Knowledge that Transforms

This study investigates how support organisations for marginalised entrepreneurs (SOMEs), typically peripheral members within entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), facilitate the inclusive evolution of EEs. Employing boundary theory and ethnographic research conducted over three years within a refugee entrepreneurship support organisation in Birmingham, UK, this study identifies a four-stage boundary work process: Knowledge brokering, Boundary buffer spacing, Boundary object developing, and Boundary practice institutionalising. These interconnected strategic stages enable SOMEs to reconfigure the knowledge-cognitive, resource-opportunity, and social network exclusionary boundaries of EEs progressively, facilitating EEs' adaptation to marginalised entrepreneurs' diverse needs and pursuits within the overarching growth-orientation of EEs. Theoretically, this study introduces a “periphery-to-centre” model of inclusive evolution, expanding the prevalent centre-driven perspective of EE inclusive evolution, and demonstrates how inclusion could coexist with EE's growth-orientation because of SOMEs' boundary work. The study also unfolds enablers for such effective boundary work, emphasising the effects of SOMEs' dual knowledge capabilities, dual network embeddedness, institutional rhetoric, and the path dependency of evolution. Executive summary In entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) research, an important but overlooked issue is how ecosystems can become more inclusive, allowing entrepreneurs from different backgrounds pursuing varied objectives to obtain the necessary support and resources. However, given that EEs often prioritise innovation and high-growth ventures, their ideologies and structures are hardly responsive to diverse entrepreneurs' distinctive pursuits and needs for support, causing their marginalisation. Despite community-based and non-profit support organisations for marginalised entrepreneurs (SOMEs) emerging to address this situation, their strategies and role in EEs' inclusion evolution remain understudied. Addressing this gap is critical as enhanced inclusion not only advances social equity but also strengthens EEs' resilience and innovation through the integration of diverse entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial activities. Leveraging boundary theory to conceptualise SOME's boundary work and how it affects the exclusionary boundaries (knowledge-cognitive, resource-opportunity, and social network boundaries) of EE, this paper develops a four-stage process model based on a three-year ethnographic study of a refugee entrepreneurship support organisation in Birmingham, UK. The study conceptualises a “periphery-to-centre” inclusive evolution pathway driven by SOMEs, expanding beyond the dominant “centre-to-periphery” evolutionary perspective prevalent in existing EE literature. SOMEs leverage their distinctive position on the EE's internal periphery to simultaneously understand both marginalised entrepreneurs' distinctive needs and aspirations, and the operational dynamics and value orientations of EEs. Based on this dual understanding, rather than directly challenging the growth-oriented values of EEs, SOMEs strategically mobilise these established priorities to legitimise their innovative boundary work, gradually restructuring exclusionary boundaries while respecting existing EEs' priorities. This study reveals four interconnected stages through which this boundary work unfolds, with corresponding evolution of EEs' exclusionary boundaries: (1) Knowledge brokering - translating MEs' values and needs into EE-compatible discourse, creating initial shifts in EE members' knowledge-cognitive boundary and establishing sole resource conduits into EE through SOMEs; (2) Boundary buffer spacing - establishing specialised subsystems with complementary actors (social service providers outside EE) to deal with marginalised entrepreneurs' distinctive needs, forming externally-driven temporary expansion of resource and network boundaries while reducing EE members' perceived risks in supporting MEs; (3) Boundary object developing - creating collaborative initiatives that satisfy diverse stakeholders' interests, enabling internally-driven structural boundary expansion with bidirectional knowledge exchange between EE members and marginalised entrepreneurs, and facilitating direct resource and network access in EE; and (4) Boundary practice institutionalising - embedding accumulated boundary practices across multiple ecosystem levels, transforming temporary interventions into self-sustaining and self-expanding boundary changes across all dimensions. The study also identifies critical enabling conditions for effective boundary work: SOMEs' dual knowledge capabilities; their dual networks with both social service providers and EE members; supportive rhetoric for economic diversity and inclusion in the institutional environment; and path-dependent factors where early boundary changes enable subsequent evolution. Moreover, this study challenges the binary opposition between growth orientation and inclusion in EEs, showing how boundary changes create structures facilitating bidirectional adaptation without sacrificing the growth objectives of EEs or forcing marginalised entrepreneurs to conform to mainstream definitions of success. These insights offer important implications for policymakers and practitioners. The study suggests that supporting “periphery-to-centre” evolution through stable funding and supportive rhetoric, while providing SOMEs with a blueprint for conducting progressive boundary work.

