The resource‐based view (RBV) is one of the most widely accepted theories of strategic management. However, to date no systematic assessment of the RBV's level of empirical support has been conducted. In response, a sample of RBV‐grounded empirical articles was analyzed from which it was found that the RBV has received only modest support overall and that this support varies considerably with the independent variable and theoretical approach employed. It is therefore suggested that scholars avoid the tendency to test models reflecting early incarnations of the RBV and instead test those that incorporate its more contemporary theoretical extensions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The resource-based view of the firm (RBV) hypothesizes that the exploitation of valuable, rare resources and capabilities contributes to a firm's competitive advantage, which in turn contributes to its performance. Despite this notion, few empirical studies test these hypotheses at the conceptual level. In response to this gap, this study empirically examines the relationships between value, rareness, competitive advantage, and performance. The results suggest that value and rareness are related to competitive advantage, that competitive advantage is related to performance, and that competitive advantage mediates the rareness-performance relationship. These findings have important academic and practitioner implications which are then discussed.

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Despite the importance of social impact to social entrepreneurship research, standards for measuring an organization's social impact are underdeveloped on both theoretical and empirical grounds. We identify a sample of 71 relevant papers from leading (FT50) business journals that examine, conceptually or empirically, the measurement of social impact. We first describe the breadth of definitions, data sources, and operationalizations of social impact. Based on this analysis, we generate a typology of four approaches to conceptualizing social impact, which we use to organize insights and recommendations regarding improved measurement of the social impact of entrepreneurial ventures. approaches to address global social problems (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Dacin, Dacin, & Tracey, 2011; Short, Moss, & Lumpkin, 2009). The market-based approaches that are characteristic of a social entrepreneurial approach inherently involve measuring societal impact and social performance (Grimes, 2010; Miller & Wesley II, 2010). Yet, despite extant research and practice demonstrating interest in creating and measuring social impact, standards for measuring this important construct are underdeveloped (Salazar, Husted, & Biehl, 2011). While research and practice have conceptually grounded social performance in social responsibility, new approaches to measurement have been proposed that have different basic assumptions and require fundamentally different measurement (Kroeger & Weber, 2014; Salazar et al., 2011). With such a heterogeneity in approaches, the literature lacks cumulative insights that could help social entrepreneurship research to progress more rapidly and more effectively. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to describe the relevant similarities and differences among approaches to studying social impact, and to use these insights to provide a more clearlyarticulated path for future research. To accomplish this task, we undertake a broad survey of papers published in the Financial Times list of 50 highly-ranked business journals (FT50) that focus on social impact. The 71 papers that we identify from our search differ along two dimensions: degree of generalizability and stage in impact process. Specifically, while some papers limit their definition and/or measurement of social impact to a single-sector, others can be applied across multiple sectors. Moreover, while some authors define and/or measure activities that may lead to beneficial social outcomes and impact, others focus on defining and measuring the outcomes themselves. Relying on these dimensions, we organize our sample into a typology, highlighting some of the exemplary contributions, and then discuss directions for future research that leverage the insights gleaned from this multidisciplinary sample of papers. THEORY AND BACKGROUND Social impact is an important piece of the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship (Dacin, Dacin, & Matear, 2010; Lumpkin, Moss, Gras, Kato, & Amezcua, 2011). While social impact might be considered to be the relevant performance-based...

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This paper applies the dynamic capability framework to the new firm formation process. Specifically, this paper argues that new firm formation is a specific process that has been the subject of substantial empirical research. This paper also provides empirical evidence that shows that a common set of gestation activities exists for successful nascent entrepreneurs, that market dynamism affects the complexity and characteristics of the new firm formation process, and that learning negatively impacts new firm formation success for nascent entrepreneurs operating in highly dynamic markets. By positioning the new firm formation process as a dynamic capability, the rationale behind the execution of specific gestation activities to acquire and/or to reconfigure those resources most critical to emerging organizations can be understood better.

Since new firms generally lack the resources necessary to compete with their larger, older counterparts in the knowledge development process, we argue that they often rely on spillovers to fuel their own innovative efforts. Thus, we hypothesize that new firms will tend to form in areas characterized by high levels of university research and development (R & D) expenditures and that these births will in turn stimulate the local economy by generating increases in employment level and growth. We test our hypotheses at the U.S. labor market area level using secondary data from various government sources for the years 1990 through 1999. Our results demonstrate that university R & D expenditures are positively related to new firm formations, and that these new firm formations are positively related to employment level and change. These findings suggest that university R & D expenditures are an important indirect contributor to overall economic growth by encouraging primary and secondary firm births.