How counter-fate relational practices mitigate resource acquisition challenges during project nascence

Research shows that embedded relations can facilitate the resource acquisition process in entrepreneurship. Yet, as relations are dynamic and subject to change, it remains unclear how entrepreneurs can acquire necessary resources when pre-existing ties may not yet or no longer be relevant, sufficient or accessible. Under these circumstances, acquiring necessary resources is a challenge and one that novice entrepreneurs in project-based enterprises face repeatedly as they seek to sustain their businesses. Evidence from 123 projects developed by six newly formed independent television production companies in the UK shows that new entrepreneurs can manoeuvre around constraints by engaging in one of four counter-fate relational practices: posturing (i.e. exaggerating interest from key ties), status sequencing (i.e. developing key relations in sequence based on status), geographic sequencing (i.e. attaining key ties in sequence based on location), and opportunistic manoeuvring (i.e. manipulating the opportunism of potential resource-holders). We contribute to entrepreneurship research by showing how resources can be acquired despite a lack of key embedded ties, and highlight enabling conditions; and to project studies by illustrating how projects progress past nascence to launch and acquire new clients or repeat commissions.

Finding Self Among Others: Navigating the Tensions Between Personal and Social Identity

Personal and social identity are critical for entrepreneurs. However, tensions arise in entrepreneurial experiences due to the independence underlying personal identity and embeddedness underlying social identity. In this qualitative study, we explore how novice and experienced entrepreneurs navigate these tensions. We find that novice entrepreneurs are focused on discovering their personal identity via broad interactions within social groups. Experienced entrepreneurs devote more time to their ventures and less time in social groups but they value the targeted collaborations within these social groups. We discuss the mechanisms that underlie the paradox between centrality and salience of personal and social identity.

How Novice Entrepreneurs Learn About Digital Marketing Communication Strategies?

This study aims to investigate the process of learning digital communication strategies by novice entrepreneurs who have limited knowledge, information, and access to formal training by learning through observations on social media to develop their business. This study used a qualitative approach with a case study design of six start-up entrepreneurs from micro, small and medium enterprises in Surakarta, Indonesia. In-depth interviews were conducted with six start-up entrepreneurs to study the social media situation in modeling and the meaning of the social media communication strategy being modeled. The results showed that role modeling occurred based on the needs of novice entrepreneurs to learn social media communication strategies. Also, the correct meaning of social media communication strategies is a determining factor that leads to the self-efficacy of novice entrepreneurs to make similar imitation decisions, develop observed strategies, or create new versions of strategies.

Uncovering the effects of prior founding experience of entrepreneurs on early board selection

Purpose This study aims to show what type of directors founders (or entrepreneurs) first appoint to the board and how these appointments differ across experienced and novice entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach The sample consists of the human capital of board members in 443 new ventures in the computer software and information technology industries between 2000 and 2014. The hypotheses were tested using tobit regression. Findings The findings in this study reveal that compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs tend to appoint early boards with greater human capital (entrepreneurial, technical/scientific and industry-specific) and with greater functional diversity. In contrast, novice entrepreneurs tend to appoint early boards with greater finance and director experience. Originality/value The value of this research lies in filling the gap in the current literature by comparing the board appointment/selection behavior of novice and experienced entrepreneurs, which is relatively underexplored.

Missing the Forest for the Trees: Prior Entrepreneurial Experience, Role Identity, and Entrepreneurial Creativity

Extant research has portrayed the effect of prior entrepreneurial experience as one that manifests uniformly across contexts. Drawing on the person-by-situation perspective, we elaborated how prior entrepreneurial experience could manifest differentially across contexts. Results from our lab experiment indicated that prior entrepreneurial experience brought an advantage in avoiding being overly “captivated” by a situationally salient role identity and missing the main goal of developing something that is both novel and commercially viable. Our research also examined the “role identity advantage” by demonstrating that compared to novice entrepreneurs, experienced entrepreneurs can better manage tensions between their chronic and situationally salient identities.

