Discussion: View Thread

Editors:          

Simon Mosey            simon.mosey@nottingham.ac.uk
Maribel Guerrero      maribel.guerrero@orkestra.deusto.es
Andrew Greenman   andrew.greenman@nottingham.ac.uk


BACKGROUND AND SPECIAL ISSUE PURPOSE:

During the last two decades, the phenomenon of technology entrepreneurship has attracted the interest of researchers and policy makers who recognized its positive effect on economic progress. Drawing from a rich tradition of research, several authors define technology entrepreneurship as the interface of two well-established, but related fields-entrepreneurship and technological innovation (Beckman et al. 2012a,b; Shane and Venkataraman 2003). Commensurate with entrepreneurship, technology entrepreneurship is a multi-dimensional concept that involves several actors and different levels of analysis (Garud and Karnøe 2003). In this vein, technological opportunities could be recognized and exploited by individuals through new venture creation (entrepreneurship) but equally could be pursued by individuals or groups within existing public/private organizations (intrapreneurship) (Parker 2011).

Previous studies have evidenced how human capital affects the development and performance of technology ventures (Colombo et al. 2004, Marvel and Lumpkin 2007, Mosey and Wright, 2007; Wright et al. 2007). Despite these insights, there are still many themes that remain relatively unexplored (Beckman et al. 2012a). For instance, Eesley and Roberts (2012) explore whether entrepreneurial performance of technological new ventures was due to innate talent or the accumulation of entrepreneurial experience. In contrast to prior findings, they evidenced that the relative importance of experience versus talent changes with the context (i.e., when the current market or technology is familiar, experience dominates and vice versa). Similarly, Guerrero and Peña-Legazkue (2013) evidenced the positive effect of intrapreneurial experience (a specific dimension of human capital) on the creation of corporate ventures.  Following these insights, the relative influence of many existing support measures (entrepreneurship education, incubators, business plan competitions, etc.) on the generation of talent and the experience of individuals clearly needs to be explored in-depth (Guerrero and Urbano 2013; Kourilsky and Walstad 2002; Wright et al. 2004).

At the organizational level, technology entrepreneurship has been analyzed in terms of organizational process/strategies to exploit innovations (Beckman et al. 2012b; Shane and Venkataraman 2003), the attraction of venture capital investments (Florida and Kenney 1988;  Gaba and Bhattacharya 2012), the commercialization strategies (Gans and Stern 2003) and business models (Doganova and Eyquem-Renault, 2009), among others. However, the current environmental conditions represent a strategic game changer for both new and existing organizations. Severe resource constraints and unpredictable market conditions create significant challenges for growth through innovation. In this sense, it is important to understand the influence of the characteristics of industrial sectors (traditional and emerged), as well as, institutional factors (government policies, university support measures, innovation and entrepreneurship systems, etc.) on the creation and the subsequent development of new technology ventures.


RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

As a result this special issue calls for conceptual papers and empirical studies, using qualitative or quantitative approaches as appropriate, to address the following questions:

a. The entrepreneur/intrapreneur

• How does the accumulation of experience or the educational journey of founders (entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs) influence the recognition of technological opportunities and their subsequent development?
• How do the characteristics of the co-founders influence the recognition of technological opportunities and their subsequent development?
• What are the influences of liabilities of scale and newness to technology entrepreneurs?
  

b. The new technology venture

• Why do individuals/existing organizations found new technology ventures?
• How do co-founders (individuals/existing organizations) share the ownership of new technology ventures?
• How do the characteristics of emerging industrial sectors (biotech vs IT vs clean tech) influence the development of new technology ventures (created by individuals/existing organizations)?
• What strategies are adopted to capture the returns to innovation by new technology ventures (created by individuals/existing organizations)?
• How does the relationship between business models and technology entrepreneurship unfold?
• When do new technology ventures created by individuals/existing organizations capture funds by venture capital, corporate venture capital, and angel investors?
• Are there alternative ways of theorizing the organization of technology entrepreneurship (such as bricolage?)
  

c. The context

• What are the environmental characteristics that influence the creation of new technology ventures (by individuals/existing organizations)?
• How do the territorial strategies/programmes/policies influence the development of new technology ventures (created by individuals/existing organizations) in certain industrial sectors and regions?
• What is the role of university support measures (i,e., entrepreneurship education programmes, incubators, business plan competition, etc.) in the generation of talent and development of  human capital?  
• How do the dynamics of innovation/entrepreneurship ecosystems influence the strategies of technical entrepreneurs?
• What are the social and economic impacts generated by new technology ventures?

