Logics and Founder Identity: The Enabling Effect of Identification

Abstract

Past work experience exposes entrepreneurs to the logics of pertinent institutional fields. Entrepreneurs integrate elements of these logics (e.g., values, meanings, beliefs, norms) into their founder identity—that is, what is important to them as a founder and what they do in their startup firm. Nevertheless, this process can be contingent on individual characteristics, and it is unclear why elements of some logics are integrated while those of others are not. Leveraging recent research on identification, we develop a theory about how institutional identification moderates the relationship between past exposure to logic and the formation of founder identity. We conducted a survey study with entrepreneurs from young startups to understand how past exposure to the social welfare logic and identification with this logic independently and jointly affect the dominant social welfare (over commercial) tendency of their founder identity. Our findings suggest that past exposure to logic and identification with logic are not significantly associated with the dominant social welfare tendency of entrepreneurs’ founder identity on their own, but they interact to influence founder identity. More specifically, past exposure to the social welfare logic negatively predicts entrepreneurs’ dominant social welfare tendency of founder identity when their identification with this logic is low. Our study contributes to the micro-foundations of institutional theory by identifying critical boundary conditions of how logics influence individuals’ identities and behaviors.