Contextualizing entrepreneurial innovation: a narrative perspective

Convincing the crowd: Entrepreneurial storytelling in crowdfunding campaigns

“…Our findings particularly add nuance to our understanding of how narratives construct time (see e.g. Garud et al, 2014a;Gersick, 1994) and how this relates to the perceived value of projects. Specifically, while both narratives construct connections between past, present, and future, they do so in fundamentally different ways.…”

“…First, our study can inform recent research on narrative dynamics in entrepreneurial processes (Garud et al, 2014a(Garud et al, , 2014bNavis and Glynn, 2011). Following this focus, we have been able to depict two generic narratives-projects as ongoing journeys and results-in-progress-which may apply to various entrepreneurial processes.…”

Beyond Homo Entrepreneurus: Judgment and the Theory of Cultural Entrepreneurship

“…Gartner (, p. 614) concluded that narrative approaches ‘come with their own epistemology, theories, and methods that must be met on their own terms,’ revealing how stories are rooted in particular contexts associated with both the entrepreneur and the audience. More recently, Garud et al () argued that entrepreneurs seek to contextualize their narratives through relational, temporal, and performative efforts. Through their relational efforts, entrepreneurs forge linkages across social and material elements; through their temporal efforts, entrepreneurs speak to the unfolding nature of their journeys by referring to different accounts of the past, present, and future; and through their performative efforts, entrepreneurs are able to trigger action and engagement even in the midst of changing objectives (see also Garud and Gehman, ).…”

“…In the case of fads and fashions (e.g., ‘pet rocks’ and Pokémon Go) and so‐called cultural products more generally, the cultural embeddedness of such combinatory experiments seems all the more evident (Abrahamson, ; Hirsch, ; Peterson and Berger, ; Roy and Dowd, ). To explain such differences, the TOCE argues that entrepreneurs and top managers vary in their ability to ‘understand and interpret the context within which actions are taken’ (Lounsbury and Glynn, , p. 552; see also Garud et al, ). To be successful, ‘entrepreneurial stories must celebrate the unique stock of resource capital embedded in a new venture while balancing the distinctiveness of these assets against broader contextual pressures to conform to stakeholder expectations’ (Lounsbury and Glynn, , p. 554).…”

“…For this reason, the TOCE's emphasis on storytelling and narratives as core mechanisms of both sensemaking and sensegiving (Gioia and Chittipeddi, ; Weick, ) makes it especially well equipped to provide an explanation for such judgments and their potential (in)effectiveness. Whereas Foss and Klein (, p. 591) clearly articulated that both ‘good judgments’ and ‘poor judgments’ are entrepreneurial, as long as they are ‘decisions about resource deployment under uncertainty,’ the TOCE directs attention to the resonance or verisimilitude (Bruner, ) of entrepreneurs’ stories as they seek resources from critical resource holders (Garud et al, ). Thus, the TOCE elaborates the central notion of Verstehen , by extending its reach to external stakeholders through resonance, i.e., an audience's experienced personal connection with a frame or narrative which has cognitive and emotional bases (Giorgi, ).…”