Browsing by Person "Kuckertz, Andreas"

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A software for corporate entrepreneurship? The role of organizational culture for stimulating entrepreneurial orientation in family firms
(2019) Arz, Christopher; Kuckertz, Andreas
This doctoral thesis comprises three empirical studies which together seek to shed light upon the question of which and how specific manifestations of organizational culture (OC) are able to support entrepreneurial behaviors and activities in established organizations (corporate entrepreneurship; CE). As a whole, this thesis addresses a variety of research questions, relying on different methodological approaches and data sets. More specifically, I use both original and secondary data, and I draw on qualitative, interpretive as well as quantitative, positivist research design. The specific objectives, concepts, and methods of the studies are guided by the two overarching research questions of this thesis: 1) What are the dominant cultural patterns of family firms that create an organizational environment where corporate entrepreneurship flourishes? 2) How exactly do these cultural patterns operate and interact in the process of stimulating corporate entrepreneurship? The first study titled “Mechanisms of Organizational Culture for Fostering Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda” provides a broad overview of the current body of knowledge on the OC-CE relationship and synthesizes generic OC mechanisms supportive of CE into an explicit framework. Adopting the method of structured literature review and realist synthesis, it analyzes 46 empirical and conceptual papers published in peer-reviewed journals and strives to make sense of the diverse, and partly conflicting, theoretical predictions and empirical findings which currently characterize the field. To accomplish that, the study integrates eight generic OC dimensions and two basic layers of culture to enable CE-supportive cultural mechanisms to be synthesized into a clear matrix. Doing so allows for more a fine-grained understanding of how OC may create an environment where CE flourishes. Based on the synthesis, research avenues are identified to encourage future work on the topic. The second study titled “Bridging the Micro-Macro Gap: A Multi-Layer Culture Framework for Understanding Entrepreneurial Orientation in Family Firms” responds to the enduring unanswered call for qualitative research on the topic of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) that is located within an interpretivist-oriented philosophy. Employing an interpretivist single case study design, the study seeks to elaborate the theory of EO in family firms by delivering a rich and deeply contextualized understanding of the business-level mechanisms that operate between family-level values (micro level) and firm-level EO (macro level) in a second-generation German family firm. Specifically, it adopts a multi-layer theory of culture as interpretive framework to develop a grounded model that cuts across analytical levels of family and business. The illustration of the data, based on a qualitative content analysis of both archival data and ethnographic interview data, shows how the unique cultural patterns of the firm operate as social mechanisms to stimulate EO. Specifically, family-level values of altruism and preservation have been found to prepare the ground for an OC characterized by long-term- and involvement-oriented organizational values as well as psychological safety and empowerment climates. Eventually, these climates represent the most salient cultural layer and effectively support the firm’s competitive orientation toward corporate entrepreneurship. Finally, the third study of this thesis titled “Stimulating Entrepreneurial Orientation in Family Firms: A Multi-Layer Culture Model” takes a more technical (positivist) perspective on the phenomenon of OC and investigates how the specific business-level cultural mechanisms of family firms can transform the intimate connection between family and business into high levels of EO. To provide a deeper understanding of the forces that nurture EO in family firms, the study finds a way to bridge the gap between family-level characteristics and firm-level EO by integrating family commitment culture, long-term orientation, and stewardship climate into a multi-layer culture framework. The research model that derives from this perspective proposes a two-step mediation process, intending to explain how family commitment culture, as a family-level value orientation, is transformed into high levels of EO through OC mechanisms. The model was tested by analyzing data of 208 mature German family firms using covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM). Consistent with the proposed multi-layer structure, the SEM model’s results support the hypothesis that, when high levels of EO are desired, family firms ought to focus on what type of cultural mechanisms are triggered at the business level through a family commitment culture.
Das Beste aus zwei Welten – Key Learnings aus dem ACTIVATR-Programm
(2018) Kuckertz, Andreas; Morales Reyes, C. Arturo; Brändle, Leif
Gerade innovative Startups drohen in allen Industrien die Geschäftsmodelle etablierter Unternehmen zu zerstören. Etablierte Unternehmen hingegen haben die nötigen Ressourcen und Netzwerke, um Geschäftsmodelle früh zu testen und schnell zu skalieren. Dieser Research Brief beantwortet daher die Frage, wie Vorteile aus der Corporate- und der Startup-Welt zum Zwecke erfolgreicher Innovationen verbunden werden können. Dazu werden Beobachtungen und Interviews aus einem mehrmonatigen Accelerator-Programm ausgewertet, welches bewusst Teams aus beiden Welten für eine Innovation Challenge kombiniert. Wir leiten Erkenntnisse ab für Entscheider aus etablierten Unternehmen, Startups sowie Accelerator-Programmen und zeigen, unter welchen Bedingungen eine erfolgreiche Kombination der Startup- und der Corporate-Logik möglich wird.