Amid accelerating global change, entrepreneurship is increasingly shaped by political, social, and technological shifts that cut across borders. Yet, despite these pressing realities, international entrepreneurship (IE) scholarship has paid limited attention to how such global phenomena impact entrepreneurial actors, behaviors, and circumstances. This suggests a disconnect between the evolving global context and current academic attention to the field. Drawing on our perspective as area editors for IE at the Journal of Business Venturing , we reflect on this gap and the concerns voiced across the scientific community about the field's scope and future. In response, we propose an agenda for future research that treats entrepreneurship as inherently international and, in turn, invites future contributions not only by IE researchers but also from the wider entrepreneurship community.

Entrepreneurial imagination (EI) lies at the core of entrepreneurship research. Both early and contemporary scholars have emphasized its central role in visualizing and actualizing entrepreneurial opportunities, shaping decision-making, and enabling venture creation. Perhaps because of its salience and significance, EI has been approached from a wide range of definitional, philosophical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives, fostering a conceptually rich yet sprawling and fragmented body of work. Drawing on a scoping literature review of articles published in leading management and entrepreneurship journals, we synthesize the diverse constructs, processes, and conceptualizations associated with EI. We adopt a pluralistic approach, identifying eight distinct theoretical perspectives that have shaped scholars' understanding of EI over time. Rather than seeking to unify these perspectives into a single framework, we provide a multidimensional account of EI that captures its complexity and explore possibilities for cross-pollination as an agenda for future research. By putting complementary and sometimes contrasting perspectives into conversation, especially where they address similar concerns or compensate for each other's limitations, we aim to inspire novel combinations and spark new questions that can meaningfully advance scholarship on EI. • Establish entrepreneurial imagination (EI) as foundational yet conceptually fragmented in entrepreneurship research. • Conduct a scoping review of the literature to explore EI's diverse constructs, processes, and conceptualizations. • Embrace pluralism in order to recognize the ontological, epistemological, and methodological diversity in EI research. • Identify, develop and review eight distinct theoretical perspectives on EI (e.g., cognitive, linguistic, moral, aesthetic). • Explore opportunities for cross-pollination between perspectives to offer a new, thought-provoking agenda for EI research.

Although hype is widely discussed in the popular discourse around entrepreneurship, it has received limited attention in the entrepreneurship literature. In this introduction to the special issue on hype and entrepreneurship, we propose that hype in entrepreneurial settings can be usefully explored by considering the stages of the hype cycle that can unfold in these settings. The first stage is hyping , where entrepreneurs frame ideas, products, business models, and ventures using language designed to set exciting future expectations despite (and even because of) the absence of technical validation or evidence of the economic feasibility of the venture. These efforts can trigger a state of hype, which refers to a rapidly intensifying collective vision of the future across audiences leading to an upswing . During the upswing, unrealistic expectations emerge, which, if left unmet, can lead to a downswing when there is a reversal of momentum and even the stigmatization of the hyped assets. Yet, there is always the possibility of a revival of entrepreneurial efforts around what had been hyped but became stigmatized. Noting that not all entrepreneurial phenomena necessarily traverse all stages of the cycle, we discuss some of the triggers and contingencies that can lead to shifts across the different stages of the hype cycle. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities that these stages offer entrepreneurs to the extent they unfold within and across fields. We then introduce the papers that comprise the special issue and conclude with suggestions for future research. • Hype offers a powerful lens for entrepreneurship research. • Hype consists of hyping, upswing, downswing, and revival. • Entrepreneurs often must navigate multiple hype cycles.

