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Science-based ventures are crucial vehicles that bring new technologies from the lab and to the mainstream market. During this journey, innovation narratives play a crucial role in coordinating innovation. However, little is known about how innovation narratives and coordination evolve during this journey. To improve knowledge on this matter, I conducted a 24-month study of a science-based venture crossing over to a commercial market. I find that during this transition, innovation narratives shift from being shaped by progressive storytelling, where the benefits of becoming commercial and hiring non-academics is highlighted, to being shaped by retrogressive storytelling, where incumbents and newcomers use their respective pasts to develop divergent narratives, and finally to appearing as disintegrated storytelling that hinder innovation coordination. Building on these findings, I constructed a process model of how innovation narratives evolve and disintegrate as science-based ventures scale. The paper contributes to knowledge on the nature of innovation narratives and how they influence innovation processes during venture scaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there has been a rise in impact investment funds that seek to support the establishment and growth of sustainable ventures, especially in the Global South. But does impact investment have an effect, and if so, how? In light of the lacking evidence and theory on how entrepreneurship is enabled by the environment, there are few answers to these questions. In this study, we seek to answer whether impact investment serves as an external enabler of entrepreneurship. We theorize that impact investment enables entrepreneurship through two different mechanisms. Impact investment enables entrepreneurship through resource expansion, that is, access to funds, and through modifying the institutional environment, that is, strengthening market-supporting institutions in recipient countries, thus enabling entrepreneurship. Using a dataset of 4,691 impact investments in 122 countries, we find general support for our theorization. Our study contributes to the knowledge on impact investment as one of the first studies to show impact investment's effect on entrepreneurship. Furthermore, our study tests and extends the nascent external enabler framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voice is crucial for workers as it enables them to better their organizations and exert some degree of control over managerial decision-making. Yet, as workers increasingly find jobs on digital platforms in the gig economy, traditional channels of voice are being replaced by digital voice channels, such as online communities. To add knowledge to voice on such channels, we collected conversation data from two comparable online communities, which function as official (Upwork community) and unofficial (Reddit community) digital voice channels for gig workers active on Upwork. Based on a comparative mixed-method approach combining sentiment analysis with a qualitative analysis of both communities, we draw out a process of how voice is organized in digital channels, taking into account design differences and identifying two distinctive online community voice behaviors, voice framing and voice modulation. Our study contributes to the growing research at the intersection of voice and digital platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Start-ups operate in uncertain and dynamic environments that put great toll on their ability to coordinate their activities to secure growth and development. However, little is known about how start-ups develop coordination mechanisms. As start-ups are new organizations with few routines or structures to rely on, they must develop coordination from scratch with limited time to get it right. As such, coordination represents a unique challenge for start-ups. We study how start-ups manage this challenge. Relying on a longitudinal qualitative multiple-case study of 5 start-ups, we present an emergent theoretical framework of how start-ups achieve and improve coordination over time. We find that start-ups develop coordination by mixing vicarious and experimental learning in a cyclical manner. This framework contributes to the literatures on coordination in start-ups and the emergent coordination literature by showing how coordination emerges and develops in start-ups, who begin with no clear rules, plans, routines, or roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How entrepreneurs learn is key for their success, and a growing body of research has investigated this issue. However, research on entrepreneurial learning primarily focuses on how individuals transform experience, paying less attention to social ways of learning. With the rise of online communities, entrepreneurs increasingly utilize digital spaces to share experiences and seek new knowledge. This could change how entrepreneurs learn. Building on the theory of coactive vicarious learning, we, therefore, investigate how online communities provide avenues for entrepreneurial learning by studying a large online community of entrepreneurs on Reddit. Here, we analyze the top-voted 100 threads from 2018-2019, encompassing 10'277 comments in total. Our findings outline five distinct learning discourses and show how entrepreneurial learning differs due to variations in micro-learning contexts. Doing so, our article (1) contributes to the growing research interest in how entrepreneurs learn in communities, while also (2) adding to the current debate on knowledge sharing and creation in online communities. Furthermore, we (3) provide empirical backing and nuance to the theory of coactive vicarious learning." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online work platforms such as 'upwork', 'fiverr' or 'workshopper' use algorithms to accept or reject workers from the platform, find and match workers with potential clients as well as render skill and performance levels of workers transparent over time. In doing so, algorithms create frames for what is deemed fitting and permissible on the platform. However, algo-rithmic governance mechanisms are often non-transparent and rapidly evolving, which leaves workers struggling to decipher or 'reverse engineer' underlying rationales. Here, we look into how workers use online discourses to develop behavioral strategies in order to comply with (assumed) mechanisms of algorithmic governance. More to the point, based on a systematic content analysis of 12'294 scraped comments from an online community of digital workers, we (1) identify key points of algorithmic governance and (2) show how workers adopt 'preemptive' self-disciplining strategies such as over-delivering and under-billing, restricting conversations with clients or keeping their emotions in check in order to ensure their continued participation on the platform. This contribution draws from work on algorithmic governance and self-discipline and adds to the ongoing discussion about algo-rithmic transparency and accountability as prerequisites for designing fair and inclusive online platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]