Knowledge that Transforms

The enabling influence of environmental changes—be they technological, regulatory, demographic, sociocultural, or otherwise—on emerging ventures receives a growing interest from researchers and practitioners. To support knowledge accumulation in this important area, we systematically review and integrate research that is dispersed across disciplines, nominal types of change, and theoretical approaches. Under a unified terminology within a cross-level (environment to agent), process-aware framework, we examine what has been done and learnt. On this basis, we develop an agenda for further, future accumulation of knowledge about the strategic and serendipitous influence of environmental changes throughout and beyond the venture creation process.

The historical prevalence of infectious diseases has had an enduring effect on innovation around the world. Building on the Parasite Stress Theory of Values, we propose a framework suggestive that the impact of historical disease pathogens on contemporary innovation is transmitted through the development of cultural values as an evolutionary psychological immune system response to ecological conditions. Economic and social interaction between groups was greater (limited) in countries with low (high) pathogen levels, resulting in the development of individualistic (collectivistic) values, which in turn encouraged (impeded) innovation. We provide supportive empirical evidence for a sample of 83 countries.

Entrepreneurship research has gravitated towards a singular focus on the Silicon Valley model as the standard model of entrepreneurship. By contrast, some entrepreneurship scholars have more recently suggested embracing entrepreneurship as diverse and colorful. We build on this latter stream of literature by analyzing the diversity of entrepreneurship from complementary institutional arrangements inherent in national economies. Drawing from Robert’s (2004) model of complementarities between context and organizational choice variables, we analyze the contextualization of diverging entrepreneurship models. Our findings indicate that some economies are complementary to a specialized niche strategy, while others instead promote a scalable mass-market manifestation of entrepreneurship.

The lean startup framework is one of the most popular contributions in the practitioner-oriented entrepreneurship literature. This study seeks to generate new insights into how new ventures are started by describing the five main building blocks of the lean startup framework (business model, validated learning/customer development, minimum viable product, perseverance vs. pivoting, market-opportunity navigation), enriching the framework with existing research findings, and proposing promising research opportunities in a way that reduces the academic−practitioner divide. In so doing, we hope to enhance researchers’ understanding of the startup process; provide knowledge for educators; and, ultimately, improve the startup process for practitioners.

New digital technologies have prompted many firms, including family firms, to innovate their business models. We study the role of dynamic capabilities as mediator in the relationship between family influence and digital business model innovation (BMI), and the moderating role of environmental dynamism. Based on unique survey data from 1,444 German firms with and without family influence, we reveal that knowledge exploitation, risk management, and marketing capabilities mediate the positive relationship between family influence and digital BMI. Surprisingly, and contrary to our assumption, we find that the positive relationship between family influence and dynamic capabilities is weakened rather than strengthened by environmental dynamism. Our findings hold important implications for family business innovation and digital BMI research, offering valuable insights into the role of dynamic capabilities and environmental dynamism in the digital economy.

The past decade has experienced a significant increase in the number of papers on the biology of entrepreneurship. This trend is aligned with the general interest in the biology of management studies as evidenced by the more than 300 articles already published (Nofal et al., 2018). It illustrates the progression of science along two dimensions. First is the drive to seek smaller units of analyses to identify the core mechanisms of action. Second is the opposing drive to seek larger units of analyses to identify general principles. These simultaneous processes move our understanding of social and natural phenomena closer to a unified theory. In this note, we reflect on how the biology of why, how, what, when, and where of entrepreneurship represents a natural progression from the institutional, organizational, and psychological explanations. We call this the biological perspective in entrepreneurship (BPE), which is illustrated by the papers in this volume. We examine the key domains of inquiry, various methodologies, and reflect on the directions that future research should take.

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) has potential benefits that might be attractive to high-quality entrepreneurs, including fast access to a large pool of investors and obtaining feedback from the market. However, there are potential costs associated with ECF due to early public disclosure of entrepreneurial activities, communication costs with large pools of investors, and equity dilution that could discourage future equity investors; these costs suggest that ECF attracts low-quality entrepreneurs. In this paper, we hypothesize that entrepreneurs tied to more risky banks are more likely to be low-quality entrepreneurs and thus are more likely to use ECF. A large sample of ECF campaigns in Germany shows strong evidence that connections to distressed banks push entrepreneurs to use ECF. We find some evidence, albeit less robust, that entrepreneurs who can access other forms of equity are less likely to use ECF. Finally, the data indicate that entrepreneurs who access ECF are more likely to fail.

Studies that apply gender role congruity theory (GRCT) have focused on resource providers’ biased evaluations and women entrepreneurs’ internalization of gender stereotypes as primary mechanisms explaining the gender gap in venture performance. We provide an institutional foundation for GRCT and argue that informal political–cultural institutions—namely, government interference in market-based competition and cultural beliefs regarding gender inequality—differentially shape male versus female entrepreneurs’ venture performance through their influences on entrepreneurs’ industry selection and participation in after-work social activities. Our study of 7,626 Chinese entrepreneurial firms provides strong support for our arguments and contributes to women’s entrepreneurship theory and practice.

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.

Entrepreneurial fear of failure is a ubiquitous yet aversive experience with critical implications for entrepreneurial action and well-being. To understand how entrepreneurs can effectively cope with fear-inducing obstacles, we hypothesize and experimentally test the extent to which self-compassion, cultivated through Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM), counteracts entrepreneurs’ fear of failure when facing a threatening venture obstacle. Compared to an active control group, entrepreneurs exposed to a brief guided LKM showed higher self-compassion, which, in turn, was associated with lower fear reactivity. We offer novel contributions to entrepreneurship theory and practice by highlighting the role of meditation and self-compassion in building entrepreneurial resilience.