Strategic Entrepreneurship Research Research Articles

Truly, madly, deeply: Strategic entrepreneuring and the aesthetic practices of craft entrepreneurs

AbstractResearch SummaryStrategic entrepreneurship research has long focused on high growth and wealth maximization in the creation of primarily economic value. As such, it has largely overlooked craft entrepreneurs, who prioritize skill, materiality, and immersive action in creating broader forms of value. Deep engagement with materials, alongside daily aesthetic (sensory, tacit, embodied) practices are key to how craft entrepreneurs create unique value and strengthen competitive distinction. Drawing on ethnographic data from two craft‐based settings, we abductively generated three dimensions and associated tensions by which craft entrepreneurs leverage aesthetics for strategic entrepreneuring: materializing, enchanting, empathizing. Our key contribution is to unpack the embodied—and very human—processes by which craft entrepreneurs imagine and give life to unique offerings while creating distinctive value for both themselves and their stakeholders.Managerial SummaryThe focus of strategic entrepreneurship research is often on economic value creation, along with high growth and wealth maximization. By exploring the everyday practices of craft entrepreneurs, we unpack how creating broader forms of value (e.g., symbolic, artistic, social, cultural) through immersive and embodied actions contributes to stylistic and competitive distinction. For the craft entrepreneurs in our study, remaining competitive is about engaging in sensuous practices that result in meaningful and authentic offerings, for both themselves and their stakeholders. By capturing and exploring these daily practices, along with the tensions that undergird real‐time exchanges with stakeholders, we provide fresh insights into how craft entrepreneurs create unique value while delicately balancing tradition with innovation to strengthen competitive distinction.

A systematic bibliometric review of the strategic entrepreneurship domain

PurposeThe strategic entrepreneurship (SE) literature exists at the intersection of the strategy and entrepreneurship literatures and has grown rapidly over the past two decades. This study aims to document the proliferation of research papers and identifies the major thematic clusters of topics and other summary information for the SE research domain.Design/methodology/approachThis is a systematic bibliometric review of 586 articles published over the period 2009–2019 in 143 journals. The inductive quantitative assessment of these articles uses meta-data driven techniques that prioritize reproducibility and rigor in the process of literature analysis.FindingsThis study identifies six main themes in the strategic literature, namely, Sustainable Competitive Advantage; Knowledge Management; Ecosystems; Strategy; Entrepreneurialism; and Organization and Management. It also reports data on a variety of issues including research techniques, country of data, co-author count and trends and differences between journals based on their journal impact factors and calls for more research in key areas.Originality/valueAn innovative original analytical tool was developed to facilitate the analysis of research papers in this growing field. This online tool allows multiple tags to be attached to each paper by multiple authors working simultaneously to identify keywords and other aspects that were subsequently used to identify six main thematic areas within the SE literature. This paper highlights emerging research trends and identifies gaps in the literature that provide opportunities for further research in this field.

Context, time, and change: Historical approaches to entrepreneurship research

AbstractResearch SummaryWe articulate the value of historical methods and reasoning in strategic entrepreneurship research and theory. We begin by introducing the papers in the special issue, contextualizing each within one of five broader methodological approaches, and elaborating on the applicability of each to other topics in entrepreneurship research. Next, we use the papers to induce a framework for integrating history into entrepreneurship theory. The framework demonstrates how historical assumptions play a formative role in operationalizing time and context in entrepreneurship research. We then show how variations in these treatments of time and context shape theoretical claims about entrepreneurial opportunities, actions, and processes of change. We conclude by discussing why this may be a particularly opportune time for strategic entrepreneurship research to develop a deeper historical sensibility. Managerial SummaryHistory can serve as an especially important guide to understanding entrepreneurship during moments of change. We draw on articles from the special issue on “Historical Approaches to Entrepreneurship Research” to illustrate different forms of historical reasoning and research about entrepreneurship. Moreover, we use the articles to develop a framework for understanding how historical context and time shape entrepreneurial opportunities, actions, and processes of change. We emphasize, in particular, the value of history in understanding variations in entrepreneurial practices.

