Sankaran Venkataraman

• University of Virginia

In this chapter an argument is made for a clear articulation for the exclusive domain of entrepreneurship research. To date, the entrepreneurship academic community has neglected to define clear boundaries as to what distinguishes entrepreneurship scholarship from other closely related fields. It is argued here that the well-worn constructs of firm...

In environments with widespread corruption, most business leaders hesitate to take a firm stand against corruption. However, research conducted in Egypt, Zimbabwe, and India shows that organizations should view building a strong ethical reputation in such environments as an opportunity to differentiate themselves. To do this, companies can follow f...

This case is ideal for use in courses on innovation, entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, and strategy. It challenges students to think about the conditions necessary for creating a vibrant entrepreneurial culture and climate within a large firm as a newly appointed VP works to get a highly successful company to embrace entrepreneurship and innov...

We study how ethical behavior by firms leads to ethical reputation building. Based on our in-depth studies of two firms in India and Zimbabwe that resisted corruption and survived for extended time periods, we propose that in addition to behaving ethically, firms need to elicit favorable responses from a critical mass of stakeholders from both stro...

Entrepreneurship is concerned with how the opportunity to create “value” in society is discovered or imagined and acted upon thereby bringing new goods and services into the marketplace. The field of business ethics, on the other hand, is concerned with the fairness of methods used to create this “value,” and the ensuing distribution of the value a...

The nature of entrepreneurial opportunity is explored together with its defining role in entrepreneurship as a process. Entrepreneurship is conceptualized as occurring the nexus of opportunity and the individual. Key macro forces that give rise to opportunities are specified. The importance of the individual, original mind is stressed, and the asso...

We study the antecedents and outcomes of ethical reputation building in environments where corruption is widespread. We conduct two in-depth studies of firms in India and Zimbabwe that chose to resist corruption and survived for extended time periods. We show that founder characteristics, industry characteristics, the nature of corruption resisted,...

In this paper the authors identify the paradox that strategic choice requires an understanding of the future and that strategic choice also determines the future. They go on to suggest that a radically subjectivist approach may provide the basis of a theory of creative choice. This theory would explain both how strategic alternatives are developed...

To date, the phenomenon of entrepreneurship has lacked a conceptual framework. In this note we draw upon previous research conducted in the different social science disciplines and applied fields of business to create a conceptual framework for the field. With this framework we explain a set of empirical phenomena and predict a set of outcomes not...

We build upon a recent stream of research that has proposed entrepreneurship as a solution to, rather than a cause of, environmental degradation. Our proposition is that under certain conditions entrepreneurs are likely to supplement, or surpass, the efforts of governments, NGOs and existing firms to achieve environmental sustainability. Entreprene...

In this article we speak of roads taken and paths yet to be traversed. Over the past decade, entrepreneurship researchers have accumulated considerable work related to opportunities. Here we outline new possibilities opened up by that work and seek to recast entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial in three ways: understanding opportunities...

Velamuri, and the participants of the 11 th Annual Global Entrepreneurship Research Conference held in Lyon, France, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We also want to thank Tecla Loup of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for several clarifications on the dataset, and Prasanna Velamuri for assistance with downloading data. 1 HUM...

In this essay, we outline the provocative argument that in the realm of human affairs there exists an “entrepreneurial method” analogous to the scientific method spelled out by Francis Bacon and others with regard to the natural realm. We then suggest a series of open questions that we believe will help future scholars spell out the contents of suc...

Brief introduction to the field of strategic management, including basic concepts, competititve advantage.

Brief discussion of managing for stakeholders and the role this plays in achieving value creation and competitive advantage.

Technical note on industry analysis and competitive dynamics.

Brief discussion of resources and capabilities, their importance, and their role in the creation of competitive advantage.

This technical note explores the broadening role of entrepreneurship as both an economic and societal force. Students learn that as a distinct problem-solving method, entrepreneurship is teachable and applicable to a wide variety of issues central to human well-being and social improvement. It is akin to the scientific method in its capability to g...

An international corporation’s agricultural business division reviews its seven-year-old IT initiative among rural Indian farmers. Suitable for learners at all levels, the case is ideal for modules on strategic change, transformational change in a value chain, and development at the bottom of the pyramid. It also provides excellent insight into how...

Until recently, SimpleTel had been a star performer in the telecom industry, and the CEO had been a darling of the analyst community. Several years back, SimpleTel’s found itself in a situation where customers were migrating to smaller, local telecom providers to avoid the congestion on SimpleTel’s network. At that point, SimpleTel’s leadership had...

