Pub Date : 2025-07-07DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106523
Chanchal Balachandran , Karl Wennberg
While resource-dependency theories suggest that heterogenous directors in new venture boards contribute important knowledge and networks, research on boardroom homophily highlights that dissimilar directors are more likely to leave, especially under adverse conditions. To date, there is limited evidence on whether such mechanisms also prevail in the venture context where founder-managers retain excessive control over director appointments. We analyze director tenure in 28,295 Swedish ventures, finding that dissimilar directors are more likely to leave the board when ventures are operating in favorable conditions but only when considering knowledge diversity. Post-hoc analyses of directors' post-exit career paths and qualitative interviews with CEOs and directors help clarify the mechanisms that cause diverse directors to depart venture boards more often. Specifically, lifecycle demands and venture profitability ease resource-dependence pressures on director retention, thus feeding homogeneity in board expertise. Our findings provide insights into the homogenizing nature of new ventures' upper echelons as they evolve into mature organizations.
Executive summary
Boards are a vital resource for early-stage ventures, offering advice, funding connections, and strategic guidance — especially when directors bring diverse expertise. Yet, as ventures grow and succeed, that diversity can erode. Our study of over 28,000 Swedish owner-managed firms shows that directors whose expertise differs from that of the founder(s) are more likely to leave—not during hardship, but when the business is performing well. Interviews with several founders and directors further suggest that as ventures mature, they increasingly rely on internal capabilities and shift toward boards that reflect the founder's evolving preferences. These dynamics lead to more homogenous boards over time, potentially narrowing the range of perspectives available in the board. For founders and policymakers, the findings highlight a key challenge: keeping diverse directors around not just at the start, but as the company scales.
{"title":"Director turnover in new venture boards: From homophilous to resource-contingent processes","authors":"Chanchal Balachandran , Karl Wennberg","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106523","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While resource-dependency theories suggest that heterogenous directors in new venture boards contribute important knowledge and networks, research on boardroom homophily highlights that dissimilar directors are more likely to leave, especially under adverse conditions. To date, there is limited evidence on whether such mechanisms also prevail in the venture context where founder-managers retain excessive control over director appointments. We analyze director tenure in 28,295 Swedish ventures, finding that dissimilar directors are more likely to leave the board when ventures are operating in favorable conditions but only when considering knowledge diversity. Post-hoc analyses of directors' post-exit career paths and qualitative interviews with CEOs and directors help clarify the mechanisms that cause diverse directors to depart venture boards more often. Specifically, lifecycle demands and venture profitability ease resource-dependence pressures on director retention, thus feeding homogeneity in board expertise. Our findings provide insights into the homogenizing nature of new ventures' upper echelons as they evolve into mature organizations.</div></div><div><h3>Executive summary</h3><div>Boards are a vital resource for early-stage ventures, offering advice, funding connections, and strategic guidance — especially when directors bring diverse expertise. Yet, as ventures grow and succeed, that diversity can erode. Our study of over 28,000 Swedish owner-managed firms shows that directors whose expertise differs from that of the founder(s) are more likely to leave—not during hardship, but when the business is performing well. Interviews with several founders and directors further suggest that as ventures mature, they increasingly rely on internal capabilities and shift toward boards that reflect the founder's evolving preferences. These dynamics lead to more homogenous boards over time, potentially narrowing the range of perspectives available in the board. For founders and policymakers, the findings highlight a key challenge: keeping diverse directors around not just at the start, but as the company scales.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 5","pages":"Article 106523"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144572659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article investigates the impact of obesity stereotypes on angel investment decisions. Drawing from the stereotype literature and expectancy violation theory, we propose that angel investors tend to evaluate founders with obesity worse because they perceive them as high in warmth but low in competence (and competence matters more for angel investors' evaluations). However, we also suggest that founders with obesity who violate low-competence stereotypes through high-competence displays can offset negative obesity stereotypes without affecting positive ones, leading to overall higher evaluations. The results from two field studies show that angel investors penalize founders with obesity but that the effect is ameliorated for those presenting high-tech ventures. A follow-up experiment using AI-generated, photorealistic manipulations of founders' body types identifies perceived competence and warmth as mechanisms that explain the effects. Collectively, these findings contribute to the literature streams on appearance in entrepreneurial finance, stereotypes and their violations, and entrepreneurial research methods.