This study explores the relationship between investor heterogeneity and firms’ post-seed funding performance. We find a statistically and economically significant negative association of investor heterogeneity on both a firm’ s likelihood of obtaining new funding and the amount raised in subsequent funding rounds. These findings suggest that greater heterogeneity among investors may impair board efficacy and weaken the quality of venture governance. Moreover, the marginal effect of investor heterogeneity is non-linear and diminishes over the course of a venture’ s funding lifecycle. Our results remain robust after accounting for endogeneity concerns and alternative measures of investor culture. • Investor heterogeneity affects firms’ post-seed funding outcomes • Heterogeneity reduces likelihood and volume of subsequent funding • Effects are non-linear and diminish across the funding lifecycle • Heterogeneity can impair board efficacy and venture governance

Does an additional year of formal education affect the decision to become an entrepreneur? Using human capital theory as a conceptual lens, we explore three channels through which it might: productivity, certification, and health impacts. To test the mechanisms and uncover whether there are causal relationships between these variables, we exploit two exogenous changes to British compulsory schooling laws that generated sharp across-cohort differences in years of education. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we estimate that the reforms significantly reduced self-employment. We go on to explore which channels best explain this finding, and discuss implications for scholars and policymakers. • A Regression Discontinuity Design is used to obtain causal estimates of the relationship between high school education and adult entrepreneurship. • The study exploits as a natural experiment legal reforms to the national minimum school leaving age in Britain. • Estimates indicate a negative relationship between an additional year of schooling and engagement in self-employment. • The findings cast doubt on the notion that the additional schooling affected self-employment through productivity or credentialing channels. • Policy implications might be most applicable to developing countries where governments are exploring whether to raise school leaving ages.

Despite ongoing interest in human resource management (HRM) in entrepreneurial organizations, we believe the moment is ripe to rethink notions of human resource management in ways that take advantage of the distinctive nature of entrepreneurial settings. A critical first step is recognizing that the people creating and building an entrepreneurial organization extend beyond the founders and include people who may or may not be employees. As such, rather than following traditional human resources (HR) research's focus on employees, HR research in entrepreneurial organizations must take a broader perspective. We propose a focus on “joiners”, people who, according to Roach and Sauermann (2015) , are a “distinct type of nonfounding entrepreneurial actors who are attracted to the startup work setting but have little desire to be founders themselves.” Joiners represent the human resources critical to venture progress. We argue that a research agenda focused on joiners that is pursued through explicitly understanding and engaging with the fundamental assumptions, debates, and conversations from an entrepreneurship perspective will yield novel questions and generate new insights. Through this editorial we hope to catalyze this important work by unpacking who joiners are and how they fit in the entrepreneurial context, highlighting the need for new research at the intersection of HRM and entrepreneurship, and suggesting novel questions, research opportunities, and methodologies related to HRM in entrepreneurial settings. Scholars have advanced our Understanding of human resource management (HRM) in entrepreneurial organizations from multiple perspectives. We believe the moment is ripe to rethink notions of human resource management in ways that take advantage of the distinctive nature of entrepreneurial settings, which will allow us to understand human resources of entrepreneurial firms in new ways. A critical first step is recognizing that the people creating and building an entrepreneurial organization extend beyond the founders and include people who may or may not be employees. We propose a definition of joiners that captures the original spirit of the term and emphasizes the people who are actively choosing an entrepreneurial work setting, remains agnostic to formal employment status, and focuses on the work that is being done: “ Joiners are non-founders who contribute physical and/or mental labor to a new venture and are subordinate to the founders ”. Our definition is well-suited to the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial firms that are navigating uncertain environments, in which more flexible and less formal labor contributions are needed than merely those provided by employees. By consequence, our definition of joiners includes employees, contractors, interns, freelancers and volunteers and excludes other stakeholders such as tech transfer and other entrepreneurial support organization staff, board members, investors, policy makers, customers, and suppliers. We also suggest it may be helpful to distinguish between “primary joiners” and “secondary joiners.” The first refers to the initial group of people who are in direct contact with founders and who are creating their role rather than inhabiting an established role. These individuals bring the human and social capital that determines an early venture's success. Other individuals who later join an entrepreneurial venture, particularly those who are not directly overseen by founders, can be referred to as “secondary joiners”, or if they are actually employed by the startup, simply as employees. We argue that the study of joiners merits fresh thinking that more explicitly takes into consideration the core aspects of entrepreneurship: that it involves uncertainty and dynamism, resource constraints and context dependence, informality, and social or interpersonal creation of opportunities, ventures, and systems. A traditional HR perspective is focused on employees within firms who are in a formal employment relationship, occupying defined roles, within a hierarchical reporting structure where there is a supervisor, a set of performance expectations, and a package of rewards. In contrast, an entrepreneurship perspective considers contributions from people who may be employees or contractors or non-contracted helpers, straddling the fuzzy boundaries of a new venture in roles and reporting relationships that are ambiguous and evolving, doing work that is uncertain and ever-changing, with risky and unknown outcomes, rewards, and career prospects. We highlight specific research questions focused on joiners from an HR versus an entrepreneurship perspective that warrant additional investigation and discuss the most appropriate methodologies for such study. Overall, while we acknowledge and commend the efforts of many scholars who have already explored issues related to joiners, we believe that more explicitly recognizing and engaging with the distinct focus, assumptions, debates, and conversations inherent to an entrepreneurship perspective, as well as taking a broader perspective on who is a joiner, will inspire new questions and uncover novel insights into human resources of entrepreneurial firms. We encourage work that advances a uniquely entrepreneurship-informed understanding of joiners and of HRM. • We re-define the term “joiners”, differentiate them from other stakeholders, and clarify their unique position in startups. • We encourage taking into consideration unique features of entrepreneurship in research on HRM in entrepreneurial firms. • We propose a set of novel questions related to HRM in entrepreneurial settings from an entrepreneurship-focused approach. • We discuss promising methodologies for investigating such questions.

