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We examine how entrepreneurs might build a viable, values-driven niche. Extant templates for niche creation typically employed in moral markets depend on instrumentally rational logics that privilege economic ends such as profitability and efficiency. Entrepreneurs seeking to construct a nascent niche whose purpose and objectives include the amelioration of social ills, however, may find such templates inadequate. Using the emergence of the U.S. bean-to-bar chocolate niche, through which entrepreneurs attempt to address the social and environmental shortcomings of conventional chocolate production, we demonstrate that constructing an alternative model for niche creation is feasible. Most bean-to-bar entrepreneurs deliberately opted out of extant private regulation initiatives, developing instead alternative encompassing, values-driven sourcing and cooperative relationships, which we term collaborative governance. This is enacted throughout the niche by promoting shared values, best practices, and transparency and is supported by strategic meaning-making work to cultivate customers. Together, these three values-driven strategies form a novel template of niche creation based not on cognitive repositioning or exploiting exogenous change within existing structures and institutions, but on a reconceptualization of how markets might work to support the implementation of nonmarket goals. Based on our mixed-methods analysis, we find that, instead of hoping to accomplish nonmarket goals through established market structures, entrepreneurs built a niche centered on the achievement of specific social goals. Our findings suggest that to understand the strategies supporting emergent socially oriented markets, researchers must explore the intersections of values, entrepreneurial motivations, and operational complexities.

This study investigates how venture development programs such as private incubators, university incubators, and accelerators influence the success of participating nanotechnology startups. With the recent growth in such programs, empirical work is needed to compare their impact on participants across programs and with nonparticipants. Using data on firm bankruptcies, liquidation, government grants, and venture capital, we find benefits, but the influence of each venture development program varies greatly. We further investigate the influence of program services and resources to clarify program heterogeneity beyond existing typologies. The results clarify the role of these programs and ecosystem intermediaries.

This study analyzes the gender, education, and occupational backgrounds of high-technology firm founders and the outcomes of their firms by asking three main questions: 1) What are the backgrounds ...

Infrastructures that support industries and ecosystems do not spontaneously appear. In some instances, infrastructure existing in other settings can be adapted to the challenge being addressed by a nascent industry or technology. In other situations, infrastructure components must be developed from scratch. This chapter examines the emergence and change of industrial infrastructures that support the development and commercialization of technological innovations. It reviews the ecological layers that make up the context of organizations and innovation and then summarizes the components of infrastructure particularly relevant to industry and ecosystem development. It also reviews studies on the temporal dynamics of infrastructure across multiple perspectives including community ecology, ecosystems, and economic geography. It concludes with a discussion of the drivers and obstacles to industrial advancement, and develops a model of infrastructure emergence and change.

There is growing interest in the processes by which entrepreneurial opportunities are cocreated between entrepreneurs and their stakeholders. The longitudinal case study of de novo firm Wakefield Seafoods seeks to understand the underlying dynamics of phenomena that play out over time as stakeholders emerge and their contributions become essential to the opportunity formation process. The king crab data show that under conditions of uncertainty, characterized by incomplete or missing knowledge, entrepreneurial processes of experimentation, failure, and learning were effective in forming and exploiting an opportunity. Moreover, contrary to existing literature that either emphasizes heroic entrepreneurs or downplays their value, this article shows that both the vision of the entrepreneur and the stakeholder contributions are critical. This detailed examination of process data shows that the cumulative actions made by entrepreneurs in concert with their stakeholders formed an opportunity that coalesced into a new market.

Spin-off firms originate from several sources including universities, existing firms, and government research centers. Thus far, work on spin-off activity has focused on factors that influence the ...

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 is a critical driver of economic health, industrial rejuvenation, social change, and technological progress. In an attempt to determine how to best support such an important component of society, researchers and practitioners alike continue to ask why some countries, regions, and cities have more entrepreneurship than others. Unfortunately, the answer is not clear. This question is addressed by focusing on location-based support or infrastructure for entrepreneurship. A framework based on a social systems perspective guides this examination by concentrating on three main categories of infrastructure: resource endowments, institutional arrangements, and proprietary functions. Work from the knowledge-based perspective of entrepreneurship, systems of innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and resource dependence literatures is integrated into this framework.

Entrepreneurship is a perilous endeavor. Contextual changes, such as nascent technology emergence or new industry creation, can spawn entrepreneurial opportunities; however, these changes do not instantaneously create the resources and structures that new firms need to survive. This study examines the creation and configuration of the contextual infrastructure necessary for nascent technology entrepreneurship in new industries. Using the case of nanotechnology, I show how the elements of infrastructure emerge and configure through systemic coevolution. The data highlight how boundary crossing and obfuscation induces the configuration of separate elements into a cohesive infrastructure through heightened interaction and interdependence of organizations and institutions, both private and public.

Social entrepreneurship increasingly garners interest from both the public and academics. Social entrepreneurs have been characterized as being at 'the vanguard (of the) worldwide transformation to improve the quality of life and standard of living around the world,'. Research to understand social ventures is described as a nascent, yet promising endeavor.

