Through the Lens of Positive Organizational Scholarship | WARREN NILSSON | Despite its emancipatory ambitions and its rich portraits of agency, the institutional work literature has been criticized for its limited engagement with questions of normative social purpose. Synthesizing the literature on institutional work and on positive organizational scholarship, in this article I define positive institutional work as the creation or maintenance of institutional patterns that express mutually constitutive experiential and social goods. This synthesis expands existing theories of institutional work in three ways. It introduces the concept of experiential legitimacy and suggests that experiential surfacing may be a foundational aspect of positive institutional work. It offers collaborative inquiry as a largely overlooked solution to the paradox of embedded agency and explores such inquiry as a primary mode of positive agency. And it argues that positive institutional stability rests upon work aimed at making group boundaries and material practices more inclusive. Taken together, these three themes suggest new theoretical and practical directions for further inquiry into the relationship between institutional work and social purpose. They also contribute to the positive organizational scholarship literature’s implicit institutional ambitions by articulating a more socially embedded vision of positive organizational practices. | Academy of Management Review | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Perceived progress variability and entrepreneurial effort intensity: The moderating role of venture goal commitment | Marilyn A Uy Maw-Der Foo Remus Ilies |
Abstract Drawing on entrepreneurial motivation and goal striving literatures, we examined the dynamic relationship between momentary perceived progress, or an ongoing sense of how one is doing in the pursuit of one’s venture goal, and entrepreneurial effort intensity among early-stage entrepreneurs who are based in business incubators. We also examined how perceived progress variability over time predicted entrepreneurial effort intensity, and whether venture goal commitment moderated this link. Experience-sampling data collected from over one hundred early-stage entrepreneurs indicated that perceived progress predicted greater effort intensity. Moreover, perceived progress variability over time negatively predicted entrepreneurial effort intensity, and venture goal commitment attenuated this negative relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of our study to entrepreneurial motivation and goal striving research are discussed. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Party On! A call for entrepreneurship research that is more interactive, activity based, cognitively hot, compassionate, and prosocial | Dean Shepherd | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download | |
| Opportunities and institutions: A co-creation story of the king crab industry | Sharon Alvarez Susan L. Young Jennifer Woolley |
Abstract If entrepreneurs are constrained and shaped by existing institutions, how? If entrepreneurs products and services, how can institutions remain unchanged? This paper explores this theoretical conundrum empirically through the examination of the actions of entrepreneur Lowell Wakefield. Contrary to previous work that suggests that it is institutional entrepreneurs that bring about institutional change as a means of advancing their social interests, this paper shows that a profit-seeking entrepreneur without prior institutional affiliation or experience can create an opportunity along with the supporting industry standards and regulations. | Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens | 2015 | PDF Download |
| ONE SIZE FITS ALL? THE ROLE OF COGNITIVE STYLES IN TEACHING ENTREPRENEURIAL DECISION-MAKING TO NOVICES (SUMMARY) | Martin Stienstra raja Singaram Michel Ehrenhard |
Scholars have asserted that effectuation theory brings to focus the cognitive implications of uncertainty and consequent effects on entrepreneurial decision-making (Grégoire & Corbett, 2011; Sarasvathy, 2001). Cognitive styles account for the differences in the way individuals gather and evaluate information (Allinson & Hayes, 1996). Researchers have been successful in establishing notable relationships between cognitive styles of individuals and their entrepreneurial decision- making (Krueger and Kickul, 2006; Kickul et al., 2009). Given the cognitive underpinnings of effectuation theory we examine the relationship between cognitive styles of individuals and their preference to make effectual decisions in entrepreneurial situations. Once this relationship has been established, we make our case that entrepreneurship education to business school students that teach effectuation must also pay attention to individual differences in cognitive styles. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Mindful deviation through combining causation and effectuation: a design theory-based study of technology entrepreneurship | K Middleton M Johanson |
Technology entrepreneurship can be seen as building upon, while also deviating from, technological paths. Such deviation has primarily been described as singular events where individuals with prior knowledge discover a new opportunity. In this article, we will instead study deviation as a process of collective decision making, seen more as something mindful than singular. The purpose is to explore mindful deviation as decision making by nascent technology entrepreneurs as they conceptualize an early platform technology. Based on case assignments undertaken by 13 teams in a venture creation programme, C-K design theory is used to trace how nascent technology entrepreneurs in action combine causal and effectual decision-making logics. Individually answered questionnaires also offered insights into how the entrepreneurs perceived their decision making in hindsight. The findings break with our received wisdom around how opportunities are recognized as well as how effectual and causal logics occur. As a result, mindful deviation through combinations of effectual and causal logic is suggested as a means to understand early-stage technology entrepreneurship. | Creativity and Innovation Management | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Making sense of entrepreneurial exit strategies: A typology and test | Dawn DeTienne Alexander McKelvie Gaylen Chandler |
Abstract Entrepreneurial exit is a major event in the development of a venture. However, we have little understanding of the factors that drive the development of an important pre-cursor to exit: the exit strategy of the founder. Based on the existing literature, we develop a typology of entrepreneurial exit strategies consisting of three higher-level exit categories (i.e., financial harvest, stewardship, and voluntary cessation) and develop an initial test of our typology. Specifically, we examine entrepreneurs’ perceived innovativeness of their opportunity, motivational considerations, decision-making approach, founding team, and firm size. Our results show different predictors for each of the three exit strategy types and represent a significant contribution to the understanding of exit strategies in new ventures. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Leveraging effectual means through business plan competition participation | Kayleigh Watson Pauric McGowan Paul Smith |
This paper explores whether the business plan competition (BPC), as a classically causational mechanism for extracurricular entrepreneurship education, can facilitate the development of the means that underpin an effectual approach to new venture creation. In-depth, open-ended qualitative interviews were conducted with participants in a regional university-based extracurricular BPC before, immediately after and six months after the competition. The BPC was found to facilitate the means that could be used to adopt an effectual approach. The competition afforded valuable networking opportunities and collaborative contacts with regard to ‘who they know’; and it enhanced ‘what they know’ through enabling the acquisition, development and application of key competencies. Participants were able to gain and project a confident sense of ‘who they are’ in terms of their venture, changing their perception of the venture from a student project to a credible and viable business prospect. There were strong indications that these acquired means endured in the six months following participation. The implication is that education in which a business plan is dominant need not automatically impede the promotion of an effectual approach. | Industry and Higher Education | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Introduction to the SEJ Special Issue on Business Models: Business Models within the Domain of Strategic Entrepreneurship | BENOÎT DEMIL XAVIER LECOCQ JOAN E. RICART CHRISTOPH ZOTT |
The study of business models involves exploring how firms do business at the system level. It lies at the intersection of strategy and entrepreneurship research and is, therefore, a topic of interest for scholars of strategic entrepreneurship. The purpose of this special issue is to publish work that develops theory on business models, or empirically investigates the phenomenon, and to inspire future research on the topic. In our introduction, we briefly review the main conceptual developments of the past two decades. We highlight three contributions that business model research is poised to make to the domain of strategic entrepreneurship, and, by extension, to its constituent disciplines of strategy and entrepreneurship: (1) reconnecting strategy with entrepreneurship; (2) suggesting a more central place for customers in our frameworks and analyses; and (3) emphasizing the importance of implementation. We subsequently present the articles in this special issue and explain how they relate to these themes. We conclude with suggestions for future research. Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Internationalizing Entrepreneurs: Bridging Real Options Reasoning and Affordable Loss Logics | Richard Hunt Yue Song |
Drawing upon the theories of real options and affordable loss, this study examines why and how internationalizing entrepreneurs willingly and rationally contend with extreme uncertainty in the pursuit of new market opportunities. Through a transaction-level longitudinal analysis of 1,040 small lumber exporters from 52 countries, we develop and test a framework wherein entrepreneurs pair affordable loss logics (ALL) with real options reasoning (ROR) to internationalize more quickly and profitably than those who employ either or neither. Our study informs the ongoing debate among scholars regarding the applicability and suitability of ROR to strategic direction setting by entrepreneurs. By explicating the mechanisms through which export-minded entrepreneurs capture the value-enhancing benefits of uncertainty, we contribute to the literature on international new market entry and reinvigorate efforts to apply ROR to the sequential decision- making that uniquely characterizes opportunity exploration among entrepreneurs under conditions of irreducible uncertainty. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Internationalization through exaptation:The role of Domestic geographical dispersion | Grazia D Santangelo Tamara Stucchi |
This study investigates the influence of an organization’s domestic geographical dispersion on its internationalization process. From evolutionary biology, we borrow the concept of exaptation – a process in which capabilities developed in a specific context are used in a different environment – and develop the concept of learning through exaptation. We draw on recent developments on organizational learning and economic geography to argue that organizations learn to engage in FDI by exapting knowledge that is domestically developed in order to organize and manage geographically dispersed units across sub-national areas. However, learning through exaptation is limited over time and across space. As organizations increase their engagement in FDI, FDI experience becomes a substitute for the exaptation of domestically developed capabilities. In addition, organizations mainly dispersed in less (versus more) urbanized sub-national areas lack opportunities to exapt domestically developed knowledge associated with Jacobs (diversification) externalities. We test our argument on a sample of 641 Indian business groups over the period 2001-2010. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Integrating Discovery and Creation Perspectives of Entrepreneurial Action: The Relative Roles of Founding CEO Human Capital, Social Capital, and Psychological Capital in Contexts of Risk Versus Uncertainty | Keith Hmieleski JON C CARR Baron Robert A |
Research summary This study examines the relationships of founding CEOs’ intangible resources (human, social, and psychological capital) with the performance of their firms in environmental contexts of discovery (stable industry conditions that are characterized by risk) versus creation (dynamic industry conditions that are characterized by uncertainty). Results from a national (USA) random sample of founding CEOs (n = 223) found entrepreneurial experience (an aspect of human capital) to be positively related to performance in discovery contexts, whereas educational attainment, strong ties, and psychological capital (a composite index of optimism, self-efficacy, resilience, and hope) were positively related to performance in creation contexts. These findings extend theorizing concerning discovery and creation perspectives from the pre-entry phase (opportunity recognition) to the post-entry phase (opportunity exploitation) of the entrepreneurial process. Managerial summary This research investigates the relationships of founding CEOs’ intangible resources with the performance of their firms in industry environments that are stable (slow changing and predictable) versus dynamic (fast changing and unpredictable). The results indicate that entrepreneurial experience (number of prior new ventures founded) is positively related to performance in stable environments, whereas educational attainment (highest educational degree earned), strong ties (social connections to family members and friends who provide support relating to the firm), and psychological capital (inner cognitive, emotional, and behavioral resources used to cope with adversity) are positively related to performance in dynamic environments. The findings highlight the importance of fit between the intangible resources of founding CEOs and the characteristics of the industries in which they attempt to develop and grow their firms. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Innovation-driven entrepreneurship in developing economies | José L. González-Pernía Andres Jung, inaki pena |
The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) has recently emerged as an influential research stream that examines the origin, development and economic impact of innovation-driven entrepreneurship. While empirical evidence has shown that the main premise of the KSTE generally holds in most advanced economies, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which the ideas advocated by the KSTE are generalizable to different contexts in developing countries. On applying a logistic multilevel analysis to a sample of almost 250,000 individuals across 45 developing countries, the results show that the different context found in developing economies produces a limited connection between knowledge spillovers, innovation and entrepreneurship in comparison with the conventional linkage studied in the KSTE literature. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Heuristics, learning and the business angel investment decision-making process | Richard T Harrison Colin Mason Donald Smith |
ABSTRACTThis paper extends the literature on the investment decision-making of business angels.Using insights from the emerging body of research on entrepreneurial learning processes, particularly the use of heuristics and the nature of learning from meagre experience, we explore whether angels learn from experience, how they learn and what they learn. These issues are addressed using verbal protocol analysis, a methodology for examining decision-making in real time, with three groups of business angels with differing levels of investment experience, and with follow-up debriefing interviews with these angels. This reveals some differences in the speed of decision making and the emphasis given to various investment criteria. There is some evidence for the use of heuristics in the decision making process, and for the critical role played by vicarious learning from the experience of others. Learning in the individual angel decision making process is a social as well as an individual phenomenon. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Governance Challenges in Family Businesses and Business Families | Lloyd P Steier James J Chrisman Jess Chua |
We use the articles and commentaries in this special issue to reinvigorate the theme of family business governance and extend its scope beyond the single business, single-family approach that has traditionally dominated the family business literature. Through a discussion of the implications of the articles and commentaries included in this special issue we begin to chart a new and expanded research program for governance that addresses the challenges of the large and complex multifamily and/or multibusiness family enterprise. We hope to encourage research in a direction that will add significantly to our understanding of business families’ contributions to the global economy. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Failure or voluntary exit? Reassessing the female underperformance hypothesis | Rachida Justo Dawn DeTienne Philipp Sieger |
Abstract We reevaluate the female underperformance hypothesis by challenging the assumption that female-owned ventures are more likely to fail. Instead of equating exit with failure, we draw on exit literature and feminist theories to argue that female entrepreneurs are actually more likely than males to exit voluntarily. We argue for further gender differences by using an even more fine-grained conceptualization of entrepreneurial exit (failure, exit for personal reasons, and exit for other professional/financial opportunities). Post-hoc analyses also point to within-gender heterogeneity depending on family status. A sample probe of 219 Spanish entrepreneurs who had exited their business supports our overall reasoning. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Expertise and Entrepreneurship | Saras Sarasvathy Stuart Read |
Recently there is a move to study entrepreneurship as expertise: a set of skills, models, and processes that can be acquired with time and deliberate practice. Effectual reasoning, or expert entrepreneurial reasoning, however, does not begin with a specific goal. Instead, it begins with a given set of means and allows goals to emerge contingently over time from the varied imagination and diverse aspirations of the founders and the people they interact with. | Wiley Encyclopedia of Management | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity | Roy Suddaby Garry Bruton STEVEN SI |
Abstract This article applies inductive analytic techniques to identify and elaborate on two recurring themes that underpin the core puzzle of entrepreneurship research — where entrepreneurial opportunities come from. The first theme is the unique role of imprinting, or the profound influence of social and historical context in constraining the perceptual apparatus of entrepreneurs and delimiting the range of opportunities for innovation available to them. Second, our analysis offers insight into the counterbalancing role of reflexivity, operating at both individual and collective levels of analysis, in generating the ability of entrepreneurs to overcome the constraints of imprinting. These insights are based on a thematic review of the nine studies that comprise this special issue on qualitative research. The nine studies, individually and each in their own way, offer key insights into how we might better understand the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunity. | Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship research in China: internationalization or contextualization? | Qinghua Zhai Hans Landström Jing Su |
Entrepreneurship is an emerging research field that has received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Given the global scope of this attention, this article compares entrepreneurship research in China with that in the USA and Europe. Based on publications in Social Science Citation Index and Chinese Social Science Citation Index databases over the past 10 years, we use bibliometric method to analyse entrepreneurship research in different regions. Our analysis shows that, on the one hand, entrepreneurship research in China has much in common with such research in the USA and Europe. In addition to borrowing ideas from Western researchers, Chinese entrepreneurship researchers study similar themes and use similar theoretical foundations. On the other hand, Chinese contextual environment helps preserve the uniqueness of its entrepreneurship research. Researchers deal with several context-specific topics such as guanxi, i.e. networks of interpersonal relationships, and its influence on entrepreneurship. We further discuss ways for Chinese researchers to explore the distinct context and contribute to the global literature. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship in Regulated Markets: Framing Contests and Collective Action to Introduce Pay TV in the U.S. | KEREM GURSES PINAR OZCAN |
In their endeavor to establish new products and services, entrepreneurs can face strong resistance from market incumbents whose resources and market position they threaten. This paper looks at the battles between entrepreneurs and market incumbents in a regulated market where various institutional actors (e.g., regulators, courts) have the power to protect the incumbents by hindering the entrepreneurs. Our comparison of one failed and one successful attempt to introduce pay TV in the U.S. reveals how entrepreneurs can first enter a regulated market without facing resistance, and then introduce a new frame to legitimize their product or service despite growing resistance from incumbents. Our framework highlights framing as a strategy and framing contests as a mechanism through which entrepreneurs and incumbents can battle to enable or disable institutional change. As part of this process, we also uncover how entrepreneurs evolve from self-serving actors with no field-level intentions to powerful groups that create a ripple effect in their environment by moving their target of influence from private to institutional actors. Our work constitutes a step toward a more “realistic” tale of institutional change. | Academy of Management Journal | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurs’ Exploratory Perseverance in Learning Settings | Katrin Muehlfeld Diemo Urbig Utz Weitzel |
We introduce “exploratory perseverance” as a novel construct that captures perseverant behavior in settings in which several alternatives can be explored and evaluated. We suggest that entrepreneurs display exploratory perseverance reflected by a tendency to keep exploring broader sets of alternatives, to adopt a parallel rather than sequential approach to trial-and-error learning, and, after negative experiences with some alternatives, to be more inclined to give them a second chance. The results from an experimental study of 449 individuals participating in the Iowa Gambling Task indicate that more entrepreneurially experienced individuals display greater exploratory perseverance than those with little to no entrepreneurial experience. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| ENTREPRENEURS’ DISPOSITIONAL AFFECT AS ANTECEDENT OF NETWORK SIZE AND QUALITY: WHAT’S AFFECT GOT TO DO WITH IT? (SUMMARY) | Marcus Erken | Networking is of utmost importance for entrepreneurial success (e.g., Stam, Arzlanian, & Elfring, 2014) and continues to be a prominent theme in entrepreneurship research (Busenitz, Plummer, Klotz, Shahzad, & Rhoads, 2014). Network characteristics, such as network size and quality, can differ significantly from one entrepreneur to another. However, it remains unclear why those differences occur. Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011) go so far as to say that “almost the entirety of social networks research takes networks as mostly given.” This study tries to shed some light on the dark by empirically investigating “entrepreneurs’ dispositional affect”, which can be defined as entrepreneurs’ “stable tendency to experience positive [or negative] moods and emotions” (Baron, Hmieleski, & Henry, 2012). Specifically, this study analyzes to what degree entrepreneurs’ dispositional affect (independent variable) can predict entrepreneurs’ network size, time spent networking, and long-term orientation & quality of relationships (dependent variables). | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial opportunities and the entrepreneurship nexus: A re-conceptualization | Per Davidsson | Abstract The literature on “entrepreneurial opportunities” has grown rapidly since the publication of Shane and Venkataraman (2000). By directing attention to the earliest stages of development of new economic activities and organizations, this marks sound redirection of entrepreneurship research. However, our review shows that theoretical and empirical progress has been limited on important aspects of the role of “opportunities” and their interaction with actors, i.e., the “nexus”. We argue that this is rooted in inherent and inescapable problems with the “opportunity” construct itself, when applied in the context of a prospective, micro-level (i.e., individual[s], venture, or individual–venture dyad) view of entrepreneurial processes. We therefore suggest a fundamental re-conceptualization using the constructs External Enablers, New Venture Ideas, and Opportunity Confidence to capture the many important ideas commonly discussed under the “opportunity” label. This re-conceptualization makes important distinctions where prior conceptions have been blurred: between explananda and explanantia; between actor and the entity acted upon; between external conditions and subjective perceptions, and between the contents and the favorability of the entity acted upon. These distinctions facilitate theoretical precision and can guide empirical investigation towards more fruitful designs. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial Networking Under Uncertainty: An Effectual Lens | Yuval Engel mariette kaandorp Tom Elfring |
Although research has started to acknowledge the strategies by which entrepreneurs form and maintain network ties, most efforts to date present an incomplete picture of entrepreneurs as heroic network architects who search, plan, and pursue contact with targeted ties. Herein, we review this nascent literature, argue that it has so far overlooked alternatives in favor of an overly planned and instrumental perspective, and consider the implications of incorporating the notion of uncertainty into investigations of how entrepreneurs engage in networking. We therefore take a novel perspective on entrepreneurial networking and adopt an effectual lens to theorize about how entrepreneurs act when desired ties cannot be identified in advance, networking outcomes cannot be predicted, and ongoing social interactions fuel the emergence of new objectives. Overall, we add important insights to the literature as we flesh out an effectual networking process and discuss how it may stimulate a broader research agenda focused on the inquiry of networking agency under uncertainty. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial expertise and the use of control | Saras Sarasvathy Nick Dew Stuart Read Rob Wiltbank |
Abstract Significant evidence has accumulated describing the importance of expertise. As this knowledge is extended, it is critical to understand when expertise matters and how. We unpack expertise in entrepreneurial decision making by presenting 412 founder/entrepreneur subjects with a unique tool involving four scenarios so we can measure an element of theoretical relevance to expertise in the entrepreneurial domain, efficacy at applying control and prediction strategies to situations which vary in environmental predictability and controllability. Results show that entrepreneurial expertise yields significant decision-making improvements in the situational use of control strategies – those strategies conceptually associated with uncertain new ventures, products and markets. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation Research: Taking Stock and Moving Forward | effectuation | Effectuation changed the way we think about entrepreneurship. Until recently, most research in entrepreneurship conceptualizes new venture creation as a rational, goal-driven, and mostly linear process. Sarasvathy’s work (2001, 2008) though suggests that entrepreneurs employ a different logic when pursuing opportunities. Despite the perceived growing popularity of effectuation, a surprisingly small number of researchers have engaged in resolving some of its shortcomings (Perry et al, 2011). For instance, effectuation measurement is not yet developed to an acceptable level. Chandler and colleagues (2010) find that effectuation is a multi-dimensional construct while causation could only be measured uni-dimensionally. At the same time, some important theoretical tenets such as pre-commitments and alliances appear in both causation and effectuation measurements (Chandler et al., 2010). Also theoretically and philosophically the effectuation construct requires further development. It is, for example, not entirely clear how effectuation relates to and is different from other constructs such as improvisation, experimentation, and bricolage (Fisher, 2012), or what exactly is the role of planning in effectuation processes. The purpose of this symposium is to engage a global group of experts in the fields of entrepreneurship strategy, organization behavior, and decision-making in an interactive discussion about how to move the effectuation concept further. The discussion will be structured around the following questions: a) How can effectuation be better conceptualized to describe how entrepreneurs act? b) Is effectuation unique to entrepreneurship? Is it applicable to other contexts and, if so, which ones and how? c) How can effectuation research benefit from and contribute to research and theory in other fields? d) How can effectuation be measured in a reliable and valid way? e) How can effectuation be made more valuable to practitioners? This proposal for a symposium is particularly opportune considering that the Academy of Management Review has just published a fresh critique of effectuation, one of the co- authors of which has agreed to participate here. We believe there is enough interest on this topic at this time for the symposium to blossom into a journal special issue on the topic. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Effectuation As Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship | Richard J Arend Hessamoddin Sarooghi Andrew Burkemper |
