Knowledge that Transforms

Persistent evidence of a male advantage in equity fundraising has led entrepreneurship scholars to assume that while women face fit penalties in male-typed industries, men are exempt from penalties in female-typed ones. Yet underlying sociological theory implies that lack-of-fit penalties would apply to both sexes. Analyzing 718 equity deals from 408 ventures in Femtech, we find that male CEOs raise smaller deal amounts than female CEOs. Post hoc analyses and interviews provide interpretive triangulation consistent with two plausible explanatory accounts, embodied task competence and moral legitimacy. This challenges the assumption that men are exempt from fit penalties in female-typed industries.

We conduct a large-scale labor-market experiment using more than 8,000 fictitious résumés to uncover the demand-side mechanisms behind the adverse treatment of the self-employed entering wage employment. We find that, compared to wage earners, self-employed individuals face lower callback rates across industries and skill groups. This adverse treatment is concentrated in the lower-skilled, non-managerial market of associate professionals, with a 28% drop in callback. Results suggest that self-employment leads to the development of generalist skills (useful for managerial roles) at the cost of specialist skills. Furthermore, perceived behavioral fit of the self-employed seems to be penalized in associate positions.

This study revisits the assumption that moderate growth offers the most reliable path to new venture survival. Adopting a lifetime growth perspective, we distinguish genuine failure from strategic or neutral exits to better understand the growth–survival relationship. Using 246,831 venture-year observations from 52,277 Dutch startups (2007–2019), we replicate and extend prior research. While moderate annualized growth enhances short-term survival, our extension reveals a contrasting long-term pattern: ventures with either low or high lifetime growth exhibit the greatest survival likelihood. These findings reconcile competing perspectives and highlight how ventures need to navigate short- and long-term pressures to survive.

Effectuation research posits that effectual networks are composed of self-selecting stakeholders who purchase voice to gain influence in how the effectual process proceeds when they commit to co-create. However, entrepreneurship scholars wrestle with theorizing the social action underlying a theory originally based on the individual decision-making of experts and, specifically, explaining how voice emerges prior to commitment to influence effectual network formation. This study combines the literatures on effectuation and hybrid institutional logics to examine how intermediaries can shape the creation of effectual networks among their members. Through a multiple case study of six makerspaces, the findings reveal how voice emerges and becomes collectivized in the transition from informal collaboration to co-creation. Makerspaces with a high degree of hybrid logics support voice emergence through three social interaction mechanisms: project socializing, market logic embedding, and community logic extending. The study builds a model of effectual network formation via voice emergence moderated by logic hybridity, thereby sharpening the parameters of effectual networks pertaining to voice and co-creation.

We investigate the effect of parental leave taken by top management team (TMT) members on innovation outputs in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By analyzing a large sample of Swedish SMEs, we find that the length of parental leave taken by TMT members has a positive effect on SME innovation outputs. This effect is stronger for smaller and longer-tenured TMTs, as these TMTs likely exhibit greater behavioral integration. Such integration can support TMT members in mitigating role conflicts and leveraging the role enhancement benefits connected to performing multiple roles during and after leave. These results contribute to the literature and offer valuable practical insights.

Mainstream entrepreneurship has traditionally focused on the human behaviors involved in the exploitation, innovation, and transformation of human-centric systems. However, this anthropocentric view is inadequate in addressing today’s grand challenges. Assuming human superiority in solving Earth’s problems can be misleading. We challenge this assumption by adopting an ecocentric perspective that incorporates natural non-human actors (NNHAs). Using actor-network theory, we take a relational approach to explore how entrepreneurial behaviors can be theoretically advanced from inclusive, distributed, mutualistic, and co-creative relationships between human and NNHAs. We advance ecocentric entrepreneurship by redefining entrepreneurial agency, interactions, places, and ecosystems.

Socioemotional wealth (SEW) is a foundational construct in family business research; however, its empirical measurement remains limited by reliance on proxy variables and survey data. This study addresses these challenges by developing a computer-aided text analysis method to measure SEW using the SEWi framework. Our approach enables direct, scalable, and multidimensional assessment of SEW through organizational narratives. We detail the development and validation of the measure, demonstrating its reliability and construct validity. This method expands the methodological toolkit for family business scholars and enhances SEW measurement precision, offering a pragmatic solution for broader, comparative, and longitudinal research.

We replicate Lockett, Wiklund, Davidsson, and Girma’s (LWDG) (2011) study, which draws on Penrose’s theory to explicate how organic and acquisitive growth interact, using data from 128,368 Dutch firms (2011–2016). Our results confirm LWDG’s finding that past organic growth negatively affects subsequent organic growth. However, unlike LWDG, reporting a positive association, we find that past acquisitive growth reduces subsequent organic growth. Extending LWDG’s framework reveals that this effect turns positive over time, particularly for complementary acquisitions. While our findings align with Penrose’s theory, they also provide a more nuanced understanding of the conditions under which acquisitive growth enhances organic growth.

This study develops a temporal socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective to examine how family firms’ strategic decisions shift as intergenerational succession approaches. Integrating SEW perspective with temporal construal theory, we argue that perceived proximity to succession triggers a shift from aspiration-based to temporal-needs-based SEW, reducing the salience of long-term benefits such as innovation while increasing the appeal of short-term concrete actions such as asset investment. Using data on pre-succession Chinese family firms, we find that firms approaching succession reduce R&D investment while increasing asset investment over time. Successor preparation weakens, while sibling competition strengthens, these effects. Our findings highlight the importance of temporal distance to succession in shaping SEW priorities and offer new insights into heterogeneity among family firms.

Multiple institutional logics can create problematic tensions—and synergies catalyzing innovation. This study examines when and how organizational hybridity—the interaction between logic incompatibility and centrality—fosters innovation. Survey and expert evaluation data from 318 social ventures (SVs) supported a mediated moderation model. Perceived centrality of social–market logics exerts opposite moderating effects: Centrality amplifies the inverted U-shaped relationship between logic incompatibility and social innovation, an effect that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) partially mediates. However, centrality weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship between incompatibility and EO. These findings provide nuanced, novel insights into hybrid organizing and social innovation, highlighting the unique trade-offs SVs face.