This is not an exhaustive list and other relevant studies are welcome.

 
KEY DATES & APPLICATION PROCESS:

This call for papers is part of the Fourth Conference of the International Network of Business and Management Journals (INBAM). The expectation is that submitted papers will be presented at the conference to be held from 25th-27th June 2014 in Barcelona, Spain (see 2014.inbam.net  for details).

Deadline is February 15th, 2014.  Full papers should be submitted electronically via the INBAM website 2014.inbam.net following the guidelines of the JOTT. The entire paper should be organized in ONE document in Word format (.DOC or .DOCX). The first page is the title page. Provide full title, author's name, position, affiliation, and present address. Also, include an e-mail address for editorial correspondence. If there is more than one author, note with an asterisk (*) the author who should receive correspondence.

REFERENCES:

Beckman, C. M., Eisenhardt, K., Kotha, S., Meyer, A., & Rajagopalan, N. (2012a). The role of the entrepreneur in technology entrepreneurship. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6(3), 203-206.

Beckman, C. M., Eisenhardt, K., Kotha, S., Meyer, A., & Rajagopalan, N. (2012b). Technology entrepreneurship. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6(2), 89-93.

Carayannopoulos, S (2009) 'How Technology-Based New Firms Leverage Newness and Smallness to Commercialize Disruptive Technologies', Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice, Volume 33, Issue 2, pages 419–438

Colombo, M. G., Delmastro, M., & Grilli, L. (2004). Entrepreneurs' human capital and the start-up size of new technology-based firms. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 22(8), 1183-1211.

Doganova, L Eyquem-Renault, M (2009) What do business models do?: Innovation devices in technology               entrepreneurship, Research Policy, Volume 38, Issue 10, pp 1559-1570

Eesley, C. E. & Roberts, E. B. (2012), Are You Experienced or Are You Talented?: When Does Innate Talent versus Experience Explain Entrepreneurial Performance?. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6, 207–219.

Florida, R., & Kenney, M. (1988). Venture capital and high technology entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 3(4), 301-319.

Gaba, V., & Bhattacharya, S. (2012). Aspirations, innovation, and corporate venture capital: a behavioral perspective. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 6(2), 178-199.

Gans, J. S., & Stern, S. (2003). The product market and the market for "ideas": commercialization strategies for technology entrepreneurs. Research policy, 32(2), 333-350.

Garud, R., & Karnøe, P. (2003). Bricolage versus breakthrough: distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship. Research policy, 32(2), 277-300.

Guerrero, M., & Peña-Legazkue, I. (2013). The effect of intrapreneurial experience on corporate venturing: Evidence from developed economies. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 1-20.

Guerrero, M., & Urbano, D. (2013). Academics' start-up intentions and knowledge filters: an individual perspective of the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, doi 10.1007/s11187-013-9526-4

Kourilsky, M. L., & Walstad, W. B. (2002). The early environment and schooling experiences of high-technology entrepreneurs: Insights for entrepreneurship education. International Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 1(1), 1-20.

Marvel, M. R., & Lumpkin, G. T. (2007). Technology entrepreneurs' human capital and its effects on innovation radicalness. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31(6), 807-828.

Mosey, S., & Wright, M. (2007). From human capital to social capital: A longitudinal study of technology‐based academic entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31(6), 909-935.

Parker, S. C. (2011). Intrapreneurship or entrepreneurship?. Journal of Business Venturing, 26(1), 19-34.

Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2003). Guest editors' introduction to the special issue on technology entrepreneurship. Research Policy, 32(2), 181-184

Wright, M., Birley, S., & Mosey, S. (2004). Entrepreneurship and university technology transfer. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 29(3-4), 235-246.

Wright, M., Hmieleski, K. M., Siegel, D. S., & Ensley, M. D. (2007). The role of human capital in technological entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31(6), 791-806.