Thomas Dean

• Colorado State University

Insufficiency of research and theory on the relationships between entrepreneurship and grand challenges means that we know little about who engages and what repertoires of actions they take to tackle socioenvironmental challenges that transcend firms, markets and nations, and what sorts of solutions they create. Drawing on the five articles feature...

Can private sector involvement in a global agreement help to conserve global biodiversity?

Despite increased interest in examining the factors that influence crowdfunding success, the effects of community context have been relatively unexamined. We address this void by examining the role of cultural context in crowdfunding success. Our unique data set of crowdfunding projects to “save the local theater” are homogenous in their goal, allo...

Academic and popular discussions of social entrepreneurship often point to the importance of social value creation in contributing to a social venture's success. Implied in these discussions is the assumption that the more pressing the social problem addressed by the mission or the greater the social value generated, the more successful and attract...

Synopsis The Neenan Company is a construction firm based in Fort Collins, Colorado, known for their efforts in pioneering the advancement of the design/build approach to construction. With a history of industry leadership, innovative contracting methods, and ethical business practices, the company now faces management, customer relations, and finan...

Research on initial public offerings (IPOs) suggests that underwriters as well as venture capitalists (VCs) affect IPO underpricing. However, the magnitude of the effect of VCs on underpricing remains unclear. Are VCs as important as underwriters? We conduct a variance decomposition analysis to compare these two influences. Our results indicate tha...

The intersection of entrepreneurship and sustainable development represents an exciting domain that promises to apply the innovative power of entrepreneurship to some of the most intractable problems of our time. Sustainable entrepreneurship emphasizes the processes of innovation and venture creation, and may be viewed as the process of discovering...

The concept of market disequilibrium plays a central role in the understanding of the nature of entrepreneurship and its function in the economic system. While some authors emphasize the role of entrepreneurship in the movement of markets away from the condition of equilibrium (through the introduction of discontinuous change), others view the entr...

We have a limited understanding of the decision factors that influence the suppliers of funds for social entrepreneurship, particularly when monetary return is not the primary objective. We seek to address this void through empirical testing of a mission-based model of social entrepreneurship that identifies five factors that contribute to mission...

In response to calls for greater incorporation of entrepreneurship theory into international entrepreneurship research, we theorize that alertness to international business opportunities (IBOs) will play a crucial role in international entrepreneurial activity. We predict that firms will vary in their alertness to IBOs depending on a range of firm...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to illustrate that when practiced correctly, environmental marketing can represent promising opportunities for value creation and market growth. For many companies, the practice of environmental marketing has delivered disappointing results. Design/methodology/approach – Building from examples of companies th...

Why do firms respond to social movement pressures differently? This study investigates how the strategic motivation of firms, as captured by competitor activity and market dependence, influences the likelihood of their response to social movement demands. We examine this through a longitudinal analysis of wind power adoption by electric utilities i...

Two schools of advice are often provided to fledgling entrepreneurial ventures: one advocates a deliberate and well structured phase prior to the beginning of operations, while the other suggests a quick-to-market approach that relies heavily upon the entrepreneurial team's ability to adjust resources and strategy as the new venture develops. Furth...

While entrepreneurial activity has been an important force for social and ecological sustainability; its efficacy is dependent upon the nature of market incentives. This limitation is sometimes explained by the metaphor of the prisoner's dilemma, which we term the green prison. In this prison, entrepreneurs are compelled to environmentally degradin...

This article provides a review and analysis of institutional entrepreneurship research with a focus on the emergence of this literature within two largely divergent streams: sociology-based institutional theory and economics-based institutional economics. The authors completed a review of 141 articles from these concurrent, but unlinked research st...

Research on initial public offerings suggests that information asymmetry between pre- IPO owners and potential IPO investors can be mitigated through certifiers such as underwriters and venture capitalists. We argue that the certification potential of venture capitalists (VCs) is greater than that of underwriters, and test this hypothesis using var...

While extant entry theory has long prescribed a niche approach for new ventures, a preponderance of empirical research has found that broad strategies may be the key to new venture success. This study examines the difference between entry theory and empirical evidence by considering the moderating impact of initial financial resources on the effect...

Initial public offerings (IPOs) are theoretically-interesting and economically-important organizational events. Unfortunately, there is little agreement by organizational scholars about what determines IPO success. Using the knowledge-based view of the firm, we frame the IPO as a culminating event in which the market value created by the venture be...

This article explains how entrepreneurship can help resolve the environmental problems of global socio-economic systems. Environmental economics concludes that environmental degradation results from the failure of markets, whereas the entrepreneurship literature argues that opportunities are inherent in market failure. A synthesis of these literatu...

