Born into chaos: How founding conditions shape whether ventures survive or thrive when experiencing environmental change

Abstract

Integrating research on the persistence of founding conditions and the effects of environmental change, we explore how a venture's performance outcomes following environmental change depend on the venture's environmental conditions at founding. Using a unique sample of 1,060 new ventures from a comprehensive survey of university alumni, our analysis indicates that the interaction of high environmental dynamism at founding and a functionally diverse founding team is beneficial to venture survival when environmental dynamism increases over time. However, the same founding conditions result in a decreased likelihood of positive exit when environmental dynamism decreases.

Continuity and Change in Spin-off Meta-organizations: An Imprinting Perspective

“…Scholars working across business and management research have applied notions of imprinting to explore how organizations are formed and carry a lasting imprint of their founders and founding conditions (e.g. Motley et al, 2023).…”

Environmental change, strategic entrepreneurial action, and success: Introduction to a special issue on an important, neglected topic

“…A conceived and gradually realized vehicle for commercial or social market operations that can be triggered, shaped and/or otherwise helped by environmental changes, for example, a new economic activity (Davidsson & Wiklund, 2001); a business model (Berglund et al, 2020;Doganova & Eyquem-Renault, 2009); a new venture/business idea (Davidsson, 2015;Shane, 2012), or an emerging market offering (Lehmann et al, 2022). Motley et al (2023) study the differential effects of environmental changes on the outcomes developing ventures create.…”

“…Cestino et al (2023), Juma et al (2023), andLucas et al (2023) study contexts that involve both regulatory and natural-environmental changes. Motley et al (2023) study interactions between levels of environmental change at two points in time. Wood et al (2023) ask what happens when entrepreneurs purposively do not respond to environmental changes.…”

“…For example, one of the most important areas of knowledge development is what type of agent (e.g., independent start-up vs. large, established corporation; expert-novice [or industry insideroutsider]) is (a) more likely to act, and (b) more likely to succeed in making strategic use of potentials provided by (constellations of) environmental changes with particular characteristics.Thus, the interplay between environmental changes and agent-level actions should be a key focus for future theory development and empirical research. In this special issue,Lucas et al (2023),Motley et al (2023), andWood et al (2023) exemplify how interactions between environmental change and agents can be addressed. Likewise,Juma et al (2023) elucidate a crucial brokering role of agents in the mediation of environmental change for ventures "on the ground.…”