Search

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the seemingly disparate entrepreneurship and mindset literatures and extant work to conceptualize the entrepreneurial mindset and its embeddedness in an organizational context. Furthermore, we theorize about the entrepreneurial mindset as expressed through entrepreneurial spikes. We develop the entrepreneurial mindset concept as an ability and willingness combined phenomenon driving individuals, specifically in a corporate environment, in their entrepreneurial behavior, moving research forward from ‘what it is’ into understanding ‘how and when it works’. We detail the implications and insights and propose a future research agenda, focusing on the context beyond the content of the entrepreneurial mindset.

In this paper we tackle the question how entrepreneurs without initial industry-specific knowledge develop market-entry capabilities in knowledge intensive industries. To do so, we study how the yesterday’s parents without prior experience in this field, become entrepreneurs in order to find a cure to the disease of their children. We find that several parameters of the cases in focus make them “extreme” and, as several organizational theorists have recently emphasized, interesting from a theory construction perspective. With this research, we contribute to the emergence of dynamic capabilities literature by investigating the micro- foundations that generate organizational level market-entry capability, To do so, we extend our understanding of the dynamic capabilities by building on social system view applied to entrepreneurship. Our contribution is threefold. First, introduce the concept of “readiness to act entrepreneurially” and thus discuss the processes and capabilities that need to be built up in order to successfully develop a capability to sense and seize opportunities in the market. Second, we contribute to the literature by systematically addressing the social processes behind the emergence of dynamic capabilities. Prior research underscores the complexity in explaining routines and capabilities and could, therefore, benefit from a systemic approach to analysis. Third, our findings could provide a practical basis for training entrepreneurs in rare disease field.

Our research investigates the interplay of the conditions producing either a dominant social, economic, or hybrid mission type. We examine how the mission of 133 (nascent) social entrepreneurs is a...

Entrepreneurial firms are recognized for their posture of innovativeness and experimentation, risk taking, and pro-active pioneering of new markets, which may lead to more frequent innovation failu...

University-based incubators guide entrepreneurs through the start-up and growth process. They also create and provide many opportunities for new firms to develop their network with the business environment, get coaching assistance, and perhaps most importantly develop their business models and business plans. Within incubators, the progress of participants is often monitored by letting the participants pitch before an expert business panel. The feedback from these business panels can provide valuable input for the further development of the new ventures. However, little is known about the predictive power that business panel assessments have in predicting venture survival and growth. In this paper, we will explore the predictive ability of business panel assessments of business planning and business pitches and start-up firm survival in a university-based incubator context. We used business panelists’ assessments of 216 high tech start-ups business plans and pitches. We found that the most important predictor of success by business panel expert evaluations was the quality of the team. The attractiveness of the industry was a negative predictor of start-up firm survival.

This paper presents work toward improving the efficacy of financial models that describe the unique nature of biotechnology firms. We show that using a ‘thick tailed’ power law distribution to describe the behavior of the value of biotechnology R&D used in a Real Options Pricing model is significantly more accurate than the traditionally used Gaussian approach. A study of 287 North-American biotechnology firms gives insights into common problems faced by investors, managers and other stakeholders when using traditional techniques to calculate the commercial value of R&D. This is important because specific quantitative tools to assess the value of high-risk, high-reward R&D do not currently exist. This often leads to an undervaluation of biotechnology R&D and R&D intensive biotechnology firms. For example, the widely used Net Present Value (NPV) method assumes a fixed risk ignoring management flexibility and the changing environment. However, Real Options Pricing models assume that commercial returns from R&D investments are described by a normal random walk. A normal random walk model eliminates the possibility of drastic changes to the marketplace resulting from the introduction of revolutionary products and/or services. It is possible to better understand and manage biotechnology research projects and portfolios using a model that more accurately considers large non-Gaussian price fluctuations with thick tails, which recognize the unusually large risks and opportunities associated with Biotechnology R&D. Our empirical data show that opportunity overcompensates for the downside risk making biotechnology R&D statistically more valuable than other Gaussian options investments, which may otherwise appear to offer a similar combination of risk and return.

The Narver & Slater scale has been accepted in the literature as a dominant scale to measure market orientation. However, few studies have tested its content validity, especially in transition economy context. In this study, we triangulate the scale with in-depth interviews with directors of ten Russian high-tech SMEs. Our results show that the firms attain high scores, but that these scores are accompanied by behaviors that do not belong to a high market orientation. In this paper we aim to explain this anomaly and provide suggestions as to how market orientation should be measured in economies that are not yet fully familiar with the market mechanism.

