Entrepreneurship

Using longitudinal data from Growing America Through Entrepreneurship (GATE), I examine whether mentors improve nascent entrepreneurs’ new venture survival and growth. To perform the analysis, I develop a multi-level regression model with mentoring as the key independent variable and human capital as the moderator. The findings provide empirical evidence that having a mentor helps nascent entrepreneurs grow and improve their businesses’ chances of survival. Furthermore, mentorship helps new venture growth and survival for some entrepreneurs more than others. For survival, mentorship is more helpful for those without business education. For new venture growth, I find that mentorship helps those with no prior managerial experience. These results highlight the importance of mentoring for nascent entrepreneurs and the boundary conditions through which mentoring is most beneficial.

Local social capital, defined as the level of community interaction and social participation of a region, has been theorized to positively affect economic outcomes and discourage opportunistic behaviors in various settings. I examine whether local social capital is related to positive outcomes for entrepreneurs and their financial backers in the settings of reward crowdfunding and small business lending.
In my first study, I look at how local social capital influences the creators of successful reward crowdfunding campaigns. These creators, in turn, may influence the sentiment of their investors, or backers, towards their projects through missed delivery deadlines and poor communication. With comments collected from successful Kickstarter crowdfunding pages, I use textual analysis to construct a measure of the sentiment of project backers following the fundraising deadline.

This research investigates the impact of prior entrepreneurial exposure on an entrepreneur’s intention to persist. The objective of this study was to employ the Theory of Planned Behavior based logic to investigate its mediating effect of prior entrepreneurial exposure on entrepreneurial persistence intention among entrepreneurs, and whether their perception of the quality of that exposure or experience influences entrepreneurs’ intention to persist. Specifically, this study explores five exogenous influences on persistence intention. This study examines a final sample of 231 entrepreneurs from three data sources. The findings of this study indicate that subjective norms play a mediating role in the relationship between prior founding experience and persistence intention. The relationship between the perceived quality of prior entrepreneurial exposure and persistence intention behavior is also explained by subjective norms. Overall, it is not the exposure that leads to persistence intention, but the quality of the exposure that influences entrepreneur’s intention to remain in business. This study extends entrepreneurship literature on how exogenous variables impact entrepreneurial persistence intention through attitudinal factors.

The two essays in this dissertation investigate how entrepreneurial capabilities are developed in intra- and inter-organizational relationships. Entrepreneurial capabilities are central to firms’ survival and performance. However, the role of various forms of relationships in the development and deployment of entrepreneurial capabilities remains understudied. The constellation of the two essays in this dissertation aims to offer insights about the impact of these relationships and the potential areas for future research. I investigate various aspects of entrepreneurial capabilities, such as value creation, value capture, and innovativeness. The first essay is an empirical investigation of the impact of alliances, as a form of inter-organizational relationship, on firms’ capabilities to create and capture value and improve performance. The second essay empirically examines the interplay between social capital, as a byproduct of intra-organizational relationships, and causal entrepreneurial process on innovativeness in new ventures.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the contingencies that alter the link between entrepreneurial orientation (“EO”; a strategic posture characterized by behaviors and attitudes that display innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking) and firm outcomes. While conceptual claims unite on the belief that firms largely benefit from emphasizing innovation through proactive and risky initiatives, the empirical findings on a positive link between EO and performance are inconclusive. As such, several scholars have explored the contingencies that illuminate the boundary conditions to EO, however, most of this research has focused on external contingencies, i.e. those connected to the environment, while internal contingencies, i.e. those connected to the firm, have been fairly disregarded. Not only will the industry and market play a significant role in a firm’s ability to effectively carry out their desired strategic initiatives, so too will firm characteristics, such as communication and culture, as these internal factors are directly related to the level of value created from strategic actions. Therefore, this dissertation is an attempt to further clarify the boundary conditions of EO by focusing on these firm specific attributes. Chapter two, titled “Family communication patterns and entrepreneurial orientation in family firms” exposes the impact of specific family communication patterns on the performance outcomes from an entrepreneurial orientation. This chapter contributes to the corporate entrepreneurship literature, by confining the positive effects of EO to certain firm specific characteristic, as well as to the family business literature by further demonstrating the heterogeneity between family firms. Thereafter, chapter three, titled “Entrepreneurial orientation, organizational culture, and firm performance: The importance of a balanced approach”, argues and tests the importance of organizational culture, as defined by the competing values framework, as a contingency variable of the EO-performance relationship. This empirical chapter exploits a configurational approach, using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis
(“fs/QCA”) to analyze the arrangements of different entrepreneurial orientation and organizational cultures that yield superior performance. Through this exploration, I advance research on the EO-performance relationship by integrating the firm’s corporate culture as a means of alleviating concerns with resistance by certain stakeholders to the ambiguity associated with entrepreneurial ventures.

As the gap between the haves and have-nots widens, the call for reform in higher education in the United States intensifies. Policy actors, philanthropists, and academics from across the political spectrum work on various policy solutions, creating a policy environment that is complex and often contentious. Incrementalists claim that major policy reform is unlikely since unknown variables and inexplicable events can stall or dismantle policy initiatives. In such environments, policy entrepreneurs—those individuals who advocate for policy innovation, work for change, and help shape policy solutions from within and without government—try to break through the barriers of incremental politics. As important as this role is to the influencing and structuring of higher educational policy, it has not yet been explored. This study fills this gap in the extant literature by cataloging the characteristics and skills that enable higher education policy entrepreneurs at the state and national levels to persevere and accomplish sustainable and innovative higher education reforms over time.

