Knowledge Management for the Entrepreneurial Venture

We synthesize research from operations management, entrepreneurship, organizational science, and strategy to investigate the performance‐enhancing benefits of knowledge management activities throughout the entrepreneurial process of a high‐tech venture from idea conception to commercialization. We adopt a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship to understand how knowledge management activities change throughout four phases of the venture's life cycle. We introduce a framework that identifies a set of knowledge‐based capabilities that enhance the entrepreneurial venture's success. In the context of the first phase, we discuss knowledge as a key driver of entrepreneurial alertness and creativity, both of which impact the quality and quantity of opportunities and innovations discovered. Second, we describe how knowledge enables the entrepreneur to make decisions under uncertainty such as determining which opportunity to pursue. For Phase 3 of the life cycle, we explore the challenges of managing knowledge during the development of the product or technology including the trade‐off between exploration and exploitation. In the final phase, we explore how knowledge impacts the market entry decision, survival, and the value captured at commercialization. We conclude the article with suggestions for future research.     

家族企业海归继承人创业学习过程研究——基于文化框架转换的多案例分析

继承人成长模式是目前中国家族企业理论和实践的热门议题,也是保障和提高家族企业跨代持续发展的首要问题。在家族企业传承和转型的关键时期,作为创业的主力军,家族企业海归继承人的多元文化经历和文化框架转换为其创业学习过程提供了独特资源和路径,本文基于文化心理学的动态建构主义视角,以6个家族企业的海归继承人为研究对象,采用探索性多案例研究方法,通过扎根理论的数据处理程序提炼基于文化框架转换的海归继承人创业学习关键过程要素,包括海外获取性创业学习、创业动机促发、实验性创业学习(直觉和编译创业学习)3个创业学习阶段中,文化构念网络可用性、通达性和情境适用性的构建策略及其与创业学习过程的互动协同机制,试图在家族企业传承背景下构建基于文化框架转换的家族企业海归继承人创业学习过程理论模型,从文化心理学视角解读文化框架转换对家族企业海归继承人创业学习方式、路径选择和创业能力形成的微观作用机制,为家族企业海归继承人这一独特创业群体的成长提供富有前景的答案,为家族企业传承和跨代创业提供启迪和借鉴。     

Identifying success factors for female entrepreneurs using the AMO framework: Empirical evidence from Japan

This study applies deep insights from the ability, motivation, and opportunity (AMO) framework as an overarching theoretical perspective to identify critical success factors for female entrepreneurs. In doing so, it investigates how entrepreneurial persistence (i.e., motivation or “M”), together with prior venture experience (i.e., ability or “A”) and competitive intensity (i.e., opportunity or “O”) influence the success of women's entrepreneurial activities. Using data from 308 Japanese female entrepreneurs, we show a positive association between entrepreneurial persistence and female entrepreneurs' venture growth, which becomes stronger when prior venture experience and competitive intensity are considered. Most importantly, the three-way interaction between these factors maximizes the business performance of female entrepreneurs. Thus, venture growth is the highest in the presence of high levels of entrepreneurial persistence, prior venture experience, and competitive intensity. Our findings suggest that policy makers should improve the competitiveness of women-led ventures and create supportive business environments for female entrepreneurs.     

The asymmetric effects of exploitation and exploration on radical and incremental innovation performance: An uneven affair

Scholars have argued that the exploitation–exploration interaction provides a source of competitive advantage beyond that provided by each individually. However, we know little about the mutual effects of exploitation and exploration on either incremental or radical innovation performance. To address this gap, we examine data from 171 manufacturing firms. We find incremental innovation performance is highest when exploitation interacts with an intermediary level of exploration. Radical innovation performance, however, is solely driven by exploration. A coupling with exploitation is not effective. We contribute to the extant literature, first, by disentangling the interaction effects of exploitation and exploration on radical and incremental innovation performance, respectively. Second, we extend extant literature that agrees that maintaining an appropriate balance of exploitation and exploration is critical for innovation performance and that has conceptualized this balance as symmetrical presence and magnitude of exploitation and exploration. In particular, we provide evidence in support of an asymmetric relationship.     