Effectuation is a proposed new theory of entrepreneurship, with insufficient empirical testing and critical analysis. Drawing on a new, comprehensive set of theory-building criteria—sourced from and complementing those of Robert Dubin and others—we provide the first formal assessment of effectuation as a theory. We highlight its strengths and weaknesses, leveraging the former to address the latter in five different directions that would build on the existing work to improve this theory. The assessment exercise also displays the value of our assessment framework in guiding the evaluation and development of other existing and future theories in entrepreneurship and management. | Academy of Management Review | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation and Networking of Internationalizing SMEs | Tamara Galkina Sylvie Chetty |
This paper explores previously discarded phenomena in the internationalization process literature, namely the non-predictive logic of foreign market entry, and employs effectuation theory to examine how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) network during internationalization. It integrates effectuation theory with the revisited Uppsala internationalization process model to understand the unintentional aspect of networking by internationalizing SMEs. The research design is a multiple-case study approach. The findings show how entrepreneurs network with interested partners, instead of carefully selecting international partners according to predefined network goals. Entrepreneurs who network effectually enter markets wherever an opportunity emerges, and commit to network relations that increase their means. Network relations become an integrating point for effectuation theory from entrepreneurship research and the revised Uppsala model from international business. This bridge between the two areas suggests some implications for network research in International Entrepreneurship. | Management International Review | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Do Effectuation Processes Shape the Relationship Between Product Diversification and Performance in New Ventures? | Ioanna Deligianni Irini Voudouris LIOUKAS SPYROS |
This study applies the lens of effectuation to product diversification and examines the moderating effects of effectuation processes on the relationship between diversification and performance in new ventures. Effectuation processes are conceptualized in terms of experimentation, affordable loss, flexibility, and pre-commitments. The findings indicate that, with the exception of affordable loss, effectuation processes exert a positive effect on the diversification–performance relationship. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | link to abstract |
| Cutting Microfinance Interest Rates: An Opportunity Co-Creation Perspective | Sunny Li Sun Junyon Im |
Microfinance is a social innovation to alleviate poverty by providing small, unsecured loans to local indigent entrepreneurs. Many borrowers use microfinance loans to seed their small entrepreneurial businesses. However, high interest rates charged by microfinance institutions (MFIs) are likely to increase the financial burden of those borrowers. In this study, we adopt an opportunity co-creation perspective to analyze the factors that affect microfinance interest rates. We argue that new opportunities in a social venture could be co-created by multiple stakeholders, including MFIs, borrower communities, female borrowers, governments, MFI managers, and employees. We tested our hypothese on interest rate setting of MFIs by using 4,187 organization-year observations from 2003 to 2011 across 93 countries, and the empirical results largely support the hypotheses. Our opportunity co-creation perspective extends the current understanding on microfinance and provides important managerial implications. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Business Angel Network | Saras Sarasvathy Rob Wiltbank |
Business angel “networks,” such as the Band of Angels in Silicon Valley and the Alliance of Angels in the Pacific Northwest have been forming at a rapid pace. It is estimated that there are over 150 business angel networks in the United States and several in European and Asian countries. Books and web sites on business angels continue to proliferate. From a research standpoint, however, in spite of the considerably larger magnitude of business angels when compared to VCs, we know less about the former than the latter. | Wiley Encyclopedia of Management | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Beyond Affective Valence: Untangling Valence and Activation Influences on Opportunity Identification | Maw-Der Foo Marilyn A Uy Charles Murnieks |
Research surrounding how entrepreneurs identify opportunities focuses on the impact of affective valence on entrepreneurs’ cognitive processes. Extending this body of research, we theorize how affective valence and affective activation work together to impact opportunity identification. We emphasize that to understand affective influences, both valence and activation should be included because they each influence active search effort and knowledge integration. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our study and suggest that future research should include more dynamic relationships among affect and entrepreneurial outcomes. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Attributes of Angel and Crowdfunded Investments as Determinants of VC Screening Decisions | Will Drover Matthew S Wood Andrew Zacharakis |
This research explores whether relationships between young firms and certain early-stage seed funders portray certification effects that influence venture capitalist (VC) screening decisions. Specifically, we analyze how varying attributes of angel and crowdfunded investments certify venture quality in the minds of VCs as they make due diligence screening decisions. Results from two experiments utilizing 104 VCs making 1,036 screening decisions demonstrate that the heterogeneous nature of the attributes of angels and the crowd can produce highly influential certification effects. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Angel group members’ decision process and rejection criteria: A longitudinal analysis | cecile Carpentier Jean-Marc Suret |
Abstract This paper investigates business angel group members’ decision-making from project submission to the final decision. Using a Canadian group’s archival data on 636 proposals, we provide a detailed longitudinal analysis of the decision process. The rejection reasons generally refer to market and execution risk; this finding holds for every step of the process for proposals that pass the pre-screen. Angel group members focus more on market and execution risk than agency risk, similar to venture capitalists. Inexperienced entrepreneurs are rejected for market and product reasons. Decision-making by the studied angel group members differs from that generally described for independent angels. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2015 | PDF Download |
| An Identity Based Approach to Social Enterprise | Jeffery York Tyler Wry |
Social enterprise has gained widespread acclaim as a tool for addressing social and environmental problems. Yet, because these organizations integrate the social welfare and commercial logics, they face the challenge of pursuing goals that frequently conflict with each other. Studies have begun to address how established social enterprises can manage these tensions, but we know little about how, why, and with what consequences social entrepreneurs mix competing logics as they create new organizations. To address this gap, we develop a theoretical model based in identity theory that helps to explain: (1) how the commercial and social welfare logics become relevant to entrepreneurship, (2) how different types of entrepreneurs perceive the tension between these logics, and (3) the implications this has for how entrepreneurs go about recognizing and developing social enterprise opportunities. Our approach responds to calls from organizational and entrepreneurship scholars to extend existing frameworks of opportunity recognition and development to better account for social enterprise creation. | Academy of Management Review | 2015 | PDF Download |
| Action and Action-Regulation in Entrepreneurship: Evaluating a Student Training for Promoting Entrepreneurship | Michael Gielnik Isaac Wasswa Katono Sarah Kyejjusa Kyejjusa MUHAMMED NGOMA JOHN MUNENE REBECCA NAMATOVU-DAWA FLORENCE NANSUBUGA LAURA OROBIA JACOB OYUGI SAMUEL SEJJAAKA ARTHUR SSERWANGA THOMAS WALTER KIM MARIE BISCHOFF THORSTEN J. DLUGOSCH MICHAEL FRESE AUDREY KAHARA-KAWUKI |
Action plays a central role in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. Based on action regulation theory, we developed an action-based entrepreneurship training. The training put a particular focus on action insofar as the participants learned action principles and engaged in the start-up of a business during the training. We hypothesized that a set of action-regulatory factors mediates the effect of the training on entrepreneurial action. We evaluated the training’s impact over a 12-month period using a randomized control group design. As hypothesized, the training had positive effects on action-regulatory factors (entrepreneurial goal intentions, action planning, action knowledge, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy) and the action-regulatory factors mediated the effect of the training on entrepreneurial action. Furthermore, entrepreneurial action and business opportunity identification mediated the effect of the training on business creation. Our study shows that action-regulatory mechanisms play an important role for action-based entrepreneurship trainings and business creation. | Academy of Management Learning & Education | 2015 | PDF Download |
| A Stakeholder-Centric Entrepreneurship Approach to Poverty and Development | Saras Sarasvathy Chowdhury Rashedur R Edward Freeman |
Our stakeholder-centric entrepreneurship framework offers a perspective on how to combine entrepreneurial opportunities as means and stakeholder capability as ends so that firms can address critical social problems while remaining innovative and competitive. When firms adopt marginalized stakeholders capability development, firms provide stakeholders with diverse skill sets and various forms of choices and freedom. This enables firms to create an increased set of high potential opportunities for all stakeholders because marginalized stakeholders bring new ideas that are a source of innovation and higher-level learning for other stakeholders. The sustained success of firms therefore relies on the enhancement of stakeholder capability rather than value creation through separate sets of purely economic and social activities. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2015 | link to abstract |
| A Quantum Approach to Time and Organizational Change | ROBERT G LORD Hoffman Ernest L Jessica E. Dinh |
Prevailing perspectives on time and change often emphasize the forward movement of time and the relative stability of attributes, an emphasis that fosters theories of organizational evolution as a linear progression of a past that moves to the present that moves to the future. While useful in many respects, this perspective obscures the uncertainty of emerging organizational phenomena, and it offers little insight into the rare and unpredictable events that change the course of history. To address these concerns, we draw on quantum mechanics and quantum probability theories to present a quantum approach to time and change as a framework for understanding organizational complexity and the common decision-making errors that lead to organizational failures within uncertain environments. This perspective also explains how organizations (or societies) can experience unforeseen potentialities that radically change their development by conceptualizing the future as existing in a state of potentiality that collapses to form the present based on the dynamics of system constraints. Our theory has broad implications for organizational theory and research, as well as management practice. | Academy of Management Review | 2015 | PDF Download |
| When do investors forgive entrepreneurs for lying? | Jeffrey M Pollack Douglas A Bosse |
Abstract A growing literature suggests that some entrepreneurs lie to investors in order to improve the likelihood of acquiring resources needed for firm survival and growth. We propose a framework outlining the conditions that may enable an investor who has been told a lie by an entrepreneur to respond with forgiveness rather than by withdrawing from the relationship. Integrating the literatures on evolutionary psychology, forgiveness, and stakeholder theory we argue that investor’s appraisals of expected relationship value and expected exploitation risk are the key antecedents to an investor’s decision to forgive an entrepreneur’s lie. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Uncertain but able: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy and novices? use of expert decision-logic under uncertainty | Y Engel N G Dimitrova S N Khapova Tom Elfring |
Entrepreneurs׳ initial strategy choices are made in the face of inherently uncertain and fundamentally unpredictable futures. Yet, unlike experts, novice entrepreneurs still tend to rely on predictions and forecasts as they move their ideas through the venture creation process. This study examines the role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and situational framing in mitigating the seemingly negative consequences of an “experience deficit” and promoting the use of effectuation – a non-predictive logic associated with entrepreneurial expertise. The results of a randomized experiment show that, in contrast to a control group and a low ESE group, novices who experienced an increase in ESE were more likely to use effectuation under uncertainty. This relationship was mediated by the framing of the situation as an opportunity. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Trustworthiness: A Critical Ingredient for Entrepreneurs Seeking Investors | Andrew L. Maxwell Morenx Lévesque |
We investigate how an entrepreneur’s behaviors during an initial interaction with a business angel can build, damage, or violate trust, and how the investor’s level of trust (prompted by the entrepreneur’s behavior) can affect his/her decision to make an investment offer. Our empirical analysis shows that entrepreneurs who receive offers from business angels exhibit a larger number of trust-building behaviors during the initial interaction and a smaller number of unintentional trust-damaging behaviors than those who do not receive an offer, and display few deliberate trust-violating behaviors. We further observe that the investor’s deployment of a control mechanism is a prerequisite for receiving an investment offer for all entrepreneurs who damage or violate trust. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Thinking different | René Mauer | We finally know how they do it: they think different! In essence, ‘thinking different’ is what has been brought to the literature as entrepreneurial expertise under the brand of ‘effectuation’. With an understanding of entrepreneurship as opportunity creation, effectuation explains how experienced entrepreneurs think and eventually act in this process. As this chapter is about thinking different, it first provides some background in cognitive psychology before presenting how research on thinking different in entrepreneurship – as opposed to (for example) in management – has emerged and developed in the form of effectuation. The chapter then asks questions that are important in advancing the concept and in clarifying whether thinking different is a fad or a paradigm in the field of entrepreneurship. The chapter closes with a short guideline to the literature for newcomers to the topic. | The Routledge Companion to Entrepreneurship | 2014 | link to abstract |
| The young, the fast and the furious: a study about the triggers and impediments of youth entrepreneurship | WILLEM Hulsink D Koek |
Existing literature argues that young entrepreneurs lack the human, financial and social capital to establish a growing business. Since opportunity costs for them are low, there are also a few triggers for start-up entrepreneurship, which brings us to our research question: What are the triggers for starting a business at a young age and how do young entrepreneurs mitigate the lack of education, experience, knowledge and other critical resources in the start-up process?Twelve entrepreneurs younger than 25 were interviewed, although they clearly lack the human, social and financial capital needed to start a new business, they do not experience this as a disadvantage. Young entrepreneurs deal with these issues by using bootstrapping and effectuation mechanisms to accommodate financial capital constraints and mobilise social support from their parents and other entrepreneurial family members and friends. By taking part in all kinds of small-scale ventures and by being granted access to additional opportunities and introductions to new customers by senior managers of established companies on the basis of their originality, creativity and energy, young entrepreneurs acquire the experiences and the contacts they need for their next entrepreneurial step. | International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing | 2014 | Download PDF |
| The Role of Temporal Orientation and Framing Sequence in Entrepreneurial Failure | Iva Docekalova evelyn micelotta marvin washington |
This paper draws upon the case of the repeated failure to start a women volleyball league in the United States to heed the call for more research on the cultural and institutional underpinnings of entrepreneurial failure. While the entrepreneurship literature typically attributes this unfortunate outcome to individual and organizational “mistakes” or accidental “misfortunes”, an institutional lens points attention to the temporal orientation of entrepreneurs and the timely use of framing as a cultural resource. This theoretical perspective illuminates how the broader institutional context in which individual entrepreneurial efforts are situated, if not properly recognized, may represent a cultural impediment to the creation of new ventures and contribute to their demise. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| The role of entrepreneurial decision-making in opportunity creation and recognition | Elicia Maine Pek-Hooi Soh N Dos Santos |
This qualitative study investigates effectuation and causation as two opposing decisionmaking modes leading to opportunity creation and recognition. Prior literature posits that effectuation is linked to opportunity creation when the venture׳s future is highly uncertain and causation to opportunity recognition when the entrepreneur perceives risk rather than uncertainty. However, such a linear approach towards opportunity generation offers limited explanation as to how entrepreneurs decide to either create or search for entrepreneurial opportunities. This limitation becomes particularly apparent in the highly uncertain context of the biotechnology industry, where entrepreneurial decision-making processes iterate over long periods of time. To address this gap, we employ the embedded case study method to investigate 30 decisions made by three scientist-entrepreneurs commercializing platform biotechnology inventions. We inductively derive a model of entrepreneurial decision-making, which connects the environment to decision-making mode and opportunity generation. Our evidence reveals the iterative nature of opportunity generation and of decision-making modes as entrepreneurs respond to their evolving environment and to the level of regulatory and funding constraint, such that entrepreneurs can shift from effectuation to causation, remain in one particular mode, or adopt a combination mode. We also illustrate that effectuation does not always lead to opportunity creation. |
Technovation | 2014 | link to abstract |
| The Origin of Failure: A Multidisciplinary Appraisal of the Hubris Hypothesis and Proposed Research Agenda | PASQUALE MASSIMO PICONE GIOVANNI BATTISTA DAGNINO ANNA MINÀ |
The hubris hypothesis complements the extant debate on how people make judgments and decisions in organizations. Drawing on the origin of hubris in Greek mythology, the psychological approach, and finance studies, this paper portrays an informed picture of the current status of managerial hubris literature that develops a more advanced understanding of what is known about hubris. We present a conceptual map that provides a comprehensive appreciation of hubris antecedents-symptoms-strategic choices-feedback performance main cause effect relationships. Our proposed conceptual map draws on the idea that managerial hubris is one of the determinants of CEO judgments, strategic choices, and organizational performance. We also show that managerial hubris has a good side and a bad side and identify the implications for strategy formulation and implementation. By doing so, the study not only provides a multidisciplinary introduction to hubris that is tailored to scholars, but also distills a suite of suggestions for managing hubris symptoms and traps that may prove valuable to practitioners. | The Academy of Management Perspectives | 2014 | PDF Download |
| The ordinary entrepreneur | Saras Sarasvathy A Ramesh Bill Forster |
The Routledge Companion to Entrepreneurship | 2014 | link to abstract | |
| The Need for Design Thinking in Business Schools | R Glen C Suciu C Baughn |
The demands placed on today’s organizations and their managers suggest that we have to develop pedagogies combining analytic reasoning with a more exploratory skill set that design practitioners have embraced and business schools have traditionally neglected. Design thinking is an iterative, exploratory process involving visualizing, experimenting, creating, and prototyping of models, and gathering feedback. It is a particularly apt method for addressing innovation and messy, ill-structured situations. We discuss key characteristics of design thinking, link design-thinking characteristics to recent studies of cognition, and note how the repertoire of skills and methods that embody design thinking can address deficits in business school education. | Academy of Management Learning & Education | 2014 | PDF Download |
| The Emergence of Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship | MICHAEL FRESE Denise M. Rousseau Johan Wiklund |
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download | |
| The Effects of Perceived Control on Venture Capitalist Investment Decisions: A Configurational Perspective | Will Drover Matthew S Wood G. Tyge Payne |
Drawing on agency and configurations theories, this study examines how perceived level of control over the entrepreneur influences venture capitalist (VC) decision making. We model the direct effects of perceived control and the interactive effects of control with entrepreneurial prestige and opportunity attractiveness to determine how various combinations of factors influence VCs’ willingness to invest. We test our conceptualizations using conjoint analyses of 552 VC investment decisions. The results show that perceived control is directly related to investment likelihood, but different configurations of control, entrepreneur prestige, and opportunity attractiveness result in different outcomes. Our findings support a configurational perspective of VC decision making. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| The art of entrepreneurial market creation | Kim Lehman Ian Ronald Fillis Morgan Miles |
The purpose of this paper is to use the case of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania, to investigate the role of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) in shaping an arts enterprise. It draws on the notion of effectuation and the process of EM in explaining new venture creation and assesses the part played by David Walsh, the entrepreneurial owner/manager. Design/methodology/approach – This case study analysis enables an in-depth appraisal of the impact of EM and effectuation within the growing domain of arts marketing. Findings – The paper offers a glimpse into how creativity and business interact in the creation of new markets. It demonstrates how formal methods of marketing are bypassed in the search for owner/ manager constructed versions of situational marketing. In addition, it provides insight into dominance of entrepreneur-centrism vs customer-centrism in entrepreneurship marketing. An additional contribution to knowledge is the use of effectuation to assist in better understanding of the role of EM in the market creation process. Originality/value – The research carried out here builds on a growing body of work adopting theEM lens to better understand arts marketing and new venture creation. |
Entrepreneurial market creation | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Team Conflict contributing to Entrepreneurial Learning: understanding conflict as positive within an Effectual Problem Space | C Butler K Middleton |
The impact of team conflict seems to depend upon context. Entrepreneurship literature suggests that learning from diverse perspectives in teams can contribute to entrepreneurial action (Harper 2008; West III, 2007; Williams-Middleton, 2010), while management literature has shown that conflict in teams often negatively affects creativity (Jehn et al., 2010). Recent research streams suggest that entrepreneurial learning might be better understood by applying an effectual logic perspective, instead of causal logic (Sarasvathy and Venkataraman, 2011). This causes us to question whether conflict is experienced similarly in entrepreneurial versus managerial teams. We suggest negative consequences of team conflict found in management literature may be due to the causal logic underlying this literature, and thus not readily applicable to entrepreneurial learning. Through exploring relationships between team work, team conflict, and effectuation, we propose that positive learning outcomes can emerge from experience of team conflict within an effectual and uncertain problem space. | International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal | 2014 | Download PDF |
| Succession Narratives in Family Business: The Case of Alessi | Elena Dalpiaz Tracey, Paul Nelson Phillips |
One of the most significant challenges facing family firms is how to successfully manage succession from one generation of leaders to the next. In this paper, we contribute to existing understandings of this complex and difficult process by exploring how successors use family business succession narratives to legitimate their succession. Building on a case study of Alessi, a family-owned Italian design firm, we draw on the literature on organizational narratives to develop a framework for understanding family business succession narratives and present a typology of some of the narrative strategies that can be used during succession. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical ramifications of a narrative view of succession in family firms. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Strategic repertoire variety and new venture growth: The moderating effects of origin and industry dynamism | BARBARA LARRANETA Shaker A. Zahra JOSELUIS GALAN GONZALEZ |
New ventures (companies eight years or younger) face an important choice in attempting to achieve growth: Should they follow “strategic simplicity” by relying on a few similar competitive actions, or emphasize “strategic variety” by implementing multiple different competitive actions? Data from 140 new ventures in Spain suggest that new ventures benefit from pursuing strategic variety, especially when their industries are highly dynamic. Further, although new ventures in general gain from strategic variety in highly dynamic industries, independently owned ventures achieve higher growth rates than their corporate counterparts. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Strategic Management Journal | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Strategic Decision-Making of a Born Global: A Comparative Study From Three Small Open Economies | N Nummela S Saarenketo P Jokela S Loane |
