Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice
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Item Ensuring Viability in Early-Stage Digital Ventures: The Role of Digital Resource Orchestration in Pivoting(2025-01-07) Perrelet, Simon; Dibbern, JensFounding a new venture is an uncertain endeavor, with most start-ups statistically doomed to failure. Pivoting, the structured course correction to test new fundamental hypotheses is crucial for the survival of new ventures. This study examines how eight early-stage digital ventures in the financial services industry orchestrate their digital resources to pivot and ensure viability. Five key processes of digital resource orchestration are identified: scrounging, interfacing, optimizing, elevating, and reconstructing. The study discusses how these processes enhance our understanding of digital entrepreneurship and the stage-setting role of digital resources in the early stages of venture development.Item Rethinking Innovation Speed: Innovating with Speed and Scale(2025-01-07) Darwish, Rabih; Holgersson , Marcus; Björkdahl, JoakimIn an era marked by formidable global challenges,innovating with speed and scale is imperative;otherwise, innovations may fall short of their potential.The literature on innovation speed often focuses on speed to market and neglects the crucial importance of scaling innovations quickly and globally to achieve significant societal impact. To bridge this gap, we expand the conceptual model of innovation speed by incorporating aspects of innovation scaling. We identify potential tensions between speed and scale and propose a revised definition of innovation speed. Finally, we have outlined some promising avenues to initiate this important research trajectory.Item Not So Fast: Mapping the Learning Speed and Sophistication in GenAI(2025-01-07) Bandera, Cesar; Passerini, Katia; Bartolacci, Michael; Kulturel-Konak, SadanAmong many functionalities, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) can model the topology and semantics of user-supplied datasets – a functionality required to evaluate learning levels through mind maps. Since GenAI evolves by orchestrated changes to the underlying algorithms and, organically, by learning, we need to understand this evolution’s speed and reliability. We conducted two experiments tasking ChatGPT with scoring mind maps drawn by 113 undergraduate students describing their motivation and deterrence towards entrepreneurship. Scoring used a five-dimensional model consisting of self-efficacy, internal locus of control, need for growth, intrinsic motivation, and resilience. We repeated the analysis on the original dataset after eight months to time the evolving pace and sophistication of the tools used. The results show that we should not fall into the “hype” curve typical of the beginning of any emerging technology. While the pace of learning in GenAI is unprecedented, caution is necessary when rechecking data and analytical techniques.Item Towards a Framework for Service Quality Improvement in Startup Companies(2025-01-07) Feversani, Daniela; De Castro, Valeria; Marcos, Esperanza; Teixeira, JorgeStartups are vital to the economy and the digital future and are creators of around 50% of new jobs. Some studies indicate that around 90% of startups fail in their first months, mainly because they focus on launching products or services without adequate market validation. In addition, they have little or no experience in organisational management and lack the resources to apply quality models, which hinders their ability to face the challenges of a highly volatile and competitive environment. Therefore, this paper proposes the LightStartup framework, focused on startups in the service sector. LightStartup provides a lightweight, consistent and formalised process model, a process assessment model and a maturity model based on the ISO/IEC 33000 standard. LightStartup accompanies companies in transitioning from an informal management style to a formal and long-lasting management system, covering the management of services, people, customers and organisational governance.Item Exploring the Impact of Innovation Competitions on Student Self-Awareness and Growth Through AI and Human Analysis(2025-01-07) Konak, AbdullahStudent Innovation Competitions and Programs (ICPs), including design challenges, hackathons, startup competitions, and boot camps, play a critical role in entrepreneurship and innovation education. These programs foster students' technical skills, networking opportunities, and innovation mindsets. However, the literature lacks an exploration of ICPs' transformative impact on students' entrepreneurial mindsets, which involves profound changes in students' values and abilities. This study addresses this gap by applying the Transformative Learning Theory (TLT) to examine how ICPs can be transformative experiences for students. Using a qualitative inductive approach, semi-structured interviews with 36 students who participated in ICPs were conducted. Thematic analysis was performed using both human coders and ChatGPT 4.0 to identify the strengths and weaknesses realized by students during ICPs. The results showed a high level of agreement between human and AI-generated codes, highlighting ICPs' role in enhancing self-awareness and personal growth. Key strengths discovered included communication skills, leadership, problem-solving, organizational skills, tenacity, and interpersonal