Corporate innovation systems and the effect of continuity, competence, and cooperation on innovation performance
(2021) Kötting, Michael; Kuckertz, Andreas
Innovations have always been an essential factor for the long-term success of corporations. This is all the more true at times like the present, which is becoming increasingly dynamic and fast due to such effects as digitalization and globalization. However, as important as innovations are for the success of corporations, their systematic development is just as challenging. This fact can be demonstrated not least by numerous practical examples in which formerly successful corporations were unable to react appropriately to changing market and competitive conditions and consequently had to give up their market position. The challenges in the development of innovations can be traced back to different organizational conditions, which are necessary for the efficient exploitation of existing products on the one hand and the exploration of new innovations on the other. The scientific literature recommends, among other things, the separation of exploration and exploitation into different organizational units to meet the challenges mentioned above. In addition to the operational business units, which are usually responsible for the exploitation of existing products, it is advisable to establish innovation units, such as corporate incubators or corporate venture capital units, and to entrust them with the exploration of innovations. For a detailed examination of the current state of research on corporate incubators and corporate venture capital, two systematic literature analyses were carried out within the scope of this thesis. As a result, it was discovered that further research is needed, particularly concerning the organizational integration of such innovation units into the overall organization and the associated conflicts of objectives. To make an initial contribution to closing the research gap mentioned above, a further study of this work is devoted to the organizational integration of different innovation programs in an established corporation. This study differs from previous studies in that it takes an overarching perspective and considers the entire organization, including the innovation units, as a holistic innovation system. Such a corporate innovation system consists of at least three different types of innovation units in addition to the operational business units: exploration-oriented innovation units for the generation of disruptive innovations, exploitation-oriented innovation units for the further development of existing products and transformation-oriented innovation units for the transformation of the corporate culture. Such a system can ensure the systematic and sustainable generation of innovations, especially in the interaction of the various innovation units. In addition to the basic establishment of the innovation units mentioned above, however, appropriate organizational framework conditions are required to ensure that innovations can be developed successfully. The fourth study in this thesis is dedicated to the question of how continuity, competence and cooperation affect the innovation performance of corporations. It could be analyzed that the continuous implementation of innovation activities has the greatest positive effect on the innovation performance of enterprises. While cooperation, in combination with continuity, has a short- to medium-term impact on innovation performance, competence and continuity have a long-term effect on innovation performance. Cooperation and competence are complementary concepts in that cooperation should be used for short-term innovation activities, while competence should be used for the long-term sustainable development of innovations within the enterprise. As a result, this work addresses existing research gaps with regard to the integration of innovation units and the organizational structures of corporations and provides valuable insights and approaches for further research. For this purpose, it was necessary to link findings from the field of innovation management and corporate venturing with concepts of organizational theory. Through this connection, we have succeeded in gaining new scientific insights that previously could not be gained independently within the individual research streams. We are convinced that our findings on Corporate Innovation Systems and the effects of continuity, competence and cooperation on innovation performance have made an important scientific contribution. That is all the more true at a time when successful innovation is becoming increasingly important for corporations and a growing number of newly emerging innovation units can be observed in practice.
Essays on investor communication in the context of startups
(2023) Kaiser, Manuel Tobias; Kuckertz, Andreas
With their creativity and innovative business models, entrepreneurs make an important contribution to global innovation, thus promoting economic growth and the labor market with startup jobs. However, the growth ambitions of entrepreneurs also require investments. Against this backdrop, previous research has already extensively discussed the importance of external investors and highlighted different facets of the entrepreneur-investor relationship. Central concept, to explain this relationship, is investor relations, which mainly refers to the communication of entrepreneur and investor. However, research on investor communication faces the challenge that a variety of new players, hence new forms of financing, have recently emerged in the market, further fragmenting the research field. In addition, technological advances are also changing the way entrepreneurs and investors communicate with each other. Against this background, previous research on investor relations in the startup context leaves open research questions that will be answered in this dissertation. This results in the following overarching research question for the structure of this dissertation: How do entrepreneurs shape communication with their investors? The first study was co-authored with Andreas Kuckertz and captures the research landscape on entrepreneurial communication using bibliometric analyses with algorithmic historiography and thematic map for science mapping. Thus, the structures of previous communication research from an entrepreneurship perspective are examined in more detail. The basis of this analysis is 383 articles from peer-reviewed journals. The results of these analyses show that communication in the context of resourcing is a relevant field of research, especially in investor relations. Overall, this study thus opens the research field of this dissertation by embedding investor