{"title":"Not what you expected to see? Obesity stereotypes, expectancy violations, and angel investment decisions","authors":"Torben Antretter , Henrik Wesemann Lekkas , Djordje Djokovic , Vangelis Souitaris , Joakim Wincent","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106510","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106510","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article investigates the impact of obesity stereotypes on angel investment decisions. Drawing from the stereotype literature and expectancy violation theory, we propose that angel investors tend to evaluate founders with obesity worse because they perceive them as high in warmth but low in competence (and competence matters more for angel investors' evaluations). However, we also suggest that founders with obesity who violate low-competence stereotypes through high-competence displays can offset negative obesity stereotypes without affecting positive ones, leading to overall higher evaluations. The results from two field studies show that angel investors penalize founders with obesity but that the effect is ameliorated for those presenting high-tech ventures. A follow-up experiment using AI-generated, photorealistic manipulations of founders' body types identifies perceived competence and warmth as mechanisms that explain the effects. Collectively, these findings contribute to the literature streams on appearance in entrepreneurial finance, stereotypes and their violations, and entrepreneurial research methods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 5","pages":"Article 106510"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144549082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106522
Man Yang , Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes , Joakim Wincent
How can communities be active to create and scale opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses? We address this question through a longitudinal study of a community-based initiative, which promoted sustainability in food production and consumption and has scaled to different communities worldwide. To improve our understanding of the entrepreneurial role of communities, we observed how communities proactively engaged in processes evolving from replicating and developing community ventures to scaling community movement over time. Through these processes, we identified three mechanisms—infrastructure shift, nurturing, and sustaining infrastructure. Our research extends current theories of community-based entrepreneurship by offering a process perspective at the community level and elaborating how communities collectively create and scale opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses, allowing an idea to evolve from a small initiative to a large movement.
{"title":"Big things from small beginnings: Creating and scaling community-based opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses","authors":"Man Yang , Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes , Joakim Wincent","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106522","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106522","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How can communities be active to create and scale opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses? We address this question through a longitudinal study of a community-based initiative, which promoted sustainability in food production and consumption and has scaled to different communities worldwide. To improve our understanding of the entrepreneurial role of communities, we observed how communities proactively engaged in processes evolving from replicating and developing community ventures to scaling community movement over time. Through these processes, we identified three mechanisms—<em>infrastructure shift</em>, <em>nurturing</em>, and <em>sustaining infrastructure</em>. Our research extends current theories of community-based entrepreneurship by offering a process perspective at the community level and elaborating how communities collectively create and scale opportunities for sustainable small and local businesses, allowing an idea to evolve from a small initiative to a large movement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 5","pages":"Article 106522"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144549083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106519
Jordan J. McSweeney , Kevin T. McSweeney , Thomas H. Allison , Aaron H. Anglin
Entrepreneurial pitching research has grown substantially over the last several decades. Despite this growth, prior research remains highly fragmented leaving us with a lack of conceptual clarity regarding what entrepreneurial pitching entails and how it unfolds over time. To address these issues, we conduct a systematic literature review of 173 articles examining entrepreneurial pitching from 2000 until 2024. Our review offers three important contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. First, we develop a process model of entrepreneurial pitching that provides a more holistic understanding of how entrepreneurial pitching unfolds over time by categorizing the 15 topics we identified into four stages: Pre-Pitch, Pitching, Post-Pitch, and Evaluation. Second, we leverage our review and integrative process model of entrepreneurial pitching to provide a roadmap to help guide future research. Third, we develop an integrative definition of entrepreneurial pitching that can conceptually anchor future studies.