Have you seen the film “Extraordinary Measures”, depicting the story of John and Aileen Crowley? With two children diagnosed with a rare disease, they raise the funds and build a company to develop the drug and bring it to the market. This movie is based on a real story, and, however strange it sounds, not a rare one. Philanthropies started by parents are becoming a major player in the orphan drug market, and their stories are numerous. We aim to contribute to a better understanding of this phenomenon and uncover how people without relevant knowledge launch social ventures in knowledge-intensive industries. We start with a case of a CEO of a biotech company developing gene therapy treatments for orphan diseases. Ten years ago she worked as an M&A consultant when her newborn daughter was diagnosed with a rare disease. She had no prior experience or knowledge in biomedical technology field, nor had she experience in building a high-tech business. The venture creation was fueled by the desire to help her child and other families affected by rare diseases. We employ a longitudinal analysis of multiple case studies. We find evidence for a crucial role of social networks at the initial phase, and that of cultural (industry logic) and strategic (strong legitimacy) capital during development. We further find that venture goes from problem solving towards opportunity exploitation when all capitals are well developed with focus on cultural and strategic capitals. These findings may serve better understanding of how opportunities develop in the field of social entrepreneurship.

Using a grounded theory approach, we study how thirty-one high- technology entrepreneurs use their imagination in opportunity recognition and strategic decision-making processes. We find that entre...

Previous research has extensively investigated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance, leaving the way entrepreneurial orientation is shaped, fostered, developed and maintained within organizations almost unattended. This paper is among the first to systematically investigate the pervasiveness of entrepreneurial orientation within an organization by exploring varying perceptions of entrepreneurial orientation both within and between the business units of a well-established multi-national company. First, we examine the overarching question of whether and how entrepreneurial orientation exhibits variance across hierarchical levels and business units. Second, we explore the dynamics of entrepreneurial orientation change over time, providing insights into the factors which affect the manifestation of entrepreneurial orientation in different time periods. The study is conducted on a full population of business units from an industrial company observed with a time lag of three years. We find partial confirmation for our hypotheses and we contribute to the call for greater research exploring the antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation, extend this research conversation beyond reports of top managers, and examine employee perceptions in regards to manifestation of a business unit’s level of entrepreneurial orientation.

A long-standing line of research proves a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance of firms. Still, it is surprising, how little we know about the way entrepreneurial orientation is shaped, fostered, developed and maintained within organizations. Wales, Monsen, and Mckelvie (2011) have recently argued that the way entrepreneurial orientation is manifested across the organization may vary vertically across hierarchy levels, horizontally across business units and temporally as an organization develops. Indeed, large diversified firms contain multiple business units that can differ in the level of the entrepreneurial orientation. Therefore organizations that are aiming at properly managing their entrepreneurial posture need to investigate the sources of heterogeneity of manifestations of entrepreneurial orientation at different levels and units of the organization. In this paper we add to the literature by looking into the question why some units within firms may display higher entrepreneurial orientation levels than others and suggest a new look at both the employee engagement and its relation with the business entity’s entrepreneurial orientation. We suggest that the heterogeneity of the entrepreneurial orientation manifestations may be linked to the business unit employees’ work emotional and cognitive engagement and their extra-role voice behaviors. The study is conducted on a sample of business units from an industrial company observed at two different points of time, separately for managers and staff. We find partial confirmation for our hypotheses and we contribute to the literature by showing that different groups of employees contribute to the pervasiveness of entrepreneurial orientation in different ways.

Many researchers state that imagination is important for managers and entrepreneurs, but they do no mention why and how managers and entrepreneurs use their imagination. This article explores the r...

Although individual absorptive capacity is mentioned in the literature as a key building block for organizational absorptive capacity, its characteristics are still unclear. This study conceptualiz...

This paper explores employees’ entrepreneurial mindset (EMS) variations and dynamics within an organizational context. The entrepreneurship community embraced EMS as a new concept with regard to the interest in adapting to changes in our fast-paced work environment. However, how exactly EMS changes over time, requires further understanding. Through a ten-month participatory observation study within one organization, we find that EMS is both important, often necessary, and salient for individual employees, leading them to engage in entrepreneurial activities during “spike” moments. We create specific configurations of individual, organizational and opportunity characteristics, enabling these said spikes of entrepreneurial behavior. We lastly theorize about the process of activation and development of EMS, advancing research on entrepreneurial employees."