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Research has shown that business model innovation can facilitate most ventures to innovate and remain competitive, yet there has been limited work on how digital leadership capabilities influence business model innovation. Building on the dynamic capabilities view, we address this gap by linking digital leadership capabilities with business model innovation via managerial decision-making through provision of grants received by new ventures.

The study is cross-sectional research. Data have been collected utilizing purposive sampling from 313 founding members of new ventures in high-velocity markets, i.e. from Pakistan. SPSS has been used to conduct the moderated mediation analysis.

Digital leadership capabilities foster the business model innovation of the new ventures because they enable new ventures to capitalize on digital technologies and create new ways of generating value for the customers and themselves. Moreover, managerial decision-making mediates digital leadership capabilities and business model innovation relationship, whereas, grants moderate the indirect positive effect of digital leadership capabilities on business model innovation via managerial decision-making. The study generates initial evidence on the impact of digital leadership capabilities on business model innovation via managerial decision-making for new ventures. We advance knowledge on new ventures’ business model innovation by deep-diving into dynamic capabilities view and emphasizing digital leadership capabilities as a significant driver for business model innovation.

With the help of dynamic capabilities theory, this study analyzes how new ventures make use of digital leadership capabilities to promote business model innovation.

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 purpose of this study was to explore the couple relationship context within the venture creation process over time. Conservation of Resources and Family FIRO theories were the theoretical foundation, and constructs from these theories were integrated to develop the analytical framework. The sample consisted of couple-level data from 94 start-up businesses at Time 1 with information from entrepreneur and spouse; there were 78 businesses at Time 2. Analysis of spousal resources invested in the newly created businesses indicated that direct and indirect spousal involvement in the business, spousal moral commitment, spousal perception of entrepreneur's business self-efficacy, business communication quality, and emotional support from the spouse were enabling resources during the venture creation process. Work overload and work and family conflict were constraining resources during this process. Couples in a very strong relationship reported significantly more enabling resources and fewer constraining resources than couples not in a very strong relationship.

This chapter explores the issue of an outsider entering an existing business network in an interactive, interdependent and interconnected business world. Developing the new venture appears a ‘mission impossible’ as the new venture has no relationship in the relevant network or a tenuous one at best. The critical issue and major difficulty for the new company are to make established business actors perceive that there are good reasons to admit the new venture into the existing business network. The fate of the new venture, its acceptance by at least some other business actors, will largely depend on how the incumbents perceive the new company to affect their existing relational assets which result from past investments. In attempting to become a new node of a business relationship, the ‘management’ of the new venture has to address two issues. First, it has to find some actors interested in relating to the new venture and to engage them in developing the initial business relationships. Second, the new venture has to manage the networking that is combining the initial relationships with each other. The authors identify and discuss six spaces for action for new business ventures related to these two challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to build a research model to examine the effects of business planning on the new venture emergence, as well as to examine the moderating effects of innovativeness of products.

Four hypotheses are put forward and examined by hierarchical binary logistic regression. The data of this paper are based on the first two waves of data from Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics project.

Results show that engaging in business planning has a positive effect on the new venture emergence, and the timing of business planning does not affect the new venture emergence significantly. This study also finds that the innovativeness of products has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the timing of business planning and the new venture emergence.

This study has some limitations. The innovativeness of products is measured by a single indicator, which may not completely reflect the meaning of the attribute. Moreover, this study explores new ventures only in the nascent stage.

The study is useful for entrepreneurs to realize the importance of business planning. First, engaging in business planning in early start-up stage is a very valuable activity, because business planning can help new ventures reduce the loss caused by trial and error learning. Second, engaging in business planning is more likely to ensure high innovative products quickly be accepted by the market. Because in the process of new venture emergence, the legitimacy signal to stakeholders can be transmitted and new products can be promoted to get support and recognition from stakeholder through the business plan.

This paper focuses on the early stage of new venture life cycle and the contextual factors to explore the influence of business planning on the new venture emergence under the logic of legitimacy. This paper could enrich business planning research from the perspective of legitimacy theory by inspiring scholars to focus on the differences between new ventures and mature enterprises and to offer proposals of legitimation strategies suitable for new ventures. Meanwhile, this study contributes to the understanding of the contextual factors of business planning. And it discusses the impact of the attribute in business planning on the new venture emergence, which helps scholars to get a deep thought about the value of business planning in entrepreneurial process.

Until recently, sponsoring new businesses has largely been the province of venture capital firms. Now, more and more companies are getting into the new venture business. In order to succeed at it, there are a number of lessons they must learn.

Social ventures are unique and important for society; yet, we know very little about their business models. The purpose of this paper is to: re-conceptualize extant business model frameworks so that they can analyze social ventures; identify the key characteristics of social ventures; and identify the typology of effective social venture business model configurations.

The paper uses resource dependence theory to make sense of extant business models and borrows from public administration literature to identify key characteristics and different configurations of social venture business models.

The paper re-conceptualizes business model frameworks as inter-organizational arrangements to cope with external resource dependence; this paper also identifies four key characteristics of social ventures, and develops a social venture business model typology based on these unique key characteristics and extant business model dimensions.

The typology may guide further social venture research, e.g. research on social venture business model creation, on social venture business model innovation, and on social change. Limitations and boundary conditions are discussed in the paper.

