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This paper proposes a model of entrepreneurial action that integrates three distinct elements. First, it brings together action and time to articulate a recursive relationship between perception and action, mediated by consequences. Second, it brings together action and context to ground the entrepreneur’s perceptions and actions in a mesh of social orders and practices. Third, it articulates the content of perceptions and actions as discursive entries and exits in a social language game of giving and asking for reasons. We discuss a number of implications for a systematic understanding of different manifestations of entrepreneurship.

In spite of substantial advances, entrepreneurship research on affect and cognition remains characterized by a multiplicity of theoretical approaches, methods, variables and measures. Although this multiplicity affords a lot of richness, it also poses potential risks – from the lack of a coherent knowledge base to the dangers of an atomistic evolution, with minimum exchanges between ‘siloed’ groups of scholars, limited theoretical integration and increased chances of redundant repetitions without real advances in understanding. To help guard against these risks and in order to augment the impact and value-adding contribution of future research, the six papers in this special issue analyse the progress made in entrepreneurship research on (1) situated cognition, (2) fear, (3) how affective dynamics influences entrepreneurship, (4) intuition, (5) opportunity evaluation and (6) entrepreneurial team cognition. This short introductory essay builds on the synthesis of the literature to summarize ‘the road travelled so far’. The six papers forming this special issue are then introduced and their respective focus and contributions are detailed. The authors conclude by reflecting on these papers’ implications, and offer a number of observations about future research and the ‘road ahead’.

This study examines the relationship between reward interdependence, or the extent to which managers' rewards are tied to the performance of colleagues in other functions, and product innovation. It also considers how structural and relational features of the organizational context might moderate this relationship. Our analysis of a sample of Canadian-based firms reveals a positive relationship between reward interdependence and product innovation that is invigorated at higher levels of job rotation, social interaction, and interactional fairness, but we find no evidence of a moderating effect of decision autonomy. Consistent with a systems approach to organizational contingencies, we also find that the reward interdependence–product innovation relationship is stronger when the organization's context comes closer to an ‘ideal’ holistic configuration that is most conducive to knowledge exchange within the organization, with a more prominent role played by the relational sub-context (social interaction and interactional fairness) than the structural sub-context (job rotation and decision autonomy). The findings have important implications for innovation research as they shed light on how the extent to which individual rewards are tied to collective performance can be channeled to enhance innovation pursuits.

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.

This research investigates how organizations' internal resource and conflict management influence the relationship between cross-functional fairness and product innovativeness. It considers two contextual dimensions of both internal resource management (job rotation and internal rivalry) and conflict-handling mechanisms (integrating and avoiding) as key components of the firm's ability to convert fair interactions, across departments, into product innovativeness. The tests of the study's hypotheses, based on a sample of more than 200 Canadian-based firms, confirm that the cross-functional fairness-product innovativeness relationship is amplified at higher levels of job rotation and integrative conflict handling but suppressed at higher levels of internal rivalry and avoidance of conflict handling. The authors discuss the study's implications and future research directions.

This research investigates the moderating role of organizations' structural context on the performance outcomes of the firm's alignment and adaptability pursuits. It focuses in particular on the role of decision autonomy and shared responsibility, and posits that these structural features exert opposing influences on the effect of alignment and adaptability on performance. Using a sample of more than 200 Canadian-based firms, this study finds that at higher levels of decision autonomy, the positive relationship between alignment and performance becomes weaker, and the positive relationship between adaptability and performance becomes stronger. Furthermore, at higher levels of shared responsibility, the positive relationship between adaptability and performance strengthens. Thus, the study offers structure-based explanations for the challenge that organizations face when they attempt to reap the benefits of alignment and adaptability simultaneously.

In this paper, we examine a firm's decision to enter new markets as related to the depth and breadth of its experience and the relative distance of those markets. We situate our discussion and analysis in the context of the venture capital (VC) industry, and examine whether and when US VC firms enter five high-technology investment markets through first- or later-round investments. This setting allows us to observe both the firms that chose to enter a new market and those that did not, and analyse the antecedents of these decisions. We find that VC firms overall are less likely to enter distant markets; those with broader experience are more likely to make first-round entries. In addition, VC firms with deeper investment experience are more likely to make first-round entries in proximate markets and less likely to enter distant markets and make later-round entries. These results offer interesting implications for the literature on organizational learning and entrepreneurship.

Nascent entrepreneurs continuously evaluate the merits of the opportunities they pursue and so can abandon those that lack promise and persist with those that remain attractive. This paper articulates this evolving judgment about the opportunity as the nascent entrepreneur's opportunity confidence. It situates this construct in the context of the nascent entrepreneur's human capital and early planning actions in respect to the pursued opportunity, and in respect to the emergence of the nascent venture. Analyses of PSED data show that opportunity confidence positively affects venture emergence and that, through it, entrepreneurial experience and early planning have only indirect effects on venture emergence. In contrast, industry experience has a direct, positive effect on venture emergence. These results provide some novel insights into the nascent entrepreneurial process as well as into the role of human capital and early planning in that process.

We examine the performance effects of two knowledge-driven strategies - internal knowledge development and external knowledge access through inter-firm relationships - in the context of venture capital investing. Using longitudinal data on the investments, syndication, and performance of 200 US-based venture capital firms, we find that investing in industries in which a firm has more knowledge and investing with more or familiar external partners enhances investment performance. In addition, we reveal important interactions between the two strategies, such that access to external knowledge is particularly beneficial when the investment exposes gaps in the firm's own expertise. Thus, access to external knowledge is more effective when an incongruity exists between what the firm knows and what it intends to do. We discuss the study's implications for organizational knowledge and learning, strategic alliance, and venture capital literature.