This paper extends current understanding on international growth process of born global firms from the perspective of strategic decision-making. The data were collected from three software companies in Finland, Ireland and Israel both in real-time and retrospectively, and data triangulation was employed to increase the validity of the findings. With a longitudinal approach, we captured the dynamics of the post-entry international growth process and the critical events that act as decision-making triggers. The decision-making of born global firms seems to be characterised by alternating periods of causation- and effectuation-based logics. Triggers for amending the logic include, for example, change of key persons and the search for external funding. Co-existence of the two decision-making logics is possible, due to different degrees of uncertainty in market and technology or multiple decision-makers involved. The contribution of the study is threefold: first, it addresses gaps in international entrepreneurship research by describing how born global firms make strategic decisions and who are involved in the decision-making. Second, it identifies critical incidents which trigger a change in the decision-making process of a born global firm. Third, it provides alternative insights to why decision-making logic may change or why two decision-making logics may co-exist. | Management International Review | 2014 | link to abstract |
| Social Capital and Venture Development in a Low-Trust Environment | Julia Ivy Joanne Larty Sarah Jack |
This study investigates the relevance of social capital for entrepreneur-actor relationships in the development of sustainably operating ventures in the low-trust environment. The study reveals the following: (a) social capital can serve as an asset, access to opportunities, protection, or be a danger for ventures; (b) entrepreneurs are highly selective in whom they deal with; (c) their selectivity is framed with the “whom can I trust” and “whom I should know” justification; (d) they apply verification for continuing adjustment of the entrepreneur-actor relationship strategies to social and economic reality of venture operations. The study presents five strategies of entrepreneur-actor relationships in a low-trust environment. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | Download PDF |
| Roots radical – place, power and practice in punk entrepreneurship | Sarah Louise Drakopoulou Dodd | The significance continues to grow of scholarship that embraces critical and contextualized entrepreneurship, seeking rich explorations of diverse entrepreneurship contexts. Following these influences, this study explores the potentialized context of punk entrepreneurship. The Punk Rock band Rancid has a 20-year history of successfully creating independent musical and related creative enterprises from the margins of the music industry. The study draws on artefacts, interviews and videos created by and around Rancid to identify and analyse this example of marginal, alternative entrepreneurship. A three-part analytic frame was applied to analysing these artefacts. Place is critical to Rancid’s enterprise, grounding the band socially, culturally, geographically and politically. Practice also plays an important role with Rancid’s activities encompassing labour, making music, movement and human interactions. The third, and most prevalent, dimension of alterity is that of power which includes data related to dominance, subordination, exclusion, control and liberation. Rancid’s entrepreneurial story is depicted as cycles, not just a linear journey, but following more complicated paths ? from periphery to centre, and back again; returning to roots, whilst trying to move forwards too; grounded in tradition but also radically focused on dramatic change. Paradox, hybridized practices, and the significance of marginal place as a rich resource also emerged from the study. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Research Strategies for Organizational History: A Dialogue Between Historical Theory and Organization Theory | MICHAEL ROWLINSON JOHN HASSARD STEPHANIE DECKER |
If history matters for organization theory, then we need greater reflexivity regarding the epistemological problem of representing the past; otherwise, history might be seen as merely a repository of ready-made data. To facilitate this reflexivity, we set out three epistemological dualisms derived from historical theory to explain the relationship between history and organization theory: (1) in the dualism of explanation, historians are preoccupied with narrative construction, whereas organization theorists subordinate narrative to analysis; (2) in the dualism of evidence, historians use verifiable documentary sources, whereas organization theorists prefer constructed data; and (3) in the dualism of temporality, historians construct their own periodization, whereas organization theorists treat time as constant for chronology. These three dualisms underpin our explication of four alternative research strategies for organizational history: corporate history, consisting of a holistic, objectivist narrative of a corporate entity; analytically structured history, narrating theoretically conceptualized structures and events; serial history, using replicable techniques to analyze repeatable facts; and ethnographic history, reading documentary sources “against the grain.” Ultimately, we argue that our epistemological dualisms will enable organization theorists to justify their theoretical stance in relation to a range of strategies in organizational history, including narratives constructed from documentary sources found in organizational archives. | Academy of Management Review | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Product Innovation Processes in Small Firms: Combining entrepreneurial effectuation and managerial causation | H Berends M Jelinek I Reymen R Stultiens |
This article reports a multimethod study of product innovation processes in small manufacturing firms. Prior studies found that small firms do not deploy the formalized processes identified as best practice for the management of new product development (NPD) in large firms. To explicate small firms’ product innovation, this study uses effectuation theory, which emerged from entrepreneurship research. Effectuation theory discerns two logics of decision-making: causation, assuming that means are selected to attain goals; and effectuation, assuming that goals are created based upon available means. The study used a process research approach, investigating product innovation trajectories in five small firms across 352 total events. Quantitative analyses revealed early effectuation logic, which increasingly turned toward causation logic over time. Further qualitative analyses confirmed the use of both logics, with effectual logic rendering product innovation resource-driven, stepwise, and open-ended, and with causal logic used especially in later stages to set objectives and to plan activities and invest resources to attain objectives. Because the application of effectuation logic differentiates the small firm approaches from mainstream NPD best practices, this study examined how small firms’ product innovation processes deployed effectuation logic in further detail. The small firms: (1) made creative use of existing resources; (2) scoped innovations to be realizable with available resources; (3) used external resources whenever and wherever these became available; (4) prioritized existing business over product innovation projects; (5) used loose project planning; (6) worked in steps toward tangible outcomes; (7) iterated the generation, selection, and modification of goals and ideas; and (8) relied on their own customer knowledge and market probing, rather than early market research. Using effectuation theory thus helps us understand how small firm product innovation both resembles and differs from NPD best practices observed in larger firms. Because the combination of effectual and causal principles leverages small firm characteristics and resources, this article concludes that product innovation research should more explicitly differentiate between firms of different sizes, rather than prescribing large firm best practices to small firms. | Journal of Product Innovation Management | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Practice makes perfect: Entrepreneurial-experience curves and venture performance | Rasmus Vendler Toft-Kehler Karl Wennberg Philip H Kime |
Abstract This study tackles the puzzle of why increasing entrepreneurial experience does not always lead to improved financial performance of new ventures. We propose an alternate framework demonstrating how experience translates into expertise by arguing that the positive experience–performance relationship only appears to expert entrepreneurs, while novice entrepreneurs may actually perform increasingly worse because of their inability to generalize their experiential knowledge accurately into new ventures. These negative performance implications can be alleviated if the level of contextual similarity between prior and current ventures is high. Using matched employee–employer data of an entire population of Swedish founder-managers between 1990 and 2007, we find a non-linear relationship between entrepreneurial experience and financial performance consistent with our framework. Moreover, the level of industry, geographic, and temporal similarities between prior and current ventures positively moderates this relationship. Our work provides both theoretical and practical implications for entrepreneurial experience—people can learn entrepreneurship and pursue it with greater success as long as they have multiple opportunities to gain experience, overcome barriers to learning, and build an entrepreneurial-experience curve. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Organizational Aspects of Business Model Innovation: The Case of the European Postal Industry | Kristian Johan Sund Juan Andrei Villarroel Marcel Bogers |
Organizations are often challenged to find new ways of creating and capturing value to compete with new entrants and disruptive technologies. Several studies have addressed some of the organizational barriers that incumbents face when developing new business models, but our understanding of the organizational (re)design aspects inherent to business model innovation is still very incomplete. In this study, we investigate the organizational (re)design challenges for incumbent organizations in mature industries when they need to reinvent their business model in reaction to disruptive changes in their environment. Our empirical setting focuses on national postal operators in the European postal industry. Using an inductive case study we distinguish between two stages within business model innovation: namely, business model exploration and business model exploitation. Focusing on the former, our findings shed new light on the existence of four key organizational issues: (1) organizational conflicts for scarce resources, (2) cognitive limitations in terms of a persistent dominant logic, (3) design of organizational structure, and (4) the sourcing and development of new capabilities. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Opportunity Evaluation as Rule-Based Decision Making | Matthew S Wood David W Williams |
We draw from cognitive science literature on rule-based thinking to develop and empirically test a theoretical framework of entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation. We argue that entrepreneurs make use of socially constructed rules to discern the attractiveness of an opportunity, for them, specifically. Using conjoint analysis data of 498 decisions made by 62 entrepreneurs, we find that entrepreneurs’ use of rules regarding opportunity novelty, resource efficiency, and worst-case scenario significantly influences entrepreneurs’ evaluations of opportunities and that individual differences in opportunity market and technology knowledge augment the effect of the rules on opportunity attractiveness. Additionally, we document that the worst-case scenario diminishes the positive effect of other rule criteria (e.g. novelty, resource efficiency) on opportunity evaluation and that market and technology knowledge further influence the negative effects of the worst-case scenario. | Journal of Management Studies | 2014 | PDF Download |
| On the Theory of Entrepreneurial Incentives and Alertness | McCaffrey, Matthew | This paper analyzes the theory of “entrepreneurial incentives” in the work of Israel Kirzner. It argues that there is a logical problem with the notion of profit opportunities as exogenous causal agents: Without additional assumptions, the existence of opportunities alone does not sufficiently explain the alertness of entrepreneurs. The paper considers both stronger and weaker versions of this problem. It also questions the relation between entrepreneurial incentives and the tendency toward entrepreneurial success. Finally, it provides some commentary on the relevance of entrepreneurial incentives for an overall theory of the entrepreneur, and identifies several potential solutions to the problems discussed. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Note to Instructors: Biohit: A Global, Family-Owned Company Embarking on a New Phase | Tanja Kontinen | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download | |
| NEW VENTURE CREATION IN MATURE INDUSTRIES: THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL DETRITUS, EFFECTUATION AND BRICOLAGE (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | Katrin Smolka Jochem Kroezen |
Our research aims to challenge conventional ideas about entrepreneurship in mature industries. The established perspective is that entrepreneurs in such industries are more successful when they engage in rigorous planning and pursue aggressive competitive strategies to overcome steep entry barriers due to a limited availability of resources (Delmar & Shane, 2003; Gruber, 2007; Lumpkin & Dess, 2001; Woo & Cooper, 1981). Instead, we build on recent ideas in organizational sociology (cf. Dobrev, 2000; Schneiberg, 2007; Zietsma & McKnight, 2009) and argue that in mature industries barriers to entry are low because of the availability of organizational detritus.We define detritus as the recyclable organizational elements with both technical and symbolic value left behind by organizations that previously failed. These elements can function as cost-efficient and effective building blocks for new firms. We suggest that the availability of detritus may reduce the need for rigorous planning and competitive aggressiveness, thereby allowing entrepreneurs to create blossoming organizations. We reason that by adopting the principles of effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001; 2008), entrepreneurs are more likely to profit from venturing in detritus-rich environments. As opposed to causation which focuses on predictive strategies, effectuation allows for a non-predictive way of controlling the future. Similarly, adopting the principles of bricolage – i.e. “making do by applying combinations of resources at hand to new problems and opportunities” (Baker & Nelson, 2005: 33) – also appears to be suitable in detritus-rich environments. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Narcissism: An Integrative Synthesis and Dominance Complementarity Model | EMILY GRIJALVA P. D. HARMS |
Narcissism has become an increasingly popular research topic in recent years. We describe why it is beneficial for organizational researchers to study narcissism due to its two strongest organizational correlates: counterproductive work behavior and leadership. We explore why narcissists perform counterproductive work behavior and offer advice on what organizations can do to prevent narcissists’ counterproductivity. Subsequently, we discuss narcissism’s relationship with leadership effectiveness, and propose a Narcissistic Leaders and Dominance Complementarity Model, which examines the dynamic interaction of narcissistic leaders’ characteristics with those of their followers to predict leadership effectiveness. Finally, we suggest four areas of management that may benefit from incorporating narcissism as a determinant of their respective organizational outcomes of interest: international management, social issues in management/corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and negotiation. | The Academy of Management Perspectives | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Missing the Point? Finding Contextual Detail in Entrepreneurship and Small Firm Scholarship | Dominic Michael Chalmers Eleanor Shaw |
The trajectory of entrepreneurship scholarship can be characterized by a trend towards functionalist approaches. This has arguably led to findings that trade the contextualization of entrepreneurial processes for abstracted theoretical generalizations. We propose a methodological response that draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to form the theoretical basis of a more nuanced empirical conception of the entrepreneur in situ. Our approach addresses current epistemological concerns in entrepreneurship scholarship by prioritizing the practical knowledge and reasoning skills of the entrepreneur. Additionally the proposed methodology provides a solution to an analytical problem confronting scholars who must select from myriad potentially relevant contexts to incorporate into analysis. We conclude our article by identifying some research opportunities that are enabled through adoption of an ethnomethodology/conversation analysis perspective. We hope that scholars may expand upon, complement and challenge current conceptualizations of entrepreneurial behavior through this method. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Mark Casson: The Entrepreneur at 30—Continued Relevance? | Sharon Alvarez ANDREW GODLEY MIKE WRIGHT |
Mark Casson’s The Entrepreneur: An Economic Theory (1982) has become one of the most influential books in the field of entrepreneurship. For the first time, this article outlines its origins and summarizes its main themes. The article goes on to show how Casson’s subsequent research has closely followed the research agenda he set for himself in The Entrepreneur and illustrates the continuing challenge his work presents to entrepreneurship scholars. The article is based on an interview the authors conducted with Mark Casson on the thirtieth anniversary of the book’s publication. Copyright © 2014 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Making the Most of Failure Experiences: Exploring the Relationship Between Business Failure and the Identification of Business Opportunities | Shepherd Dhliwayo Brandon Mueller |
Although previous research has extolled the importance of business failure as a precursor to transformational learning, few studies have explored the conditions under which such learning occurs or the content of the resulting knowledge. We explore several cognitive moderators of the relationship between failure experiences and a specific type of opportunity identification knowledge—the use of structural alignment processes. Results indicate that learning from failure is facilitated for entrepreneurs who possess a cognitive toolset that consists of opportunity prototypes and an intuitive cognitive style. Moreover, we found that prior professional knowledge negatively moderates this relationship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Making it personal: Opportunity individuation and the shaping of opportunity beliefs | Matthew S Wood Alexander McKelvie Michael Haynie |
Abstract We develop a model that focuses on the individuation of opportunity beliefs. We adopt inferences from the ecology literature and integrate those with mental model theory to examine the ‘individuation’ of opportunity as the result of the interplay between industry conditions and person-specific factors. We test our predictions using conjoint analysis of 2880 opportunity decisions. We find that an entrepreneur’s related knowledge, motivation to evaluate the opportunity, prior failure, and fear of failure shape perceptions of opportunity attractiveness as one individuates exogenous opportunity information. We articulate our findings as evidence that when combined with opportunity related data, an individual’s cognitive resources play an important role as one forms opportunity beliefs about the personal attractiveness of pursing an opportunity. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Macro-level determinants of formal entrepreneurship versus informal entrepreneurship | Mai Thi Thanh Thai Ekaterina Turkina |
Abstract Based on the eclectic theory of entrepreneurship, this article analyzes macro-level determinants of national rates of formal versus informal entrepreneurship. Our evaluation of the factors identified in this theory reveals a set of empirically-testable, higher-order determinants: economic opportunities, quality of governance, macro-level resources and abilities, performance-based culture and socially-supportive culture. The results of our analysis obtained through the PLS (partial least squares) approach to structural equation modeling contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by providing an empirically-supported model that shows how formal and informal entrepreneurship are driven differently. This model clarifies the conflicting findings in previous research about the effects of socioeconomic, institutional, and cultural factors on entrepreneurship rates across countries. Finally, by showing the effect of each determinant on formal and informal entrepreneurship, this study has important implications for policymakers as well as businesses. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Life course pathways to business start-up | Dilani Jayawarna Julia Rouse Allan Macpherson |
We explore how socially embedded life courses of individuals within Britain affect the resources they have available and their capacity to apply those resources to start-up. We propose that there will be common pathways to entrepreneurship from privileged resource ownership and test our propositions by modelling a specific life course framework, based on class and gender. We operationalize our model employing 18 waves of the British Household Panel Survey and event history random effect logistic regression modelling. Our hypotheses receive broad support. Business start-up in Britain is primarily made from privileged class backgrounds that enable resource acquisition and are a means of reproducing or defending prosperity. The poor avoid entrepreneurship except when low household income threatens further downward mobility and entrepreneurship is a more attractive option. We find that gendered childcare responsibilities disrupt class-based pathways to entrepreneurship. We interpret the implications of this study for understanding entrepreneurship and society and suggest research directions. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Kinship and business: how entrepreneurial households facilitate business growth | Gry Agnete Alsos Sara Carter Elisabet Ljunggren |
Building on studies that have stressed the importance of context and the role of the family in business growth, this study explores the role of the entrepreneurial household in the process of business development and growth. We seek to understand how household strategy influences the development of new businesses, the ways in which household characteristics and dynamics influence business growth strategy decisions and how business portfolios are managed and developed by the household. To examine these questions, comparative case studies were undertaken drawing data from four entrepreneurial households located in remote rural regions of Norway and Scotland. The data reveal the role of the entrepreneurial household in the evolution of business creation and growth, examining the processual aspects of entrepreneurial growth, the interactions between business activities and entrepreneurial households and how business portfolios are developed in practice. Three analytical themes emerged from the analyses: the tightly interwoven connections between the business and the household, the use of family and kinship relations as a business resource base and how households mitigate risk and uncertainty through self-imposed growth controls. Although previous studies have viewed entrepreneurial growth largely as an outcome of personal ambition and business strategy, these results reveal the importance of the entrepreneurial household and the household strategy in determining business growth activities. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2014 | PDF Download |
| International Entrepreneurship: Exploring the Logic and Utility of Individual Experience Through Comparative Reasoning Approaches | Marian Jones Casulli, Lucrezia |
In this paper, we suggest that individual experience and reasoning, as applied to new endeavors in internationalization, are concepts with high potential to advance conceptual and empirical research in international entrepreneurship (IE). Experience is known to be important in internationalization, but the logic or reasoning with which it is applied is insufficiently understood. Cognitive, comparison-based reasoning theories explain how individuals draw on experience to make sense of uncertain, novel, and complex situations. Drawing on two such theories, heuristics and analogical reasoning, we delineate the logic of experience and advance speculative propositions on its utility in the context of internationalization research. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| International Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the (Long-Lived) International Firm: A Capabilities Perspective | Abdulrahman Al-Aali David J Teece |
This paper expands on the Oviatt–McDougall framework of sustainable international ventures. It does so by relating the elements of the framework to existing scholarship on the multinational enterprise (MNE), a category that encompasses foreign direct-invested new ventures (FDINVs). The paper then incorporates entrepreneurship and capabilities into MNE theory and applies them to the FDINV. Strong dynamic capabilities coupled with good strategy work together to generate and sustain superior enterprise performance in fast-moving global environments. The resulting framework is used to revisit key questions in MNE/FDINV research such as the timing and mode of FDI. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Informal Economy: China’s Shan-Zhai Mobile Phones | CHUAN KAI LEE SHIH CHANG HUNG |
During the last decade, Chinese shan-zhai mobile phones have steadily and deliberately evolved from an informal economy to a formal one. We draw on institutional entrepreneurship to study this evolution, focusing in particular on how informal Chinese entrepreneurs pursued change and the transition to a formal economy. We emphasize three strategies—framing, aggregating, and bridging—Chinese entrepreneurs employed to mobilize support, garner resources, and increase their amount and level of legitimacy. We also discuss implications for research on informal economies and institutional entrepreneurship. Copyright © 2014 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Individual responses to firm failure: Appraisals, grief, and the influence of prior failure experience | Anna Jenkins Johan Wiklund Ethel Brundin |
This paper provides a systematic assessment of how entrepreneurs react to firm failure. We use appraisal theory as an overarching theoretical framework and hypothesize that the more the failure experience is appraised as stressful in terms of its implications for harm or loss, the greater the feelings of grief. To test this hypothesis we developed a unique database of entrepreneurs who recently filed for firm bankruptcy. Our results support that there is great variation in responses to firm failure, and we provide theoretically valid explanations to why this is the case. These findings have substantial implications for how scholars conceive and theorize about entrepreneurial failure. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Increasing the Problem Solving Speed Through Effectual Decision Making | Matthias Blauth René Mauer Niklas Friederichsen |
Effectuation has been acknowledged as an appropriate alternative to causal decision making in highly uncertain situations by shifting the focus from a logic of prediction to a logic of control (Sarasvathy, 2001). Problem-solving speed as part of the holistic problem solving competence is crucial for the establishment of competitive advantages within corporations, as it promotes the ability to develop and market innovative products in a timely manner (Atuahene-Gima and Wei, 2011). Problem- solving speed can be defined as the time needed to find, evaluate and implement an adequate solution to a particular problem (Atuahene-Gima and Li, 2004). We conducted a survey with employees from new product development (NPD) departments of industrial and service companies located in Germany and discovered, that embracing the unexpected as one of the four effectual dimensions has a positive impact on the problem solving speed in highly uncertain situations. In contrast the causal dimensions of goal- and competition-orientation slow down problem-solving speed. All effects depend on the moderating influence of uncertainty. Thus, building decisions on entrepreneurial decision-making logic in uncertain situations partially explains the differences in problem-solving speed and uncovers a novel source of competitive advantage. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | link to abstract |