{"title":"The entrepreneurial pitching process: A systematic review using topic modeling and future research agenda","authors":"Jordan J. McSweeney , Kevin T. McSweeney , Thomas H. Allison , Aaron H. Anglin","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106519","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106519","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Entrepreneurial pitching research has grown substantially over the last several decades. Despite this growth, prior research remains highly fragmented leaving us with a lack of conceptual clarity regarding what entrepreneurial pitching entails and how it unfolds over time. To address these issues, we conduct a systematic literature review of 173 articles examining entrepreneurial pitching from 2000 until 2024. Our review offers three important contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. First, we develop a process model of entrepreneurial pitching that provides a more holistic understanding of how entrepreneurial pitching unfolds over time by categorizing the 15 topics we identified into four stages: Pre-Pitch, Pitching, Post-Pitch, and Evaluation. Second, we leverage our review and integrative process model of entrepreneurial pitching to provide a roadmap to help guide future research. Third, we develop an integrative definition of entrepreneurial pitching that can conceptually anchor future studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 5","pages":"Article 106519"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144365399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-04DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106504
Zhiyan Wu , Lucia Naldi
This study investigates whether and how female directors influence the performance of male-led new ventures. Guided by resource dependence theory, which sees boards as providers of key resources and advice, we shift the focus adopted in prior research on female directors' strategic roles in public firms to argue that, in male-led new ventures, their influence is more operationally focused. Using data from Sweden and an instrumental variable approach that exploits the random assignment of a child's sex at birth among male founders, we find that greater female board representation is positively associated with the performance of male-led new ventures. Further analyses suggest this effect operates primarily through workforce development—namely, the hiring of skilled female employees and the provision of competitive compensation. Notably, even a single female director has a measurable impact. This study underscores the distinct role of female directors in entrepreneurial settings as opposed to established firms, illuminating the mechanisms through which female presence in the boardroom positively affects the early life stages of organizations. We hope our research serves as a basis for future research to explore further the roles played by female directors that are particularly relevant at the startup stage.
{"title":"Developing the workforce: Exploring the impact of female directors on male-led new ventures","authors":"Zhiyan Wu , Lucia Naldi","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106504","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106504","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates whether and how female directors influence the performance of male-led new ventures. Guided by resource dependence theory, which sees boards as providers of key resources and advice, we shift the focus adopted in prior research on female directors' strategic roles in public firms to argue that, in male-led new ventures, their influence is more operationally focused. Using data from Sweden and an instrumental variable approach that exploits the random assignment of a child's sex at birth among male founders, we find that greater female board representation is positively associated with the performance of male-led new ventures. Further analyses suggest this effect operates primarily through workforce development—namely, the hiring of skilled female employees and the provision of competitive compensation. Notably, even a single female director has a measurable impact. This study underscores the distinct role of female directors in entrepreneurial settings as opposed to established firms, illuminating the mechanisms through which female presence in the boardroom positively affects the early life stages of organizations. We hope our research serves as a basis for future research to explore further the roles played by female directors that are particularly relevant at the startup stage.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 5","pages":"Article 106504"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144212460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-31DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106512
Marco van Gelderen
Research on how to slow, halt, and reverse aging processes is making progress. Pharmaceutical, big-tech, and venture capital companies and their owners are making considerable investments in potential (epi)genetic, molecular, cellular, and organ-based interventions and therapies. This essay considers implications for entrepreneurship in the case that such interventions would eventually result in a doubling of the human healthspan. A vastly extended middle age would imply potential changes in opportunities, the future time perspective of entrepreneurs, the pace of time as experienced by entrepreneurs, and the relationship between age and entrepreneurial success. The essay also outlines a range of wider considerations. The final section ties the essay together by discussing how entrepreneurship scholarship can help move the longevity domain forward.
