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Entrepreneurship research has grown in both quality and quantity over the past decade, as many theoretical innovations and important empirical research findings have been introduced to the field. However, theoretical approaches to understanding entrepreneurship remain fragmented, and empirical findings are unstable across different contexts. This chapter describes features of a multi-level process view of new venture emergence that adds coherence to the entrepreneurship theory jungle and brings order to idiosyncratic empirical results, by explaining how ideas become organized into new ventures. The centerpiece of this effort is enactment theory, a general process approach specifically developed to explain organizing processes. Enactment theory – and Campbellian evolutionary theorizing more generally – has a long history of use within and across multiple levels of analysis. Consequently, the description here illustrates how organizing unfolds across multiple levels of analysis and multiple phases of development. After describing the theorizing assumptions and multi-level process view of new venture organizing, the chapter explores implications of applying this perspective by suggesting new research directions and interpretations of prior work. The aim is to advocate process theorizing as a more productive approach to understanding new venture emergence.

There is progress in entrepreneurship research. Important works in entrepreneurship increasingly appear in highly respected, mainstream journals (see Busenitz et al., 2003; Davidsson, Low & Wright, 2001). There is conceptual development that attracts attention (e.g. Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) and handbooks are compiled, providing the field with more of a common body of knowledge (Acs & Audretsch, 2003a; Shane, 2000a; Westhead & Wright, 2000). Further, there is evidence of methodological improvements (Chandler & Lyon, 2001) and accumulation of meaningful findings on various levels of analysis (Davidsson & Wiklund, 2001). Moreover, due to time lags in publication the reported improvements are likely to be underestimated. This author’s experience as organizer, reviewer and participant in core entrepreneurship conferences on both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. Babson; RENT) suggests that much of the lower end of the quality distribution has either disappeared from the submissions or is screened out in the review process. Much more than used to be the case a few years back we find among the presented papers research that is truly theory-driven; research on the earliest stages of business development, and research that employs methods suitable for causal inference, i.e. experiments and longitudinal designs.

In response to Ford and Sullivan's chapter, this commentary poses a number of questions intended to help future research efforts ascertain whether levels of analysis and phases of new-venture emergence happen concurrently. Strongly in agreement with Ford and Sullivan's call for a process approach toward the study of entrepreneurial ventures, the commentary focuses on the potential processes associated with different levels of analysis that might possibly underlie the enactment and effectuation processes depicted in their model. Through the examination of these underlying processes, questions for future research are raised to help address the question, “Do levels and phases of new-venture emergence always happen together?”

Organizational routines emerge in firms during the process of new venture creation. Typically, they are imprinted and sometimes replicated by the entrepreneurs creating the organization, reflecting individual and contextual characteristics. In particular cases, organizations are designed for replicating routines for new ventures. The authors investigate one such case from the IT industry using a dynamic routine perspective and focus on how routines originally created by an organization are replicated in several new ventures. In more detail, the authors focus on how routine replication counter-intuitively allows for innovating in new venture creation. The authors find that routine replication supports entrepreneurial innovation in three ways: (1) the replicator organization’s accelerating routines unburden the replicator organization’s innovating routines; (2) the replicator organization’s accelerating routines unburden the new venture’s innovating routines; and (3) the new venture’s accelerating routines unburden the new venture’s innovating routines. The authors contribute to the discussion about the replication dilemma by conceptualizing “unburdening” as a mechanism that allows both routinization and innovation benefits to be reaped.

Business plan writing seems the panacea to gain stakeholder legitimacy and financial backing. Our chapter explores the contributions and disconnections between business plan writing and the start-up process for incubated technology entrepreneurs. The study is set in the South East Enterprise Platform Programme (SEEPP), an incubator programme for technology graduate entrepreneurs in the South East of Ireland. Using a purposive sample of technology entrepreneurs in start-up mode, we took a qualitative approach consisting of content analysis of 40 business plans and in-depth interviews with 25 technology entrepreneurs. Our research found that writing a detailed business plan constrains the technology entrepreneur’s natural penchant for action, compelling them to focus on business plan writing rather than enactment. Technology entrepreneurs favour a market-led rather than funding-led operational level document to plan, and learn from, near-term activities using milestones.

Past entrepreneurship research has emphasized the importance of the context of the entrepreneur (e.g., personality) along with environmental characteristics as predictors of the success of new ventures. Additional literature has expanded our understanding of how implementation processes such as business planning, social networking, and external financing may be key to new venture performance. This paper offers 12 propositions that link these two literatures. Specifically, we argue that the personality and goals of the entrepreneur, as well as the dynamism and munificence of the environment, may affect how well implementation processes enhance new venture performance.

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).

In this chapter, we examine two theorized approaches to entrepreneurial activity: experiential versus prediction based strategies. We empirically assess the comparative performance of several commonly recommended approaches – researching customer needs, researching the competitive landscape, writing a business plan, conceptually adapting the business plan or experimentally adapting the primary business activity. We found that the majority of nascent entrepreneurs began with a business plan, but only about a third adapted their plan in later stages. We also found that talking with customers and examining the competitive landscape were normative activities. Those who started a plan were more likely to create a venture, although the effects much stronger for those who changed their plan later on, as well as for those who researched customer needs.

Our results show that the selection of these activities is both ubiquitous and driven by pre-start-up experience and new venture characteristics. The activities themselves do not robustly link with successful new venture foundation. Hence, pre-start-up experiences, venture characteristics, and the institutional environment are more important in explaining successful performance than recommended activities. Implications for research, practice, and pedagogy are discussed.

The present study examines entrepreneurship in established firms holistically and critically. The authors start by reviewing previous research and highlight a variety of definitional, conceptual, methodological, contextual, and temporal factors that have been confounding the research. The authors then present a multidimensional framework that specifies a more nuanced picture of the determinants, motives, activities, and consequences of corporate in established firms. Finally, the authors discuss conceptual, methodological, and practical implications, as well as outline future research avenues.