| Imprinting by Design: The Microfoundations of Entrepreneurial Adaptation | Peter Bryant | Entrepreneurial ventures need frequently to adapt. Yet their adaptive capacity is often limited by the legacies of imprinted founding characteristics. The question then arises whether it is possible to explain and manage the imprinting process so that the capacity to adapt is enhanced, rather than diminished. I address this question by developing a model of the microfoundations of imprinting based in collective memory. I argue that entrepreneurial founding teams naturally develop transactive autobiographical memory systems. By partially managing the design and imprinting of these memory systems, I argue that founders may improve their venture’s long-term capacity to adapt. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| High-Potential Concepts, Phenomena, and Theories for the Advancement of International Entrepreneurship Research | Patricia McDougall Marian Jones Manuel G. Serapio |
The purpose of this special issue on international entrepreneurship (IE) is to explore concepts, phenomena, and theories with high potential to advance the field. Rather than identify concepts from the extant IE literature, we took the more novel approach of challenging leading researchers to write about IE-relevant issues through the perceptual lenses of their own, or other scholarly domains. Through this process of cross-fertilization, our intention was to generate new topics and fresh insights, alternative arguments, and constructs. The issue’s seven articles enrich concepts and theories for IE; advance complementary, or competing arguments that underpin IE thinking; and open the IE dialogue to issues of current global significance. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Fundamental entrepreneurial planning processes: resource assessment and opportunity evaluation | Kevin C. Cox | Research focused on new venture planning has received much attention in the entrepreneurship literature. However, while this stream of research has enjoyed substantial development, it also faces numerous challenges that must be addressed to ensure future progress. This paper identifies existing challenges in research focused on entrepreneurial planning and offers resolution via the development of a more parsimonious but fuller conceptualization of new venture planning. Focus is placed specifically on the most basic and fundamental planning processes and on the identification of important internal and external factors that influence how entrepreneurs progress through these fundamental planning processes. | The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Fostering Creativity in New Product Development through Entrepreneurial Decision Making | M Blauth René Mauer Malte Brettel |
Creativity and Innovation Management | 2014 | link to abstract | |
| Firm growth and the illusion of randomness | James Derbyshire Elizabeth Garnsey |
Abstract This paper shows that randomness can be an artefact of the methods used to examine firm performance. It questions the recent equating of entrepreneurship with gambling based on the assumption of random firm performance. It shows that complexity science provides a useful alternative perspective on randomness in relation to firm performance. | Journal of Business Venturing Insights | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship Research (1985–2009) and the Emergence of Opportunities | Lowell Busenitz Lawrence A. Plummer Anthony C Klotz Ali Shahzad Kevin Rhoads |
In order to identify shifts and trends in the entrepreneurship literature over the past 25 years, we conduct a bibliometric study involving new data from the 2000–2009 era building on 1985–1999 data to study entrepreneurship research published in the major management journals. Our findings indicate that entrepreneurship articles now have a significant presence in the mainline “A” journals. Furthermore, we contend that this presence signals legitimacy and, more importantly, a growing exchange among researchers studying entrepreneurship. The area of entrepreneurial opportunities and nascent ventures is showing signs of growth and in our view represents an area where entrepreneurship is contributing back to the broader research conversation in organizational studies. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship as Elixir and Mutagen | Lundmark, Erik Westelius, Alf |
Metaphors are powerful tools for sensemaking, sensegiving, and theory development, but they are often concealed in academic writing. This paper uncovers two metaphors underlying entrepreneurship discourse and research—elixir and mutagen. The elixir metaphor is uncovered by examining critiques of entrepreneurship research, and serves as a compact description of problematic aspects entrepreneurship scholars should be mindful of. The mutagen metaphor is uncovered by examining evolutionary frameworks, focusing on the role entrepreneurship plays in them. The paper illustrates how the mutagen metaphor can be used to reframe entrepreneurship, and uses the metaphors to interest, inform, and provoke. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurs’ Cognitive Biases and Heuristics in Entrepreneurial Team Recruitment. | Jonathan pinto | Scholarly work on entrepreneurial cognitions has focused largely on opportunity recognition. However, the formation of the entrepreneurial team is an important step towards making the enterprise a reality and the selection of team members is a complex decision-making task which could be affected by cognitive biases and heuristics. This topic been relatively neglected thus far and I address it by developing a cognitive model of entrepreneurial team recruitment which serves as an integrative framework to articulate the potential role of several cognitive biases and heuristics in black boxes at two stages – (1) identification of a consideration set of criteria and candidates; and (2) evaluation and choice of team members. I also separately apply this model to experienced (i.e., habitual or repeat) entrepreneurs. I discuss the research implications of this work with particular focus on three entrepreneur individual difference topics – entrepreneur’s motivations (i.e., necessity and opportunity entrepreneurs), gender, and cognitive style. Finally, I provide entrepreneurs with a set of debiasing tactics and strategies. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Poverty Alleviation | Sharon Alvarez Jay Barney |
Entrepreneurial activity does not always lead to economic growth. While improvements have been made to human capital, property rights protection, and access to financial capital in abject poverty contexts with the assumption that they will increase entrepreneurial activity, the results have been mixed. More recently, many entrepreneurs interested in poverty alleviation are crossing borders to engage in initiatives aimed at reducing poverty internationally. These efforts have also had mixed results. This paper posits that one reason is that entrepreneurial opportunities and their wealth creation potential vary, and the impact of exploiting these opportunities on economic growth in poverty contexts can also vary. This paper identifies self-employment opportunities, often exploited in abject poverty, that do not lead to sustainable growth solutions. Alternatively, discovery and creation opportunities while difficult to exploit in poverty contexts hold the greatest potential for significant economic impact. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Encouraging sustainable entrepreneurship in climate-threatened communities: a Samoan case study | Brendan James Gray Suzanne Duncan Jodyanne Kirkwood Sara Walton |
South Pacific island states are at the forefront of climatic changes that have precipitated severe environmental events. These small countries also face economic and social challenges that require entrepreneurial solutions. We develop a model of how external factors and chance events impact on sustainable opportunity recognition and exploitation in this context. We assess the efficacy of this model in an in-depth study of Women in Business Development Incorporated, a non-governmental organization that helps women and families in Samoa to establish sustainable enterprises. Our findings make a significant contribution to the emerging literature on entrepreneurship, sustainability and resilience in at-risk communities by showing how key organizational capabilities are necessary for coping with exogenous shocks in this context. The findings have important implications for research, policy and practice. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation and home-based online business entrepreneurs | Daniel Kupper Di Domenico MariaLaura Sharma, Pramodita |
This article explores effectual processes within home-based, online businesses. Our empirical evidence provides a number of refinements to the concept of effectuation in this specific domain. First, the ubiquity of non-proprietary online trading platforms encourages the adoption of effectual approaches and removes the importance of forming proprietary strategic alliances and pre-commitments. Second, the notion of affordable loss – a central tenet of effectuation – should be extended beyond the notion of economic to social affordable loss, including loss of status and reputation, and finally, home-based online businesses allow effectuation to be associated with low levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and experience. | International Small Business Journal | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation and entrepreneurial orientation in high-technology firms | T S Mthanti B Urban |
Effectuation provides an explanation of the behaviour of entrepreneurial firms in transforming environments. This article empirically investigates the influence of effectuation on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance, while considering environmental uncertainty as a moderating influence. A survey is administered to a sample of high-technology firms and hypotheses are tested using correlational and regression analysis. A positive relationship between effectuation and the firm’s level of EO is established, where this effectuation moderates the relationship between EO and firm performance. However, the interaction effect between effectuation and environmental dynamism and hostility proves to be non-significant. By applying an empirical lens this study increases the relevance and generalisability of effectuation theory by expanding it from mostly a descriptive nature to a theory that accounts for moderators in the EO–performance relationship. | Technology Analysis & Strategic Management | 2014 | |
| DEVELOPMENT OF EFFECTUAL BEHAVIOR – AN ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING APPROACH (SUMMARY) | Sølvi Solvoll Gry Agnete Alsos |
This study analyzes the role of experience and learning on the development of effectual behavior (Sarasvathy 2001, 2008) among entrepreneurs during the start-up of a new firm. We take a human capital perspective to examine the various experiences of the entrepreneur and their influence on the development of effectual versus causal behavior. Following Unger et al. (2011), we do not limit our analyses to the static measures of human capital, but also seek to understand the influences of dynamic views related to learning, knowledge acquisition, and the transfer of knowledge to entrepreneurial tasks. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Developing Entrepreneurial Expertise: Cognitive Entrenchment and Decision Incongruence | Jana Thiel Sung Min Kim Jan Brinckmann |
Recent research has produced concern about incongruence (the gap between conveyed and actual decision rationale) in strategic opportunity evaluation. Such incongruence can lead to inefficient decision-making, ineffective learning and will subsequently have performance implications in the entrepreneurial process. In this article we build on cognitive theory to investigate individual differences in opportunity-related decisions incongruence. Our assertion is that decision congruence is in large part based on the salience of the decision makers’ opportunity schema—formed through cognitive entrenchment—that is facilitated or impeded by individuals’ images of self. In a study on 146 individuals with in total 7,008 opportunity decisions we investigate how images of vulnerability and capability affect opportunity decision congruence. The results indicate that the images of vulnerability negatively impact congruent decision making, while images of capability have a U-shaped effect on decision incongruence. Our findings extend prior literature on cognitive reasoning in opportunity evaluation and entrepreneurial expertise. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Demystifying “Value” through an Empirical Examination of Entrepreneurial Ventures | Ishrat Ali Saras Sarasvathy |
It is commonly understood that entrepreneurs need to create value for different stakeholders in order for their ventures to be successful in the long run. However, if we were to ask what is this “value”?, there would hardly be a satisfactory answer. For some, value is profits for shareholders, for some others – it is an intangible benefit that cannot be measured, and is only in the eye of the beholder. This paper attempts to demystify “value” by empirically examining value creation/destruction in 11 entrepreneurial ventures. It unearths five different dimensions of value that include both financial and non-financial impacts and argues that value creation or destruction should be described and measured as stakeholder capability improvements. The paper is positioned as an extension of a debate between shareholder wealth and stakeholder value proponents regarding purpose of the corporation. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | |
| Danger Zone Entrepreneurs: The Importance of Resilience and Self-Efficacy for Entrepreneurial Intentions | Amanda Bullough Maija Renko Tamara Myatt |
Little is known about the drivers of entrepreneurial decisions during war. We empirically examine the effects of perceived danger, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and resilience on entrepreneurial intentions in adverse conditions with primary survey data from Afghanistan. Our findings suggest that perceived danger is negatively related to an individual’s entrepreneurial intentions, but marginally less so among highly resilient individuals. Our findings also suggest that even under conditions of war, individuals develop entrepreneurial intentions if they are able to grow from adversity (resilience) and believe in their entrepreneurial abilities (entrepreneurial self-efficacy). Practical implications for role modeling and entrepreneurship training are then discussed. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Creating the Future Together: Toward a Framework for Research Synthesis in Entrepreneurship | Elco van Burg Georges Romme |
To develop a body of evidence-based knowledge on entrepreneurship, findings and contributions from the positivist, narrative, and design research traditions in this area need to be combined. Therefore, a framework for research synthesis in terms of social mechanisms, contextual conditions, and outcome patterns is developed in this paper. Subsequently, a synthesis of the existing body of research findings on entrepreneurial opportunities serves to illustrate how this framework can be applied and provides results that inform entrepreneurial action. Finally, we discuss how this synthetic approach serves to systematically connect the fragmented landscape of entrepreneurship research, and thus gradually build a cumulative and evidence-based body of knowledge on entrepreneurship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Contextualising case studies in entrepreneurship: A tandem approach to conducting a longitudinal cross-country case study | Sylvie Chetty Jukka Partanen Erik Rasmussen Per Servais |
Using predictive and effectuation logics as a framework, this research note explains how case study research was conducted to demonstrate rigour and relevance. The study involves a longitudinal cross-country case study on small and medium-sized firm growth and networks undertaken by research teams in three countries (Finland, Denmark and New Zealand) involving 33 firms. This research note outlines the implications of this research and provides valuable guidance and reflections upon opportunities for future research regarding the conduct of contextual studies in entrepreneurship without compromising validity and reliability. | International Small Business Journal | 2014 | |
| Complementary assets as pipes and prisms: Innovation incentives and trajectory choices | Brian Wu ZHIXI WAN DANIEL A. LEVINTHAL |
The issue of the failure of incumbent firms in the face of radical technical change has been a central question in the technology strategy domain for some time. We add to prior contributions by highlighting the role a firm’s existing set of complementary assets have in influencing its investment in alternative technological trajectories. We develop an analytical model that considers firm heterogeneity with respect to both technological trajectories and complementary assets. Complementary assets play a dual role in incumbents’ investment behavior toward radical technological change: they are not only resources (pipes) that can buffer firms from technology change, but also prisms through which firms view those changes, influencing both the magnitude of resources that should be invested and the trajectory to which these resources should be directed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Cognitive Logics, Entrepreneurial Cognitive Style, and Growth Intentions: A Conceptual Model and an Exploratory Field Study | Dutta D. K Stuart Thornhill |
Using insights based on the entrepreneurial cognition perspective, we develop a conceptual model to explain the evolution of entrepreneurial growth intentions under the influence of venture cognitive logics (causation versus effectuation) and entrepreneurial cognitive style (analytic versus holistic). Our model finds preliminary support based on qualitative data from an exploratory field study of a select group of entrepreneurs, interviewed in three waves over a 5-year timeframe. | Entrepreneurship Research Journal | 2014 | |
| Business Models and Tactics in New Product Creation: The Interplay of Effectuation and Causation Processes | M K Sitoh S L Pan C Y Yu |
Effectuation and causation are two contrasting approaches to new business development. We argue that these two approaches are generic decision-making mechanisms that can coexist with one another and that they are configured in specific ways during different phases in the process of new product creation. These decision-making mechanisms are influenced by internal and external market factors: the nature of activities of a phase and the interplay between the business model and tactics. Our research framework is a generic two-stage competitive process that separates business models from tactics. We conducted an in-depth case study of a console game creation project to examine these decision-making mechanisms and to explore how business models are formulated and how each mechanism influences subsequent tactics during the new product creation process. Our findings suggest the following four decision-making configurations with unique modes of interplay between business models and tactics: effectuation centric, discovery centric, causation centric, and tactic centric. The theoretical insights on the linkage between decision-making mechanisms and business models have important practical implications for new product creation. | IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT | 2014 | |
| Biohit: A Global, Family-Owned Company Embarking on a New Phase | Tanja Kontinen | This case concerns Biohit, a family-owned biotechnology company established in Finland in 1988, selling liquid handling and diagnostics products in the global market. The case also describes the entrepreneurial career of Biohit’s CEO Osmo Suovaniemi, since the company is mainly based on the know-how that Osmo gained as owner-manager of his two earlier companies, Labsystems and Eflab, during the 1970s and 1980s. Hence, this case describes the prior and initial phases of Biohit, examining also its commitment to innovation and its management practices. The case ends with the situation as of March 2010 and includes the reflections of Biohit’s managers on the future of the company. At this point, Osmo was intending to hand over his executive position to someone from outside the family, on the grounds that none of his three sons was able or willing to take up the position. However, he planned to continue as owner, inventor, and full-time board member of Biohit. The managers of Biohit had high hopes of making a breakthrough with diagnostics products that had been under intensive development over a long period. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | |
| Beyond environmental scarcity: Human and social capital as driving forces of bootstrapping activities | Dietmar Grichnik Jan Brinckmann Luv Singh Sophie Manigart |
Abstract Although entrepreneurship scholars highlight bootstrapping as a key resource acquisition approach to respond to the inherent resource constraints that nascent ventures face, little is known about what causes nascent ventures to engage in bootstrapping. Theory highlights the environment as an important determinant of bootstrapping activity. Analyzing bootstrapping behavior of 298 nascent ventures, we find that beyond perceived environmental factors, individual characteristics of the nascent entrepreneurs and factors relating to the embeddedness of the entrepreneurs in the environment determine their venture’s bootstrapping behavior. In a more fine-grained analysis we gain insights into how these antecedents shape the use of particular bootstrapping strategies. Findings contribute to our understanding of factors driving resource management approaches in nascent ventures. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2014 | PDF Download |
| An Integrated Model of Corporate Strategic Entrepreneurship in Service and Manufacturing Contexts | marc lerchenmueller | This study relates entrepreneurial orientation to new venturing and strategic renewal through opportunity identifying behavior. Two behaviors are contrasted: adaptive searching (opportunity discovery) versus generative searching (opportunity creation). Based on samples of 111 manufacturing and 110 service organizations, this paper posits and presents evidence that adaptive searching mediates the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on new venturing and strategic renewal in manufacturing. Conversely, generative searching mediates these relationships in manufacturing and service contexts. This research, thus, considers the importance of an integrated view on corporate strategic entrepreneurship and highlights industry differences in the way organizations successfully implement an entrepreneurial strategy. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| An Effectual Approach to International Entrepreneurship: Overlaps, Challenges, and Provocative Possibilities | Saras Sarasvathy suresh bhagavatula Jeffery York Kumar Kothandaraman |
In this paper, we outline several interesting observations about international entrepreneurship (IE) research through the theoretical lens of effectuation. In doing so, we show how an effectual approach can help resolve four central conflicts and knowledge gaps identified in two recent comprehensive reviews of IE. We then present an illustrative case study from India that provides an intriguing comparison with the most recent modification of the Uppsala model to integrate with effectuation theory. Finally, we offer four provocative possibilities for future research at the intersection of IE and effectuation research. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| A Qualitative Approach to Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship: Theoretical Considerations and an Example Involving Business Clusters | ANDREAS RAUCH Robert van Doorn WILLEM Hulsink |
Most research in evidence-based entrepreneurship builds on quantitative designs, which is unfortunate because qualitative studies provide a unique contribution to the domain of entrepreneurship. They look at distinctive phenomena in their specific time period and context in one way or another, and can help generate and test new theories. We, therefore, suggest using a systematic synthesis of case studies to aggregate the findings of qualitative research. Moreover, as a first step, we developed an example to demonstrate how this approach can advance evidence-based entrepreneurship. Specifically, we synthesized 13 cases to examine how business clusters increase the performance of firms within clusters. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2014 | PDF Download |
| “Does God Play Dice?” – Randomness vs. Deterministic Explanations of Crowdsourcing Success | Christopher Lettl Nikolaus Franke Franke Susanne Roiser Tuertscher Philipp |
Which factors are responsible for the success of crowdsourcing tournaments? Current theorizing on crowdsourcing appears to assume that there is a deterministic relationship between factors such as the organization of the tournament, characteristics of the participants attracted, and specific situational factors on the one hand and the quality of their contributions gained on the other. Based on theory that views creativity as a process of blind variation and retention, we introduce the alternative idea that in fact the quality of any participants’ idea is largely random and thus the success of the tournament rests primarily on the number of participants attracted. In order to compare the explanatory power of randomness and 22 deterministic factors derived from literature we conducted a huge experiment in which 1,089 participants developed ideas for smartphone apps. Our finding is unambiguous: the single factor of randomness outperforms all deterministic explanations collectively by far. It appears that at least in crowdsourcing, God indeed plays dice. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| “Opportunity Pursuit, Disinhibition, & Social Bias: Advancing Beyond Individual Action” | Lerner Daniel | The perception, pursuit, and exploitation of opportunity are central to entrepreneurship. While relatively unfettered cognition, impulse, and behavior may favor perceiving and acting on opportunities, such disinhibition may present a social liability and thus interfere with reaching opportunity exploitation. This research examines the connection between disinhibition and nascent opportunity pursuit. Drawing on psychological and entrepreneurial literature, this work tests hypotheses related to the effects of disinhibition in a nascent entrepreneur on other individuals. The results shed light on an important tension at the heart of early stage entrepreneurship. Specifically, apparent disinhibition in a potential founder has sizable adverse effects on others’ assessments: of the founder, of the likelihood of venture success, and of interest in supporting (joining) the venture. These findings indicate that an individual factor impelling individual entrepreneurial action presents a friction for advancing in the entrepreneurial process. This research makes several contributions to existing literature. In relation to entrepreneurship, it contributes needed insight into the social psychology of nascent opportunity pursuit. In relation to the psychological sciences, it provides vocationally contextualized insight into disinhibition and social cognition. Lastly, the research contributes to a developing disinhibition perspective of entrepreneurial action. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| “Emotional Intelligence, Interpersonal Process Effectiveness, and Entrepreneurial Performance” | Amy Ingram Whitney O Peake Wayne Stewart Warren E Watson |
Scholars note the importance of emotion and cognition in entrepreneurship, thus we develop and test a novel partial mediation model of emotional intelligence, interpersonal processes, and venture performance in a large sample of entrepreneurs, defined as venture owner-managers. We also test the moderating effect of gender on the proposed relationships. The results indicate that emotional intelligence has both a direct effect on venture performance, and an indirect effect on venture performance via interpersonal processes. Gender moderated the direct effect, with males reporting higher performance, but was not significant in the indirect path of the model. We discuss the implications and potential avenues for future research on this important topic. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2014 | PDF Download |
| ‘Expect the unexpected’: Implications of effectual logic on the internationalization process | C Forza I Kalinic Saras Sarasvathy |
International entrepreneurship literature has indicated that entrepreneurs often increase international activities along unexpected lines of reasoning without having a precise goal, resulting in “unplanned” internationalization. We argue that “unplanned” internationalization does not necessarily involve non-logical decisions; but, entrepreneurs can follow an effectual rather than causal logic and may base their decisions on the affordable loss principle rather than on the maximization of expected returns. Based on five case-studies, we discuss the implication of effectual decision-making on the internationalization process. We find that switching from causal to effectual logic allows firms to rapidly increase the level of commitment in the foreign market and could assist in overcoming liabilities of outsidership and, therefore, successfully increase the level of commitment in the foreign market. | International Business Review | 2014 | PDF Download |
| Women’s self-employment: An act of institutional (dis)integration? A multilevel, cross-country study | Kim Klyver Suna Løwe Nielsen Majbritt Rostgaard Evald |
