Knowledge that Transforms

In this methodological brief, we demonstrate the usefulness of the restricted variance (RV) interaction to entrepreneurship research. RV reasoning can help scholars to specify precise roles for contextual moderators. This specificity allows for strengthening of arguments and for testing of one of the reasons for an interaction. In some cases, it points to otherwise unexpected interaction patterns. We illustrate the power of RV reasoning with a data set of 503 biotech firms to show how RV explains geographic differences in the relationship between number of alliances and initial public offering value. Finally, we show how these interactions can be tested given typical distributions.

Larger firms are increasingly acquiring innovative new ventures at an early stage. Despite significant integration challenges with these acquisitions, the elongated pre-acquisition process of aligning buyers’ and sellers’ different objectives is rarely studied. By studying nine academic spin-off acquisitions, we develop a three-phase model outlining the temporal dynamics of the pre-acquisition process. In each phase—namely, strategic fit, synergy confidence, and deal structure—a specific buyer-seller tension emerges. By showing how each of these tensions needs to be overcome prior to an acquisition event, our dialectical model complements the dominant focus on post-integration activities in the acquisition literature.

Drawing on emotion regulation theory, this study investigates if and how emotion suppression informs relationship viability within new venture teams (NVTs) when such teams face obstacles. In particular, we use a dyadic approach to examine the suppressor’s authenticity and team members’ perceptions of appropriateness as mediators in the link between emotion suppression and relationship viability. A round-robin study with 93 respondents nested in 37 NVTs, which generated 167 observations, provides empirical support for the theoretically derived model by showing that both authenticity and appropriateness fully mediate the relationship between emotion suppression and relationship viability. In particular, the findings show that the negative indirect effect of emotion suppression on relationship viability via authenticity is larger than the positive indirect effect via appropriateness. A follow-up study after two years indicates that relationship viability and emotion suppression significantly predict venture survival. Together, these findings make ample contributions to the literature and provide interesting opportunities for further research.

Research on entrepreneurial crowdfunding has focused limited attention to the role of category in investors’ decisions. We examine the legitimacy spillover effect of projects within the same category of industry on the focal project’s fundraising. We decompose category legitimacy into two types—stable versus transient—and investigate their distinct effects on fundraising. Our dataset, derived from 31,767 projects on Kickstarter from 2010 to 2020, confirms the spillover effect of category legitimacy on entrepreneurial fundraising. Furthermore, the spillover effect of stable legitimacy is much stronger than that of transient legitimacy, and this effect weakens when entrepreneurs have greater past successes.

While resourcing their ventures, entrepreneurs and stakeholders face and deal with unexpected situations, permeating the entrepreneurship process. Drawing on an entrepreneurship as practice approach, we explore how an entrepreneurial resourcing practice is collectively enacted, reconfigured, and repaired after a sudden practice collapse. Through a longitudinal case study of a social venture–public collaboration process, we reveal the collective repair work of a collapsing entrepreneurial resourcing practice and the role of emotions as a hidden element in the resourcing practice and the repair work enacted.

We examine how machine learning (ML) predictions of high-growth enterprises (HGEs) help a budget-constrained venture capitalist source investments for a fixed size portfolio. Applying a design science approach, we predict HGEs 3 years ahead and focus on decision (not statistical) errors, using an accuracy measure relevant to the decision-making context. We find that when the ML procedure adheres to the budget constraint and maximizes the accuracy measure, nearly 40% of the HGE predictions are correct. Moreover, ML performs particularly well where it matters in practice—in the upper tail of the distribution of the predicted HGE probabilities.

Research shows that early internationalization is more likely when founders have international and business-related experience. But what if experience was obtained in other ways? We study the scientist-founders of 149 academic spin-offs (ASOs), using cognition theory to argue for a curvilinear relationship between breadth of pre-founding R&D collaboration and internationalization timing. Our longitudinal study combines survey and patent data to show that increased breadth of collaboration with international scientists increases and then decreases the likelihood of early internationalization. The results are similar but less robust for collaboration with industry partners. Our findings suggest that studies on experience in new venture internationalization underestimate the role of R&D collaboration and the research-based heritage of many new firms.

Formal institutions, for example, regulations, are considered crucial determinants of entrepreneurship, but what enables regulatory change when there is a regulatory void, meaning entrepreneurship clashes with existing regulations? Drawing on public choice theory, we hypothesize that regulatory freedom facilitates the introduction of legislation to fill such voids. We test this hypothesis using unique data documenting the time for ridesharing to become legalized at the state level across the United States following its local (and often illegal) rollout. Results suggest states with greater regulatory freedom passed ridesharing legislation quicker, highlighting an underappreciated way that extant regulatory freedom facilitates the accommodation of entrepreneurship.

Rent-seeking entrepreneurship occurs whenever an entrepreneur expends resources on activities that benefit their firm while reducing overall economic efficiency. Since rent-seeking ultimately makes nations poorer, we need to know more about how institutions can discourage rent-seeking entrepreneurship. Using historical data from the Unites States, we explore how changes in judicial thinking altered individuals’ incentives to engage in rent-seeking entrepreneurship. Traditionally, entrepreneurship researchers interested in policy issues have paid little attention to changes in judicial thinking. We argue that entrepreneurship researchers who are interested in why levels of entrepreneurial dynamism vary over time should pay more attention to how judges think.