Driving New Venture Sustainability: A Study Based on Configuration Theory and Resource Orchestration Theory

Abstract

New ventures often face the challenge of resource scarcity, and how to overcome the resource constraint problem and improve new venture sustainability has been a long-standing concern of scholars and practitioners. Most existing studies have explored the impact on the financial performance of new ventures of a single factor, and few studies have focused on the impact of the configuration effect of multiple factors on new venture sustainability. In this paper, based on the configuration theory and resource orchestration theory, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with a sample of 189 entrepreneurs to explore the mechanisms driving the configuration effects of multiple factors of entrepreneurial decision-making logic, resource bundling, and environmental uncertainty on new venture sustainability. The empirical results show that the paths to achieve high new venture sustainability are diverse and equivalent, and effectuation is a core antecedent condition in all paths. There are four conditional configurations of the drivers of high sustainability in new ventures, including dual-logic resource integration, market-driven resource integration, means–resource innovation in emerging markets, and resource-rich or resource-creating integration under dual logic.

Struggling and Thriving: Effectuation in Social and Economic Stress

“…It begins with three key questions: who am I?, what do I know?, and whom do I know? These questions enable decision-makers to start making sense of the uncertain situation they are facing and take the next steps to expand their control over more resources and orchestrate and manage the available resources to shape a new future [25].…”

“…Effectual partnership is a dynamic process within which the focal decision-maker convinces other important stakeholders about his/her general aspiration and encourages them to join the aspiration. When the stakeholders self-select to join the aspiration, the dynamics of conversation among them help with fine-tuning the initial decision and adding new resources to make it happen [24,25]. When these commitments come through, the constellation of stakeholders starts to make sense of the uncertain situation and form and enable a new future [26].…”