One key to new venture creation and success is getting the “people part” right. Professional investors have a strong preference for funding founding teams of people rather than individuals. This preference is based on the belief that starting a new venture requires a portfolio of experiences, skills, and networks that few individuals possess. Implicit in this thesis is the belief that the benefits of a team outweigh its costs that can accrue with co-founders arising from information asymmetries. Such information asymmetries are greater when founding with strangers given an absence of prior relational experience. Yet, strangers are more likely capable of providing the theorized (unique) value-add of co-founders such as non-redundant networks. Unfortunately, due to data limitations, the literature has not assessed assumptions concerning the pros/cons of co-founding with strangers thereby limiting our ability to get the people part of new ventures “right.” We use unique survey data on more than three thousand new ventures that successfully launched a crowdfunding campaign to assess these assumptions. These survey data include enough teams with strangers and granular measures of team functioning, product/service delivery, and operational status for comprehensive assessments. Results reveal that new ventures including strangers on the team are less likely to deliver the product/service they pitched and are more likely to be non-operational. Direct, descriptive evidence suggests that team-related issues underlie these outcomes.

Entrepreneurs' funding pitches are inherently multimodal, conveying affective content through both verbal (words) and vocal (prosodic intonation) channels. Integrating theory of cross-channel consistency with the two-dimensional model of affect, we theorize that funding performance improves when entrepreneurs' verbal and vocal expressions are affectively consistent in terms of valence and arousal, as such consistency enhances perceptions of their preparedness and authenticity. Using a mixed-methods design, we first analyze over 500 crowdfunding pitch videos with computer-aided text and audio analysis to quantify cross-channel affective consistency (CCAC) and assess its impact on funding performance via perceived preparedness and authenticity. Results show that CCAC—particularly in arousal and the joint alignment of valence and arousal—predicts funding performance. While CCAC increased both perceived preparedness and authenticity, only preparedness further predicted funding performance. A complementary inductive study further revealed distinct manifestations of CCAC (i.e., warmth, enthusiasm, seriousness, and sadness) and inconsistency (i.e., monotone, low-arousal delivery, high-arousal delivery, and humor/dramatization). Notably, consistent sadness decreased funding performance, and one form of inconsistency—high-arousal vocal delivery paired with relatively ordinary, low-arousal language—increased funding performance. Overall, this work advances research on entrepreneurial rhetoric by providing a generalizable framework for multimodal affective expression, highlighting the persuasive value of CCAC, and illuminating the mechanisms through which CCAC shapes funding performance. • Introduce “cross-channel affective consistency” (CCAC) • We analyze CCAC between vocal and verbal expressions in terms of valence and arousal. • CCAC positively enhances funding performance via perceived preparedness. • Perceived authenticity increases with CCAC but doesn't predict funding. • We reveal four types of high and low vocal-verbal CCAC, respectively, in entrepreneurial pitches.