In this paper we investigate the extent to which gender equality disintegrates women’s self-employment choice (compared to that for men) and whether this is contingent upon a country’s development stage and industries. We rely on symbolic interactionism to argue that employment choices emerge from an interactive conversation between individual and social institutional processes. Using data from 61 countries, we find that overall gender equality is associated with the gender gap in men’s and women’s self-employment choices and that this association depends upon the country’s development stage and industries. Contributions are made to women’s entrepreneurship and institutional theory. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Where Are the Old Theories of Organization? Prospects for Retrospection in Organization Theory | JOHN HASSARD Julie Wolfram Cox MICHAEL ROWLINSON |
Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| When Contingency Is a Resource: Educating Entrepreneurs in the Balkans, the Bronx, and Beyond | Susan S Harmeling Saras Sarasvathy |
The research project described in this paper began as an inductive field study of entrepreneurship education in two very different settings—a university in war-torn Eastern Croatia and an entrepreneurship program in inner-city high schools in the United States. It evolved into a study of the two unlikely entrepreneurs who founded these education initiatives. Through a detailed counterfactual analysis of the narratives on the programs’ founding and evolution, we offer compelling evidence for the role of contingency in the entrepreneurial process. We present an inductive conceptual framework of responses to contingency based on entrepreneurs’ beliefs about agency and environment and conclude with implications of this research for entrepreneurship education. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Towards a schematic theory of entrepreneurial alertness | Dave Valliere | This article is an investigation into Kirzner’s concept of entrepreneurial alertness — its mechanism and its antecedents. By drawing from decision theory and schema theory, a model is developed to show how changes in the environment are mediated by entrepreneurial alertness and brought to the situated attention of entrepreneurs for evaluation. Entrepreneurial alertness is seen to be the application of unique schemata that allow the entrepreneur to impute meaning to environmental change that would not be imputed by other managers. It is argued that the alertness that allows entrepreneurs to see opportunity where others do not arises from differences in schematic richness, schematic association, and schematic priming. These three antecedents may therefore form a basis on which enhanced entrepreneurial alertness can be developed. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Time and the Entrepreneurial Journey: The Problems and Promise of Studying Entrepreneurship as a Process | Jeffery McMullen Dimo Dimov |
We examine the growing disconnect between the process-oriented conception of entrepreneurship taught in the classroom and theorized about in premier journals and the variance-oriented conception of entrepreneurship that characterizes empirical studies of the phenomenon. We propose that a shift in inquiry from entrepreneurship as an act to entrepreneurship as a journey could facilitate process-oriented research by initiating a dialogue about the nature of the entrepreneurial journey, when it has begun and ended, whether it might be productively subdivided into variables or events, and what if anything remains constant throughout the process. Finally, we propose that a clearer understanding of the entrepreneurial journey is necessary to distinguish the field horizontally from research on creativity and strategy, and vertically from research on more practical business functions or more abstract systems-level concepts. | Journal of Management Studies | 2013 | PDF Download |
| The Selection and Nurturing Effects of Corporate Investors on New Venture Innovativeness | HAEMIN DENNIS PARK H. KEVIN STEENSMA |
Corporate investors can provide valuable resources to their new venture investees, but their interests may conflict with those of independent venture capitalist (IVC) coinvestors. We explore how the preferences, resources, and influence of corporate investors vis-à-vis their IVC coinvestors affect their selection of investment opportunities and subsequent nurturing of new venture investees. We show that corporate investors tend to fund new ventures with greater pre-funding innovative capabilities and new ventures receiving corporate funding exhibit greater post-funding rates of innovation compared to those funded solely by IVCs, particularly when their corporate investors are highly reputable relative to their IVC coinvestors. Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| The influence of causation and effectuation logics on targeted policies: the cases of Singapore and Israel | D Kaufmann | We examine the causation and effectuation logics for implementing targeted biotechnology policies using two case studies: Singapore (causation) and Israel (effectuation). After more than a decade of implementing targeted biotechnology policies, both Singapore and Israel have failed to create fully fledged biotech clusters. Singapore has been unsuccessful in creating vibrant entrepreneurial activity that will support its transformation into a knowledge economy. Israel has failed to turn its 1000 small, dedicated biotechnology firms into a substantial engine of growth and employment. The paper questions how these two policy approaches influenced the targeting of the biotechnology sectors and identifies the limits of these approaches in supporting targeting. We conclude that a combination of the two logics is needed, especially when targeting complex sectors with a yet unknown development path. | Technology Analysis & Strategic Management | 2013 | |
| Studying the Origins of Social Entrepreneurship: Compassion and the Role of Embedded Agency | Matthew Grimes Jeffery McMullen TIMOTHY J. HARGRAVE Toyah L. Miller |
Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Strategic Entrepreneurial Networks | effectuation | The purpose of this panel is to pool scholars of repute in the field of entrepreneurship and strategy to raise several questions that could be of interest in advancing research on Strategic Entrepreneruial Networks. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2013 | |
| Some reflection on research ‘Schools’ and geographies | Per Davidsson | Reflecting on real and perceived differences between European and North American research cultures, I challenge views that ?European? research is under appreciated or discriminated against, and caution against isolationist European positions. Instead, I argue that although no distinctive and coherent European tradition or culture really exists, there may be elements of the prevalent research culture that can be turned into an advantage for Europe-based and/or European-trained researchers in helping to influence and improve one, global research conversation. Of course, a range of sub-communities and sub-conversations will and should exist, but there is no reason for these to be based on geography. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Simultaneous Experimentation as a Learning Strategy: Business Model Development Under Uncertainty | Petra Andries KOENRAAD DEBACKERE Bart Van Looy |
Ventures operating under uncertainty face challenges defining a sustainable value proposition. Six longitudinal case studies reveal two approaches to business model development: focused commitment and simultaneous experimentation. While focused commitment positively affects initial growth, this commitment and lack of variety jeopardize long-term survival. Simultaneous experimentation implies lower initial growth levels, but facilitates long-term survival by enacting variety in a resource-effective manner. This article enriches organizational learning theory by demonstrating that not only distant search but also simultaneous experimentation results in variety. Moreover, simultaneous experimentation implies effectual behavior and reconciles the apparent juxtaposition between ‘action’ and ‘planning.’ Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Search and discovery by repeatedly successful entrepreneurs | J O Fiet W I Norton V G Clouse |
This article examines the use of a model of search by entrepreneurs; for decades they have been advised to remain alert but now, new approaches are more open to effectuation and creation. However, so far none provides guidance regarding how to improve search effectiveness. We report upon a phenomenological investigation of Fiet’s model of constrained, systematic search which offers a prescriptive alternative. In order to test the latter’s effectiveness, 10 participants who started 47 ventures were interviewed. The article presents evidence of its use by these repeatedly successful entrepreneurs, finds support for the model and discusses its limitations and contributions. | International Small Business Journal | 2013 | |
| Response to the Commentaries: The Individual-Opportunity (IO) Nexus Integrates Objective and Subjective Aspects of Entrepreneurship | Scott Shane JONATHAN T ECKHARDT |
Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Re-Thinking Entrepreneurial Performance from a Human Development Perspective | Ishrat Ali Saras Sarasvathy |
To date, entrepreneurial performance has mostly been measured through economic indicators. In this paper we take a process view of entrepreneurship and argue that a more accurate assessment would incorporate impact on all stakeholders and not only on those who finance the venture. We draw upon research from Entrepreneurial Performance, Stakeholder Theory and Human Development and Capability Approach to present a broad framework that encourages evaluation by exploring changes in stakeholder capabilities. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2013 | |
| Prior Experience and Social Class as Moderators of the Planning-Performance Relationship in China’s Emerging Economy | yuli zhang Jun Yang Jintong Tang Kevin Au HONGZHI XUE |
This study advances research on business planning by integrating and reconciling the institutional and strategic planning perspectives to explore the performance implications of both formal and informal business planning. We also examine how an entrepreneur’s prior experience and social class shape the planning-performance relationship. Using a dataset of two waves of interviews with 313 founders in China, we found that both formal and informal business planning can benefit new ventures. Interestingly, as a unique contingency factor in the Chinese context, social class moderates only the link between formal planning and performance, whereas prior work experience moderates the effects of both formal and informal planning on performance. Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Portrait of an Entrepreneur: Vincent van Gogh, Steve Jobs, and the Entrepreneurial Imagination | Joep Cornelissen | Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Planning for Growth: Life Stage Differences in Family Firms | Kimberly Eddleston Franz W Kellermanns Steven W Floyd Victoria L Crittenden William F Crittenden |
Applying insights from the generational perspective, this study explores when strategic planning and succession planning are most conducive to privately held family firm growth. The results show that the degree to which strategic planning and succession planning are associated with family firm growth depends on the generation managing the firm. Both forms of planning are most conducive to the growth of first-generation firms; however, neither form of planning confers much growth for second-generation firms. For third-and-beyond-generation firms, the benefits of succession planning appear to reemerge. However, strategic planning is negatively associated with their level of growth. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| PERSPECTIVE TAKING AND FOUNDER EQUITY SPLITS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERACTIONS (SUMMARY) | Anusha Ramesh Saras Sarasvathy |
Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education | Alain Fayolle | Entrepreneurship education is growing worldwide, but key educational and didactical issues remain. What are we talking about when we talk about entrepreneurship education? What are we really doing when we teach or educate people in entrepreneurship, in terms of the nature and the impact of our interventions? What do we know about the appropriateness, the relevancy, the coherency, the social usefulness and the efficiency of our initiatives and practices in entrepreneurship education? Addressing these issues and challenges, this article suggests that at least two major evolutions might reinforce the future of entrepreneurship education. First, we need strong intellectual and conceptual foundations, drawing from the fields of entrepreneurship and education, to strengthen our entrepreneurship courses. And finally, we also need to deeply reflect on our practices, as researchers and educators, taking a more critical stance toward a too often adopted ?taken for granted? position. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Partnership Steering Wheels | H Schirmer | Journal of Corporate Citizenship | 2013 | ||
| On the Misuse of Realism in the Study of Entrepreneurship | Stratos Ramoglou | Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Of Narratives and Artifacts | S. Venkataraman Saras Sarasvathy Nick Dew |
Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| New Venture and Family Business Teams: Understanding Team Formation, Composition, Behaviors, and Performance | Leon Schjoedt Erik Monsen Allison Pearson Tim Barnett James J Chrisman |
New ventures are frequently started by entrepreneurial teams rather than lone entrepreneurs. Often, team members have family ties. Yet, there has been relatively little research on new venture and family business teams. The papers in this special issue address this gap by studying team formation and composition, faultlines among team members, generational involvement in teams, the influence of shared organizational experience and functional homogeneity, and the likelihood of couples, biologically related, and unrelated teams achieving first sales. Combined, they suggest that relationships are more important than skill diversity in determining the effectiveness of both family business and new venture teams. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Learning From Levi-Strauss’ Legacy: Art, Craft, Engineering, Bricolage, and Brokerage in Entrepreneurship | Bryan T. Stinchfield Reed E. Nelson Matthew S Wood |
Given the increasing attention to traditionally less “rational” entrepreneurial behaviors, such as bricolage, we used grounded theory techniques to study 23 diverse entrepreneurs. From this, we developed a five-category typology of entrepreneurial behavior that includes art, craft, engineering, bricolage, and brokerage. Themes such as self-perceived identity, organization of space, integration of materials, sense of personal limits, and responsiveness to changing market conditions were observed along categorical lines. We discuss the significance of the typology and each category’s associations with venture longevity and financial performance for practitioners and for the study of entrepreneurship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Is There a Single Driver of Entrepreneurship? A Power-Law of Organizational Emergence and Growth | Christopher Crawford, G Benyamin Lichtenstein |
Whereas the creation and emergence of high-growth firms are central topics in entrepreneurship research, senior scholars lament the absence of a comprehensive theory to explain and predict this rare but important phenomenon. One approach that remains untested, however, is the use of power-law distributions to explain key growth measures in nascent and high-growth firms. A unique statistical property of power laws is that these distributions are usually caused by a single generative mechanism that drives outcomes at all levels of analysis. In this paper we explore this possibility, by testing how well power laws explain entrepreneurial growth, and proposing “opportunity tension” as a generative mechanism for that growth. We test the model using MATLAB, to construct semi-parametric bootstrap estimates for maximum likelihood fit with a power-law model, based on data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II and Inc. 5000. We find significant support for our hypothesis, i.e. we find a universal scaling exponent of ~1.75 for multiple growth measures including outcomes of nascent ventures and hyper-growth firms. Our results provide an intriguing foundation for a scale-free theory of new venture performance. | The Academy of Management Perspectives | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Intrafamily Entrepreneurship: The Formation and Membership of Family Entrepreneurial Teams | Allan Discua Cruz Carole Howorth Eleanor Hamilton |
Family entrepreneurial teams are groups of related individuals who engage in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial teams studies emphasize the resources that members bring to the team. Family business studies suggest that relationships and social theories are important. Social capital explains the formation and composition of family entrepreneurial teams (FETs). Analysis is of case studies of FETs based in Honduras. A shared commitment to entrepreneurial stewardship of the family’s assets underpins formation of FETs. Trust and shared values were important for membership. This study highlights that families are not internally consistent, and family ties are not equally strong. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Institutions, entrepreneurs, and communities: A special issue on entrepreneurship | P. Devereaux (Dev) Jennings Royston Greenwood Michael Lounsbury Roy Suddaby |
This Special Issue’s aim is to demonstrate that drawing on sociological research can further enrich entrepreneurship studies of institutions, entrepreneurs, and communities. We develop an organizing framework for our ten Special Issue papers that categorizes the pieces by community level and type, observed changes, form of entrepreneurial actor, institutional and entrepreneurial concepts and processes, and integrative methodologies. This set of categorizations helps us to identify components that scholars can use to build more mid-range theory around our special issue topics. The framework also helps us to isolate limitations in the Special Issue papers, thereby providing avenues for future research. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2013 | PDF Download |
| INPUT-OUTPUT KNOWLEDGE THEORY: POTENTIAL AND APPLICATION AS A THEORY OF ENTREPRENEURIAL COGNITION (SUMMARY) | Elaine C Rideout | David Birch, author of the seminal research implying the enormity of the contribution of the small business sector to the overall economy, once said, “If you want to teach people to be entrepreneurs, you can’t.” (Aronsson, 2004). Nonetheless, millions of dollars are spent every year on programs, courses, centers, workshops, etc., based on the assumption that entrepreneurship educators can teach the cognitive mindsets and skillsets that in turn generate entrepreneurship, new companies, and new jobs. This controlled study is grounded in psychosocial theories of entrepreneurial cognition. Tacit knowledge, “expert” scripts, (Mitchell et al., 2002), cognitive “alertness” (Kirzner, 1985), and satisficing on inputs under conditions of uncertainty (Sarasvathy, 2001, Baker, 2005) are all inputspecific cognitive strategies. The study applied and tested an overarching theory, Input-Output (IO) Knowledge Theory, to help make sense of these disparate views. IO Theory has recently been applied by electronics and systems theory researchers where controlling dynamic systems under conditions of uncertainty are of paramount importance. IO Systems research has found that when uncertainty is high and factual/structural knowledge is low or unavailable, IO cognitive strategies (manipulating the number of inputs if that’s the only strategy available, for example) to control dynamic systems outcomes can be as effective performance-wise as when structural information about a system is known or knowable. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Information Exposure, Opportunity Evaluation, and Entrepreneurial Action: An Investigation of an Online User Community | Erkko Autio LINUS DAHLANDER LARS FREDERIKSEN |
We study how an individual’s exposure to external information regulates the evaluation of entrepreneurial opportunities and entrepreneurial action. Combining data from interviews, a survey, and a comprehensive web log of an online user community spanning eight years, we find that technical information shaped opportunity evaluation and that social information about user needs drove individuals to entrepreneurial action. Our empirical findings suggest that reducing demand uncertainty is a central factor regulating entrepreneurial action, an insight that received theories of entrepreneurial action have so far overlooked. | Academy of Management Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Individual-Level Resources and New Business Activity: The Contingent Role of Institutional Context | Dirk De Clercq Dominic S.K Lim Chang Hoon Oh |
This study considers the relationship between people’s access to resources and their likelihood to start a new business, and particularly how this relationship might be moderated by formal and informal institutions. Individual-level resources might be more potent for new business creation in countries with financial and educational systems that are more oriented toward entrepreneurship, higher levels of trust, and cultures that are less hierarchical and conservative. The hypotheses are tested by undertaking random-effects multilevel analyses of a multi-source data set that spans a 5-year time period (2003–2007). The study’s findings offer important implications for research and practice. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Immigrant entrepreneurship on the move: a longitudinal analysis of first- and second-generation immigrant entrepreneurship in the Netherlands | Pascal Beckers Boris Blumberg |
Second-generation immigrants starting businesses in industries not traditionally associated with immigrants have inspired a new line of research on migrant entrepreneurship. New entrepreneurs are expected to profit from better economic prospects arising from the relatively high levels of human capital available to them and improved integration into society compared to their parents’ generation. So far, it is unclear whether these expectations have been met owing to a lack of reliable data on immigrants in general and immigrant entrepreneurs in particular. This paper uses newly available data from Statistics Netherlands (1999?2004) to compare the differences between the business success of second- and first-generation immigrant entrepreneurs. The data enable us to compare these intergenerational differences for each of five major non-Western groups of immigrants in the Netherlands and contrast them with developments among native entrepreneurs from both inter-temporal and longitudinal perspectives. Contrary to expectations, the higher levels of socio-cultural integration of second-generation immigrants do not necessarily lead to better business prospects. The differences between the major ethnic groups of immigrants are noteworthy, as are those with non-immigrant entrepreneurs. While high levels of human capital and social integration foster entrepreneurial success, they are no guarantee of good business prospects. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Human Capital and Search-Based Discovery: A Study of High-Tech Entrepreneurship | Matthew R. Marvel | What types of knowledge and experience enable those who have the desire to start a venture find an appropriate opportunity? To respond to this question, a human capital perspective is used with a sample of 166 founders of new technology ventures in university incubators. General human capital is assessed using experience depth and formal education. Specific human capital is measured using prior start-up experience as well as Shane’s knowledge framework of markets, customer problems, and ways to serve markets. Findings reveal key aspects of human capital vital to explaining search-based discovery. Implications for research and entrepreneurship education are drawn. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| From Goldilocks to Gump: A Research Agenda for Entrepreneurial Mechanisms Design | Anusha Ramesh Saras Sarasvathy |
In this essay we argue that the exclusive focus on research aimed at isolating the characteristics of entrepreneurs as opposed to others, while intellectually exciting and even practically valuable, may have blinded us to another wholly new and exciting possibility – namely, the design of mechanisms that allow all kinds of individuals to start new ventures and provide useful and valuable tools to enable them and their stakeholders to build enduring organizations. The research stream on effectuation has identified a few of these mechanisms. By showing where effectuation may be located within the history of behavioral and experimental economics, we were led to the outline of at least three more mechanisms that could open the door to an entirely new research agenda on entrepreneurial mechanisms design that parallels the effort in experimental economics on economic systems design. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Founding Team Capabilities and New Venture Performance: The Mediating Role of Strategic Positional Advantages | Y. Lisa Zhao Michael Song Gregory L. Storm |
This study conceptualizes founding team human capital with three multi-item scales that are related to critical functional areas in new service ventures: marketing capabilities, market-linking capabilities, and service design capabilities. We develop and empirically test a theoretical framework linking founding team capabilities to service venture performance through two strategic positional advantages: scalability and protectability. Our results provide insight into previous inconsistent findings regarding founding teams’ impact on new venture performance, offer important managerial implications, and point to future research directions. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Exploring internal corporate venturing in SMEs: Effectuation at Work in a new context | M R Evald Martin Senderovitz |
Journal of Enterprising Culture | 2013 | ||
| Exploring Entrepreneurial Cognition in Franchisees: A Knowledge-Structure Approach | Kristie K Seawright Isaac H. Smith Ronald Mitchell Richard McClendon |
Franchisees participate in new business creation uniquely, because, in many respects, the development of their ventures is under the direction of franchisors. In this study, using entrepreneurial scripts, we compare the extent to which franchisee venturing is similar to and/or distinct from individual-based entrepreneurship in nonfranchise new ventures. We therefore examined the entrepreneurial scripts of individuals in a purposeful sample of 54 franchisees compared to two counterpart groups: 54 independent entrepreneurs and 94 managers (neither franchisee nor entrepreneur). Using MANCOVA and follow-up tests we find that franchisees are less like entrepreneurs and more similar to nonentrepreneur managers. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Ethnic entrepreneurship: the myths of informal and illegal enterprises in the UK | Sanya Ojo Sonny Nwankwo Ayantunji Gbadamosi |
This study, based on lived experiences of a sample of Nigerian entrepreneurs in the UK, provides an insight into why ethnic minority entrepreneurs work and feel justified in working outside the formal/legal structures regulated by government. It contributes an understanding of ethnic entrepreneurship at the periphery or grey zones of the market economy. Thirty Nigerian entrepreneurs based in London were interviewed over a period of 3 months, and their responses analysed for characterization of their entrepreneurial activities. It was found that besides their regular involvements in ?off-the-book? illicit deals, the demarcation between formal and informal entrepreneurial activities is blurred and not easily navigable. Importantly, the study explanatorily exposes the inherent myths of informal/illegal space associated with the study and power of entrepreneurship as an analytical concept. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | |
| Epistemology, Opportunities, and Entrepreneurship: Comments on Venkataraman et al. (2012) and Shane (2012) | Sharon Alvarez Jay Barney |
Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Entrepreneurship in action: bringing together the individual, organizational and institutional dimensions of entrepreneurial action | T J Waston | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Entrepreneurship and Strategy in Emerging Economies | Garry Bruton Igor Filatotchev STEVEN SI MIKE WRIGHT |
The goals of the special issue are to: (1) publish work that builds knowledge about the nature of strategic and entrepreneurial activities in emerging economies, as well as their antecedents and consequences; and (2) develop a theoretical foundation for future research. In this introduction to the special issue, we initially review the existing literature and the major definitions used to date for emerging economies. We then develop a framework for the analysis of where strategic entrepreneurship in emerging economies now stands that, in turn, allows us to develop an understanding of where the field needs to move in the future. We subsequently identify how each article in this special issue informs our research questions as we develop an agenda for future research. Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship and being: the case of the Shaws | Andrew Popp Robin Holt |