The MMA polymerization initiated by (1-naphthyl) triphenylphosphonium triphenylmethyl anion(TPM,NTPP) or the NTPP salt of the methylisobutyrate anion (MIB,NTPP) in THF at temperatures varying from 25 to 70°C appears to be a living polymerization as indicatred by a linear Mn vs. MMA conversion plot and by the narrow MW distributions. As indicated by the proton spectrum of MIB, NTPP in THF d8 the predominant polymerization intermediate appears to be the ylide formed exclusively by addition of the MIB anion to the 4-carbon of the 1-naphthyl group. This ylide shows upfield shifts for the 3-proton of the cyclohexadienyl ring and of the 6- and 8-protons of the remaining aromatic ring. The rates of the NTPP mediated polymerizations are reduced by factors of around 104-105 compared to that mediated by the corresponding ylides formed by addition of MIB to the phenyl ring of tetraphenylphosphonium ion. The reductions in rate in the presence of NTPP make it possible to carry out MMA polymerizations under conditions not normally accessible.

Triphenylmethide tetraphenylphosphonium (TPM,TPP) or methylisobutyrate tetraphenylphosphonium (MIB,TPP) formed by ion exchange reactions of TPP chloride(TPPCl) with the TPM or MIB potassium salts in THF, initiate the living polymerization of MMA producing PMMA's with narrow MW distributions (below 1.3) at ambient temperatures. In the presence of small amounts (10 mole% or less) of water, that is often present in the TPPCl, this water, under the polymerization conditions, participates in side reactions giving rise to the formation of triphenylphosphine and of a potassium PMMA enolate that causes chain termination giving incomplete MMA conversions and much wider PMMA distributions. The corresponding polymerizations of acrylates can also produce relatively narrow MWD (

Mylonitic gneisses of the Bulgarian and Greek Rhodope were deformed under medium pressure-type metamorphism. The kinematic information contained in these gneisses shows that shear-deformation occurred during development of a nappe complex. Lithologies and metamorphic histories allow a lower (footwall) and an upper (hanging wall) terrane to be distinguished that define a crustal-scale duplex. As oceanic crust is involved, collision between two continental units with subsequent crustal thickening is inferred. The blocks would be Moesia to the north, and the Lower-Rhodope promontory to the south, which collided in the Mesozoic to early Cenozoic. The nappe complex is characterized by south to southwestward (foreland directed) piling-up and is associated with both coeval and subsequent extension. The late extension is associated with the establishment of a high temperature-low pressure metamorphic gradient and plutonism that predates, but makes a transition to, the lithospheric extension of the Aegean Arc.

The alkylation, silylation and other electrophilic reactions of 1-lithio-1,3-bis(2-pyridyl)butane (2a) in THF at −78°C leads to meso-like products that may be accounted for by intramolecular coordination of Li ion with the penultimate 2-pyridyl group. This is also demonstrated by proton-transfer equilibria between 1-lithio-2-ethylpyridine and 2a, allowing the determination of the ΔH and ΔS of intramolecular chelation in 2a. The ΔS of chelation is nearly zero, probably as a result of chelation-induced desolvation of Li ion. Surprisingly, however, the corresponding addition of 2-vinylpyridine to 2a and higher P2VPLi homologs in THF is not stereoselective. In toluene at −78°C the t-BuLi-initiated polymerization of 2-VP is actually somewhat syndiotactic (rr = 0·44). The presence in this polymerization of at least one equivalent of t-BuOLi or other tertiary ROLi surprisingly leads to isotactic P2VP. SEC viscometric and other studies indicate that both the P2VPLi– and P2VPLi–ROLi complexes are monomeric in toluene. The stereochemistry is apparently due to a 1 : 1 P2VPLi–ROLi complex that discriminates between the two pro-chiral faces of the anion by preferntial coordination of the (ROLi2) moiety to the meso-prochiral face. Isotactic-like addition now occurs by electrophilic attack of 2-VP that is syn with respect to the (ROLi2) ‘counter ion.’

The polymerization of 2-vinylpyridine initiated by an organolithium derivative in the presence of Et3Al in toluene solution gives a polymer with enhanced syndiotactic content. This paper is devoted to the study of the structure and reactivity of this system. Model anions were studied by UV-visible and 13C NMR spectroscopy. Propagation kinetics are followed by a calorimetric technique allowing the determination of the corresponding rate constants and thermodynamic parameters. These values are discussed in terms of the reaction mechanism of this polymerization.

This study applies a contingency perspective to examine how the intra-organizational context influences the relationship between cross-functional collaboration and product innovativeness. It focuses on the role of (1) formal, structural factors directly controllable by top management decisions and (2) more intangible, relational factors as potential enhancements of the firm's ability to convert cross-functional collaboration into product innovativeness. A study of 232 firms confirms the hypotheses, finding that the relationship between cross-functional collaboration and product innovativeness is stronger for higher levels of decision autonomy and shared responsibility (structural context) and social interaction, trust, and goal congruence (relational context). In addition, a post-hoc analysis using a configurational approach to organizational contingencies reveals that organizations' relational context is more potent than their structural context for converting cross-functional collaboration into product innovativeness. The study's implications and future research directions are discussed.

To understand how ownership differences influence specific types of strategic decisions, we examine the investment decisions of venture capital (VC) firms, for which a variety of property rights arrangements exist. We describe how VC firms are characterized by important differences in how and to whom various property rights are allocated. On this basis, we develop a series of hypotheses regarding differences in the range and types of investment opportunities pursued by private, corporate, and bank affiliated VC firms. Evaluating our hypotheses using data on investments carried out by 3557 firms, we find that these types of firm perform distinct roles in the ecology of VC financing.