We propose structuration theory as a useful lens through which to view the entrepreneurial process. Extending Shane and Venkataraman's work (Shane, S., Venkataraman, S., 2000. The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review 25, 217–226), entrepreneurship is presented as the nexus of opportunity and agency, where...

The condition of information asymmetry between current owners and potential IPO investors creates a context wherein the legitimacy of the top management team (TMT) may serve as a valid signal of value to potential investors. The results confirm our hypotheses that TMT legitimacy is negatively correlated with post-IPO stock value run-up. Our results...

Several authors have suggested the founding period as a critical time in the development of a firm, arguing that the resource and decision choices made at this point have a substantive impact on the firm's future. Yet, historically, most studies have measured new venture choices considerably after the founding period. We suggest that the uniqueness...

Although an understanding of the sources of entrepreneurial opportunity is essential to explaining the emergence, transformation, and economic impact of organizations, little systematic, theory-driven analysis exists concerning why, when, and how opportunities for the creation of goods and services come into existence. Drawing upon theory from welf...

It has long been held that business start-ups contribute to economic development through job creation, innovation, and the competitive disciplining of markets. While the effects of new venture formation on job creation and innovation have been investigated extensively, relatively little empirical work exists on the competitive effects of new firm e...

This article has no abstract

Central to the movement of organizations toward environmental sustainability is the financial viability and environmental effectiveness of the techniques for improving environmental performance. While waste-minimization practices (WMPs) have been touted as a key element in moving manufacturing organizations toward sustainability, we know little abo...

This paper estimates the effect of environmental regulations on the formation of small manufacturing establishments. Examining new business formations across 170 manufacturing industries over a ten-year span suggested that a greater intensity of environmental regulation is associated with fewer small business formations. There were no effects on th...

Despite growing recognition of some strategic advantages held by small firms, little comparative research has been performed on the advantages and disadvantages accruing to firm size. In order to delineate the differential responses of small and large businesses to their environmental context, we perform a comparative analysis of the impact of indu...

Despite growing recognition of some strategic advantages held by small firms, little comparative research has been performed on the advantages and disadvantages accruing to firm size. In order to delineate the differential responses of small and large businesses to their environmental context, we perform a comparative analysis of the impact of indu...

Corporate political action committees (PACs) play a prominent role in the political strategies of U.S. organizations, and the ability of firms to influence political outcomes is highly controversial. To the extent that PACs enable groups of firms to pursue corporate agendas at the expense of the social good, they promote socially suboptimal outcome...

Using a resource-based approach, this study examines market and structural impediments to imitation as a partial explanation for new venture failure rates. The availability of niches, high sunk costs, high levels of unionization, and high industry concentration appear to create industry environments which assist the post-entry new firm.

Through integration of theoretical perspectives from Austrian economics, industrial organization economics, and organizational theory, this study builds and examines empirically a model of the demand determinants of new venture formations in manufacturing industries. Austrian economics and other writings on market disequilibrium imply that the dyna...

Four half-sib families of slash pine (Pinus elliottii var. elliottii) were planted in open-top chambers and exposed to ozone and simulated acidic precipitation (3: 7 molar ratio of nitric and sulphuric acids). The 4 ozone treatments were (1) charcoal-filtered air, (2) unfiltered ambient air, (3) twice ambient and (4) three times ambient ozone, with...

“Living dead” investments represent the middle ground of venture capital investing outcomes, lying between “winners” that produce adequate multiples of return on investment and “losers” that result in loss of invested funds. Living dead investments are typically mid- to later-stage ventures that are economically self-sustaining, but that fail to ac...

The progression from an entrepreneurial to a professionally managed firm often produces the situation where the company outgrows the founder CEO. This “executive limit scenario” is theoretically developed by integrating organizational life cycle theory, and Hambrick and Mason's Upper Echelon's Model. Preliminary findings from interviews with twenty...

Because information asymmetries exist between firm owners and prospective IPO investors, the legitimacy of the top management team (TMT) serves as an important signal of value to investors, who perceive legitimate TMT involvement as a credible indicator of the firm's economic potential. This proposition leads to the hypothesis that the legitimacy o...

This study quantifies and compares the relative importance of underwriters and VCs for underpricing in initial public offerings (IPOs). A critical aspect of IPO underpricing is the information asymmetry between current owners and potential investors. Existing theory argues that such information asymmetry can be reduced by signaling the value of a v...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Colorado, 1992. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [243]-255).