Our paper takes the case of John and Elizabeth Shaw, early nineteenth-century English hardware factors. The sources are almost 200 hundred letters written by the Shaws and their circle. Using these, two readings of the Shaws’ experiences of creating a business are presented. The first is couched within a narrative structure of plotted stages and finds the Shaws starting, struggling to, and ultimately succeeding in creating a successful business. Here, their actions within a nascent industrialized economy can be described as entrepreneurial ? they successfully pursued opportunity through founding an enterprise within economically and technologically auspicious environments. The second, more phenomenological reading, opens up for consideration the questionableness of their experience of ?being in business?. Here the Shaws’ understanding of themselves (as conveyed in personal letters) brings into question the academic tendency to emplot their story as one of the staged growth and profitability. Specifically, it resists attempts to ascribe to their experience entrepreneurial status, not simply because they did not think of themselves as entrepreneurs, but because the appearance of the business for the Shaws was woven with their lives in ways that belie the narrative direction and coherence that concepts like entrepreneurship give to it. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurs Under Uncertainty: An Economic Experiment in China | Hakan J Holm Sonja Opper Victor Nee |
This study reports findings from the first large-scale experiment investigating whether entrepreneurs differ from other people in their willingness to expose themselves to various forms of uncertainty. A stratified random sample of 700 chief executive officers from the Yangzi delta region in China is compared to 200 control group members. Our findings suggest that in economic decisions, entrepreneurs are more willing to accept strategic uncertainty related to multilateral competition and trust. However, entrepreneurs do not differ from ordinary people when it comes to nonstrategic forms of uncertainty, such as risk and ambiguity. This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics. | Management Science | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial marketing: Global perspectives | Zubin Sethna Rosalind Jones Paul Harrigan |
The Present study explores the interrelationships between entrepreneurial experience,explanatory style, and effectuation logic in an attempt to better understand the antecedents of entrepreneurial self-efficacy for policy and practice. This chapter contributes to the entrwpreneurship cognition literature by explicitly framing the interrelationship between entrepreneurial experience-creating of human/social capital, the two dimensions of explanatory style(optimism vs. pessimism),effectuation, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. In addition, this chapter enhances our understanding of thr cognitive conditions that facilitate business creation by proposing a theoretical framework and propositions to advance theory devlopment in entrepreneurial cognition and self-efficacy. | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| Entrepreneurial action and the Euro-American social science tradition: pragmatism, realism and looking beyond ‘the entrepreneur’ | Tony J Watson | Entrepreneurship studies are dominated by the disciplines of economics and psychology and work within a limiting methodological frame of reference; a ?scientistic? and individualistic framework that dominates the US-led mainstream of research. To achieve a more balanced scholarship, it is helpful to look at an alternative style of research and analysis which has deep and intertwined European and American roots. This looks to other social sciences such as sociology, as well as to history and the philosophy of science. Its adoption would encourage to shift the focus away from ?entrepreneurs? and onto the much broader phenomenon of entrepreneurial action or ?entrepreneuring? in its societal and institutional contexts. Such a shift would open up a greatly expanded range of research questions and enable a better balance to be achieved between attention to individual entrepreneurial actors and their organizational, societal and institutional contexts. A pragmatist and realist frame of reference, which recognizes both the importance of processes of social construction and the existence of a ?real world?, has considerable potential to enrich and expand the scope of entrepreneurship scholarship. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation and causation in entrepreneurship education | S.makimurto koivumaa Puhakka, Vesa |
Entrepreneurship refers to development and enactment of entrepreneurial opportunities at the intersection of venture creation and market creation. The present study approaches entrepreneurship education as effectuation of possible futures and causation of relevant knowledge in the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Through emphasis on the role of effectuation, a creative process view of entrepreneurship education is advocated. It builds on the cognitive and social-psychological schools of entrepreneurship and cognitive, contextual and creation views on entrepreneurial opportunities. As a result, we suggest a model in which effectuation could be used systematically together with causation in entrepreneurship education. Effectuation in entrepreneurship education is proposed to open a new pedagogic view and context to increase student awareness of their ability to create societal impact rather than to accomplish the effective establishment of a company. | International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing | 2013 | |
| Easy Now, Desirable Later: The Moderating Role of Temporal Distance in Opportunity Evaluation and Exploitation | Andranik Tumasjan Isabell Welpe Matthias Sporrle |
How does the temporal distance between the phases of evaluation and exploitation alter entrepreneurs’ opportunity evaluation? Building on construal level theory, we argue that the impact of an opportunity’s desirability and feasibility on evaluation and exploitation intentions varies systematically with temporal distance. We experimentally demonstrate stronger influences of desirability on evaluation when the exploitation phase is temporally distant rather than near, whereas feasibility more strongly affects evaluation when exploitation is near rather than distant. Using construal level theory, we explain empirical inconsistencies in previous research and demonstrate the usefulness of integrating the concept of temporal distance in entrepreneurship research and education. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Do serial entrepreneurs run successively better-performing businesses? | Simon Parker | This paper investigates whether – consistent with theories of entrepreneurial learning by doing and resource acquisition – serial entrepreneurs’ performance follows a rising trajectory over successive venturing spells. Or whether – consistent with theories of selective learning from failure and hubris – serial entrepreneurs perform better after experiencing a bad spell (and worse after experiencing a good spell). We test competing hypotheses about serial entrepreneurs’ performance trajectories using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, which track the dynamic performance of a sample of American serial entrepreneurs for up to one-quarter of a century. The findings show that serial entrepreneurs obtain temporary benefits from spells of venturing which eventually die away. This implies that venturing generates benefits which spill over from one venture into subsequent ones, and it can provide a rationale for public policies which encourage re-entries by entrepreneurs, even if those entrepreneurs performed poorly in their first ventures. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Do entrepreneurial goals matter? Resource allocation in new owner-managed firms | William Dunkelberg Carmen Moore Jonathan Scott William Stull |
This paper focuses on how entrepreneurial goals affect the resource allocation of new firm owners. It connects research in psychology and management that examines the core motivations of entrepreneurs with research in economics that models the behavior of owner-managers as utility-maximizing rather than profit-maximizing. We hypothesize that new owners with nonmonetary goals allocate their resources differently than do owners with monetary goals and that the differences are meaningful in size. To test these hypotheses, we estimate firm level equations based on economic theories of input demand that show how input quantities depend on owner goals. Data come from a national survey of new U.S. business owners. We find owner goals have both a statistically and substantively significant effect on resource allocation for new firms. Owners with nonmonetary goals put in more of their own and family hours rather than hiring outside employees. Implications for research and policy are discussed. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Cutting the Gordian knot: The effect of knowledge complexity on employee mobility and entrepreneurship | MARTIN GANCO | Employee entrepreneurship and employee moves to rival firms (employee mobility) have both been recognized as critical drivers of the transfer of knowledge. Drawing on a unique database of intra-industry inventor entrepreneurship and mobility events in the U.S. semiconductor industry, I examine the effect of the complexity of inventors’ prior patenting activities on their decisions to join a rival firm or found a start-up. The findings show that even though complexity inhibits knowledge diffusion to rival firms through employee mobility, complex knowledge may be underexploited within existing organizations and may still flow to startups through employee entrepreneurship. This study sheds new light on how technology shapes patterns of employee entrepreneurship and mobility, with implications for knowledge flows and competitive dynamics. | Strategic Management Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Crescive entrepreneurship in complex social problems: Institutional conditions for entrepreneurial engagement | Silvia Dorado Marc J. Ventresca |
This paper explores entrepreneurship in the context of complex social problems (often referred to as ‘social’ entrepreneurship). Most management research in this area studies the entrepreneurs; we explore the institutional conditions which frame the likelihood of entrepreneurial engagement. We name these conditions ‘crescive’ and, following A.O. Hirschman’s studies on institutional conditions for development we identify two analytically different sets of conditions: those that can stir up actors’ motivations to engage and those that can alter their decision making logic. Our exploration of crescive conditions yields a novel conceptual model for entrepreneurial engagement in the context of complex social problems, which we label ‘crescive entrepreneurship’ and place in a space between functionalist and institutional action. | Community | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Creating a community of difference in entrepreneurship scholarship | William B Gartner | This article argues for alternative forms of inquiry for exploring aspects of entrepreneurship scholarship that are often unseen, ignored or minimized. The label, ?The European School of Entrepreneurship?, might serve as a useful rubric for identifying a community of scholars with tendencies towards the following: (1) an interest in the history of ideas that inform entrepreneurship scholarship, (2) a willingness to step outside of the entrepreneurship field, itself, to embrace a variety of ideas, particularly from philosophy and the humanities and (3) a concern for the ?other?, so as to challenge the unspoken and often unrecognized ?taken-for-granted? aspects of what entrepreneurship is and what it might be. Such tendencies are fundamentally different by degree (rather than contrast) from current norms; yet, these tendencies can make a significant difference in current scholarly practice in entrepreneurship, as well as our understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomenon. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Counterfactual Thinking and Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy: The Moderating Role of Self-Esteem and Dispositional Affect | Punit Arora Michael Haynie Gregory A Laurence |
Scholars have suggested that counterfactual thinking may play an important role in entrepreneurship; however, empirical research positioned to inform the nature of this relationship has been equivocal. In this study, we draw on the tenets of social cognition theory as a basis to investigate the relationship between counterfactual thinking and the dispositional attributes of the entrepreneur, hypothesizing concomitant influences upon the entrepreneur’s self-efficacy. Based on a survey of 138 entrepreneurs, our findings suggest that the implications of counterfactual thinking for entrepreneurial self-efficacy are moderated by individual differences based in the dispositional attributes of the entrepreneur. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2013 | PDF Download |
| COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH ENTREPRENEURIAL DECISION-BEHAVIOR: EFFECTUATION FOR FAST PROBLEM-SOLVING (SUMMARY) | Matthias Blauth René Mauer |
Research on entrepreneurship has acknowledged the role of employee’s decision-behavior for creating competitive advantage through corporate entrepreneurship (Ireland et al., 2009). One source of competitive advantage is problem-solving speed, as it fosters the ability to develop and market innovative products in a timely manner (Atuahene-Gima and Wei, 2011). Problem-solving speed can be defined as the time needed to find, evaluate and implement an adequate solution to a particular problem (Atuahene-Gima and Li, 2004). In uncertain situations, traditional management methods based on causal logic come to their explanatory limits. Effectuation as logic of entrepreneurial decision-behavior delineates principles describing an alternative behavioral approach, focusing rather on control than on prediction (Sarasvathy, 2001). These principles are the starting point of venturing, the attitude towards risk, towards stakeholders and the attitude towards unexpected events. Building decisions on effectual logic in uncertain situations might explain the differences in problem-solving speed and thus uncover a novel source of competitive advantage. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Challenging the myths of entrepreneurship? | Alf Rehn Malin Brannback Alan Carsrud Marcus |
Entrepreneurship studies started out as a young field, one where a mix of economists, psychologists, geographers and the occasional anthropologist came together to study the wonder and weirdness that is entrepreneurship, in a wide range of fashions and with few a priori assumptions to hold it back. Today, some of this eclecticism lives on in the field, but at the same time we have seen that the field has matured and its popularity has led to the field becoming increasingly institutionalized – and thereby beset by an increasing number of assumptions, even myths. Consequently, this special issue queries some of the assumptions and potential myths that flourish in the field, inquiring critically into the constitution of entrepreneurship as a field of research – all in order to develop the same. Without occasions where a field can question even its most deeply held beliefs, we are at risk of becoming ideologically rather than analytically constituted, which is why we in this special issue wanted to create a space for the kind of critical yet creative play that e.g. Sarasvathy (2004) has encourages the field to engage with. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Career as Antecedent of Entrepreneurial Decision-making | Yuval Engel Emma Kleijn Svetlana Khapova |
This study explores how careers of entrepreneurs influence their preference for causal and effectual decision logics in the process of new venture creation. We adopt a qualitative research approach including verbal protocols and semi-structured interviews with a sample of 28 entrepreneurs. Based on our findings we propose a framework consisting of four different career profiles, which in turn, are related to a specific decision-making logic. In particular, we show how career properties, that are general, rather than specific to the domain of entrepreneurship, are distinctively related to effectuation and causation through their common foundation in the notions of prediction and control. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Bridging the Mutual Knowledge Gap: Coordination and the Commercialization of University Science | reddi kotha GERARD GEORGE KANNAN SRIKANTH |
We examine why commercialization of interdisciplinary research, especially from distant scientific domains, is different from commercialization of inventions from specialized or proximate domains. We argue that anticipated coordination costs arising from the need to transfer technology to licensee firms and from the need for an inventor team’s members to work together to further develop a technology significantly impact commercialization outcomes. We use a sample of 3,776 university invention disclosures to test whether variation in the types of experience of the scientists on a team influences the likelihood that an invention will be licensed. We proffer evidence to support our hypotheses that anticipated coordination costs influence whether an invention is licensed and that specific forms of team experience attenuate such coordination costs. The implications of these findings for theories of coordination, innovation, and entrepreneurship are discussed. | Academy of Management Journal | 2013 | PDF Download |
| An Exploration of The Cognitive Factors Involved in Learning from Failure | Brandon Mueller Dean Shepherd |
Failure has been consistently extolled as a fundamental learning experience in entrepreneurship. However, researchers acknowledge that this pervasive view of failure is supported in the literature almost solely on the basis of anecdotal evidence. This study empirically investigates the type of knowledge that can be learned through a failure experience as well as the factors that moderate the learning process. We find that business failure can help improve an entrepreneur’s ability to recognize business opportunities by enhancing their use of structural alignment processes. This relationship is particularly strong for those entrepreneurs operating with an intuitive cognitive style, utilizing expert opportunity prototypes, and relying less upon prior professional experience. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2013 | |
| An Entrepreneurial Perspective on Value Creation in Public-Private Ventures | Jeffery York Saras Sarasvathy Wicks Andrew C |
Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| A short note on entrepreneurship as method: a social enterprise perspective | Martie-Louise Verreynne Morgan P. Miles Candice Harris |
Abstract Recent work by Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 113–135, 2011) suggest that entrepreneurship may offer an alternative to the scientific method in solving some of the increasingly complex problems facing modern society. This paper adopts an entrepreneurial method framework to explore how social enterprises (SEs) can more efficiently and effectively provide goods and services to the needy. SEs have the potential to improve efficiency and effectiveness by innovating new products, processes, strategies, and/or business models to better meet their beneficiaries’ needs. Three case studies of SEs are used to explore the process and the outcomes of the entrepreneurial method. In addition, propositions are developed to illustrate the social and economic performance advantages of SEs and offer managerial implications for enhanced practice. | 2013 | PDF Download | |
| A NOTE ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS AN ALTERNATIVE LOGIC TO ADDRESS FOOD SECURITY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD | Laurie Bonney RAY COLLINS Morgan P. Miles Martie-Louise Verreynne |
The purpose of this paper is to explore an ongoing application of the entrepreneurial method applied to the problem of food security in the developing world as an alternative logic. Food production and marketing channels in the developing world are often based on scientific logic starting with an ideal outcome and then strategically designing a plan to achieve it. This study is unique in that it describes the application of an entrepreneurial approach to food product and marketing in less developed nations. A field study is used to illustrate how entrepreneurship is being harnessed to help build a more efficient and effective agricultural value chain in Papua New Guinea (PNG) based on a more entrepreneurial approach. Value chain analysis uses effectual logic to leverage innovation and create value for the consumer, the organization and society; thereby enhancing food security for the desperately poor in PNG. The use of the entrepreneurial method is offered as an alternative model for future international aid interventions and policy | Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship | 2013 | PDF Download |
| A Narrative Perspective on Entrepreneurial Opportunities. | Dr. Raghu Garud Antonio Paco Giuliani |
The article discusses entrepreneurial opportunities from a narrative perspective that is based on actor-network theory. The article notes the narrative perspective on entrepreneurial agency and entrepreneurial opportunities suggests there is an entrepreneurial journey in which discovery and creation are dynamic forces and meaning making results from an interaction of relational space and durational time when the past, present, and future are intertwined. The argument is supported with references to related research on topics such as the narrative inquiry research method and the source of emerging ideas. | Academy of Management Review | 2013 | PDF Download |
| A dynamic model of growth phases and survival in international business-to-business new ventures: The moderating effect of decision-making logic | M Gabrielsson P Gabrielsson |
The growth and survival of international new ventures (INVs) has not been the subject of extensive in-depth qualitative study and our understanding of their decision-making is deficient. On the basis of empirical analyses in a small and open economy, a dynamic model was developed that explains the growth phases through which INVs pass as they mature in the high-technology business-to-business field. The model also recognizes rapid advancement, survival crises, and retrenchment. Propositions were devised regarding the impact of opportunities, resources and capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation, and learning on growth phases and survival. A novel finding is that the decision-making logic moderates the impact of these factors. These findings have important implications for industrial marketing scholars and practitioners. | Industrial Marketing Management | 2013 | |
| A conceptual framework for entrepreneurship education policy: Meeting government and economic purposes | Dr Allan O'Connor | There is an increasing tendency for government policy to promote entrepreneurship for its apparent economic benefit. Accordingly, governments seek to employ entrepreneurship education as a means to stimulate increased levels of economic activity. However, the economic benefit of entrepreneurship education has proven difficult to substantiate. It is perceived that the problem is partly due to the multi-definitional perspectives of entrepreneurship. What stems from this is a lack of a theoretically sound conceptual grounding that will assist policy-makers and educators to locate a program within specific objectives. This article sets out an argument, extending from economic theory, to provide purpose for entrepreneurship education and proposes a policy framework supported by analysis of the Australian government policy context. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2013 | PDF Download |
| Worldmaking | Saras Sarasvathy | This chapter outlines a general framework for studying the entrepreneurial method. Simply put, what the scientific method has afforded us in terms of understanding the actual world we live in, the entrepreneurial method enables us in terms of making new ones. At least one key ingredient of the entrepreneurial method for worldmaking consists in the logic of effectuation identified through a decade long research program into the elements of entrepreneurial expertise. More specifically, given a world imbued with true uncertainty, the framework outlined here urges us to develop research streams focused on choosing between Type I and Type II errors in addition to ways of avoiding them altogether or finding the perfect Goldilocks balance between them. | 2012 | ||
| Whither the promise? Moving forward with entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial | Saras Sarasvathy S. Venkataraman Bill Forster |
In this article we speak of roads taken and paths yet to be traversed. Over the past decade, entrepreneurship researchers have accumulated considerable work related to opportunities. Here we outline new possibilities opened up by that work and seek to recast entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial in three ways: understanding opportunities as made as well as found, moving beyond new combinations to transformations, and developing a new nexus around actions and interactions. | Academy of Management Review | 2012 | |
| WHEN INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE OUTRUNS THE CHANGE AGENT: THE CONTESTED TERRAIN OF ENTREPRENEURIAL MICROFINANCE FOR THOSE IN POVERTY (SUMMARY) | Susanna Khavul Helmuth Chavez Garry Bruton |
Neoinstitutional theory emphasizes not only the embeddedness of organizational fields but also explains how change agents (institutional entrepreneurs) bring innovation to the institutional environment (Battilana, 2006; DiMaggio, 1988; Maguire, 2007; Ragud, Hardy, and Maguire, 2007; Pacheco, York, Dean, and Sarasvathy, 2010). In this paper, we take a process view of change that institutional entrepreneurs initiate and show that institutional entrepreneurship is itself a changing phenomenon (Hardy and Maguire, 2008). We develop a grounded theory model which suggests that the process of institutional change moves through stages that are punctuated by recurring attempts to formally redefine the boundaries and logics of the organizational fields which institutional entrepreneurs initially establish (Suddaby, Cooper, and Greenwood, 2007). | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| What Do Entrepreneurs Actually Do? An Observational Study of Entrepreneurs’ Everyday Behavior in the Start-Up and Growth Stages | Susan Mueller Thierry Volery Björn von Siemens |
In this study, we used the sociological method of structured observation to investigate the everyday behavior of six entrepreneurs in the start-up stage and six entrepreneurs in the growth stage. Our results suggest the existence of both commonalities and differences between these two stages with regard to activities, functions, exploration vs. exploitation, and communication. Building on these detailed observations, we develop a taxonomy specifying the constitutive elements of entrepreneurs’ behavior on a continuum that spans from single, discrete actions of entrepreneurs to actions concerning the broader organization. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| VALIDATING EFFECTUAL BEHAVIOR AS CORPORATE ORIENTATION: WHAT FIRMS CAN LEARN FROM START-UPS (SCALE DEVELOPMENT AND FIRST APPLICATIONS) (SUMMARY) | Dorothea Werhahn Malte Brettel |
Over the recent years, the concept of effectuation has received considerable attention in literature. Building on the seminal work of Sarasvathy (2001), effectuation was introduced as a decision process of expert entrepreneurs. This process includes specific entrepreneurial heuristics, which expert entrepreneurs have applied in the uncertain contexts of creating new products, new companies or new markets. However, it has been increasingly acknowledged that the domain of entrepreneurship and hence effectuation is no longer restricted to the independent new venture creation process (see Wortman, 1987; Low & MacMillan, 1988) and that organizations – per se – can behave in entrepreneurial manners (Jennings & Lumpkin, 1989). Therefore, we advance the concept of effectuation from the individual level to a firm level representing an overarching corporate orientation. On this level, effectuation can be understood as business philosophy, which is reflected in the activities and behaviors of a firm. Based on this theoretical delineation, we conduct a scale development process in order to explore which dimensions of effectual orientation may have a positive impact on performance (in specific circumstances). | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| The Role of Affect in the Creation and Intentional Pursuit of Entrepreneurial Ideas | Hayton, James C. Cholakova Magdalena |