{"title":"Living healthily to 120: Implications for entrepreneurship","authors":"Marco van Gelderen","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106512","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106512","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Research on how to slow, halt, and reverse aging processes is making progress. Pharmaceutical, big-tech, and venture capital companies and their owners are making considerable investments in potential (<em>epi</em>)genetic, molecular, cellular, and organ-based interventions and therapies. This essay considers implications for entrepreneurship in the case that such interventions would eventually result in a doubling of the human healthspan. A vastly extended middle age would imply potential changes in opportunities, the future time perspective of entrepreneurs, the pace of time as experienced by entrepreneurs, and the relationship between age and entrepreneurial success. The essay also outlines a range of wider considerations. The final section ties the essay together by discussing how entrepreneurship scholarship can help move the longevity domain forward.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 4","pages":"Article 106512"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144178014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-30DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106511
Theodore L. Waldron , Jeffery S. McMullen , Scott L. Newbert , G. Tyge Payne , Jeffrey G. York
Entrepreneurship research should strive for relevance—the potential to influence the thoughts, decisions, and actions of those who practice entrepreneurship. Despite the Journal of Business Venturing’s (JBV) efforts to foster relevance, submissions often fail to demonstrate their potential for practical usefulness. Addressing this problem involves making practical relevance a guiding principle of research design that complements traditional academic standards for publishing in JBV. It also involves forgoing attempts to make research directly usable by practitioners, who rarely read scholarly journals like JBV, in favor of enhancing its suitability for translation in outlets intended for those audiences. We introduce three design criteria—importance, insight, and impact—to guide the creation of translatable research that honors traditional academic standards. Our discussion touches on what the design criteria mean, how they make research translatable, how scholars can satisfy them, what they look like in exemplar JBV publications, and why they matter now. Indeed, designing research with practical importance, insight, and impact in mind may yield academic contributions more suitable for dissemination beyond academic circles, positioning entrepreneurship research to achieve practical relevance.
{"title":"Bold, broad, rigorous, and…relevant? Designing entrepreneurship research for translation","authors":"Theodore L. Waldron , Jeffery S. McMullen , Scott L. Newbert , G. Tyge Payne , Jeffrey G. York","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106511","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106511","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Entrepreneurship research should strive for relevance—the potential to influence the thoughts, decisions, and actions of those who practice entrepreneurship. Despite the Journal of Business Venturing’s (JBV) efforts to foster relevance, submissions often fail to demonstrate their potential for practical usefulness. Addressing this problem involves making practical relevance a guiding principle of research design that complements traditional academic standards for publishing in JBV. It also involves forgoing attempts to make research directly usable by practitioners, who rarely read scholarly journals like JBV, in favor of enhancing its suitability for translation in outlets intended for those audiences. We introduce three design criteria—importance, insight, and impact—to guide the creation of translatable research that honors traditional academic standards. Our discussion touches on what the design criteria mean, how they make research translatable, how scholars can satisfy them, what they look like in exemplar JBV publications, and why they matter now. Indeed, designing research with practical importance, insight, and impact in mind may yield academic contributions more suitable for dissemination beyond academic circles, positioning entrepreneurship research to achieve practical relevance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 4","pages":"Article 106511"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144168690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-29DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106507
Sarah R. Chase, Dean A. Shepherd
<div><div>While the entrepreneurship literature has explored distinct types of opportunities, such as sustainable, unsustainable, social, and commercial, the diverse and integrated processes through which each type of opportunity is exploited remain poorly understood. Indeed, prior research tends to conceptualize opportunity exploitation as uniform and binary, such as sustainable or unsustainable, rather than as a set of dynamic processes and activities shaped by local contexts. Through an inductive study of the South African abalone industry, we explore entrepreneurial variants—differentiated processes and activities of opportunity exploitation—offering a framework for identifying and interpreting the integrated mechanisms through which opportunities are exploited within a local system. We found that the community members perceive that these entrepreneurial variants generate two primary dynamics: pernicious dynamics (i.e., processes that community members believe diminish the functioning of the community) and symbiotic dynamics (i.e., processes that community members believe enhance the functioning of the community). We shed light on how a local system comprises multiple entrepreneurial variants, each embodying distinct relationships with and implications for the local ecology, people, and place. We also offer insights into when mostly unsustainable entrepreneurship can involve symbiotic dynamics and when mostly sustainable entrepreneurship can involve pernicious dynamics. We conclude by discussing the implications for both entrepreneurship theory and practice.