communication as an element of entrepreneurial communication research. The second study was conducted with Elisabeth S.C. Berger and is a structured literature review that reviews the current state of research on trust between entrepreneurs and different types of investors. It identified and analyzed 32 articles dealing with trust in the context of venture capital, business angels, crowdfunding, or bank financing. This study builds on the results from the first study by revealing that communication is a trust-building factor. Thus, the second study shows how different concepts are interrelated and influence trust in the entrepreneur-investor relationship. The third study is co-authored with Andreas Kuckertz and examines the communication of entrepreneurs before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also considers the extent to which entrepreneurs financed by a venture capital investor differ in their communication from those entrepreneurs working without an investor. For this purpose, a novel method of text analysis was used to examine 110,283 tweets from 760 entrepreneurs. The results indicate that working with a venture capital investor also changes the professionalism of founder communication. This group shows a more professional expression of their emotions. In the fourth study, which was conducted in collaboration with Andreas Kuckertz, the emotions of investors expressed in communication are examined. This study focuses on venture capitalists and business angels. Although these two investors have a longer history in entrepreneurship research, their emotions have so far been largely ignored. However, since emotions are also relevant within relationships and therefore also in communication, this study broadens the view of the big picture in the entrepreneur-investor relationship by adding an emotional perspective. For this study, 994,969 tweets from 822 investors were analyzed and statistically compared regarding their emotions. Overall, the four studies in this dissertation address different relationship concepts that arise in the context of entrepreneur-investor relationships. Thus, this dissertation also provides impulses for entrepreneurs and investors in practice, for research and also for politics.
From passion to performance : entrepreneurial passion in the creative industries
(2022) Schulte-Holthaus, Stefan; Kuckertz, Andreas
Entrepreneurship drives progress, innovation, growth, and prosperity. Passion, in turn, motivates and energizes people to pursue meaningful activities on a sustained basis. In following their passion and in interacting with their proximal environments, people build up competencies, knowledge, experience, and social relations, which may result in peak performance. When passion develops and relates to the creation, discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities, entrepreneurial passion emerges. The current state of research shows that entrepreneurial passion is a source of motivation, inspiration, creativity, and perseverance. In the cultural and creative industries, entrepreneurship often begins from a passion for an artistic or creative work that is pursued as a hobby or leisure activity, which professionalizes over time. Thereby, passion for a creative or artistic activity can also create tensions between ideational and economic-organizational imperatives in entrepreneurial contexts. However, how, and why an artistic or creative passion develops into an entrepreneurial one and how it affects entrepreneurial success is unchartered territory. Hence, the aim of this dissertation is to investigate and explain the development of passion and its effect on entrepreneurial performance of creative people whose venturing ambitions are primarily driven by a non-entrepreneurial passion. The first study identifies the current state of literature on entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative industries. The review elaborates the phenomenon of a non-entrepreneurial passion as central feature of creative industries entrepreneurship and outlines its potential for future research. The second study presents a review of the state of research on passion in the entrepreneurial context and develops a theory-based approach that explains how passion emerges, and how it can extend to entrepreneurship and lead to entrepreneurial performance. Based on 11 semi-structured interviews with successful entrepreneurs whose life paths are characterized by passion for music, the third study follows this assumption and generates mental maps using the Conceptual Causal Mapping method. The results explain the development of real-life passion over time, its current constitution and embeddedness within the personal, social, and entrepreneurial life context and the relation of passion to performance. Based on the person-environment fit theory, the final study develops a model that substantiates the positive effects of life context fit on entrepreneurial passion and performance. Life context fit is operationalized using personal project analysis and the hypotheses were tested on a sample of 406 creative entrepreneurs using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate the effect of life context fit on entrepreneurial passion and its successive translation into performance in four subsegments that can be classified as artepreneurs, culturepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs, and lifestyle entrepreneurs. However, contrary to expectations, the analyses also indicate that neither the life context fit, nor the domains of entrepreneurial passion have uniform positive outcomes. Rather, these relations occur with compounded positive and negative effects. These results are surprising as the extant literature has found nearly consistent positive outcomes of passion on performance. Post-hoc analyses reveal the varying constitutions of life contexts and the existence of previously unmeasurable domains of entrepreneurial passion for products, for people, and for a social cause among creative practitioners and help explaining the positive and negative combination effects in the segments. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the cultural and creative industries literature, the state of research on passion in entrepreneurship and psychology, and the literature whose epistemological interest aim at capturing and explaining entrepreneurial contexts and environments. Findings reveal (a) the central importance, development, and impact of passion among creative and cultural entrepreneurs, (b) the influence of life context on passion and performance, and (c) the interplay of combined positive and adverse effects of the domains of entrepreneurial passion and their impact on entrepreneurial performance.