The creation and intentional pursuit of entrepreneurial ideas lies at the core of the domain of entrepreneurship. Recent empirical work in a number of diverse fields such as cognitive psychology, social cognition, neuroscience, and neurophysiology all suggest that dual processes involving affect and cognition have a significant impact on judgment and decision making. Existing cognitive models ignore this significant role. In this article we develop a framework for understanding the role of affect on idea perception and the intention to develop the entrepreneurial idea. We present a set of testable propositions that link affect to entrepreneurial idea perception through its influence on attention, memory, and creativity. A second set of propositions links affect to the intention to pursue these ideas further. We explore the boundary conditions and moderators of the proposed relationships, and discuss the implications of this framework for existing cognitive and psychological perspectives on entrepreneurship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| The Nature of the Entrepreneurial Process: Causation, Effectuation, and Pragmatism, in Aard Groen, Ray Oakey, Peter Van Der Sijde, Gary Cook (ed.). | Jeroen Kraaijenbrink | New Technology-Based Firms in the New Millenium | 2012 | ||
| The influence of socio-cultural environments on the performance of nascent entrepreneurs: Community culture, motivation, self-efficacy and start-up success | CHRISTIAN HOPP Ute Stephan |
The importance of informal institutions and in particular culture for entrepreneurship is a subject of ongoing interest. Past research has mostly concentrated on cross-national comparisons, cultural values and the direct effects of culture on entrepreneurial behaviour, but in the main found inconsistent results. We add a fresh perspective to this research stream by turning attention to community-level culture and cultural norms. We hypothesize indirect effects of cultural norms on venture emergence: Community-level cultural norms (performance-based culture and socially supportive institutional norms) impact important supply-side variables (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial motivation) which in turn influence nascent entrepreneurs? success in creating operational ventures (venture emergence). We test our predictions on a unique longitudinal dataset, tracking nascent entrepreneurs? venture creation efforts over a five-year time span, and find evidence supporting them. Our research contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of how culture, in particular perceptions of community cultural norms, influences venture emergence. Based on these findings, we discuss how venture creation efforts can be supported. Our research highlights the embeddedness of entrepreneurial behaviour and its immediate antecedent beliefs in the local, community context. | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2012 | PDF Download |
| The Influence of Socio-Cultural Environments on the Performance of Nascent Entrepreneurs | Ute Stephan | The importance of informal institutions and particularly culture for entrepreneurship continues to attract attention. Past research mostly concentrates on cross-national comparisons, cultural values, and direct effects of culture on entrepreneurial behavior, but finds by and large inconsistent results. The present research adds a fresh perspective to this research stream by turning attention to community-level culture and cultural norms. We hypothesize indirect effects of cultural norms on venture emergence. In particular, community-level cultural norms (performance-based culture and socially-supportive institutional norms) impact important supply-side variables (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and motivation) which in turn influence nascent entrepreneurs’ success in creation operational ventures. We test our predications on a unique longitudinal data set tracking nascent entrepreneurs venture creation efforts over a time span of 5 years. Using an instrumental variable approach we find evidence supporting our predictions. Our research contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of how culture, in particular cultural norms, influence venture emergence and consequently how venture creation efforts can be supported. Taken together, our research highlights the embeddedness of entrepreneurial behavior and its immediate antecedent beliefs in the local, community context. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2012 | PDF Download |
| THE FRIEDMAN VS. FREEMAN CONTROVERSY – AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION WITH EARLY STAGE VENTURES (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | Ishrat Ali Saras Sarasvathy |
Milton Friedman argued that managers benefit their organization the most when they act for benefit of the shareholders. Ed Freeman and other stakeholder scholars argue back that to ensure long term sustainability, managers not only need to satisfy shareholder demands but they need to consider the impact of their actions on multiple stakeholder groups. Shareholder vs. stakeholder orientation and its importance for long term sustenance is a hotly debated topic. We expand on this debate by investigating value creation modalities in two different types of early stage ventures. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Text-analytic measurement of effectuation and causation orientations among small and global business managers. | Helge Helmersson J Mattsson |
We demonstrate how one can measure overall quality in texts gathered from interviews by means of PERTEX text analytic method. We compare text analytic measures and content for locally active Scandinavian small business managers and globally operating Indian IT managers when recapitulating the reasons behind company growth. Using Ward’s clustering method (J Am Stat Assoc 58:236–244, 1963) on a binary matrix for connections between textual components, we suggest using the ESS value from clustering to calculate AFFI as an overall measure of quality. By further splitting the AFFI into three sub-components we are also able to display the degree of fragmentation, focus and integration in the text. We show how AFFI measures differ between managers with a causation or effectuation orientation irrespective of their role as small business manager or as an established global manager. Hence, we posit that effectuation and causation orientations may be generic characteristic of managers in general. | Quality & Quantity | 2012 | |
| Technology-Market Combinations and the Identification of Entrepreneurial Opportunities: An Investigation of the Opportunity-Individual Nexus | Dean Shepherd Denis Gregoire |
Although prior research has highlighted that individuals differ in their ability to identify opportunities for entrepreneurial action, little attention has been paid to the effects that differences among opportunities may have on their initial identification. Integrating theoretical work on the nature of entrepreneurial opportunities with cognitive science research on the use of similarity comparisons in making creative mental leaps, we develop a model of opportunity identification that includes both the independent effects of an opportunity idea’s similarity characteristics and the interaction of these characteristics with an individual’s knowledge and motivation. We test this model with a within-subject experiment in which we asked two samples of entrepreneurs to form beliefs about opportunity ideas for technology transfer. Results indicate that the superficial and structural similarities of technology-market combinations impact the formation of opportunity beliefs and that individual differences in prior knowledge and entrepreneurial intent moderate these relationships. In addition to casting light on cognitive reasons why some entrepreneurial opportunities may be more or less difficult to identify, our theorizing and findings point toward reasoning strategies that may facilitate the identification of multiple (and potentially more valuable) opportunities, not only for new technologies, but also for new products, services, and/or business models. | Academy of Management Journal | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Start-Up Social Ventures: Blending Fine-Grained Behaviors From Two Institutions for Entrepreneurial Success | Aparna Katre Paul Salipante |
Social entrepreneurs develop market-driven ventures to produce social change; some succeed while others fail. This research advances our understanding of start-up behaviors of ventures that span nonprofit and for-profit institutional boundaries. A rigorous qualitative study of 23 social ventures reveals that entrepreneurs employ a blend of nonprofit and business venture behaviors, suggesting the importance of contextual factors. Only selective behaviors from each institution differentiate the successful from the struggling ventures. But while the higher level organizing tasks and activities of successful and struggling ventures may appear similar, fine-grained analyses of their behaviors show stark differences, emphasizing the need for such analyses. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Stakeholders and Marketing Capabilities in International New Ventures: Evidence from Ireland, Sweden and Denmark | Natasha Evers Svante Andersson Martin Hannibal |
Journal of International Marketing | 2012 | PDF Download | |
| Social Entrepreneurs as Institutionally Embedded Entrepreneurs: Toward a New Model of Social Entrepreneurship Education | ANNE-CLAIRE PACHE IMRAN CHOWDHURY |
Building upon recent developments in entrepreneurship education, we propose a novel framework for social entrepreneurship education founded upon a conception of social entrepreneurs as entrepreneurs embedded in competing institutional logics. Our model, in addition to teaching students “about” social entrepreneurship to allow them to acquire the knowledge and expertise required to successfully engage in social entrepreneurial activities, proposes to educate students “for” social entrepreneurship, by allowing them to acquire the skill of bridging three distinct and sometimes competing institutional logics: the social-welfare logic, the commercial logic, and the public-sector logic. To achieve this goal, we propose that social entrepreneurship education needs to make students aware of these different logics, to allow them to enact these competing logics and to enable them to combine logics when necessary to create innovative hybrid strategies. We explore how this overall strategy can be achieved by highlighting how various pedagogical tools can be adapted to contribute to each step. | Academy of Management Learning & Education | 2012 | PDF Download |
| RHS, Inc.: Innovation “Guiding” Agriculture | Mark Schenkel Jane Finley Wade Chumney |
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download | |
| RHS, Inc.: Innovation “Guiding” Agriculture | Mark Schenkel Jane Finley Wade Chumney |
RHS, Inc. presents the story of an agricultural equipment business initially founded in 1980 on Rick Heiniger’s personal experience and desire to improve his financial situation during challenging economic times. Having successfully expanded by leveraging technology through innovation over two decades, and most recently through a partnership with another venture, he now faced issues of how best to integrate the two entities to foster continued future successful growth. Despite his continued enjoyment in the process of building new businesses, he also wondered how his role as a leader would need to evolve. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | |
| Resource Mobilization in International Social Entrepreneurship: Bricolage as a Mechanism of Institutional Transformation | Geoffrey Desa | International entrepreneurs are often confronted with unfavorable normative, regulatory, and cognitive institutional environments. Those entrepreneurial firms that successfully navigate this uneven terrain appear to defy institutional constraint and create economic growth. Yet little is known about how ventures develop in unfavorable institutional environments, particularly in terms of social entrepreneurship. Contrary to the predominant view of resource mobilization, this article finds that social entrepreneurs confronted with institutional constraints engage in bricolage to reconfigure existing resources at hand. In the process, bricolage can act as a legitimating mechanism for institutional change. This article examines how regulatory, political, and technological institutions affect resource-mobilization in 202 technology social ventures from 45 countries. The implications for social entrepreneurship and for institutionally embedded entrepreneurial action are discussed. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | |
| Resource integration | M Kleinaltenkamp R J Brodie P Frow Hughes T L D Peters H Woratschek |
Marketing Theory | 2012 | ||
| Reflections on the 2010 AMR decade award: Whither the promise? Moving forward with entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial | Saras Sarasvathy S. Venkataraman Nick Dew |
In this article we speak of roads taken and paths yet to be traversed. Over the past decade, entrepreneurship researchers have accumulated considerable work related to opportunities. Here we outline new possibilities opened up by that work and seek to recast entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial in three ways: understanding opportunities as made as well as found, moving beyond new combinations to trans- formations, and developing a new nexus around actions and interactions. | Academy of Management Review | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Reflections on the 2010 AMR Decade Award: Delivering on the Promise of Entrepreneurship As a Field of Research | Scott Shane | I examine the impact of the 2010 AMR Decade Award article on the entrepreneurship field over the past ten years, identifying aspects of “The Promise of Entrepreneurship As a Field of Research” that have been largely accepted by the field, those that the field has challenged, and those that the field has found to be unclear. I also correct errors made in the earlier work and discuss how the field of entrepreneurship has evolved in response to the publication of the original article. | Academy of Management Review | 2012 | PDF Download |
| PRODUCT INNOVATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CAUSATION AND EFFECTUATION: THE CASE OF SMALL FIRMS IN THE SERVICE SECTOR (SUMMARY) | Gry Agnete Alsos Tommy Høyvarde Clausen |
Inspired by Schumpeter’s (1934) seminal analysis of the importance of entrepreneurs carrying out “new combinations” for economic development, later research has documented that young and small firms is a key source of new product innovations in the economy, and increasingly so (Acs & Audretsch, 2003). However, new and small firms may approach product innovation in different ways, some of them being markedly more innovative than others. Differences may be a result of different strategies or logics adopted by the entrepreneurs in creation and further development of their ventures. This study is motivated by recent research which has suggested that causation and effectuation represent two fundamentally different approaches for how new firms come into existence (Sarasvathy, 2001). Causation process takes a particular effect as given and focuses on selecting between means to create that effect while effectuation process refers to the choice between possible effects that can be created with given means. The purpose of this paper is to further examine the intersection between product innovation, and the logic entrepreneurs follow during business creation. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| PREDICTION VS. CONTROL: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS IN STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING UNDER UNCERTAINTY (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | Philipp Tillmanns René Mauer |
Entrepreneurial and corporate success is driven by creating unique competitive advantages. The process of strategy design is the crucial step in “matching” internal and external characteristics of the firm (Anderson & Paine, 1975). In an uncertain and dynamic environment, the choice of strategy design should be adapted according to the environment to achieve optimal performance (Selsky et al. 2007). Based on work by Sarasvathy (2001) on effectual entrepreneurs operating in highly uncertain environments Wiltbank, Dew and Read (2006) enhanced the strategy toolbox by clustering firm-level strategies along the dimensions of prediction and control. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| PLANNING THE UNKNOWN: THE SIMULTANEITY OF PREDICTIVE AND NON-PREDICTIVE ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGIES (SUMMARY) | Jeroen Kraaijenbrink Tiago Ratinho |
Entrepreneurship scholars have taken considerable interest in investigating which entrepreneurial strategies are effective. While some argue that planning is beneficial under certain conditions (e.g. Gruber, 2007), others have put forth notions such as bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005), improvisation (Kamoche, Cunha, & Cunha, 2003; Moorman & Miner, 1998) or effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001, 2008). Gradually, the debate on predictive vs. non-predictive strategies has become more nuanced and several authors have proposed the co-existence of both strategies. While potentially providing a resolution to the alleged conflict between seemingly opposing strategies, co-existing strategies raise further questions. Can entrepreneurs build on their means while setting a goal and a vision for the future? Is it possible to calculate expected returns and still draw affordable loss scenarios? Are entrepreneurs leveraging unexpected contingencies but at the same time trying to avoid them? In addressing these questions, this paper explores empirically the independence of two of the effectuation constructs (Sarasvathy, 2001, 2008): prediction vs. control and means-based vs. ends-based strategies. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Perspective, classification and concept in understanding entrepreneurship: comparing effectuation and entrepreneurial capacity. | Kevin Hindle Peter Moroz |
Advancing small business and entrepreneurship | 2012 | ||
| PERFORMANCE EFFECTS OF EFFECTUATION AND CAUSATION – THE MODERATING ROLE OF INNOVATIVENESS IN YOUNG VENTURES (SUMMARY) | Daniel Appelhoff | Most empirical research on effectuation is based on experiments or field studies (Chandler et al., 2009). Especially, the critical question “under what circumstances which types of processes provide particular advantages and disadvantages” remains empirically unanswered (Sarasvathy, 2001: 249). But it is exactly the relationship between effectuation, causation and performance that is of particular interest for both researchers and practitioners. Therefore, this study tackles the question: Do effectuation and causation predict performance in new ventures and do factors such as innovativeness moderate this relationship? The opinions regarding this question are diverse. Sarasvathy (2001) suggests that effectuation and causation do not predict performance directly, whereas Read et al. (2009) find three effectual principles positively and directly linked to performance in their meta-analytic review. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Opportunity recognition in social entrepreneurship: A thematic meta analysis | Othmar M Lehner Juha Kaniskas |
Opportunity recognition (OR) is at the very heart of entrepreneurship. However, research on OR in the context of social entrepreneurship is still in its early stages. First, this article identifies, codifies and analyses OR-relevant articles on social entrepreneurship (SE) through the lens of Sarasvathy’s three views of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. In the second step, statistical methods are applied on the results to indicate possible correlations among different schools of thought in SE and views on OR. OR in social ventures is found to be a prevalent topic in SE literature and differences in OR between social and commercial ventures are found. | The Journal of Entrepreneurship | 2012 | PDF Download |
| NEW VENTURE CO-CREATION: A STUDY OF EARLY STAKEHOLDERS AND THEIR INFLUENCE (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | raja Singaram Paul Bijleveld |
New ventures are born out of the labors of multiple actors (Gartner, Shaver, Gatewood, Katz, 1994). Venture co-creation is initiated by the selection of relevant stakeholders. Once ‘in’, these stakeholders exert considerable influence on the resources and offerings of the venture (Dew et al., 2005, Sarasvathy, 2008). A comprehensive process perspective that captures introduction of early stakeholders to one another leading to selection and commitment has been lacking so far. Present study addresses this gap by mapping the process of selection of a particular stakeholder into a new venture. It reports results from the first part of a longitudinal empirical study to build theory on new venture co-creation. Observable effects early stakeholders have upon the resources assembled coupled with their influence on product or service offering of the business is documented. Thus the specific research questions were: RQ#1: How does each stakeholder get selected in a new venture? RQ#2: How does each stakeholder influence: a) the resources available for the new venture and b) shape the product or service offering over time? | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Mission Drift Or Strategic Shift? Group Formation Strategies Within Meps. | V Chu B Luke |
Mission drift is a common criticism of microenterprise programs (MEPs) that target those likely to succeed rather than those most in need. This note examines approaches to group formation within international NGOs operating MEPs in Vietnam. A deliberate strategy of involving both poor and non-poor households in MEPs emerges through effectuation, learning from past challenges. This approach represents a shift in focus away from the extremely poor but presents a potential pathway for effective and sustainable poverty alleviation, if undertaken as part of an integrated program. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. | Journal of International Development | 2012 | |
| MAZES without minotaurs: Herbert Simon | Saras Sarasvathy | In this essay, I remember Herbert Simon as author of Sciences of the Artificial and my thesis advisor and collaborator. Even for a lifetime of deep insights into human behavior and its role in shaping the world we live in, Simons insight into the need for a whole new class of sciences is an astonishing one. The artificial is essential for entrepreneurship and for developing an organization-centric view of markets and economies. | 2012 | ||
| Marketing Amid the Uncertainty of the Social Sector: Do Social Entrepreneurs Follow Best Marketing Practices? | Scott L. Newbert | Journal of Public Policy & Marketing | 2012 | PDF Download | |
| La dérive “situationniste”. Le plus court chemin pour apprendre à entreprendre? | Sylvain Bureau Jacqueline Fendt Jacqueline Fendt |
Les formations en entrepreneuriat au sein des écoles de commerce et à l’université semblent déconnectées des pratiques réelles des entrepreneurs. La pédagogie traditionnelle demande aux étudiants d’appliquer des connaissances présentées dans le cadre de cours théoriques, dans un contexte prévisible où le raisonnement causal standard est parfaitement adapté. Les auteurs proposent de construire de nouvelles situations d’apprentissage basées sur la théorie de l’effectuation et sur une expérimentation, la dérive, fondée sur les travaux de l’Internationale Situationniste. Ils montrent comment ce dispositif permet d’apprendre à entreprendre. | Revue française de gestion | 2012 | |
| Innovation for Inclusive Business: Intrapreneurial Bricolage in Multinational Corporations | Minna Halme Sara Lindeman Paula Linna |
It is often argued that multinational corporations (MNCs) are in a unique position to innovate business models that can help to alleviate poverty. This empirical study into intra-organizational aspects of pro-poor business innovation in two MNCs suggests, however, that certain elements of their management frameworks – such as short-term profit interests, business unit based incentive structures, and uncertainty avoidance – may turn into obstacles that prevent MNCs from reaching their full potential in this respect. We introduce the concept of intrapreneurial bricolage to show how middle manager innovators may promote pro-poor business models despite these obstacles. We define intrapreneurial bricolage as entrepreneurial activity within a large organization characterized by creative bundling of scarce resources, and illustrate empirically how it helps innovators to overcome organizational constraints and to mobilize internal and external resources. Our findings imply that intrapreneurial bricolage may be of fundamental importance in MNC innovation for inclusive business. In addition to the field of inclusive business, this study has implications for the study of bricolage in large organizations and social intrapreneurship, as well for managerial practice around innovation for inclusive business. | Journal of Management Studies | 2012 | PDF Download |
| In the eye of the beholder: How regulatory focus and self-efficacy interact in influencing opportunity recognition | Andranik Tumasjan Reiner Braun |
Although there is evidence that regulatory focus is associated with opportunity exploitation, there is a lack of research examining its role at the early stages of opportunity recognition. The present study makes two major contributions to address this gap. First, we demonstrate that entrepreneurs’ promotion focus is positively related to opportunity recognition, whereas prevention focus is not significantly related to opportunity recognition. Second, integrating two theories of self-regulation – regulatory focus theory and self-efficacy theory – our findings reveal that a high promotion focus compensates for entrepreneurs’ low levels of creative and entrepreneurial self-efficacy in opportunity recognition. Our study extends extant cognitive theories of opportunity recognition. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Identity in entrepreneurship effectuation theory: a supplementary framework | Suna Lowe Nielsen Astrid Heidemann Lassen |
The article proposes a new framework on identity construction in entrepreneurship that in valuable ways supplements the logic of identity presented in Sarasvathy’s (2001, 2008) popular effectuation theory. Effectuation theory assumes that identity is a given and relative stable precondition of the entrepreneurial process that support the entrepreneur in ordering preferences in the process of effectuating resources, stakeholder commitment, etc.. The article shows that identity construction is an active and integral part of the effectuation process, and it importantly influences the manner in which the entrepreneur acts and makes decisions in the process. The article seeks to challenge and advance effectuation theory’s view on identity based on a narrative study of ten novice student entrepreneurs. The study gives insight into the identity processes involved in becoming a student entrepreneur, and it may serve as a guide to how entrepreneurship educators and counselors can place more emphasis on identity related struggles involved in the entrepreneurial effectuation process. | International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal | 2012 | |
| How do Developing Country Entrepreneurs Navigate Extreme Institutional Voids? | Ajnesh Prasad | Extending previous research on institutional voids within emerging economies, we propose for more scholarly attention to the study of ‘extreme institutional voids’–institutional environments that have simultaneous formal and informal institutional voids, which compromise the ability for robust institutions to compensate for weak institutions. Departing from previous work that has largely emphasized multinational enterprise strategies amidst formal voids, we explore the acute entrepreneurial dilemmas faced by indigenous entrepreneurs operating in regions impaired by challenges of individual mobility, security, and justice. By investigating these settings, we gain a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurship unfolds without clear guidance from institutions. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Framing the Entrepreneurial Experience | Michael Morris Kuratko Donald F. minet schindehutte Spivack, April J. |
Building on affective events theory (AET), an experiential perspective for conceptualizing entrepreneurship is introduced. As a “lived experience,” entrepreneurship represents a cumulative series of interdependent events that takes on properties rooted in affect and emotion. Unique characteristics of entrepreneurial experiences are examined. The entrepreneur is presented as actor in an unscripted temporal performance who continually encounters novelty. A model and set of propositions are presented linking pre-venture experience, key events, experiential processing, learning, affective outcomes, and decision making. It is argued that the entrepreneur and venture emerge as a function of ongoing experience, with the venture creating the entrepreneur as the entrepreneur creates the venture. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Failing firms and successful entrepreneurs: Serial entrepreneurship as a temporal portfolio. | Saras Sarasvathy Anil menon |
A detailed review of four literatures, namely, (1) Industrial organization, (2) Population ecology, (3) Labor and micro economics, and (4) Entrepreneurship, suggests that entrepreneurial performance is almost always confounded with firm performance. Serial entrepreneurial experience is at best seen as one of the inputs into firm performance. In this paper we argue for an instrumental view of the firm by formally showing that entrepreneurs can amplify their expected success rates (as compared to firm success rates) by exploiting contagion processes embedded in serial entrepreneurship. The advantages to holding concurrent portfolios that exploit heterogeneity are well known. The same advantages may be achieved in the serial context through contagion. Our model exploits an observation due to William Feller on the near equivalence of the two, statistically speaking. It also leads to empirically sound implications about the size distribution of firms in the economy and suggests more nuanced approaches toward future research. For example, both failed firms and successful ones entail useful learning effects and path dependencies in the careers of serial entrepreneurs. | 2012 | ||