This case is an excellent illustration of offline/online integration. Office Depot used its supply chain, systems integration, and existing offline channel strengths to overcome competitive online threats from pure Internet players and other office-products-category players. Students get to consider the critical strategic options for overall strate...

This case is an excellent illustration of offline/online integration. Office Depot used its supuply chain, systems integration and existing offline channel strengths to overcome competitive online threats from pure internet players and other office products categories players. Students get to consider the critical strategic options for overall stra...

What are the differences between being a good tactical leader and being a good strategic leader? As he nears retirement, Robert Lincoln muses about his successor at Lincoln Industries. The case describes the backgrounds of four potential successors, all of whom are tactically astute and very competent general managers. Lincoln realizes that the com...

The case chronicles the development of Lumni, Inc., an international start-up offering innovative mechanisms for financing higher education. It focuses on: the details of decision making required to transform an idea into a viable business; building partnerships; the challenge associated with raising venture capital; and the challenges of creating...

After more than 40 years of focus on a single related technology platform, XYZ Corp. had begun trying to foster an entrepreneurial climate within the organization. Its goal? To develop vibrant new ventures through a program called Growing Green Businesses. As XYZ's main product lines were becoming commoditized and several billion dollars in free ca...

Star India, a subsidiary of Murdoch's New Corporation, and the leading TV network in India, is considering whether to acquire (or continue its arms-length relationship) with one of its major content providers, Balaji Telefilms. The case provides information on the industry context, regulatory environment, key competitors, and the Indian TV market....

In this case, successful McDonald's executive Pedro Medina recounts his transformation from business leader to social entrepreneur. After bringing the McDonald's brand to his native Colombia, Medina develops and promotes Yo Creo en Colombia (I Believe in Colombia), a grassroots initiative that empowers Colombians to take pride in their country's ac...

In his book "Invention," Professor Norbert Wiener (1993), commenting on the relative importance accorded to individuals and institutions in historical narratives of science and inventions, asks us to imagine Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" without either Romeo or the balcony.1 The story is just not the same. He likens much of the study of the econ...

How does a large corporation rethink and transform itself in an increasingly competitive environment? This corporate-strategy case could be described as how PepsiCo stopped worrying about competing with Coke and figured out what its real business was and how to build its future. A new CEO wants to grow PepsiCo into a major global corporation by fig...

"The contributors to this book look at the phenomenon of entrepreneurship in emerging regions in India, China, Ireland, Eastern Europe, North and South America, and North and South-East Asia. The organization is designed to take the reader from a general framework for understanding the relationship between economic development and entrepreneurship...

Opportunities Are Rarely Found. They Must Be Created and Earned The Raw Material of Opportunities: Macro Forces and Trends The Effects of Macro Forces and Trends: Changes in Needs and Preferences Individuals, Forces, and Needs: The Nexus of Opportunity and the Individual

In this paper we focus on two core questions: 1) Why do some people seek entrepreneurial opportunities? 2) Under what conditions is the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunity most likely? We attempt to answer these questions by creating a theoretical framework that considers the interaction between an individual's level of aspiration and their appr...

Business ethicists are eager to connect the ethical treatment of stakeholders with financial rewards. However, little attention has been paid to the cultural and industry context that influences how stakeholders are regarded by the firm, and how innovative strategies for engaging stakeholders can help a firm outperform its competitors. By reconnect...

The normative foundations of the investor centered model of corporate governance, represented in mainstream economics by the nexus-of-contracts view of the firm, have come under attack, mainly by proponents of normative stakeholder theory. We argue that the nexusof- contracts view is static and limited due to its assumption of price-output certaint...

For almost fifty years now, following the trail of issues raised by economists such as Hayek, Schumpeter, Kirzner and Arrow, researchers have studied the economics of technological change and the problem of allocation of resources for invention (invention being the production of information). The bulk of this literature simply assumes that new tech...

Research and development at the nanoscale requires a large degree of integration, from convergence of research disciplines in new fields of enquiry to new linkages between start-ups, regional actors and research facilities. Based on the analysis of two clusters in nanotechnologies (MESA+ (Twente) and other centres in The Netherlands and Minatec in...

Much of strategy has been about defense, building the largest castle with the thickest walls to defend position and tying down the customer with switching costs, standards, and transaction costs. The digital age changed that, making ineffective the usual competitive advantages of size and scope, infrastructure, and the former capabilities. The meta...

and the two anonymous reviewers for comments on the earlier drafts of the paper. We are also grateful to Deborah Ancona, D. Diane Burton, Jean Jacques Degroof and Scott Shane for our earliest discussions on team issues in entrepreneurship. Funding support from the National University of Singapore is gratefully acknowledged.