This dissertation assessed two aspects of entrepreneurial scanning related to new ventures. The first was the information search and analysis these entrepreneurs performed when they made certain basic decisions necessary to start most business prior to commencement of operations. The second was the ongoing information search activities of entrepreneurs who had started childcare businesses and were managing them in their first few years of operation. In addition, this dissertation assessed the extent these scanning activities were consistent with a dual process theory of reasoning. Finally, the limitations of the study and suggested future research directions for research of entrepreneurial scanning were discussed. The results suggest an entrepreneur's scanning behavior at the start of the business may be different from scanning behavior that occurs once the business has been operating for a period of time. The need for cognition, exposure to statistical thinking and intelligence (operationalized in this study as the amount of formal education) were positively related to the kind of information search and analysis undertaken by the entrepreneur at the startup of the business that Kahneman (2003) and others describe as System 2 reasoning. The accessibility of information and the amount of formal education were positively related to scanning that was done in periods subsequent to startup by these childcare entrepreneurs. Work-family conflict was negatively related to scanning during this period.

The rapid growth and integration of the Internet as a communication and commercial medium into our society and economy has changed both in many ways. This dissertation is an exploratory study of factors deemed significant in the context of e-business success or failure. A survey instrument is used in addition to qualitative data was gathered from in-depth interviews. Drawing upon the literature from the area of new business in brick and mortar (B&M) firms, an examination of the factors that lead to the success or failure of new brick and mortar businesses are examined in terms of new e business companies. Also examined in this study are the business strategies that an e-commerce site should be addressing to avoid failure factors and the types of e-business models that have been employed and have proven to be successful or destructive to an e-business. In an attempt to understand the marketing and managerial implications for the success or failure of an e-business, seven factors are included in the study which have been selected from a group of factors found to be significant in several studies on the factors leading to the success or failure of small businesses in the brick and mortar world and factors which may be considered relevant to an e-business. These are; management factors, entrepreneur factors, product/service factors, marketing factors, market factors, financial factors, and Web site design and efficiency factors.

Intrapreneurialism, a strategy adopted by an organization to exploit ideas and turn them into profitable realities, is a relatively recent phenomenon in higher education. Previous studies have concentrated on intrapreneurialism from the perspective of how it relates to organizational structures, characteristics of entrepreneurial universities, and academic strategies as a comparison to industry (Keller, 1983; Clark, 1998; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). This present study investigated another aspect of intrapreneurialism, intrapreneurial leadership. This is a subject that, to date, has not received the attention it requires if academic leaders are to play the role expected of them in a modern, highly competitive knowledge economy. The University of Oxford and the University of Warwick are recognized to be at the forefront of those universities that have elected to move up the intrapreneurial path. Therefore, these two universities were selected because they symbolize a radical transformation in the financial relationship between universities, government, and industry, or suggest new ways of responding to change. This research confirms work of Clark, 1998; Apps, 1994; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; and Keller, 1983 in which they encapsulate key features of a successful entrepreneurial institution. This study expands the limited knowledge base of intrapreneurialism in higher education from the perspective of intrapreneurial leaders at the University of Oxford and the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. This phenomenological study explored the beliefs, styles, and strategies of nine intrapreneurial leaders at the University of Oxford and twelve intrapreneurial leaders at the University of Warwick. Even though the universities differ in their educational profiles and cultural settings, the intrapreneurial strategies of both universities are similar and the leadership shares common intrapreneurial beliefs, styles, and strategies. It was found that an organizational structure designed to include a small steering core is crucial to the successful assimilation of intrapreneurialism into the culture of the university. Based on findings, an intrapreneurial leadership framework was identified which constitutes the foundation of the structure for a Change Agent University model. This model was designed to be used by other universities to effect changes necessary to incorporate intrapreneurialism into their organizations.

The growth of global competition has established international segmentation as a key issue in developing, positioning and selling products throughout the world (Ter Hofstede, Steenkamp and Wedel 1999). Many international segmentation studies have used macro-level, secondary data to identify country clusters based on similarities in political, economic, geographic or cultural variables. As a result of extensive review, we identify three major gaps in the international country segmentation literature. First, no study so far has accounted for the influence of time. While researchers suggest that longitudinal analysis provides additional insight into whether situational characteristics of countries change over time (Cavusgil, Kiyak, and Yeniyurt 2004; Helsen, Jedidi, and DeSarbo 1993; Sethi 1971; Steenkamp and Hofstede 2002,), a major limitation of this body of work is that most studies address country-level segmentation at a single point in time. However, bases of segmentation are considered to be dynamic in nature (Hassan, Craft, and Kortam 2003) and global and country-specific changes in economic development are likely to result in variations in segment membership over time. We investigate the stability of factors and the stability of segments over time by performing cluster analysis at two points of time. Second, most studies use ad hoc variables without theoretical basis which may result in accidental generalizations. Instead of suggesting a proliferation of random variables, which are considered influential in the decision making process without any empirical or theoretical evidence, we propose a theoretical basis for country segmentation. We use institutional theory to distinguish between heterogeneous groups of countries. Finally, there is the issue of providing "one size fits all" solutions.