| Extending Women’s Entrepreneurship Research in New Directions | Karen D Hughes Jennifer E Jennings Candida Brush Sara Carter Friederike Welter |
The dramatic expansion of scholarly interest and activity in the field of women’s entrepreneurship within recent years has done much to correct the historical inattention paid to female entrepreneurs and their initiatives. Yet, as the field continues to develop and mature, there are increasingly strong calls for scholars to take their research in new directions. Within this introduction to the special issue, we expand upon the reasons for this call, describe who responded, and summarize the new frontiers explored within the work appearing in this and another related collection. We conclude by delineating new territories for researchers to explore, arguing that such endeavors will join those in this volume in not only addressing the criticisms raised to date, but also in generating a richer and more robust understanding of women’s entrepreneurship. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Exploring the Problem-Finding and Problem-Solving Approach for Designing Organizations | Jackson A. Nickerson C. James Yen Joseph T. Mahoney |
An emerging problem-finding and problem-solving approach suggests that management’s ability to discover problems to solve, opportunities to seize, and challenges to respond to is vital to organizations. This paper explores the extent to which the problem-finding and problem-solving approach can provide a foundation for joining the capabilities, dynamic capabilities, and governance perspectives as a way to help scholars and practitioners to coherently design organizations from the perspective of design science. The problem-finding and problem-solving approach offers a unit of analysis and a set of behavioral assumptions that enable us to address open questions within the extant literature and to propose new questions in management research. | The Academy of Management Perspectives | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Experience, effectuation, and something good does the use of effectuation lead to positive outcomes | T E Nelson | The theory of effectuation is ascending in entrepreneurship education. Hundreds of articles have been written on the topic. Many textbooks mention the theory, and one college level textbook teaches entrepreneurship entirely from an effectual perspective. Given its acceptance, the natural assumption is that effectuation is somehow ‘good.’ That is, there is some unique benefit that an entrepreneur gains from using effectuation. This dissertation examines the concept of effectuation, and its value to entrepreneurship. It seeks to determine if entrepreneurs who use effectual logic outperform entrepreneurs who don’t. Four hundred and fifty entrepreneurs across three states are surveyed to determine if and how much they effectuate, their business’s performance, and their satisfaction with their business’s performance, as well as their lives overall. Findings indicate that entrepreneurs with more experience adopt the effectual idea of seeking out pre-commitments before starting a new venture. Findings also indicate that the entrepreneur’s perception of his business’s financial performance is positively related to his or her inclination to experiment, be flexible, and to evaluate business opportunities by considering how much he or she can afford to lose. | University of Louisville | 2012 | |
| Entrepreneurship education and context | Claire Leitch Shirley-Anne Hazlett Pittaway Luke |
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 2012 | PDF Download | |
| Entrepreneurship as everyday practice: towards a personalized pedagogy of enterprise education | Per Blenker Signe Hedeboe Frederiksen Steffen Korsgaard Sabine Mueller Helle Neergaard Claus Thrane |
Adopting the perspective of ‘entrepreneurship as an everyday practice’ in education, the authors conceptualize opportunities as arising from the everyday practice of individuals. Opportunities are thus seen as emanating from the individual entrepreneur’s ability to disclose anomalies and disharmonies in their personal life. The paper illustrates how opportunities unfold depending on regional differences, local heritage and gender, to show how entrepreneurship education must take into account differences in context, culture and circumstance. Rather than perceiving entrepreneurship education as universalistic and searching for a generally applicable teaching approach, the authors argue that there is a need to tailor entrepreneurship education to the particular. They therefore propose that the pedagogy of entrepreneurship education should be personalized and they build a conceptual framework that contrasts two opposing views of entrepreneurship education: ‘universalistic’ and ‘idiosyncratic’. Following this distinction, they explore how different elements of entrepreneurship education may be fitted to the particular needs of each individual learner. This insight is relevant for didactic reflections on single entrepreneurship courses and for the construction of an entrepreneurship education curriculum. | Industry and Higher Education | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurship as a Process: Toward Harmonizing Multiple Perspectives | Peter Moroz Kevin Hindle |
Are there any common denominators within the diversity of entrepreneurship literature that may serve as foundations for understanding the entrepreneurial process in a systematic and comprehensive way that is useful to both scholars and practitioners? The objective of this paper was to discover about the entrepreneurial process what, if anything, is both generic (all processes that are “entrepreneurial” do this) and distinct (only entrepreneurial processes do this). Our approach was to evaluate published models of entrepreneurial process to discover what scholars have argued about what entrepreneurs do and how they do it (the processes they use) and to seek out any key commonalities that scholars claim are associated with the phenomenon. Unfortunately for the field, the investigation demonstrates that, as at the time of our investigation, the 32 extant models of entrepreneurial process are highly fragmented in their claims and emphases and are insufficient for establishing an infrastructure upon which to synthesize an understanding of entrepreneurial process that is both generic and distinct. Insights gained in the study lead to suggestions for future research and theory development of which the most urgent is the need to develop a single harmonized model of entrepreneurial process capable of embracing the best of what is on offer and adding new theoretical arguments in areas where practice shows that they are lacking. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial Effectuation: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research | John Perry Gaylen Chandler Gergana Markova |
Effectuation represents a paradigmatic shift in the way that we understand entrepreneurship. Since its introduction, however, few researchers have attempted to empirically test effectuation. Our purpose is to encourage effectuation research. To do so, we review the effectuation literature and make suggestions for how to design and conduct empirically rigorous effectuation studies consistent with the developmental state of the research stream. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Entrepreneurial alertness in the pursuit of new opportunities | Jintong Tang K. Michele(Micki) Kacmar Lowell Busenitz |
The recognition and development of new opportunities are at the heart of entrepreneurship. Building from Kirzner’s (1973, 1999) work, cognition theory, and McMullen and Shepherd’s (2006) recent development, we offer a model involving three distinct elements of alertness: scanning and search, association and connection, and evaluation and judgment. We then conduct multiple studies to develop and validate a 13-item alertness scale that captures these three dimensions. Results demonstrate appropriate dimensionality, strong reliability, and content, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The resultant instrument provides researchers with a valuable tool for probing the entrepreneurial opportunity development process including antecedents and outcomes. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation, Causation, and Bricolage: A Behavioral Comparison of Emerging Theories in Entrepreneurship Research | Greg Fisher | This study provides a critical examination of how different theoretical perspectives in entrepreneurship research translate into individual behavior, and whether such behavior is evident in the creation and development of new ventures. Using an alternative templates research methodology, the behaviors underlying the theories of effectuation, causation, and bricolage are evaluated to see whether such behaviors are observable in case study data describing the early development of six new ventures. The analysis highlights behavioral similarities and differences between the various theoretical perspectives in entrepreneurship research, providing insight into how these perspectives contrast and complement one another, and how they could be integrated in future research. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Effectuation 10 year waypoint | Stuart Read S Dolmans |
International Review of Entrepreneurship | 2012 | ||
| DYNAMICS OF EFFECTUATION AND CAUSATION IN TECHNOLOGY-BASED NEW VENTURES (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | Isabelle Reymen René Mauer Petra Andries Ute Stephan Elco van Burg |
The creation of new ventures is a process characterized by the need to decide and take action in the face of uncertainty, and this is particularly so in the case of technology-based ventures. Effectuation theory (Sarasvathy, 2001) has advanced two possible approaches for making decisions while facing uncertainty in the entrepreneurial process. Causation logic is based on prediction and aims at lowering uncertainty, whereas effectuation logic is based on non-predictive action and aims at working with uncertainty. This study aims to generate more fine-grained insight in the dynamics of effectuation and causation over time. We address the following questions: (1) What patterns can be found in effectual and causal behaviour of technology-based new ventures over time? And (2) How may patterns in the dynamics of effectuation and causation be explained? | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Doing the Right Entrepreneurial Thing: Ethical Decision Making Under Uncertainty | desmond ng | Are entrepreneurs more or less ethical than other business agents? How do individual biases and environmental characteristics affect ethical decision-making among entrepreneurs? Our conceptual framework builds on literatures in stakeholder theory and cognitive psychology to examine the effects of complexity and novelty on biases in an entrepreneur’s ethical judgment. And in using data from the World Values Survey, we find not only that entrepreneurs exhibit systematically lower levels of ethical judgments than business managers, but also that such differences are amplified by highly complex and, in part, novel decision settings. Such a finding raises important questions about the moral expectations that society places on entrepreneurs. | Academy of Management Proceedings | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Designing a Better Business School: Channelling Herbert Simon, Addressing the Critics, and Developing Actionable Knowledge for Professionalizing Managers | Denise M. Rousseau | Herbert Simon’s 1967 article ‘The business school: a problem in organizational design’ anticipated many of the challenges business schools face today. Critics charge business schools with failing to realize their primary purpose, that is, to produce professional managers. This article revisits what Simon advocated with regard to a core feature of this professionalism, the production of essential management knowledge, and the process of educating people in applying it. With Simon as a guide, this article outlines educational and research interventions to help business schools realize their founding purpose. In doing so, it addresses the distinctive knowledge products that business school research can contribute to the management profession. This article also highlights the key role that evidence-based management and the related practices of design science play in providing a more complete solution to the design problem Simon identified. | Journal of Management Studies | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Decision-making processes in biotech commercialization: Constraints to effectuation. | Elicia Maine Pek-Hooi Soh N Dos Santos |
This research explores two entrepreneurial decision-making processes utilizing effectuation and causation modes in the context of new venture creation in the biotechnology industry. Using a case study approach, we investigate the evolution of three biotech ventures from the start of the venture, featuring major decisions over a period of 10 to 20 years. Assessment of qualitative interviews with founders and CEOs demonstrates that, initially, each company began in effectuation mode and, over time, transitioned to a spectrum between effectuation and causation. The two ventures which retained effectuation logic did not engage in clinical trials. Decision making processes in this study illustrate the interplay between entrepreneurs’ ability to manage technological and market uncertainty and circumstantial changes arising from change leadership, venture capital funding and development of lead candidates in the clinical stage of product development. | Technology Management for Emerging Technologies (PICMET) | 2012 | |
| Creating major innovations with customers: insights from small and young technology firms | Nicole Coviello R M Joseph |
The marketing literature typically argues that customers cannot easily be involved with, and contribute to, the creation of major innovation (MI). This article finds otherwise. The authors use an inductive process method to study how six MIs were developed for business-to-business markets by small and young technology firms. Three of the MIs were successful, and three failed. The firms with MI success are distinguished by a nonconventional new product development process that includes five iterative and overlapping activities and up to ten different customer roles. These activities and roles are captured in a multifaceted taxonomy of customer participation. The analysis also uncovers three capabilities relevant to the development of successful MI—capabilities that are effectual rather than adaptive in nature. These findings and the propositions derived from them offer a more complete understanding of customer participation, new product development across contexts, and marketing capabilities. | Journal of Marketing | 2012 | PDF Download |
| CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP INVESTMENT DECISIONS UNDER UNCERTAINTY (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | Maribel Guerrero José L. Gonzalez inaki pena |
The rejuvenation of a company’s core competences may occur through organic growth or by expansion via spin-offs. Indeed, corporate entrepreneurship often entails opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking activities, which lead to supra-normal profits in the long run. Usually, the strategic decision to strengthen corporate core competencies either internally or externally must be reached under uncertain investment conditions. However, little is known of the process by which such company-unique competences are deployed from the parent company to the spin-off venture. We examine this unexplored issue by drawing upon effectuation and real option theories and to gain a better understanding of how parent companies create and develop spin-offs under uncertain investment conditions in order to build up organizational core competences (Narayanan et al., 2009). We believe that the foundations of both domains, effectuation and real option theories, are useful to explain whether parent companies show a “pro-active and deterministic” investment behavior or a “re-active and flexible” investment behavior at the time of launching and developing spin-offs (McGrath, 1997; Sarasvathy, 2001;). | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Corporate effectuation: Entrepreneurial action and its impact on R&D project performance. | Malte Brettel René Mauer A Engelen Daniel Kupper |
Innovative products are widely recognized as an important source of competitive advantage. However, many companies have difficulties finding efficient and successful approaches to different types of R&D projects, particularly those that involve a high level of innovativeness. Therefore, the present study moves effectuation theory from the entrepreneurial context to R&D research. First, the characteristics of an effectual approach in the context of R&D projects are developed and differentiated from those of conventional prediction-based strategies (causation). Second, using a thorough qualitative and quantitative scale-development process to capture particularities of effectual and causal dimensions in the R&D context, expert interviews and a pilot study (123 R&D projects), the study develops a multi-factor measurement model of effectuation and causation. These measures are validated in a follow-up study with a larger sample of 400 projects. Third, the new measures are applied to test two central hypotheses: (a) effectuation is positively related to success in highly innovative contexts, (b) causation approaches are beneficial in projects with low levels of innovativeness. Overall, this study moves the effectuation logic from the entrepreneurial to the corporate R&D context, captures its particularities, and investigates its performance outcomes. | Journal of Business Venturing | 2012 | PDF Download |
| COGNITIVE ROOTS OF CAUSAL AND EFFECTUAL INTERPLAY DURING VENTURE DEVELOPMENT (SUMMARY) | Natalie den Engelse raja Singaram John Ettlie |
Effectuation has been proposed as an alternative decision-making approach that takes into account the cognitive implications of uncertainty and the consequent constraints it places on both information processing and the use of planning heuristics in entrepreneurship (Gregoire et al., 2011). Effectuation is contrasted with causation, which represents the rational decision-making approach. Although individuals can use both causal and effectual reasoning at different times during venture development, prior research finds that entrepreneurs do not transition well between the modes (Sarasvathy, 2008). Literature has not sufficiently addressed the reasons that underlie an entrepreneur’s tendency towards a causal or effectual approach. Considering that both approaches are believed to fundamentally refer to cognitive processes, our study probes the cognitive roots of causal and effectual logics. This paper attempts to study how entrepreneurs’ stable psychological attributes such as thinking style influence entrepreneurial decision-making behaviors associated with the causal and effectual logics. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Cognitive Adaptability and an Entrepreneurial Task: The Role of Metacognitive Ability and Feedback | Michael Haynie Holger Patzelt |
To sense and adapt to uncertainty by leveraging prior entrepreneurial knowledge is a critical ability. However, for many individuals, prior entrepreneurial knowledge is absent or underdeveloped. We investigate the ability of individuals without prior entrepreneurial knowledge to effectively adapt decision policies in response to feedback, while performing an entrepreneurial task. We model 10,000 “entrepreneurial decisions” nested within 217 individuals, to demonstrate how differences in metacognitive ability and feedback type promote (or alternatively impede) cognitive adaptability. Our findings suggest insights into the interplay between knowledge, learning, and cognition that are generalizable to activities and actions central to the entrepreneurial process. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Co-creating a course ahead from the intersection of service-dominant logic and effectuation | Saras Sarasvathy Stuart Read |
Marketing Theory | 2012 | PDF Download | |
| CELEBRITY RESTAURATEURS: NARRATIVES OF ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT (INTERACTIVE PAPER) | Magdalena Markowska | Institutional changes within the restaurant industry increased chefs’ autonomy and enabled their creative freedom, turning some of them into entrepreneurs (Rao, Monin & Duran, 2003). But, these changes created also the need to develop the ability to reconcile the professional, artistic and business tensions by chefs (Gillespie, 1994). Consequently, the fine dining segment became innovative and entrepreneurial, and the phenomenon of celebrity restaurateur emerged. Competence reflects the capacity to effectively interact with one’s environment (Johannisson, 1991). Gaining entrepreneurial competence requires restaurateurs to build capacity to create new means-ends frameworks and successfully deliver them to the market (Sarasvathy, 2001). While research showed that role models and achievement motivation facilitate the process, the understanding how this process occurs remains under-theorized. Hence, this paper explores how role models and achievement motivation facilitate entrepreneurial competence attainment. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Capital Is Not Enough: Innovation in Developing Economies | Jeffery McMullen Kendall Artz Steve W Bradley Edward M. Simiyu |
Economic development and social entrepreneurship often conceive of poverty as a resource allocation problem in which a lack of capital prevents the poor from increasing their income through entrepreneurship. This allocative view, however, represents only one possible approach to conceptualizing entrepreneurial opportunity. The alternative discovery- and creativity-based views place a greater emphasis on innovation which implies that superior ideas are also needed if poverty is to be reduced through firm performance. Drawing from a survey of 201 small business owners involved in a microcredit programme in Nairobi, Kenya, we find that the financial, social, human capital–performance relationships are mediated in part by innovation. Further, we find that differentiation-related innovations lead to better firm performance than novelty-related innovations. | Journal of Management Studies | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Capability Development and Decision Incongruence in Strategic Opportunity Pursuit | Dean Shepherd J. Robert Mitchell |
In strategic opportunity pursuit, decision incongruence (the gap between the decision-making rationale that an individual conveys to others and the rationale that informs his/her actual decisions) can lead to difficulties achieving the commitment necessary to grow a venture. To understand why some individuals have greater decision incongruence in strategic opportunity pursuit than others, we conducted a field experiment to test how a configuration of theoretically-based capability-building mechanisms—codification, general human capital, and specific human capital—affected 127 CEOs’ decision incongruence. The results indicate that codification decreases decision incongruence the most for CEOs with low general but high specific human capital. Copyright © 2012 Strategic Management Society. | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Building Inclusive Markets in Rural Bangladesh: How Intermediaries Work Institutional Voids | Johanna Mair IGNASI MARTÍ Marc J. Ventresca |
Much effort goes into building markets as a tool for economic and social development; those pursuing or promoting market building, however, often overlook that in too many places social exclusion and poverty prevent many, especially women, from participating in and accessing markets. Building on data from rural Bangladesh and analyzing the work of a prominent intermediary organization, we uncover institutional voids as the source of market exclusion and identify two sets of activities—redefining market architecture and legitimating new actors—as critical for building inclusive markets. We expose voids as analytical spaces and illustrate how they result from conflict and contradiction among institutional bits and pieces from local political, community, and religious spheres. Our findings put forward a perspective on market building that highlights the on-the-ground dynamics and attends to the institutions at play, to their consequences, and to a more diverse set of inhabitants of institutions. | Academy of Management Journal | 2012 | PDF Download |
| ANTECEDENTS OF CONFLICT IN THE ENTREPRENEUR-INVESTOR RELATIONSHIP: AN EFFECTUATION PERSPECTIVE (SUMMARY) | Malte Brettel Daniel Appelhoff |
Venture capital firms (VCFs) play an important role for new ventures and a cooperative working relationship is fundamental (Cable & Shane, 1997). At the same time, their relationship bears significant potential for conflict (Yitshaki, 2008). Conflict between entrepreneurs and their investors only gains attention recently (e.g. Collewaert, 2011; Zacharakis et al., 2010; Higashide & Birley, 2002) and very little is known about specific causes of conflict. We choose the theory of effectuation as a framework to investigate the antecedents of task conflict. Sarasvathy (2001) revealed that entrepreneurs regularly follow principles of effectuation when starting their businesses and the work of Wiltbank & Sarasvathy (2002) suggests diversity in the application of effectuation and causation for investors as well. Therefore this study aims to shed light on the question which and why specific dimensions of effectuation and causation lead to conflict between entrepreneurs and VCFs. | Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Antecedents and consequences of effectuation and causation in the international new venture creation process. | Rainer Harms Holger Schiele |
The selection of the entry mode in an international market is of key importance for the venture. A process-based perspective on entry mode selection can add to the International Business and International Entrepreneurship literature. Framing the international market entry as an entrepreneurial process, this paper analyzes the antecedents and consequences of causation and effectuation in the entry mode selection. For the analysis, regression-based techniques were used on a sample of 65 gazelles. The results indicate that experienced entrepreneurs tend to apply effectuation rather than causation, while uncertainty does not have a systematic influence. Entrepreneurs using causation-based international new venture creation processes tend to engage in export-type entry modes, while effectuation-based international new venture creation processes do not predetermine the entry mode. | Journal of International Entrepreneurship | 2012 | PDF Download |
| An Alternative to Business Plan Based Advice for Start-ups? | Simon Bridge Cecilia Hegarty |
Business plans are advocated by many business support professionals and others, such as educators in higher education institutions, because they suit their purposes. A typical view is that a business plan is ?one of the most important steps in setting up any new business? (Burns, 2011); but their hegemony is now being questioned. Sarasvathy (2008) suggests that effectuation is the method often favoured by expert entrepreneurs and this paper seeks to combine it with an exploration view of entrepreneurship to produce an alternative tool for start-up ventures. The paper compares the pros and cons of each approach and suggests that an exploration approach is often more natural, logical and effective than the business plan based alternative. | Industry and Higher Education | 2012 | PDF Download |
| Advancing entrepreneurial marketing: Evidence from born global firms. | Gillian Sullivan Mort Mort Jay Weerawardena Peter Liesch |
European Journal of Marketing | 2012 | ||
| A Three-Path Model of New Venture Creation: An Image Theory Perspective. | Tobias Huning Phil Bryant Steven Brown |
Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship | 2012 | ||
| A Dialogue With William J. Baumol: Insights on Entrepreneurship Theory and Education | Mark Griffiths Jill Kickul Sophie Bacq Siri Terjesen |
This interview and commentary addresses key issues in entrepreneurship by highlighting William Baumol’s contributions and his personal insights. We emphasize the multilevel approach that entrepreneurship research should adopt, and that assumptions underlying the research are too often unstated, rendering comparison between studies difficult. Baumol argues for more experimentation and government support of research on ways to improve the teaching of innovative entrepreneurship, since there is little evidence on what works and what does not. The discussion stresses that entrepreneurship is a multifaceted phenomenon that varies depending on context, the level of innovation, and its impact on society. Consequently, entrepreneurship research requires the development of an encompassing paradigm, appropriate educational methods, and study of the institutions that provide the most desirable incentives. | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | 2012 | PDF Download |
| A cognitive approach for analyzing the influence of effectual network on entrepreneurs actions | Faiez Ghorbel Younes Boujelbene |
Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business | 2012 |