Developments in Strategic Entrepreneurship

Now almost twenty years ago, strategic entrepreneurship emerged as a new and high-potential field of research at the crossroads of the entrepreneurship and strategic management literatures. In this review, we track the development of this new field of research to see whether it has lived up to the original promises. Based on the review of 131 articles that have appeared over the period 2001–2019, we conclude that strategic entrepreneurship research is yet to develop the coherence and momentum that will allow it to take off more emphatically. In the discussion, we outline a set of interrelated issues concerned with conceptual ambiguity, model boundaries, and consistency in the application of conceptual foundations which we believe have had an attenuating effect on past developments of the field. We conclude our review by identifying a number of avenues for future research, alongside a pressing need for producing firmer practical guidelines for how to effectively integrate the entrepreneurial and strategic aspects of management.

The Chicken or the Egg: Causal Inference in the Entrepreneurial Orientation-Performance Relationship

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is arguably the most popular construct in strategic entrepreneurship research because it associates with numerous interesting, and important, phenomena. While we kn...

Strategic entrepreneurship's dynamic tensions: Converging (diverging) effects of experience and networks on market entry timing and entrant performance

In this paper, we return to the roots of strategic entrepreneurship research by examining the dynamic tension between opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking activities and by testing key resources that affect both activities. More specifically, we identify the empirical manifestations of the two activities—market entry timing decisions and entrant performance—and examine the degree to which the type of resources (in particular, experience and networks) that enable firms to enter a new market space early converge with (or diverge from) the type of resources that enhance entrant performance. Through analysis of 78 new market spaces and the associated 6544 entrant games in the U.S. console video game industry between 1995 and 2012, we find that while some resources—particularly relevant experience—have convergent impacts on entry timing and entrant performance, the impacts of other resources—first-order and second-order embeddedness—on these two outcomes diverge. We demonstrate that this tension in terms of resource impact on the two aspects of strategic entrepreneurship persists as the markets evolve.

Strategic entrepreneurial behaviors: Construct and scale development

Research SummaryDelineating between conservative and entrepreneurial firms to discern the causes, consequences, and benefits of entrepreneurial behavior is a key conversation in strategic entrepreneurship research. We introduce to this conversation a new construct, Strategic Entrepreneurship Behaviors, which we argue provides several theoretical and practical benefits to scholars exploring strategic entrepreneurship phenomenon. We develop and validate a measurement model for the Strategic Entrepreneurship Behaviors construct using a three‐study design in Japan and in the United States. To facilitate reproducibility and replication of our results, we posted all data, R code, and Supporting Information on the Open Science Framework website available at https://osf.io/rqw5u/. Managerial SummaryThe driving question in strategic entrepreneurship research is the impact of an organization's entrepreneurial activity on its performance. Answering this and related questions requires careful measurement of entrepreneurial activity. Existing measures and scales served the field well, but to answer questions establishing causal relationships, we need new constructs and measures robust to causal research designs. We introduce a new construct and scale, Strategic Entrepreneurial Behaviors, to capture the firm's exploitation of new product‐market opportunities through the intended commercialization of its product innovations. We hope this new measure for a firm's entrepreneurial activity allows researchers to build more predictive theory, and to ask—and answer—new research questions that move the strategic entrepreneurship conversation forward.

Strategic entrepreneurial orientation: Configurations, performance, and the effects of industry and time

Research Summary: Strategic entrepreneurship research has sought to understand how firms' entrepreneurial behaviors and decision making influence firm performance. Generally this research has treated entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as consisting of dimensions that independently influence firm performance. This approach conflicts with conceptual and empirical work suggesting that managers embrace complex knowledge structures. Taking a configurational perspective that accounts for relations among the EO dimensions, we analyze a longitudinal sample of 399 firms in four technology industries to reveal how different EO patterns—identified using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis—lead to higher or lower firm performance based on industrial‐, temporal‐, and measurement‐related factors.Managerial Summary: A firm's entrepreneurial orientation consists of its relative emphasis on autonomy, competitive aggressiveness, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking. Do companies intentionally emphasize different aspects of entrepreneurship? Our analysis suggests that they do and that different patterns developed by companies have implications for their performance. Our work suggests managers should develop a profile of entrepreneurial dimensions that fit well in their industry. For instance, firms in growing yet stable industries tend to perform well when they emphasize autonomy and competitive aggressiveness and focus less on innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking. In contrast, this approach would not lead to high performance in more hostile industries where innovativeness is essential.

