Sharon F. Matusik

University of Colorado Boulder | CUB · Division of Management & Entrepreneurship

Research summary Location considerations play a key role in shaping venture performance. Using data from the largest accelerator in the world, we examine the effects of institutional distance and location capabilities on international start-ups' survival rates. We find that international start-ups' survival is shaped by whether it internationalizes...

Venture capital (VC) markets are essential for the development of high-growth entrepreneurship. Previous studies have discussed the importance of formal institutions and regulations in the creation of VC markets. However, the role played by informal institutions--and how they interact with formal institutions--is still puzzling. To disentangle this...

Organizational collaboration has played an important role in the field of strategic management in the last couple of decades. Though the importance of collaboration to entrepreneurship might seem apparent, research on it is distributed across multiple contexts, theoretical perspectives, and units of analysis. The aim of this volume is to highlight...

Research Summary This article invites scholars to reconsider how the evolution of entrepreneurial phenomena affects the underlying theories employed in our field. We highlight three themes affected by changes to the entrepreneurial journey nowadays in a way that can challenge some foundational research in each area. To that end, we engage in a dual...

The role of collaboration in entrepreneurship spans across different contexts, varied theoretical perspectives, and multiple units of analysis. This chapter introduces The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship and Collaboration with an overview of the important role that collaboration plays in value creation, resource acquisition, and the development...

Research summary Emerging economies increasingly try to stimulate innovation as a path towards economic development. One side effect of this is foreign ownership of innovation in these contexts is increasing. This raises the question of how local vs. foreign ownership affects whether spillovers from innovation stay in the focal country, or occur ou...

Data is a fundamental impediment to a better understanding of the multifaceted process of new firm creation. With better data, we can form a better understanding of the causes, constraints, and outcomes associated with the decision to launch a new business. Towards this end, the Kauffman Foundation commissioned an eight-wave panel of businesses tha...

This study is a 26 year analysis of the emergence of a venture capital market in an emerging country, Chile. While instututions and venture capital had been largely studied in advanced economies, emerging countries pose challenges to theories that do not seem to work in these settings. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our analysis shows that in thi...

We examine how social cues drive strategic decision making under uncertainty, specifically in the context of U.S. VC firms’ first internationalization decisions. We compare the relative impacts of cues from a) geographically proximal firms; b) syndicate partners; and c) VCs investing in the same industries as the focal firm. Over the 23 year period...

Equity financing in entrepreneurship primarily includes venture capital, corporate venture capital, angel investment, crowdfunding, and accelerators. We take stock of venture financing research to date with two main objectives: (a) to integrate, organize, and assess the large and disparate literature on venture financing; and (b) to identify key co...

Entrepreneurial activity leads to the development and exploitation of new ways to do business, which in turn promotes competition either as a firm enters a market where there are other existing firms, or when it creates a new way (substitute) to meet the needs of its customers. This essay discusses indirect outcomes associated with these entreprene...

Ventures that are growing fast need capital to continue to operate. This capital can come from a number of sources including the entrepreneur/owner themselves, their friends/family, bank loans, angel investors, venture capitalists, and/or crowdfunding. Of particular interest to this symposium are the last three: angel investors, venture capitalists...

A foundational question across the strategic management literature is what drives firms to be similar or different from one another. For example, research on firm actions in the face of uncertainty finds that such contexts can induce firms to engage in imitative behaviors. Existing work in this area provides important insights, however, we argue th...

The symposium will bring leading scholars to discuss current trends and future research opportunities in the rapidly growing space of crowdfunding. • When Firms are Potemkin Villages: Entrepreneurs and Formal Organizations • Presenter: Ethan Mollick; Wharton School • Crowdfunding Data Enclave: State of the Art of Future Steps • Presenter: Lee F...

Crowdfunding has become a major consideration for individuals looking to fund their ideas, endeavors, and businesses. This phenomenon raises interesting questions for management scholars such as what theories help to explain the success of such campaigns and the consequences of these campaigns. In this paper, we address these questions. With regard...

This study contributes to the research on the effect of diversification on performance under conditions of uncertainty. More specifically, we examine diversification in the context of venture capital firms. Drawing on the knowledge and organizational learning literature, we hypothesize that firms benefit from either low levels of diversification be...

In this qualitative study, we examine how converged mobile devices (e.g. BlackBerries, Treos, and iPhones) are experienced by users of this contemporary connectivity technology. Perhaps not surprisingly, users experience similar pressures to be accessible and responsive; however, the sources of these expectations extend beyond those internal to org...

