Knowledge that Transforms

Within the context of opportunity development as a learning process, this paper explores the intentionality that drives the early stages of this process, from the initial occurrence of an idea to its further exploration and elaboration by a potential entrepreneur. It establishes that the specific situations that induce opportunity insights also affect the roles that individuals’ prior knowledge and learning approaches play for the formation of opportunity intentions. The likelihood of acting on their initial opportunity insights depends not only on how much prior knowledge individuals have of the opportunity domain, but also on whether their learning style matches the situation at hand. The results from an experiment show that domain–specific knowledge enables action when there is a person–situation match and impedes it when such a match is lacking.

Radical innovations transform existing markets, create new markets, and stimulate economic growth. This study investigates how the experience, education, and prior knowledge of technology entrepreneurs relate to innovation radicalness. Findings from a sample of 145 technology entrepreneurs operating within university–affiliated incubators suggest that general and specific human capital are both vital to innovation outcomes. Innovation radicalness was positively associated with formal education and prior knowledge of technology, but negatively associated with prior knowledge of ways to serve markets. This suggests a counterintuitive conclusion—the less technology entrepreneurs know about ways to serve a market, the greater their chances of using technology knowledge to create breakthrough innovations within it. Finally, we discuss configurations of human capital that are likely to bestow unique advantages in the construction of radical innovations.

This article develops theory relating to how differences in the human capital of academic entrepreneurs influence their ability to develop social capital that can address the barriers to venture development. We examine the development of social capital by three types of academic entrepreneurs with differing levels of entrepreneurship experience: nascent, novice, and habitual entrepreneurs. Using a longitudinal study, critical differences are observed between the structure, content, and governance of their social networks. We propose that entrepreneurs with prior business ownership experience have broader social networks and are more effective in developing network ties. Less experienced entrepreneurs likely encounter structural holes between their scientific research networks and industry networks. Support initiatives help attract industry partners for novice entrepreneurs from engineering and the material sciences but academics based within biological sciences encounter greater difficulties building such ties. Regardless of academic discipline, business ownership experience appears essential to learn to build relationships with experienced managers and potential equity investors.

This special issue addresses the role that the human capital characteristics of individuals and teams play in the complex process of technological entrepreneurship. In this article, we position the special issue on human capital and technology–based entrepreneurship within the literatures concerning academic entrepreneurship, technology transfer and innovation, and corporate spin–offs. We summarize the articles in the special issue and also outline a research agenda at the firm, entrepreneurial team, and individual entrepreneur levels. Finally, we discuss managerial and policy implications.

There is a substantial literature on the relationship between gender and access to finance. However, most studies have been concerned with access to debt finance. More recently, the focus of this research has broadened to examine women and venture capital. This article extends the focus further by examining the role of women in the business angel market, which is more important than the formal venture capital market in terms of both the number of ventures supported and total capital flows. Based on a detailed analysis of business angels in the U.K., the study concludes that women investors who are active in the market differ from their male counterparts in only limited respects. Future research into women business angels, and the possible existence of gender differences, needs to be based on more fully elaborated standpoint epistemologies that focus on the experience of the woman angel investor per se, and center on the examination of the role of homophily, social capital, networking, and competition in investment behavior.

The relationships between gender, entrepreneurial self–efficacy, and entrepreneurial intentions were examined for two sample groups: adolescents and adult master of business administration (MBA) students. Similar gender effects on entrepreneurial self–efficacy are shown for both groups and support earlier research on the relationship between self–efficacy and career intentions. Additionally, the effects of entrepreneurship education in MBA programs on entrepreneurial self–efficacy proved stronger for women than for men. Implications for educators and policy makers were discussed, and areas for future research outlined.

Cognitive developmental psychology and constructivism offer possibilities for the future of entrepreneurial cognition research to explore: (1) deeply seated beliefs and belief structures that ultimately anchor entrepreneurial thinking and (2) how they change as entrepreneurs move toward a more professional, expert mind–set. Such insights aid the field in identifying those developmental experiences that are the sources of those critical deep beliefs intrinsic to our mental models regarding entrepreneurship. As a field, entrepreneurship is lauded for the effectiveness of its teaching, and this essay offers strong theory to explain that our pedagogical best practices reflect important, well–known cognitive phenomena.

In this article, we examine the impact of virtual embeddedness—the establishment of interorganizational connections through the use of electronic technologies—on the likelihood of new venture survival. We explore the effects of recent technological and social changes on traditional conceptions of the liabilities of newness. We argue that virtual embeddedness positively affects new venture survival by decreasing the liabilities of newness associated with a new venture's need to create and manage new roles and systems, lack of extant trust relationships, lack of social capital, and lack of economic capital. This argument has important implications for both the study and management of contemporary new ventures.

We assess the role of human capital in the growth and development of new technology–based ventures, based on longitudinal data from 198 high–tech ventures. Our empirical results imply that there is a strong relationship between team experience and strategy. Although there is a weak direct link between team experience and venture performance, the findings strongly suggest that the fit between strategy and team experience is a key determinant of the long–term performance of high–tech entrepreneurial ventures. For small, technology–based new ventures, the team's technological experience appears to be the most important determinant of the success of a differentiation strategy.

This study examines the relationship between knowledge strategy (exploration or exploitation) and performance, and the possible moderating role of external environment variables. Results from a sample of small manufacturing firms indicate that exploration and exploitation are distinct and complementary constructs. The relationship between exploration and performance is linear and positive, while the relationship between exploitation and performance is concave, indicating that there is a point at which focusing on exploitation leads to reduced returns. Additionally, we find that the competitive environment moderates the relationship between exploitation and performance, such that exploitation has a stronger impact on performance in stable and high–tech environments than in dynamic and low–tech environments. Exploration also has a stronger impact on performance in high–tech environments than in low–tech environments.