Knowledge that Transforms

Research Summary In this manuscript, we argue that the Entrepreneurs‐as‐Scientists (E‐a‐S) research program requires a fundamental shift from predominantly conceptual development toward an empirical agenda to achieve its normative goal: developing a scalable algorithm that improves entrepreneurial learning and value creation. The E‐a‐S approach prescribes that entrepreneurs learn by articulating causal theories, testing them, updating their beliefs, and revising their theories. We identify three risks of continued emphasis on conceptual development: overlooked complementarities, insufficient attention to boundary conditions, and potential overprescription based on limited evidence. We propose an empirical research agenda, as well as specific topics within it, to ground the E‐a‐S approach in systematic evidence, advancing a research program that is as rigorous in its methods as the entrepreneurial practices it seeks to improve. Managerial Summary This manuscript examines a growing approach that encourages entrepreneurs to think and act like scientists—by clearly articulating assumptions, testing them through experiments, updating beliefs, and refining their strategies. The goal is to develop a reliable, scalable method that improves how entrepreneurs learn and create value. However, current insights and ongoing research projects predominantly focus on conceptual work. We highlight three practical risks of such a focus: missing complementarities, overlooking when the learning method works best, and applying it too broadly without sufficient validation. We suggest that entrepreneurs use this approach flexibly since it was not designed to be a fixed formula. Ongoing research will clarify how to adapt it across contexts, helping entrepreneurs make more informed, disciplined, and effective strategic decisions.

Research Summary Prior studies have often conceptualized entrepreneurial experimentation as an activity over which founders exert a high amount of discretion in decision‐making. However, the locus of control over experimentation programs is dynamic, shifting with varying external stakeholder influence and venture growth. This paper proposes an integrative framework explaining how different stakeholder influence mechanisms function as frictions or enablers, shaping a venture's experimentation program. Resource provision mechanisms determine ventures' capacity for experimentation, while stakeholder strategic orientation and governance mechanisms shape the context within which ventures experiment, influencing how ventures deploy resources toward experiments. We further discuss how a venture's development stage shapes the relative value and impact of these stakeholder influences. Managerial Summary Experimentation and the Lean Startup approach are well‐established methods for navigating the inherent uncertainties of entrepreneurial ventures. While conventional wisdom often portrays founders as exercising substantial discretion over experimentation, this research demonstrates that a venture's experimentation program can be systematically shaped by external stakeholders. Rather than being solely founder‐driven, entrepreneurial experimentation is embedded in a broader stakeholder context that conditions what can be tested, how broadly, and how radically. Stakeholders shape ventures' experimentation by providing and controlling resources, influencing strategic directions, and structuring governance relationships. Strategic attention to which actors influence experimentation, how that influence is exercised, and how its relative importance shifts across venture development stages is important for fostering experimentation and improving venture performance.

Research Summary Research has long emphasized entrepreneurs' status as a driver of philanthropy. Extending this literature, we examine how status inconsistency—misalignment among perceived economic, social, and political status—is associated with entrepreneurs' philanthropic contributions. We develop two theoretically grounded but competing interpretations: compensation , which suggests that entrepreneurs may increase giving to offset perceived status imbalance, and resentment , which suggests that perceived imbalance may dampen prosocial engagement. Using a national survey of Chinese private entrepreneurs supplemented with qualitative interviews, we find that while higher perceived status in individual dimensions is positively associated with philanthropy, inconsistency across these status dimensions is, on average, negatively associated with it. Moreover, entrepreneurs from farmer backgrounds, compared with those from upper‐class origins, exhibit patterns consistent with stronger compensatory giving. These findings underscore the nuanced implications of multidimensional perceived status for entrepreneurial philanthropy. Managerial Summary Entrepreneurs' philanthropic behavior depends not only on how high their perceived status is but also on how consistent it is across different domains. When entrepreneurs experience status inconsistency—for example, being economically successful but perceiving weaker social or political standing—this imbalance may be associated with either efforts to compensate through giving or feelings of resentment that suppress it. Overall, entrepreneurs with unbalanced perceived status tend to give less, yet those from lower‐class backgrounds are more inclined to donate in ways consistent with status‐balancing motives. Our study highlights how the interplay of economic, social, and political status perceptions relates to entrepreneurial philanthropy.