This study contributes to the research on the effect of diversification on performance under conditions of uncertainty. More specifically, we examine diversification in the context of venture capital firms. Drawing on the knowledge and organizational learning literature, we hypothesize that firms benefit from either low levels of diversification be...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that takes into account both personal and contextual factors in explaining individuals' motivation to share their knowledge. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from research on achievement motivation and social exchange, it is posited that goal orientations provide a framework for individual...

Extending tokenism theory, the authors investigate psychological climate of gender inequity as a way to understand how token women experience their work environments. In the first study, responses from a sample of 155 women across varied occupations confirm the expectation that token women tend to perceive their organizational climates to be inequi...

Adding to the corporate effect literature, we study the effect of owners on firm performance in a new context, that of venture capital firms (VCs) and the start-up firms in which they invest. After discussing the effect that VC ownership can have on start-ups, we estimate that start-up-specific, owner (VC), and year effects account for significant...

Using the information asymmetries theory of underpricing, we investigate the role of innovation in the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). We develop and test a model in which innovation outputs (patents) reduce information asymmetries in industries where the link between patents and inventive returns is transparent, thereby reducing u...

Corporate venture capital (CVC) funding represents a significant part of the venture capital market (Chesbrough, 2002). CVC investments give the investing firm a window onto new technological developments, and CVCs benefit the most from these investments when they are strategic in nature, rather than purely financial (e.g., Dushnitsky & Lenox, 2006...

We examine how judgments in the context of uncertainty vary, depending on the values of those making these judgments. We test these ideas in the context of venture capitalists' (VCs') evaluations of founders. Drawing on theoretical and empirical research on the role of values in judgment and decision making and on Schwartz's (1992, 1996) conceptual...

Corporate strategy scholars have long been interested in how the scope of a firm’s activities, its diversification, affects its performance. While their work provides many important insights, they are not able to untangle effects associated with leveraging tangible assets from those of knowledge assets. We contend that understanding how firms can l...

The ability of the firm to effectively use external knowledge (its absorptive capacity) is important to firm competitiveness and innovativeness. However, the wide array of approaches to studying absorptive capacity has obscured our understanding of what drives the effective use of external knowledge. The authors show that absorptive capacity is com...

Many corporations have annual expenditures in research and development in the range of billions of U.S. dollars. Senior managers have often been frustrated by the lack of innovation in their organizations and have been looking for better ways to implement an innovation strategy. To provide initial evidence on this significant topic, we conduct an e...

Many studies examine firm private knowledge, but purport to be generalizable to the totality of firm knowledge, both public and private. This study demonstrates that public and private firm knowledge are empirically separable constructs that have significant and yet different influences on innovative outcomes. The example of product development eff...

Organizational scholars have studied the impact of employment law on the structure of formal organizations but have given little attention to how law affects everyday life within work organizations. Here we propose a "legal readings model" of how law is received and mobilized by employees. This posits that law within organizations is composed of em...

Computer-based technology is often credited with making decentralized decision-making possible, helping firms to respond rapidly to changing market conditions. Research on this subject, however, shows contradictory effects: some studies support decentralization and others support centralization. This longitudinal study examines how one form of comp...

Computer-based technology is often credited with making decentralized decision-making possible, helping firms to respond rapidly to changing marker conditions. Research on this subject, however, shows contradictory effects: some studies support decentralization and others support centralization. This longitudinal study examines how one form of comp...

Contingent work is an increasingly integral part of the world of work, affecting firms' abilities to accumulate knowledge, create value, and establish competitive advantage. Although its growing use reflects a belief that firms can reduce cost structures and increase strategic flexibility, we suggest that in certain contexts, such as dynamic enviro...

In this study we determine the effect of venture capital (VC) affiliations on the value of new ventures. Previous studies in strategic management investigated the effects of corporate ownership on the performance of business units, the so-called “corporate effect.” Most such studies indicate that business unit effects, as well as, industry effects,...

Do venture capitalists (VCs) influence whether their portfolio companies succeed or fail? How do they exert this influence? Researchers have examined how VC involvement affects IPO underpricing, perceptions of success, access to networks, management and governance expertise, and professionalization of marketing and distribution efforts (e.g., Kapla...

Obtaining and developing resources is central to the success and survival of young firms. One avenue for procuring resources in young firms is through interorganizational relationships with established firms (e.g., Katila et al., 2008; Stuart et al., 1999). For example, firms may seek funding from corporate venture capital (CVC) firms to procure fi...

It is well established that VCs can positively impact the start-up companies in which they invest. They not only provide financial resources, but also help their portfolio companies formulate strategy, professionalize the firm, and transfer reputational assets, network resources, and other intangible assets. They also control and discipline managem...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998 Contingent work is an increasingly integral part of the world of work, as are other forms of ephemeral arrangements. These arrangements challenge the implicit assumption in many of our theories of strategy and organization that the activities of the firm, especially the value creating activities, are...