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We advance entrepreneurship research by developing a theoretical model of how founding teams form. Our neo-Carnegie model situates nascent founders in particular network-structural milieus, engaging in aspiration-driven search for and evaluation of prospective co-founders. The formation of co-founding ties between nascent founders can be divided into four theoretical steps, which we label activation, evaluation, approach, and reciprocation. Successful founding team formation is a consequence of mutually favorable evaluations by nascent founders in a multi-sided matching process. Nascent founders with higher and less flexible aspirations are more likely to undertake distant search for co-founders by seeking referrals, forming ties with strangers, and forming new ties to social foci where they might meet potential co-founders. Churn in newly formed founding teams emerges as a consequence of shifting dominant coalition dynamics in the founding team caused by organic venture evolution and intentional changes in strategic direction. Our theoretical model provides new insights on the formation pathways of founding teams, their initial task and relational resource endowments, and initial team dynamics.

Purpose: Entrepreneurial teams are one of the most crystallized forms of collaboration in the generically collective dynamics underpinning social entrepreneurship. Despite their quantitative prevalence, social entrepreneurial teams (SETs) remain quite absent from the scholarly literature. This chapter aims to develop a research agenda addressing this gap. Methodology/Approach: This chapter first reviews the scarce literature dealing with this subject and develops an operationalizable definition of SETs. Next, it confronts current knowledge on entrepreneurial teams with the specific context of social entrepreneurship to introduce and discuss main topics of investigation on SETs. Findings: Six topics are suggested to have a high potential for developing knowledge on SETs: formation, size and extended team, gender, decision-making and leadership, identity, and turnover. Research Implications: This chapter frames these research avenues within a developmental stages perspective with the aim to contribute to help form and maintain effective SETs. Originality/Value of Chapter: This research has implications for scholars as it defines SETs as a distinct object for research, which allows extending knowledge on collaborative dynamics in social entrepreneurship, but also on entrepreneurial teams in general. The suggested research agenda and its orientation toward the development of effective SETs should be a springboard for future research on this subject.

This chapter combines insights from organizational theory and the entrepreneurship literature to inform a process-based conception of organizational founding. In contrast to previous discrete-event approaches, the conception argues that founding be viewed as a series of potential entrepreneurial activities – including initiation, resource mobilization, legal establishment, social organization, and operational startup. Drawing on an original data set of 591 entrepreneurs, the study examines the effect of structural, strategic, and environmental contingencies on the relative rates with which different founding activities are pursued. Results demonstrate that social context has a fairly pervasive impact on the occurrence and sequencing of founding processes, with one possible exception being the timing of legal establishment.

The purpose of presenting this chapter is to provide a summary understanding of the high-tech entrepreneurial process in the health care industry by providing a model with flow chart depiction for clarity. In building the Integrated Model, over twenty stage models in the academic literature were reviewed. The academic literature, the authors experience in entrepreneurial endeavors, and research in case studies are combined to derive the Integrated Model. Two case studies are utilized to illustrate certain key points as the model is explained in detail, as well as to suggest some effective ways to cope with the unusual demands of the new venture process.

The existence of adequate financial capital at start-up as well as during the lifetime of a firm is considered to be vital not only for its survival but also for its effective trading and growth, as it can act as a buffer against unforeseen difficulties (Cooper, Gimeno-Gascon, & Woo, 1994; Chandler & Hanks, 1998; Venkataraman & Van de Ven, 1998; Cassar, 2004). Inadequate or inappropriate capital structure is often the most common reason for a large proportion of small business failures (Chaganti, DeCarolis, & Deeds, 1995).

Organizational learning continues to be an important issue for all types of firms. Managerial accounts of organizational learning are in high demand; for example, Senge’s The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990a) has sold over 500,000 copies in the U.S. Studies exploring the nature of knowledge creation, intellectual capital, and knowledge management have been on the rise, with recent papers being published for academics (McElroy, 2000; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Nonaka, 1994), and practitioners (Brown & Duguid, 1998; Fryer, 1999). According to some experts, the ability to transform information into knowledge through organizational learning is a critical success factor for all businesses in the current knowledge-based economy (Davis & Botkin, 1994; Lei, Slocum & Pitts, 1999).

This chapter will describe and analyze the evolution of the structure, content, and other key parameters of business plans in international business plan competitions from the beginnings of such competitions in 1991 through the current time. In particular, the chapter will describe how these competitions have evolved through the current time, the standardization of the structure and content of the plans submitted to these competitions, and the changes that have occurred in their structure and content over time. Then it will explain why these changes have occurred. Specifically, that most of the changes that have occurred in these various areas is a direct or indirect result of pressures on the competitions from the major judges used in them – namely U.S. venture capitalists. Appendices A and B will describe the evaluation criteria used in two of the major competitions – Moot Corp/Venture Labs^® and the Georgia Bowl^® – in more detail, while Appendices C and D will provide information on the Term Sheets and decision-making processes used by such venture capitalists. Appendix E contains four Exhibits that provide additional insights into U.S. venture capitalists’ thought processes. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the additional changes that are likely to happen in the future.

The ICT sector in France is characterized by intense firm birth rates, but also by a high mortality. Five years after the start-up, only 38.7% of the firms survived, comparing to 51.0% in the middle high technology and 46.3% in non-innovative branches (Lasch, 2003a). The high growth potential of ICT firms is linked to specific problems, such as a higher risk of failure, a difficult financing, the lack of knowledge in firm management of new entrepreneurs, etc. (Pleschak, 1997). Mostly SMEs, young ICT firms are extremely fragile, so the present chapter proposes to discuss the crucial topic of survival and growth in innovation and knowledge-based sectors.

The study is based on reviews of the relevant parts of the IM and IE literatures. We only selected articles for review that explicitly deal with innovative or entrepreneurial behavior.