Research Summary Despite growing interest in how linguistic strategies shape audience responses to innovative ideas, prior evidence on the benefits of using emotional language remains mixed. Building on research on emotional ambivalence and social evaluation, we introduce the concept of emotionally ambivalent framing (i.e., the combination of positive and negative emotional language when presenting ideas) and investigate its effects on audience evaluation. Analyzing data from 3284 TED Talks, we find that emotionally ambivalent framing increases receptivity, but only for typical ideas. For atypical ideas, instead, such framing tends to undermine the audience's appreciation. However, we show that speakers' fame mitigates this effect, enabling emotionally ambivalent framing to serve as an effective communicative strategy for atypical ideas as well. These findings advance our understanding of the interplay between emotions and cognition in shaping the effectiveness of linguistic framing, contributing to research on entrepreneurship, ambivalence, and social evaluation. Managerial Summary It is still unclear whether and when using emotional language to frame ideas helps innovators and entrepreneurs overcome audience resistance. In this study, we find that combining both positive and negative emotional language when presenting an idea (a strategy we call emotionally ambivalent framing) improves audience receptivity to typical ideas. However, an emotionally ambivalent framing loses its effectiveness for atypical ideas. We also find that this effect depends on how well‐known entrepreneurs are: for famous ones, emotionally ambivalent framing becomes a powerful tool for increasing audience receptivity, particularly for atypical ideas. Overall, we show how innovators and entrepreneurs can strategically leverage emotional language and craft effective framing strategies that shape how audiences evaluate their ideas.

Research Summary The importance of entrepreneurial framing for legitimating novelty is well established, but the distinct challenges of legitimating radical novelty have received less attention. We articulate these challenges and propose fictional framing—the strategic and imaginative construction of a narrative world that blends the real and the imaginary using the practices of fictionalizing—as a means for addressing them. Drawing on literary theory, narratology, and the psychology of fiction, we theorize how fictional framing can engage stakeholders in co‐imagining through specific imaginative impacts. We further theorize how stakeholder co‐imagining fosters possibilistic thinking, changing their evaluative logic from focusing on likelihood and fit to what could be possible. Our framework extends the entrepreneurial framing toolkit by theorizing the distinct mechanisms for legitimating radical novelty through fictional framing. Managerial Summary When entrepreneurs pursue radically novel ventures, from space habitation to de‐extinction, conventional framing strategies that emphasize fit with existing knowledge and market categories are often ineffective. We propose that entrepreneurs can instead use fictional framing—the strategic and imaginative construction of a narrative world that blends the real and imaginary using fictionalizing practices. Unlike hype, which inflates expectations, fictional framing invites stakeholders to co‐imagine possibilities and evaluate radically novel projects based on their transformative potential rather than their probability of success. Leveraging the power of fiction to transport, support mental simulation, and prompt audiences to envision themselves acting within the imagined world, we propose how entrepreneurs can turn stakeholders into co‐explorers of the imaginary—active participants in co‐imagining and co‐creating consequential futures.

Endogeneity in entrepreneurship research is often treated as a statistical complication addressable through advanced econometric tools. This commentary argues that such an approach overlooks a deeper issue: endogeneity is conceptual before it is statistical. Because entrepreneurial phenomena involve reciprocal relationships, evolving mechanisms, and context‐dependent processes, biased estimates frequently stem from underspecified constructs and unclear causal logic. I contend that theory, sufficiently precise to specify constructs, articulate mechanisms, and establish temporal ordering and boundary conditions, is the primary tool for reducing endogeneity in empirical estimation. Integrating theory with structural causal modeling and rigorous empirical design strengthens identification while enhancing explanatory value. I conclude with practical recommendations for scholars, emphasizing theory's central role in producing credible, cumulative knowledge in entrepreneurship research. Managerial Summary Entrepreneurs and managers often rely on data to understand what drives venture success, but data alone can be misleading if the underlying assumptions about cause and effect are unclear. This article explains why strong theory—clear ideas about how and why things work—is essential for drawing reliable conclusions from evidence. Endogeneity, a common problem in business research, occurs when factors influence each other in ways that make results appear stronger or weaker than they are. By using theory to map out mechanisms and likely confounding factors, leaders can make better decisions about which actions truly create value. The article also shows how tools like causal modeling can combine conceptual clarity with rigorous analysis, helping organizations design strategies that are both evidence‐based and trustworthy.