</div></div><div><h3>Executive summary</h3><div>Opportunity exploitation is a core element of entrepreneurship. Scholars have recently begun investigating unsustainable entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurs exploit opportunities in ways that cause harm to the natural environment. Scholars have also examined sustainable entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurs exploit opportunities that generate solutions to diminish the harm caused to the natural environment. Indeed, much of the existing entrepreneurship literature has relied on binary constructions, such as the exploitation of sustainable <em>or</em> unsustainable opportunities or of social <em>or</em> commercial opportunities. These constructions largely focus on singular underlying processes and outcomes of opportunity exploitation, offering limited insights into how opportunity exploitation may involve multiple, overlapping, or even conflicting processes and activities within a local system.</div><div>Thus, while prior research has often conceptualized opportunity exploitation in static and binary terms, a deeper understanding of the dynamic, context-dependent processes and activities through which opportunities are exploited remains elusive. In particular, we lack a structured framework to examine the underlying interconnected processes and activities of opportunity exploitation. Advancing such a framework would allow scholars and practi
{"title":"Waves and rips: Abalone, entrepreneurial variants, and community functioning","authors":"Sarah R. Chase, Dean A. Shepherd","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106507","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106507","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While the entrepreneurship literature has explored distinct types of opportunities, such as sustainable, unsustainable, social, and commercial, the diverse and integrated processes through which each type of opportunity is exploited remain poorly understood. Indeed, prior research tends to conceptualize opportunity exploitation as uniform and binary, such as sustainable or unsustainable, rather than as a set of dynamic processes and activities shaped by local contexts. Through an inductive study of the South African abalone industry, we explore entrepreneurial variants—differentiated processes and activities of opportunity exploitation—offering a framework for identifying and interpreting the integrated mechanisms through which opportunities are exploited within a local system. We found that the community members perceive that these entrepreneurial variants generate two primary dynamics: pernicious dynamics (i.e., processes that community members believe diminish the functioning of the community) and symbiotic dynamics (i.e., processes that community members believe enhance the functioning of the community). We shed light on how a local system comprises multiple entrepreneurial variants, each embodying distinct relationships with and implications for the local ecology, people, and place. We also offer insights into when mostly unsustainable entrepreneurship can involve symbiotic dynamics and when mostly sustainable entrepreneurship can involve pernicious dynamics. We conclude by discussing the implications for both entrepreneurship theory and practice.</div></div><div><h3>Executive summary</h3><div>Opportunity exploitation is a core element of entrepreneurship. Scholars have recently begun investigating unsustainable entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurs exploit opportunities in ways that cause harm to the natural environment. Scholars have also examined sustainable entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurs exploit opportunities that generate solutions to diminish the harm caused to the natural environment. Indeed, much of the existing entrepreneurship literature has relied on binary constructions, such as the exploitation of sustainable <em>or</em> unsustainable opportunities or of social <em>or</em> commercial opportunities. These constructions largely focus on singular underlying processes and outcomes of opportunity exploitation, offering limited insights into how opportunity exploitation may involve multiple, overlapping, or even conflicting processes and activities within a local system.</div><div>Thus, while prior research has often conceptualized opportunity exploitation in static and binary terms, a deeper understanding of the dynamic, context-dependent processes and activities through which opportunities are exploited remains elusive. In particular, we lack a structured framework to examine the underlying interconnected processes and activities of opportunity exploitation. Advancing such a framework would allow scholars and practi","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 4","pages":"Article 106507"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144168691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-26DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106509
Jeroen Neckebrouck , William S. Schulze
Despite the ubiquity of private firms, questions concerning the influence of ownermanagement and board governance on strategic decision-making in private firms have received limited attention. To explore these questions, we draw on the performance feedback literature and use longitudinal data from 27,704 U.K. and 7272 Belgian private firms to examine strategic investment in private firms. We find that board oversight increases the likelihood that firms will adjust investment levels in line with predictions by the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTOF), as firms with high board oversight increase investment when performance falls below aspirations and reduce it when performance exceeds aspirations. In contrast, low board oversight is associated with deviations from BTOF predictions, as firms with low board oversight tend to reduce investment when performance is below aspirations but increase it even when performance is well above aspirations. These findings suggest that governed (high oversight) and ungoverned (low oversight) private firms follow different decisionmaking logics; governed firms appear to engage in coalition-based decision-making, while decision-making in ungoverned firms appears to be dominated by ownermanagers, whose investment preferences resemble those of risk-averse, undiversified investors. We also find that the relationship between owner-management, performance feedback, and strategic investment is tempered (offset) by board oversight. In sum, our findings indicate boards play a critical role in private firms by promoting collective goals (as identified and enacted by the board) and limiting the influence of owner-manager's personal goals, risk-preferences, and individual economic interests on the firm's response to performance feedback.