Extending the pursuit of flow (lean) management to encompass sales,general and administrative functions

Abstract

Operations management tends to be treated independent of other business functions—the silo syndrome. In this article, we call for operations management (OM) to broaden its perspective by strengthening linkages with other functions of the business, thereby to realize competitive advantages and strategic integration, as well as to avoid resource misallocation. The issues involved are presented and tested by examining the effects of intermeshing sales, general and administrative (SG&A) expenditures with customer-centred flow manufacturing, the latter being measured by system inventory as surrogate for customer lead time. In doing so, we designate trends in total inventory as the independent variable—representative of a dominant target of flow/lean management—and trends in SG&A expenditures as the output variable. The research tasks are enabled by inventory and SG&A data being widely available in companies’ audited financial statements. Such hard data offers methodological and validation advantages over, say, opinion-based survey research. The research adds bulk to existing flow/lean management theory and can be helpful in inducing primary business functions (e.g. OM, finance, sales and marketing) and sub-functions (such as SG&A and management accounting) to engage in cross-functional efforts in the cause of flow-oriented process improvement and company competitiveness.     

Exploitation Strategy and Performance of Contract Manufacturing Exporters: The Mediating Roles of Exploration Strategy and Marketing Capability

Contract manufacturing exporters (CMEs) receive a meagre share of global value chain returns, primarily because of the mundane and exploitative nature of the activities they perform in their dependency relationships with lead firms. We posit that CMEs can enhance their performance by capitalizing on their exploitation strategy. Exploitation strategy triggers exploration strategy which requires building marketing capabilities for enhanced performance. Based on data from 154 Vietnamese CMEs, we find significant indirect only mediation effects of: 1) exploration strategy between exploitation strategy and export performance; and 2) marketing capability between exploration strategy and export performance. Further, we find significant indirect only serial mediation of exploration strategy and marketing capability between exploitation strategy and export performance. The findings are also supported and contextualized based on illustrative quotes from face to face semi-structured interviews with senior managers of 10 Vietnamese CMEs. The findings suggest that CMEs' that consciously capitalize on the exploitation strategy by seeking exploration opportunities while building their marketing capability exhibit enhanced performance.     

新企业网络导向如何影响其创业导向

作为战略管理与创业管理的交叉领域,创业导向研究日益成为学界关注的热点,而受到"新生弱性"困扰的新创企业往往缺乏必要的资源基础和实力,尤其在中国经济转型背景下,如何通过外部关系网络来增强创业导向成为新企业面临的关键难题。结合社会网络理论与组织学习理论,对网络导向影响创业导向的内在过程进行剖析,发现网络嵌入机制和创业学习机制是影响新企业网络导向与创业导向关系的两种主要机制。运用多层次回归分析的方法实证研究新企业网络导向影响其创业导向的影响机理,结果显示:(1)网络导向与创业导向之间呈倒U型关系;(2)新企业的网络嵌入与创业学习在"网络导向-创业导向"主效应中能起到正向调节作用,不过其中的利用性创业学习调节作用不显著;(3)网络嵌入与创业学习之间存在一定的匹配互补性,其中关系嵌入与利用性学习、结构嵌入与探索性学习具有显著的协同调节效应。本文研究深化了网络与学习双重视角下的创业导向前因理论研究,研究结论有助于新企业把握网络导向影响创业导向的内在规律,从而指导新企业对网络嵌入与创业学习行为进行科学规划。     

Lessons from the Celltech Case: Balancing Knowledge Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Renewal