Research Summary Using 14,108 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, we examine three strategies to gather support from first‐time versus repeat backers: narrative distinctiveness aligning with backers' expectations of novelty, endorsement from Kickstarter staff, and campaign leadership's reciprocity of funding other campaigns. Staff endorsement is more strongly associated with support from first‐time backers, while campaign leadership's reciprocity is associated primarily with repeat backers. Differences between first‐time and repeat backers are evident in evaluating narrative distinctiveness: narratives distinct from past campaigns correlate positively with repeat backers and greater funding but negatively with first‐time backers. Narratives distinct from live campaigns correlate positively with first‐time backers but are associated with lower funding amounts. Our findings conceptualize differences between first‐time and repeat backers that shape the associations between campaign legitimization strategies and backer support. Managerial Summary This work examines how Kickstarter campaigns should be designed to attract both new people and get support from existing community members. We test whether differences between these two target groups exist in evaluating commonly established “success factors” of campaigns: An endorsement from Kickstarter, the involvement of the campaign founder on the platform, and a campaign text highlighting the campaign's novel contributions. We find differences in all three between both groups and conclude with insights on how managers should design crowdfunding campaigns based on long‐term goals and objectives. We also offer some implications for crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter, in supporting content creators in attracting new backers, which aids with overall platform growth.

Research Summary The entrepreneurship literature has established the benefits of experimentation but has paid comparatively little attention to its costs. We develop a Bayesian model to illustrate the entrepreneurial choice between direct and experimental entry. We argue that performance depends on three mechanisms: information, adaptation, and appropriability. We show that experimental entry is not universally optimal and characterize the conditions under which each mechanism favors or undermines it. We further allow founders to hold biased prior beliefs, showing that greater bias increases the value of experimentation. Extending the baseline model to a multidimensional setting, we show that experimenting across different dimensions leads to a variety of counterintuitive insights. Our analysis produces a series of testable predictions and yields several implications for the broader entrepreneurship literature and practice. Managerial Summary Should every startup run experiments before launching? The lean startup movement says yes—but the answer depends on factors often overlooked by founders and investors. Experimentation creates value when the market is genuinely uncertain and founders' beliefs are far from what customers want. It can backfire when feedback is too noisy to interpret, when pivoting is prohibitively costly, or when releasing an early product may favor imitation. In settings where products have several significant features, which dimensions to experiment in matters as much as whether to experiment at all. Our findings offer guidance to entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers designing the conditions that make experimentation feasible.

Research Summary This study develops an incentive‐based view to examine the internationalization pace of young entrepreneurial firms after they have completed an IPO and expanded abroad for the first time. Using a sample of U.S. young entrepreneurial post‐IPO firms that internationalized from 2005 to 2020, we find that the pace of internationalization increases when CEOs are compensated with more stock options and that this relationship is weakened when the stock option compensation of independent outside directors increases. By showing that incentives of different agents shape how fast young entrepreneurial firms internationalize, this study extends international entrepreneurship research by relaxing the implicit assumption that young entrepreneurial post‐IPO firms that can internationalize fast will do so. Managerial Summary What determines the internationalization pace of young entrepreneurial firms after they have already completed an IPO and expanded abroad for the first time? Our research finds that the internationalization pace of these firms increases when the CEO is compensated with more stock options. Absent CEO stock options, stock option compensation of independent outside directors provides a substitute through monitoring and advocacy for faster internationalization. Our research highlights that young post‐IPO firms that can internationalize fast will not necessarily do so, stressing the distinction between the firm resources needed for a strategic action and top management motivation to pursue that action.

Research Summary Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) requires firms to pursue both exploratory and exploitative innovation, yet limited research explains how intellectual capital (IC) is translated into these distinct outcomes. We develop a contingency model that specifies how and when IC drives exploration and exploitation. We theorize that a firm's capacity for learning and transformation (CLT) functions as a firm‐level learning and transformation capability through which IC can be translated into either exploratory or exploitative innovation. Knowledge breadth strengthens the indirect effect of IC on exploratory innovation via CLT, whereas knowledge depth amplifies the indirect effect on exploitative innovation. We test the model in two complementary field studies. Study 1 employs a time‐lagged design with objective archival data, and Study 2 replicates the findings using survey data. Results consistently support the proposed theoretical model. Managerial Summary Firms operating in fast‐changing and uncertain environments often struggle to balance developing new products with improving existing ones. Our study shows that simply having strong knowledge resources is not enough. What matters is how effectively firms learn from and use that knowledge. We find that firms perform better when they build strong learning capabilities that help them adapt, recombine, and apply knowledge over time. Importantly, the type of knowledge a firm holds shapes this process: broad knowledge supports new product development, while deep, specialized knowledge strengthens improvements to existing products. For managers, this means focusing not only on acquiring knowledge but also on building systems and practices that continuously translate knowledge into action and innovation.