Timing Matters – The Impact of Innovation Exploitation on New Venture Survival

Abstract

Previous research highlights the positive effect of exploitation and exploration innovation on firm performance, but most studies focus on established firms. Recent reviews in entrepreneurship underscore the need to model time and timing more explicitly in research. We combine these insights and explore how new ventures should prioritize innovation activities given their limited resources and survival chances. Leveraging a multi-source sample of 520 new ventures, we find that exploitation positively impacts new venture survival and that timing plays a vital role. Our results lead us to reinforce calls to form a more time-integrated perspective of the entrepreneurial process and innovation.