This article applies the lens of the knowledge exploration/exploitation dilemma to the renewal of Celltech Plc. From a theoretical perspective it has often been argued that as a firm matures, exploitation of current organizational knowledge drives out exploration of new ideas, and that this increases the likelihood of firm failure. This same literature gives few clues as to how balance can be maintained, or decline reversed. Our case study documents the decline of Celltech, its rejuvenation from near bankruptcy in 1990, and its subsequent ability to prosper to become the eighth largest biotech firm in the EU in terms of market capitalization. Through the Celltech case we show empirically that renewal based on exploration is possible even in a firm where exploitation has come to dominate. This case also illustrates how a balance between exploration and exploitation can be maintained for over half a decade, despite the theoretical tendency stated in the literature for exploitation to dominate. We offer insights into the process of maintaining a balance, including reorganization to release internal diversity to stimulate exploration, creation of a common language, and building systems to institutionalize the maintenance of a balance between exploration and exploitation.     

Regulatory focus as a psychological micro-foundation of leaders' exploration and exploitation activities

In recent years, there has been strong interest in leaders' exploration and exploitation activities, especially because of their positive effects on performance. Most prior research in this area has focused on the organizational antecedents of leaders' exploration and exploitation activities, with less consideration given to the psychological precursors. This paper draws upon insights from the behavioral strategy literature to inform our theoretical perspective on leaders' exploration–exploitation activities. In particular, by conceptually linking leaders' regulatory focus and exploration–exploitation, we provide a theoretical framework to explain these activities from a psychological viewpoint. Moreover, we employ two moderator variables to better understand the different properties and boundaries of this framework. All in all, this paper has a number of implications for strategic leadership theory and practice.     

WHAT DETERMINES ENTREPRENEURIAL CLUSTERS?

We contrast two potential explanations of the substantial differences in entrepreneurial activity observed across geographical areas: entry costs and external effects. We extend the Lucas model of entrepreneurship to allow for heterogeneous entry costs and for externalities that shift the distribution of entrepreneurial talents. We show that these assumptions have opposite predictions on the relation between entrepreneurial activity and firm‐level TFP: with different entry costs, in areas with more entrepreneurs firms' average productivity should be lower; with heterogeneous external effects it should be higher. We test these implications on a sample of Italian firms and unambiguously reject the entry costs explanation in favor of the externalities explanation. We also investigate the sources of external effects, finding robust evidence that learning externalities are an important determinant of cross‐sectional differences in entrepreneurial activity.     

创业者个体学习、组织学习如何交互影响企业创新行为？——基于整合视角的纵向单案例研究

社会经济的不断发展促使分工愈发精细,对个人与组织间的技术隔离也愈加明显,亟待创业者个体及组织开展跨层次的交互学习以构建组织创新优势。基于此,本文援引学习理论与意义构建视角,从"行动"与"解释"出发,采用纵向单案例研究方法,基于"个体-组织"整合性分析框架,探究了不同创业阶段内跨层次行动主体间的学习互动模型,揭示了其对企业创新的影响路径。研究发现:创业者个体学习与组织学习间的互动,表现为渐变初期个体利用式学习经"自上而下"团队互动主导形成组织单环式行动;而在调整转变期,个体学习与组织学习发生交互影响,包含个体探索式学习经"横向协同式"团队互动主导形成组织双环式行动,以及组织双环式行动转换为单环式之后,经由持续反思与质询,刺激形成创业者个体利用式学习;最后,在发展突变期,个体利用式学习经"制度化统筹式"团队交互合作促成组织单环式行动,同时个体探索式学习经"跨越层次自主式"团队交互激活组织双环式学习。此外,在不同创业阶段,3种互动逻辑与意义构建框架下的创新决定机制呈现出以个体创意激发与扩散、信息整合与匹配以及平衡矛盾与冲突3种不同的影响路径展开的态势。本研究为创业学习理论和创业实践过程贡献了新的启示。     

Leadership and organizational learning: A multiple levels perspective

We review theoretical and empirical work relevant to the nexus of leadership with organizational learning. We build on the classic distinction between exploration and exploitation and the 4I framework of organizational learning [Crossan, M. M., Lane, H. W., & White, R. E. (1999). An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review, 24, 522–537.] to present previous research and offer research directions linking leadership constructs and processes of organizational learning at different levels of analysis. For each of these links, we discuss the mediating effect of organizational context and suggest future research directions. This review is integrated using a model and propositions that depict the role of leaders with regard to new and existing learning.     