{"title":"Owner-management, board governance and responses to performance feedback in private firms","authors":"Jeroen Neckebrouck , William S. Schulze","doi":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106509","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106509","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite the ubiquity of private firms, questions concerning the influence of ownermanagement and board governance on strategic decision-making in private firms have received limited attention. To explore these questions, we draw on the performance feedback literature and use longitudinal data from 27,704 U.K. and 7272 Belgian private firms to examine strategic investment in private firms. We find that board oversight increases the likelihood that firms will adjust investment levels in line with predictions by the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTOF), as firms with high board oversight increase investment when performance falls below aspirations and reduce it when performance exceeds aspirations. In contrast, low board oversight is associated with deviations from BTOF predictions, as firms with low board oversight tend to reduce investment when performance is below aspirations but increase it even when performance is well above aspirations. These findings suggest that governed (high oversight) and ungoverned (low oversight) private firms follow different decisionmaking logics; governed firms appear to engage in coalition-based decision-making, while decision-making in ungoverned firms appears to be dominated by ownermanagers, whose investment preferences resemble those of risk-averse, undiversified investors. We also find that the relationship between owner-management, performance feedback, and strategic investment is tempered (offset) by board oversight. In sum, our findings indicate boards play a critical role in private firms by promoting collective goals (as identified and enacted by the board) and limiting the influence of owner-manager's personal goals, risk-preferences, and individual economic interests on the firm's response to performance feedback.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51348,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Venturing","volume":"40 4","pages":"Article 106509"},"PeriodicalIF":7.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144138009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-20DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106508
Arielle Newman , Alexander Lewis , Ryan Coles
<div><div>This study explores emancipatory entrepreneurship in postcolonial economies where Western bureaucratic and Indigenous traditional systems simultaneously influence entrepreneurial activities. In Kumasi Ghana, the reconstruction of the Kejetia Marketplace was funded by foreign investment and required formal business registration, effectively excluding informal entrepreneurs. Using process tracing, we analyze how informal entrepreneurs leveraged various forms of Indigenous capital and engaged interstitial actors to convert it into actionable capital within the Western system. This process enabled them to overcome their initial exclusion as they built a series of emancipatory structures, culminating in the elimination of the constraint of formalization in the New Kejetia and opening new opportunities for inclusion. Our findings reveal the significance of Indigenous systems in navigating bureaucratic constraints, contributing to the emancipatory entrepreneurship literature by showing how postcolonial contexts both motivate and shape the emancipatory efforts of marginalized entrepreneurs.</div></div><div><h3>Executive summary</h3><div>This study explores emancipatory entrepreneurship in postcolonial economies, contexts where both a Western bureaucratic institutional system and Indigenous traditional institutional system influence entrepreneurial activities. Emancipatory entrepreneurship involves overcoming constraints, often faced by marginalized groups seeking to improve their structural positions. In Kumasi Ghana, our central case study, the reconstruction of the Kejetia Marketplace was funded by foreign investment and required formal business registration. This policy excluded petty traders who lacked formal property rights. Using process tracing, we analyze how these entrepreneurs leveraged various forms of Indigenous capital, and by engaging interstitial actors, transformed it into effective action in the Western system. This process enabled them to overcome their initial exclusion as they built a series of emancipatory structures, culminating in the elimination of the constraint of formalization in the New Kejetia and making new opportunities accessible to petty traders. Our findings reveal the significance of Indigenous systems in navigating bureaucratic constraints, contributing to the emancipatory entrepreneurship literature by showing how postcolonial contexts both motivate and shape the emancipatory efforts of marginalized entrepreneurs. We contribute to emancipatory entrepreneurship literature by highlighting the role of Indigenous perspectives in understanding entrepreneurial agency in postcolonial settings. We offer insights into how Indigenous actors respond to bureaucratic constraints through emancipatory actions, emphasizing community well-being alongside profit and efficiency. Additionally, we position colonial legacies as central to analyzing entrepreneurial activity, providing generalizable insights into the dynamic intera
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