The research may further help social entrepreneurs to develop effective business models that meet the social and financial objectives.

The paper offers a novel reconceptualization of traditional business model frameworks, a unique set of key characteristics of social ventures, and a theoretical typology of effective social venture business model configurations.

Business Plan Competitions (BPCs) are readily prescribed and promoted as a valuable entrepreneurial learning activity on university campuses worldwide. There is an acceptance of their value despite the clear lack of empirical attention on the learning experience of nascent entrepreneurs during and post-participation in university-based BPCs. To address this deficit, the purpose of this paper is to explore how participation in a university-based BPC affords entrepreneurial learning outcomes, through the development of competencies, amongst nascent entrepreneurs.

Underpinned by a constructivist paradigm, a longitudinal qualitative methodological approach was adopted. In-depth interviews with nascent entrepreneur participants of a UK university-based BPC were undertaken at the start and end of the competition but also six months after participation. This method enabled access to the participant’s experiences of the competition and appreciation of the meanings they attached to this experience as a source of entrepreneurial learning. Data were analysed according to the wave of data collection and a thematic analytical approach was taken to identify patterns across participant accounts.

At the start of the competition, participation was viewed as a valuable experiential learning opportunity in pursuit of the competencies needed, but not yet held, to progress implementation of the nascent venture. At the end of the competition, participants considered their participation experience had afforded the development of pitching, public speaking, networking and business plan production competencies and also self-confidence. Six months post-competition, participants still recognised that competencies had been developed; however, application of these were deemed as being confined to participation in other competitions rather than the routine day-to-day aspects of venture implementation. Developed competencies and learning remained useful given a prevailing view that further competition participation represented an important activity which would enable value to be leveraged in terms of finance, marketing and networking opportunities for new venture creation.

The findings challenge the common understanding that the BPC represents an effective methodology for highly authentic, relevant and broadly applicable entrepreneurial learning. Moreover the idea that the competencies needed for routine venture implementation and competencies developed through competition are synonymous is challenged. By extension the study suggests competition activities may not be as closely tied to the realities of new venture creation as commonly portrayed or understood and that the learning afforded is situated within a competition context. Competitions could therefore be preventing the opportunities for entrepreneurial learning that they purport they offer. Given the practical importance of competition participation as a resource acquisition activity for nascent entrepreneurs, further critical examination of the competition agenda is necessary as too is additional consideration about the design of such competitions and how such competitions should feature within university policy to support new venture creation.

This study contributes to the limited literature and studies on BPCs by focussing on its effectiveness as a means of providing entrepreneurial learning for participants. The key contribution taking it from an individual nascent entrepreneur participant perspective is that the competencies afforded through competition participation are more limited in scope and application than traditionally promoted and largely orientated towards future BPC participation. Learning is mainly situated for competition sake only and about participants securing further resources and higher levels of visibility. As the nascent entrepreneurs intended learning outcomes from competition participation are subsequently not realised, the study highlights a gap between the intended and actual outcomes of competition participation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how sustainability is integrated into a new venture’s business network initiation. This study unpacks sustainability in business network initiation using temporal bracketing and identifying its main processes. Temporal bracketing supports the understanding of the evolution of sustainability in network initiation. The processes help explore the sustainability patterns that emerge from the new venture’s attempt to integrate sustainability into network initiation.

The exploratory case study of an Italian pasta maker draws on industrial network theory to focus on the business network initiation of new ventures. The novelty is the integration of sustainability into the business network initiation literature. This paper adopts a single case study methodology and an abductive approach to analysis.

This study finds that sustainability in network initiation is achieved through three periods of initiation and through five processes that are overlapping, intertwined and reciprocal. This study suggests that sustainability can have a positive or negative impact when integrated into the initiation process.

This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding how a new venture integrates sustainability in its network initiation. The framework comprises periods and processes of network initiation which show how a new venture can integrate sustainability in its business activities and resources through interaction with network actors.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the early stage network engagement strategies that new ventures use to gain traction in interaction in the development of network capability.

Using 24 new ventures in the micro-brewing industry in Ireland, Belgium and the USA as an empirical base, the authors use an inductive case study approach owing to the exploratory nature of the research aim and the lack of prior literature in the area.

The findings suggest five early stage network engagement process strategies in network capability development: business-to-business network prospecting; co-branding/co-promoting activities; from maker-mindset to adapting; social media platforming; and recognition and activation of network role.

The findings are limited to the micro-brewery sector at one point in time, although in multiple country contexts. Analyzing other sectors and taking a temporal view of strategizing, analyzing the sector at another time point, would show how dynamics in engagement change as the actors acquire new experiences from interaction.

The potential to gain from network resources and the paucity of these resources in new ventures makes early stage engagement strategizing for network capability development an attractive business strategy for new firms. All firms are born within a social network that has economic importance. Identifying the five early stage network engagement strategies can mitigate the challenge for the new venture in moving from the initial social network to collaborating within wider business networks to gain access to resources, technology and customers.

Strategizing in new venture contexts is a relatively new stream of research for the industrial marketing and purchasing group. This paper adds to the growing body of literature that places interaction, relationships and networks at the heart of strategy making and provides important insights for new ventures, which may lead to earlier and greater success for the firms. The authors respond to calls for increased research addressing capability development in a new venture context and for research to take a more interactive perspective on new venture processes.