What does it take for a region to foster technological entrepreneurship? Recently, there has been significant interest in this topic. Most writers on this topic emphasize the tangible infrastructure such as sound legal systems, transparent capital markets, advanced telecommunications and transportation systems, etc. Sound legal systems, capital mar...

Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation of technologies in the direction of customer needs and production efficiencies. However, non-adaptational bases for technological change are rarely highlighted, despite their pervasiveness in the history of technical and economic change. In this paper t...

Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation of technologies in the direction of customer needs and production efficiencies. However, non-adaptational bases for technological change are rarely highlighted, despite their pervasiveness in the history of technical and economic change. In this paper t...

We explore the relationship between the probability of a transition from paid work to self-employment and three explanatory variables: paid income, predicted income, and income for ability. We use panel data for heads of households from the PSID SRC sample for eight pairs of years. Our results show that therelationship between paid income and self-...

Current perceptions and practices in doctoral education in the field of entrepreneurship are explored. The paper developed from efforts of a Task Force formed by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management in response to several important observations: growing demand for faculty in entrepreneurship, growing membership in the division...

This special issue examines technology entrepreneurship. Drawing from a rich tradition of research at the interface of the study of entrepreneurship and technological innovation, the articles in the issue examine the effect of environmental conditions on technology entrepreneurship, the processes by which entrepreneurs assemble organizational resou...

Using behavioral insights from organization theory, this paper examines the significance of the irreversibility of an attacker's competitive move in interfirm competitive interaction. The study suggested that irreversibility is a multifaceted construct that is broadly composed of two dimensions: internal commitment (which is based on organizational...

In this paper, we propose that we will not be able to develop compelling explanations of entrepreneurial activity until we make a fundamental adjustment to our underlying assumptions of human action, replacing our reliance upon a rational actor model of human behavior with a model that accommodates actors' abilities to act creatively. By developing...

This lecture explores the possibility of a useful dialogue between the fields of entrepreneurship and business ethics for mutual benefit. Although these two fields have much to offer each other, they have developed largely independently of each other. The lecture argues that entrepreneurship has a role to play in stakeholder theory and, relatedly,...

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PROCESS In this lecture I wish to explore the possibility of a useful dialogue between the fields of entrepreneurship and business ethics for mutual benefit. Although these two fields have much to offer each other, they have developed largely independent of each other. I wish to argue that entrepreneurship has a role to play in...

Why and when do some people become entrepreneurs? We attempt to answer the question by considering both the variability in the quality of opportunities and aspiration levels that can vary over individuals and over time. When individuals have higher aspiration levels than their readily available non-entrepreneurial opportunities, they tend to search...

In his book "Invention," Professor Norbert Wiener (1993), commenting on the relative importance accorded to individuals and institutions in historical narratives of science and inventions, asks us to imagine Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" without either Romeo or the balcony. The story is just not the same. He likens much of the study of the econo...

The authors respond to various comments concerning their article “The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Research.” They state that they have little interest in building walls between the fields of entrepreneurship and strategic management but instead feel that the field of entrepreneurship needs to create its own conceptual framework that i...

This paper examines variations in the adoption of new technology by firms operating in a network-based industry: telecommunications. These variations are explained as a function of three network effects: the first is the conversion effect, driven by operations-related increasing returns to scale; the second is the consumption effect, driven by dema...

In this exploratory study, we examine empirically the effects of environmental jolts on the evolution of the set of relationships that entrepreneurs have with their customers and suppliers (which we call the transaction set). We believe that understanding how turbulence in the environment affects the ability of entrepreneurs to hold on to their exi...

This chapter discusses the results of an empirical study of actions and reactions in the airline industry.

Defining entrepreneurship research

This study examines how national cultural values influence the preferences of managers in 28 countries for resolving the tension of whether to promote innovation inside (rational championing) or outside (renegade championing) organizational norms, rules and procedures. The study finds that managers in individualistic, high power-distant and uncerta...

Four antecedents, it is argued, are necessary precursors for a firm to capture rents from innovation. The antecedents are causal understanding; innovation team proficiency; emergence and mobilization of new competences; and creation of competitive advantages, each of which are conceptually distinct and precisely defined in the paper. These construc...