Sustaining Innovation Performance in SMEs: Exploring the Roles of Strategic Entrepreneurship and IT Capabilities

Recent research questions our understanding of the processes at play regarding information technology (IT) capabilities’ contribution to innovation performance, particularly under environmental uncertainty. Strategic entrepreneurship (SE) or the interface of entrepreneurship and strategic management, which aims to answer the very question of how firms create value or wealth and sustain success in increasingly competitive and dynamic environments, is deemed the appropriate catalyst to further explore this link. Thus, this study attempts to examine the driving effects of IT capabilities on product innovation performance (PIP) by exploring the mediating role of SE. Data were collected from 164 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) information communication technology (ICT) firms in Canada. Partial least squares (PLS) regression tested the hypotheses derived from the research model, and data exploration and analysis including visual analytics were performed in R. Results confirm that IT capabilities drive PIP and thereby create firm level value. Secondly, SE had a direct impact on PIP, and SE partially mediates IT capabilities effect on PIP. To date, SE research has mostly been conceptual in nature making this study one of the few to empirically capture the phenomena and highlight its link to sustainable innovation performance.

Understanding strategic entrepreneurship: a “theoretical toolbox” approach

This manuscript provides a foundation for future research on strategic entrepreneurship (SE) through the application of nine prominent organizational theories. Specifically, we apply a “theoretical toolbox” approach to examine SE through the lens of general systems, institutional, organizational ecology, strategic choice, upper echelons, real options, agency, network, and social identity theories. We consider the implications for SE offered by these perspectives and, using insights from each organizational theory, reflect on the nature of the challenges faced by firms when attempting the simultaneous exploration and exploitation required by SE. More broadly, the application of diverse theoretical perspectives is encouraged individually and in combination within future SE research.

Good Judgment, Good Luck: Frank Fetter’s Neglected Theory of Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACTFrank Fetter’s contributions to entrepreneurship and the theory of the firm are usually overlooked although his original treatments are relevant to both the history of economic thought and contemporary entrepreneurship research. This article highlights three ways in which Fetter’s work adds to our understanding of the entrepreneurial process. First, entrepreneurs direct their enterprises through the careful delegation of authority to managers, thereby maintaining residual control over the firm; similar views were pioneered by Frank Knight and the Austrian economists who continue to study cognate problems like judgmental decision making and proxy-entrepreneurship. Second, Fetter foreshadows Knight’s influential distinction between risk and uncertainty by arguing that entrepreneurs bear uncertainty through their investment decisions. However, Fetter extends Knight’s work by explicitly considering the role that chance and luck play in entrepreneurial success, a problem still debated in entrepreneurship studies. Third, Fetter argues that scarcity implies the active investment of resources, and thus the need for entrepreneurship. This view hints at current research on entrepreneurial bricolage as well as work emphasizing investment rather than opportunity as the defining concept of entrepreneurship. It also provides the microfoundations for strategic entrepreneurship research.

‘Who Knows What?’ in New Venture Teams: Transactive Memory Systems as a Micro‐Foundation of Entrepreneurial Orientation

AbstractThe increasing importance of entrepreneurial behaviour has led scholars to embrace the idea that an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is an important predictor of firm performance. While EO occupies a central position in strategic entrepreneurship research, scholars have yet to explore its origins in new ventures. Drawing on the knowledge‐based and cognitive views, we theorize that a new venture team's transactive memory system is a cognitive mechanism that spurs the development of an EO. In a field study of high‐tech new ventures in China, we examined the relationship between venture teams’ transactive memory systems (representing the distribution, integration, and utilization of the teams’ knowledge) and EO and the moderating influence of team‐, firm‐, and environment‐level factors. We found that the transactive memory system of a new venture team enhanced their EO and that this relationship was positively influenced by intra‐team trust, the structural organicity of a venture, and environmental dynamism. Our findings provide novel insights into the micro‐foundations of TMS in developing an EO in new ventures.

