Knowledge that Transforms

Abstract This study explores how entrepreneurial firms become successful in foreign market entries over time. The setting is the foreign market entries of entrepreneurial firms with headquarters in Singapore, the U.S., and Finland. There are several findings. Firms with more successful foreign market entries decrease improvisation in opportunity selection but increase improvisation in opportunity execution. In contrast, firms with less successful foreign market entries do the opposite. Intriguingly, data suggest that increased improvisation in opportunity execution may be influenced by decreased improvisation in opportunity selection, whereas decreased improvisation in opportunity execution may be influenced by increased improvisation in opportunity selection. Overall, besides contributing fresh insights about the relationship between improvisation and performance in new venture firms, a central contribution of this study is shedding light on the texture of entrepreneurial cognition and the little known relationship between cognition, action, amended cognitions, and redirected action. Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

Abstract In this article, we use the theoretical lens of resource and competence‐based perspectives and global strategic network theory to analyze the effects of international R&D alliances on the performance of high‐tech start‐ups. In the empirical section of the article, we consider the European Union‐funded international R&D alliances established by a large sample of Italian high‐tech start‐ups over the period from 1994 to 2003. We measure firm performance through total factor productivity, and we resort to generalized method of moments system estimates to detect the treatment effect of alliance formation according to type and home country of the partners. The econometric results suggest that international R&D alliances are most beneficial to high‐tech start‐ups if (1) they involve industrial partners located in a variety of countries and (2) these countries are closer to world knowledge sources. Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

Abstract This research explores the relationship between strategic learning capability—a firm's proficiency at generating, and then acting on, strategic knowledge—and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). While theory posits the inevitably of building strategic learning capability from behaving entrepreneurially, there is little empirical research to validate this proposition and even less understanding of how and why EO contributes to strategic learning capability. Empirical results from 110 manufacturing firms confirm the direct effect of EO on strategic learning capability, and support is found for three constructs—structural organicity, market responsiveness, and strategy formation mode—that fully mediate the EO‐strategic learning capability relationship. Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

Abstract What are the origins of entrepreneurial beliefs about new opportunities and the value of resources? In this article, we outline a theory and model of the emergence of entrepreneurial beliefs and novel strategies. We first summarize extant literature by highlighting both the experiential and perceptual (or observational) origins of entrepreneurial beliefs and strategies. Thereafter we carefully explicate the role that entrepreneurial theorizing plays in the emergence of novel beliefs about new opportunities and make links with experiential and perceptual arguments. We specifically discuss three key mechanisms of entrepreneurial theorizing, namely: (1) the triggering role of experiential and observational fragments; (2) the imagination of possibilities; and (3) reasoning and justification. Importantly, we also explicate the social mechanisms of entrepreneurial theorizing and the emergence of entrepreneurial beliefs and novel strategies, specifically by discussing the role of social interaction and self‐selection in entrepreneurial activity. Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society