Tweaking the entrepreneurial orientation–performance relationship in family firms: the effect of control mechanisms and family-related goals

Management literature is currently giving growing conceptual and empirical attention to the peculiarity and relevance of entrepreneurial attitudes in family firms, with divergent outcomes. Aiming at concretizing the effects of these attitudes, denoted by the entrepreneurial orientation construct, on family business performance and considering that family dynamics come into play in this relationship, we particularly investigate the impact of control mechanisms and family-related goals. Findings are based on a sample of 180 family firms and show that Proactiveness and Autonomy are particularly relevant to financial performance. Agency-problems avoiding control mechanisms moderate the effect of Innovativeness and Autonomy, while socioemotional wealth (SEW) goals moderate the effect of Risk-Taking, respectively. The usage of these mechanisms and managing SEW goals provide opportunities for a more efficient exploitation of entrepreneurial attitudes.     

Dynamic capabilities and high-tech entrepreneurial ventures’ performance in the aftermath of an environmental jolt

This paper contributes to studies on dynamic capabilities (DCs) by showing that a neglected environmental contingency – i.e. the occurrence of a jolt – shapes the DCs–performance relationship. We focus on high-tech entrepreneurial ventures because these are the firms that jolts affect most; in so doing, we also advance the understanding of DCs in the entrepreneurship field. We argue that, in the aftermath of an environmental jolt, the high-tech entrepreneurial ventures that use internationalization and new product development capabilities to modify their resource configuration and regain environmental fit enjoy better performance. Econometric estimates on a sample of 340 Italian high-tech entrepreneurial ventures confronting the consequences of the global economic crisis that began in 2008 confirm that separately using these two DCs has a positive performance effect. This effect is stronger for relatively smaller ventures. Interestingly, despite synergies should arise from the combined use of the two DCs, we do not detect any superadditive effects.     

The age of exploration and exploitation: Younger-looking leaders endorsed for change and older-looking leaders endorsed for stability

The current contribution extends theorizing on leadership and the exploration–exploitation dilemma using an evolutionary perspective. A theoretical connection is made between the exploration–exploitation dilemma and age-biased leadership preferences for exploratory change versus stable exploitation. For the majority of human evolution our species was semi- or entirely nomadic and the trade-off between exploration versus exploitation had substantial physical- and experience-based requirements which align with leadership opportunities as moderated by age. Thus, given the consistency and importance of correctly assigning leadership for the exploration–exploitation dilemma, human evolution has likely selected for age-biased leadership endorsement. Across three experiments we find that younger-looking leaders are endorsed for times of exploratory change and older-looking leaders for stable exploitation. Further, our results indicated that older leaders are endorsed for leading conservative exploitation of nonrenewable resources and younger leaders for exploration of renewable alternatives (i.e., green leadership). The results introduce an age-biased leadership endorsement hypothesis.     

Solutions to the Exploration/Exploitation Dilemma: Networks as a New Level of Analysis

This paper reviews the extant literature on the exploration/exploitation dilemma. Based on a systematic analysis of structural, behavioural, systemic and temporal solutions, the authors are able to show that the learning literature continues to struggle with the question of how exactly an organization can separate exploration and exploitation and at the same time enable necessary knowledge exchange and cooperation between these two notions. Paying closer attention to networks might enable future research to answer this question. In particular, a combination of structural aspects of networks and social ties has the potential to explain how the solutions currently on offer can be implemented successfully, how organizations can combine several of them, and how they can shift between them.     