skills, while common weaknesses were noted as time management, communication challenges, lack of self-advocacy, trust issues, inflexibility, conflict management, and stress and anxiety. These findings suggest that ICPs are instrumental in fostering an entrepreneurial and innovation mindset, but organizers should address time management and stress issues to maximize benefits to students.Item Crowd Professionalism and Top Management Team Replacement(2025-01-07) Di Pietro, Francesca; Butticè, Vincenzo; Tenca, FrancescaCrowdfunding literature has mainly focused on the financial or innovation performance of crowd-backed startups, while the crowd impact on startups’ organizational design remains underexplored. Drawing from the literature on collective intelligence of the crowd, we hypothesize that the professionalism of the crowd attracted during crowdfunding campaigns influences organizational changes within startups. Using a unique dataset of equity-crowdfunded Italian startups, we employ social network analysis to characterize the professionalism of the crowd and investigate its correlation with organizational changes, focusing on top management team (TMT) dynamics. Our empirical analysis reveals that startups attracting a more professional crowd are more likely to change TMT members but less likely to replace the CEO. These findings contribute to understanding the nuanced effects of equity crowdfunding on startup organizational dynamics and challenge the notion that crowdfunding lacks post-campaign treatment effects.Item Cross-sector Collaboration for Social Value: Governance Framework for Community-Social Enterprise Partnerships(2025-01-07) Garud, Niharika; Pati, Rakesh; Sutter, ChristopherThere has been growing interest in the governance of social enterprise. In this paper, we focus on a specific social enterprise governance issue: the allocation of ownership and control over key resources between a social enterprise and a beneficiary community. Drawing on theory from social entrepreneurship and property rights, we develop a conceptual framework regarding property rights allocation for social enterprises seeking to co-create value with beneficiary communities. We propose that while community ownership and control of key resources is ideal, limitations arise when (1) the community fails to perceive a positive tradeoff between value and risk and (2) when there is a lack of community consensus regarding resource use. Under these circumstances, the community will not be incentivized to make the necessary specific investments to fully leverage resources, and alternate governance arrangements may be preferable. We seek to contribute to the literature by expanding the focus of social enterprise governance beyond boards, by exploring the role of consensus, incentives, and specific investments in social enterprise governance, and by expanding the focus of property rights theory to dyadic relationships as we relax strict assumptions of self-interest.Item Peering in the Black Box? An Organizational Change Perspective on Business Model Novelty within the Entrepreneurial Orientation—Firm Performance Relationship(2025-01-07) Pati, Rakesh; Wales, William; Monsen, ErikBusiness model innovation and its importance has gained significant attention in recent years. Thus, it is essential to understand what drives business model innovation (BMI. Using organizational change perspective, our study adds to this stream of literature by identifying entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as a critical antecedent of business model innovation (BMI). We also explore the mediating role of BMI in EO-firm performance relationship highlighting the importance of BMI in linking new product-market entry behavior and firm performance. Based on data collected from 194 Indian small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), we tested our hypothesis and found that the core dimensions of EO (i.e., proactiveness, innovativeness, and risk-taking) to influence BMI positively. Moreover, we also observe that BMI positively mediate EO-performance relationship, thereby explaining how and why EO influences firm performance. We discuss our findings and contribution to both theory and practice.Item Trash to Treasure: Design Principles for Developing Cascading and Repurposing Business Models through Systemic Stakeholder Collaboration(2025-01-07) Trunk, Julius; Remke, Konstantin; Seckler, ChristophGlobal economies are facing a tremendous waste problem due to persisting linear economic models. Simultaneously, organizations lack guidance on how to develop and effectively operationalize business models through collaborations that yield potentials to solve this problem by serving a circular economic model. Cascading and Repurposing Business Models promise waste reduction by continuously reusing materials and energy, while allowing enhanced profitability. By applying the Design Science Research Methodology from the Information Systems field outlined by Peffers and colleagues in 2007, the present study inductively develops five design principles - based on 39 semi-structured interviews- with the intention to identify suitable partnerships for its operationalization and guide organizations in developing Cascading and Repurposing Business Models.Item Introduction to the Minitrack on Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice(2025-01-07) Bartolacci, Michael; Kulturel-Konak, Sadan; Bandera, Cesar; Passerini, Katia