Building the First Business Relationships: Incubatees in University Business Incubators (UBIs)

University Business Incubators (UBIs) are ideal spaces for supporting and developing novice entrepreneurs and their businesses. In the current study, we explore whether such incubators can also be considered an ideal space for building dyadic relationships between incubatees based on trust and knowledge exchange, and whether this can encourage commitment in the relationship. To this end, we propose that the perception of shared values from the academic world may foster such trust. Furthermore, perceiving there may be supplementary and complementary resources encourages the exchange of knowledge, the specific resource on which UBI businesses are based. At the same time, empathy between academic incubatees leads to relational commitment being reinforced.

The Culture for Open Innovation Dynamics

Culture, in its various forms, has always been a critical driver of innovation. This paper focuses on generating some insights into the role of “culture for open innovation dynamics”. First, because the requirement to understand culture, which can control open innovation complexity, has been augmented, we want to answer the following research question in this study: How can we define or organize “culture for open innovation dynamics”, which can motivate open innovation dynamics, and control open innovation complexity? Second, we propose a concept model of culture for open innovation dynamics by reviewing the literature on the culture of firms in terms of their traits, organization, static innovation, and dynamic aspects regarding their innovation in entrepreneurship, and we validate said model through an indirect social experiment using the research results of 23 Special Issue papers. Third, the concept model of culture for open innovation dynamics is explained as the interaction between three different entrepreneurship dimensions: Entrepreneurship of novice entrepreneurs, intrapreneurship of employees of an existing firm, and organizational entrepreneurship by the firm itself. According to the balance of three sub-entrepreneurship types, culture for open innovation dynamics can have different aspects, namely, entrepreneurship leading culture for open innovation dynamics, intrapreneurship leading culture for open innovation dynamics, or organizational entrepreneurship leading culture for open innovation dynamics. This paper helps organizations and entrepreneurs to better understand the role that culture plays in boosting open innovation dynamics.

The Model of Network Consulting Communication at the Early Stages of Entrepreneurship

The essence of the early stages of entrepreneurial activity is a gradual refinement and transformation of the cognitive model of a business project into an ongoing organizational structure. The aim of the article is forming the structure of a model of consulting communication of prospective and novice entrepreneurs based on an open multilateral platform. The methodological basis of the study is the cognitive approach to organization of network communication. The conceptual structure of the organization model of the communication process, based on the principles of adaptive (transactional) feedback, is presented. The result of consulting communication is transformation of an initial business idea, resting upon the personified implicit knowledge of the entrepreneur, into an informationbased business model of the startup’s activities. The transformation is carried out in the process of interaction with specialists who play the role of an expert, evaluator, or mentor and have proven semantic and pragmatic ideas about the essence of entrepreneurial activity. Organizational functions are performed by the platform administrator, who owns the techniques for conducting complex multilateral communication. The proposed conceptual model of network consulting allows approaching the concretization of the procedures and rules for organizing communication processes to provide information support at the early stages of entrepreneurial activity.

Mentoring for entrepreneurs: A boost or a crutch? Long-term effect of mentoring on self-efficacy

This study focuses on whether a mentor can facilitate the development of entrepreneurial self-efficacy particularly with regard to opportunity recognition (ESE-OR) for novice entrepreneurs and whether their level of learning goal orientation (LGO) has a moderating effect. Based on a sample of 219 mentees and a longitudinal follow-up for 106 of these respondents, the results show that mentoring supports the development of ESE-OR, but only for low LGO mentees. Furthermore, the effect of mentoring on ESE-OR for low LGO mentees is ephemeral as it decreases once the relationship ends. This suggests the need for long-term support in order to maintain their ESE-OR high throughout the entrepreneurial endeavour. At the opposite end, high-LGO mentees see their ESE-OR slightly decline in an intense mentoring relationship suggesting that mentoring helps to adjust ESE-OR to a more appropriate level for novice entrepreneurs.