Reconceptualizing entrepreneurial orientation

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO)—a firm's strategic posture towards entrepreneurship—has become the predominant construct of interest in strategic entrepreneurship research. Despite the ever-increasing volume of nomological research on EO, there remain ongoing conversations regarding its ontology. Drawing from measurement theory, we outline an EO reconceptualization addressing the likely prevalence of Type II nomological error in the EO literature stemming from measurement model misspecification. Focusing on the question of whether EO is an attitudinal construct, a behavioral construct, or both, we propose a formative construction of EO viewing the exhibition of entrepreneurial behaviors and of managerial attitude towards risk as jointly necessary dimensions that collectively form the higher-order EO construct. We present an empirical illustration of our reconceptualization followed by a discussion of future research opportunities

How alliance formation shapes corporate venture capital investment in the software industry: a resource‐based perspective

AbstractCorporate venture capital (CVC) investments serve as interfirm relationships that enable established firms to tap into emerging technology markets. Nevertheless, firms may also leverage their strategic alliances to this end. Does alliance formation reinforce or attenuate a firm's tendency to invest in entrepreneurial ventures? We introduce a resource‐based perspective whereby resource complementarity and network resource visibility prompt a reinforcing association between CVC investment and alliance formation. In turn, external resource redundancy and internal resource allocation constraints yield an attenuating effect of alliance formation on CVC investment. Analyzing the alliances and CVC investments of 372 software firms during the 1990s, we reconcile these opposing arguments by revealing an inverted U‐shaped association between CVC investment and alliance formation. Accordingly, the number of CVC investments first increases, but then decreases, with the number of alliances formed. Moreover, the positive association between CVC investment and alliance formation diminishes as firms invest in their internal resource stocks, mature, and accumulate experience with prior CVC investments. We advance strategic entrepreneurship research by elucidating the tendency of established firms to engage in CVC investment and by unpacking the complex association between different types of interfirm relationships that these firms leverage. Copyright © 2010 Strategic Management Society.

Research in social entrepreneurship: past contributions and future opportunities

AbstractSocial entrepreneurship has been a topic of academic inquiry for nearly 20 years, yet relatively little scholarly output has appeared in mainstream management and entrepreneurship journals. Our review of this literature reveals that conceptual articles outnumber empirical studies, and empirical efforts often lack formal hypotheses and rigorous methods. These findings suggest that social entrepreneurship research remains in an embryonic state. Future research would benefit from the incorporation of multivariate methods to complement the case study techniques that have dominated previous efforts. Our review also suggests that social entrepreneurship is informed by common areas of interest to management scholars like entrepreneurship, public/nonprofit management, and social issues, all of which represent fruitful venues for future research efforts. Therefore, we recommend that scholars embrace key themes in strategic entrepreneurship and frame their research using established theories, such as contingency theory, creation theory, discovery theory, innovation diffusion theory, resource dependence theory, and other theoretical bases relevant to strategic entrepreneurship research. Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

Advancing Strategic Entrepreneurship Research: The Role of Complexity Science in Shifting the Paradigm

Five areas are identified wherein more development might enhance the current model of strategic entrepreneurship (SE): exploration–exploitation, opportunity, newness, micro–macro interaction, and dynamics. Complexity science is presented as an alternative theoretical lens for addressing these issues, and enhancing the potential of SE in a world characterized by fluctuations, irreversibility, nonlinearity, and instabilities. Using this lens, a rearticulation of SE is proposed that centers on the notion of an opportunity space and a paradigm built around forms, flows, and functions. SE's domain consists of a complex set of phenomena that cannot be neatly bundled according to disciplinary boundaries.

Cross‐boundary disruptors: powerful interindustry entrepreneurial change agents

AbstractBased on comparative case studies of Apple Computer's strategic actions in the music and cellular telephony industries, we develop the concept of cross‐boundary disruptor as a new type of entrepreneurial actor in interindustry strategic dynamics. We document how the confluence of forces that drove the convergence of the music and computing industries gave rise to Apple becoming a defining example of a cross‐boundary disruptor to the music industry, and examine Apple's chances to do the same in the cellular telephony industry. Using our preliminary conceptual framework, we further examine what kind of company could become a cross‐boundary disruptor in the U.S. health care industry to help overcome its long‐standing stasis. We summarize our case study‐based findings into a preliminary substantive theory of the cross‐boundary disruption phenomenon, and discuss several implications for further strategic entrepreneurship research and strategic leadership practice. Copyright © 2008 Strategic Management Society.