This study examines the relationship between national culture and national preferences for innovation championing strategies for a sample of 1228 individuals in 30 countries. The study finds that the more uncertainty avoiding a society is the more people prefer champions to work through organizational norms, rules and procedures to promote innovati...

In this paper, competence is defined in operational terms as the degree to which the firm or its subunits can reliably meet or exceed objectives. Two antecedents to competence (and thus competitive advantage) are then developed and defined. These are the ‘comprehension’ of the management team working on developing competence and the ‘deftness’ of t...

In this article, we argue that the resource-based perspective on strategy offers a useful basis for understanding the contributions to the firm of corporate ventures.The heart of the resource-based view of the firm lies in arguments set forth by Penrose and by Nelson and Winter. Penrose (1959) argued that differential mechanisms for resource combin...

An entrepreneurship game that is based on solid theory has significant potential to inform entrepreneurship research and enhance classroom experiences. However, developing a game that succeeds at both teaching and research is a difficult task This article describes one such attempt, which has achieved initial indications of success on both counts....

This paper explores why differences in cultural values should lead to different behaviors of new technology champions. It holds that the behaviors of champions who go about overcoming obstacles to technological innovation are culture-specific, and examines the relationship between the specific behaviors of technology champions and three cultural va...

This study investigates the effects of organizational sub-unit age and size on three dimensions of customer relationships: response satisfaction, service-depth satisfaction, and perceived cooperation.The study is motivated by the frequent suggestion that one way to introduce an entrepreneurial climate into large and/or old organizations is to creat...

In this study we examine the reasons for the differential adoption levels of a new technology, that of electronic switching, across firms in the US telecommunications industry. Using theoretical postulates from the market-structure inducements approach to firm behavior, and the behavioral theory of the firm, we propose that the incentives to adopt...

This study examined how the cultural value of individualism influences the preferences of 3000 managers in 32 countries for resolving the tension of whether to promote internal corporate venturing inside (rational championing) or outside (renegade championing) of organizational norms, rules and procedures.

The conduct of IT planning processes has been a dominant managerial concern in organizations. Yet, current IT planning research offers little guidance on the types of planning actions and behaviour that are appropriate to organizational contexts. The motivation of this paper is to extend the existing literature by addressing the following major que...

The professed objective of corporate venturing is generating new combinations of productive resources. Despite this, we continue to measure results in purely financial terms. An alternative, closer to the spirit with which corporate venturing is undertaken, is offered. It considers firm value, market value and competitive insulation in a multidimen...

This paper proposes a process model on how new and small organizations may fail. Based on prior research, the paper builds a foundation for a process model, and then elaborates it inductively by explaining how and why significant reversals and shifts occurred between 1983 and 1985 in the entrepreneurial, organizational, and ecological conditions of...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Minnesota, 1989. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-155).

What does it take for a region to foster technological entrepreneurship? Recently, there has been significant interest in this topic. Most writers on this topic emphasize the tangible infrastructure such as sound legal systems, transparent capital markets, advanced telecommunications and transportation systems, etc. Sound legal systems, capital mar...

It is widely recognized that entrepreneurship is vital to regional economic development. And recent studies in entrepreneurial expertise have shown that effectuation is important to doing entrepreneurship well. Furthermore, since expertise involves teachable and learnable aspects of a knowledge domain, it is reasonable to assume that entrepreneursh...

In this article, we propose an entrepreneurial theory of the firm that is based on dispersed knowledge. We argue that the dispersion of knowledge over people and places and over time leads to uncertainty. This uncertainty, combined with heterogeneous expectations and the nexus of an individual and opportunity, explains the emergence of new firms. W...

Although entrepreneurship and stakeholder theory aregenerally studied separately, the two fields have much to offer eachother. While entrepreneurship is concerned with how individuals discoverand seize opportunities to create "value" in society, stakeholdertheory deals with the methods used to create value and with the distribution ofvalue among st...

Inspects the intersection of ethics with entrepreneurial action.

Exploring the definition and examples of entrepreneurial opportunities.

This study examines how national cultural values influence the preferences of managers in 28 countries for resolving the tension of whether to promote innovation inside (rational championing) or outside (renegade championing) organizational norms, rules and procedures. The study finds that managers in individualistic, high power-distant and uncerta...

Four antecedents, it is argued, are necessary precursors for a firm to capture rents from innovation. The antecedents are causal understanding; innovation team proficiency; emergence and mobilization of new competences; and creation of competitive advantages, each of which are conceptually distinct and precisely defined in the paper. These construc...