The process of new venture creation is characterized by the need to decide and take action in the face of uncertainty. Especially in the context of technology-based ventures uncertainty is substantial, posing difficulties for strategic decision-making based on prediction and planning. and how entrepreneurs' emphasis on these logics shifts and re-shifts over time. From our data, we induce a dynamic model which extends the literature on strategic decision-making in venture creation, illustrating how external and venture conditions -including not only uncertainty but also resource position and stakeholder pressure -lead to changes in venture scope, and thereby to shifts in the use of decision-making logics.

I n this paper, we investigate how interorganizational networks and interpersonal networks interact over time. We present a retrospective longitudinal case study of the network system that developed a novel aircraft material and analyze change episodes from a structurationist perspective. We identify five types of episodes in which interpersonal and interorganizational networks interact (persistence, prospecting, consolidation, reconfiguration, and dissolution) and analyze conditions for these episodes and sequences among them. Our findings advance a cross-level perspective on embeddedness and show how individuals may draw on relational and structural embeddedness as distributed resources. The multiple levels of embeddedness impact network dynamics by introducing converging and diverging dialectics, thereby limiting path dependence and proactive network orchestration.

Academic entrepreneurship by means of university spinoffs commercializes technological breakthroughs, which may otherwise remain unexploited. However, many universities face difficulties in creating spinoffs. This article adopts a science-based design approach, to connect scholarly research with the pragmatics of effectively creating university spinoffs. This approach serves to link the practice of university spinoff creation, via design principles, to the scholarly knowledge in this area. As such, science-based design promotes the interplay between emergent and deliberate design processes. This framework is used to develop a set of design principles that are practice-based as well as grounded in the existing body of research on university spinoffs. A case-study of spinoff creation at a Dutch university illustrates the interplay between initial processes characterized by emergent design and the subsequent process that was more deliberate in nature. This case study also suggests there are two fundamentally different phases in building capacity for university spinoff creation: first, an infrastructure for spinoff creation (e.g. including a collaborative network of investors, managers and advisors) is developed, that then enables support activities to individual spinoff ventures. This study concludes that, to build and increase capacity for creating spinoffs, universities should:1. create university-wide awareness of entrepreneurship opportunities, stimulate the development of entrepreneurial ideas, and subsequently screen entrepreneurs and ideas by programs targeted at students and academic staff; 2. support start-up teams in composing and learning the right mix of venturing skills and knowledge by providing access to advice, coaching and training; 3. help starters in obtaining access to resources and developing their social capital by creating a collaborative network organization of investors, managers and advisors; 4. set clear and supportive rules and procedures that regulate the university spinoff process, enhance fair treatment of involved parties, and separate spinoff processes from academic research and teaching; 5. shape a university culture that reinforces academic entrepreneurship, by creating norms and exemplars that motivate entrepreneurial behavior. These and other results of this study illustrate how science-based design can connect scholarly research to the pragmatics of actually creating spinoffs in academic institutions.2

This editorial aims to advance the use of qualitative research methods when studying entrepreneurship. First, it outlines four characteristics of the domain of entrepreneurship that qualitative research is uniquely placed to address. In studying these characteristics, we urge researchers to leverage the plurality of different qualitative approaches, including less conventional methods. Second, to help researchers develop high-level theoretical contributions, we point to multiple possible contributions, and highlight how such contributions can be developed through qualitative methods. Thus, we aim to broaden the types of contributions and forms that qualitative entrepreneurship research takes, in ways that move beyond prototypical inductive theory-building.

Abstract:This study uses the model of Patzelt and Shepherd (2011) to examine the factors influencing the identification of sustainable opportunities among SMEs in a developing country, Zambia. The factors under investigation include knowledge of the natural/social environment, perception of threats to the natural/social environment, altruism towards others and entrepreneurial knowledge. We interviewed 220 owner-managers in the trading and service sector who supply goods and services to the mining industry in Zambia. We found that altruism towards others was partially supported by our empirical results while the positive effects of knowledge of the natural/social environment and perception of threats to the natural/social environment on the identification of sustainable opportunities were not supported. Contrary to our expectations, entrepreneurial knowledge does not positively moderate the relationship between explanatory variables and the identification of sustainable opportunities. In sum, we found only limited empirical support for the model of Patzelt and Shepherd (2011) concerning the identification of sustainable opportunities. Our findings contribute to literature on entrepreneurship and sustainable opportunity identification by showing what factors influence the identification of sustainable opportunities. This can help us to create awareness among entrepreneurs regarding the effects of entrepreneurial activities on the environment and society; consequently, stimulating entrepreneurs to identify sustainable opportunities.