Many decision-makers struggle to reduce commitment to failing endeavors. While de-escalation mechanisms have been documented and tested in information technology, accounting, psychology, and organizational behavior, little work has addressed de-escalation in innovation. This study identifies and examines the applicability of de-escalation mechanisms specifically in new product development (NPD) projects. Initially, we conducted an extensive literature review to identify de-escalation mechanisms found in research across different academic disciplines. Subsequently, we conducted a qualitative study using semistructured interviews to gather primary data. In total, using a sample of organizations that compete in high-technology industries, 31 managers and engineers in 15 NPD projects that were terminated prior to completion were interviewed regarding mechanisms used to de-escalate commitment to failing new product innovation projects. Several mechanisms reportedly used for innovation projects parallel those identified in the previous literature. More importantly, the authors uncover novel and previously undocumented ways to discontinue or redirect poorly performing projects. Specifically, internal competitions, feature-level de-escalation, continual assumption assessment, benchmarking, roadmaps, and comprehensive product testing are particularly well suited for innovation projects. These findings extend the body of extant literature on de-escalation of commitment to include innovation, notably in high-technology settings. The study also highlights that organizations may want to accept or even encourage failure, thereby increasing the efficacy of resource use. Implications for further research and practice are offered.

We examine the unique challenges of entrepreneurs and organizations in nascent craft markets in which normative expectations are negotiated, navigated, and sometimes defied. In this collection of p...

We examine why entrepreneurs in the emerging bean-to-bar chocolate market segment fail to adopt socially-oriented certification schemes such as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and USDA Organic. De...

Radical process discontinuities provide opportunities for the founding of new firms across multiple industries; however, little is known about such emergence activity. This article examines nascent technology emergence by studying patterns of related entrepreneurial activity across multiple industries based on a radical process discontinuity. Using historical and statistical methods to examine all nanotechnology firms founded before 2005, I find that during technology emergence, entrepreneurship occurs first in upstream industries. These upstream entrepreneurs provide the technological foundations that enable the founding of firms in other industries developing the technology. The results show the role of industry interaction in the development of both upstream and downstream industries. Implications for entrepreneurs and technology emergence are discussed. Copyright © 2010 Strategic Management Society.

Symbolic management literature explores how executives signal both substantive and symbolic properties of a firm. In contrast, market categorization literature suggests that firms are often at the mercy of stakeholders who categorize the firm based on its substantive features. Such tensions present in these literatures indicate that our knowledge on where agency lies in market categorization, and whether the process of categorization is based on substantive or symbolic features, is still inconclusive. Focusing on established markets, these literatures have cast little light on how nascent market labels and market categories are constructed and used. Our research addresses these gaps in the literature by providing insight into the dimensions that shape executives' propensity to use a nascent market label. Based on an in-depth grounded analysis of executives' use of the nanotechnology label, we identify the key dimensions for constructing the meaning of a nascent market label. The data show that depending o...

In this article, we explore the relationship between innovation policy and new venture creation in the United States. Specifically, we examine two components of innovation policy in nanotechnology—science and technology (S&T) initiatives and economic initiatives—and their relationship with the founding of nanotechnology firms. We find strong support relating new firm formation to S&T and economic initiatives. States with both S&T and economic initiatives had six times as many firms founded than those states without such initiatives. We also find evidence of a first–mover advantage as states with the earliest innovation policies had higher rates of related firm foundings over time. These findings suggest that states that are most attractive to entrepreneurs not only pursue technological innovation and provide resources, but also encourage and legitimize commercial development. Implications for public policy makers and scholars are provided.

Social value creation is important to not only social ventures, but also traditional and hybrid organizations seeking to increase their corporate social responsibility. Thus far, work on social value creation has focused on the customers or end users as the main beneficiaries of social value creation. Little work has addressed other beneficiaries or opportunities to generate social value and social wealth outside of that for direct recipients of products or services. This chapter extends work on value creation in strategic entrepreneurship to consider social value. Specifically, social value creation opportunities are identified across supply chain interactions both up and downstream from the organization. Implications for entrepreneurial and traditional ventures are discussed as well as possible research trajectories.

Scholars have defined entrepreneurship as a phenomenon of emergence; however javascript: void(0); most entrepreneurship research has focused on questions regarding new ventures characteristics and outcomes after a new venture is started. One reason scholars continue to struggle with origins and emergence questions is the difficulty in obtaining relevant data. This paper recommends a series of tools and strategies to gather and analyze holistic data on entrepreneurship and organizational emergence. Specifically, the use of multi-level longitudinal data from several sources by multiple collection methods can provide the rich context necessary to illuminate venture emergence. To inform future studies, examples from nanotechnology entrepreneurship research are provided.

Assessing the literature on top management teams (TMTs) published through 2004, we found a predominantly U.S.-centric set of studies on TMTs and the upper echelons perspective (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). Through 1996, this literature was virtually silent on the impact of increasing globalization of economic transactions on TMTs – surprising given emphases in strategy on multinational firms, their organizational forms, and modes of entry into foreign markets. We identify critical areas for research on international dimensions of TMTs, their relationships to national and organizational contexts, and their influence on firm outcomes in a world increasingly populated by firms addressing global markets.

Internet-based collaboration technologies provide organizations new and valuable tools to engage online communities in innovation. We argue that effectively leveraging internet-based collaboration ...