Der Einfluss von Kognition und Affekt auf Unternehmensgründungsentscheidungen: Eine vergleichende Analyse von Angestellten und Unternehmern

The relationship between individuals?? entrepreneurial behavior and objective situational characteristics of an entrepreneurial opportunity??individual-opportunity nexus??lies in the focus of entrepreneurship research. The role of subjective appraisals and affective influences in the pre-entrepreneurial process was neglected in this context so far. On the basis of a questionnaire experiment with two different samples of employees and entrepreneurs, our results confirm central assumptions of cognitive appraisal and emotion theories. The subjective appraisals of objective entrepreneurial opportunities better predict entrepreneurial evaluation and exploitation decisions than the objective characteristics of the entrepreneurial opportunity. Furthermore, the results show in addition to an inverse direct effect of negative affect that the relationship between the entrepreneurial evaluation and exploitation is negatively moderated by negative affect. Our analyses indicate that the two subsamples show differences in their cognitive processes, but that they are still generally comparable. The affective influences on the pre-entrepreneurial process, however, demonstrate no group specific differences. These results extend the individual-opportunity-nexus-paradigm that is based on objective characteristics by examining the meaning of subjective appraisals and affective reactions and therefore the intersection of individuals and entrepreneurial opportunities.     

Toward a learning-based view of internationalization: The accelerated trajectories of cross-border learning for latecomers

Integrating the conventional models with the emerging models, we propose a learning-based view of internationalization for multinational enterprise (MNE), especially for MNE latecomers as the new species of MNE from the emerging economies. Built upon the duality lens and transaction value perspective, this learning-based view frames the pattern of cross-border learning in terms of both learning motive and learning capability as a learning trajectory, with distinctive entry strategies as the primary applications of such learning trajectories. The learning trajectories on the dimensions of exploitative and exploratory learning as well as unilateral and bilateral leaning jointly constitute an overall framework of MNE evolution with cross-border learning as its central theme, especially in the process of an accelerated internationalization. In particular, we frame cross-border alliance as a special form for bilateral learning in terms of co-exploitation and co-exploration, which motivates and enables the accelerated internationalization of MNE latecomers. Finally, we identify four major learning-based issues as new “big questions” to reflect the emerging paradigm shift from hierarchy-based unilateral exploitation to network-based bilateral exploration with the theme that hierarchy is best for exploiting the extant core competence, while strategic alliance is best for exploring a novel core competence.     

Effect of Formal Contracts,Relational Norms and Trust on Performance of Joint Research and Development Projects

This paper examines the effect of governance mechanisms – formal contracts, relational norms and trust – on the performance of exploration and exploitation joint research and development (R&D) projects. While the authors acknowledge the need for a twofold approach, transactional and relational, to understand the interfirm exchange governance, the joint action of formal contracts and relational governance has been caught between the complementary or substitutive forces involved in interorganizational relationships. Using survey data on joint exploration and exploitation R&D projects developed by the European biotechnology companies, the synergies of both mechanisms and their effects in improving project performance are investigated. The analysis suggests that contracts and relational norms and trust act as complementary mechanisms, but while contracts are more effective in exploitation projects, relational norms and trust are more powerful in improving the performance of exploration projects.     

Examining Facilitative Configurations of Entrepreneurially Oriented Growth: An Information Processing Perspective

This study examines how the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm growth is shaped by learning orientation in technologically sophisticated environments. We draw upon an information processing perspective that emphasizes alignment between information processing demands and support mechanisms. Using data from 116 small to medium‐sized enterprises in the Netherlands, we observe that the ability of entrepreneurial orientation to drive firm growth greatly depends on the joint consideration of technological sophistication and learning orientation. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of how configurations of strategic orientations and environmental considerations work in concert to influence the efficacy of organizational entrepreneurial efforts dramatically.