Den „Generationenkonflikt“ durch richtige Kooperation überwinden – was Startups von Großunternehmen erwarten
(2017) Allmendinger, Martin P.; Kuckertz, Andreas
Der Zusammenarbeit von etablierten Großunternehmen mit Startups wird in Deutschland und insbesondere in Baden-Württemberg große Bedeutung eingeräumt, um im globalen Innovationswettbewerb weiter erfolgreich sein zu können. Wir zeigen, basierend auf aktuellen Umfragedaten, wie Startup-Unternehmer aus Baden-Württemberg das Kooperationsverhalten von Großunternehmen beurteilen und mit welchen Maßnahmen Unternehmen und Politik mehr Kooperation fördern können. Etablierte Großunternehmen sollten mehr Empathie für Startups aufbringen und dies durch mehr Offenheit und einen hohen Grad an Verpflichtung bei der Zusammenarbeit über alle Hierarchieebenen hinweg deutlich machen. Die Politik kann Kooperation als Vermittler direkt und indirekt unterstützen.
Jeder für sich oder alle zusammen? : Das Stuttgarter Startup Ökosystem
(2017) Pommer, Tobias; Berger, Elisabeth S. C.; Kuckertz, Andreas
Im bekanntesten Startup Ökosystem der Welt, dem Silicon Valley, steht die Stanford University im Zentrum. Wie sieht es demgegenüber im Stuttgarter Startup Ökosystem aus? Mittels einer Netzwerkanalyse kartieren wir die zentralen Akteure dieses Ökosystems und ihre Beziehungen zueinander. Dabei zeigt sich: Das Stuttgarter Ökosystem zerfällt in drei separate Communities. Dies sind eine Unterstützungscommunity, in der sich hauptsächlich Unternehmertum fördernde Akteure bewegen, eine Potenzialcommunity rundherum um Fachhochschulen und Universitäten, welche die innovative Basis für viele Gründungsideen schafft, und eine Unternehmercommunity. Diese gewachsene Struktur erfüllt ihren Zweck, birgt jedoch Optimierungspotenzial.
Konzeption und Potenziale eines Gründungsklimaindex
(2019) Kuckertz, Andreas
Gründungsaktivität ist nicht allein davon abhängig, ob Unternehmensgründer potenzielle Chancen zur Etablierung neuer Geschäftskonzepte wahrnehmen. Denn genauso bestimmen generell hemmende und fördernde Faktoren des Umfelds, ob eine potenziell interessante Geschäftsidee in die Tat umgesetzt wird. Wie Unternehmensgründer ihr Umfeld bewerten, lässt sich als Gründungsklima bezeichnen. Kenntnis darüber, wie das Gründungsklima konkret ausgeprägt ist, kann nicht nur eine wertvolle Information für angehende Unternehmensgründer sein, sondern auch für politische Entscheidungsträger und die Wissenschaft. Dieser Research Brief stellt daher die Konzeption eines geeigneten Index zur Messung des Gründungsklimas vor.
Kreative Gründungsförderung - wo Startups die Politik in der Pflicht sehen
(2017) Kuckertz, Andreas; Prochotta, Alicia
Deutschland zählt im internationalen Vergleich zu den Volkswirtschaften, die auf eine bestens ausgebaute Förderinfrastruktur verweisen können. Dennoch verbleibt die Gründungsrate auf einem nicht akzeptablen, niedrigen Niveau. Wir befragen daher rund 200 Startup- Unternehmer aus Baden-Württemberg zu ihren Unterstützungserwartungen gegenüber der Politik. Insbesondere für politische Entscheidungsträger und öffentliche Fördereinrichtungen legen die Ergebnisse zwei Schlüsse nahe. Einerseits werden vielfach Förderangebote gefordert, die längst etabliert sind. Offenkundig haben etliche Programme ein Kommunikationsproblem und können sich im „Förderdschungel“ nicht bemerkbar machen. Andererseits liegt trotz der zahlreichen existierenden Angebote immer noch ein immenses Aufwärtspotenzial in der Etablierung kreativer, neuartiger Ansätze der Gründungsförderung. Hierzu machen wir entsprechende Vorschläge.
Next match entrepreneurship : three studies exploring the career transition from professional athletes to entrepreneurs
(2022) Steinbrink, Kathrin Michaela; Kuckertz, Andreas
Der Karriereübertritt von Leistungssportlern wird in der Gesellschaft mit großem Interesse verfolgt. Aber nicht nur berühmte Olympia-Gewinner oder Weltmeister müssen ihre Karriere in jungen Jahren überdenken. Auch Berufssportler auf nationaler Ebene oder Leistungssportler von Randsportarten sind damit konfrontiert, an einem gewissen Punkt in ihrer Sportkarriere einen komplett neuen beruflichen Weg einzuschlagen. Bisherige Forschung hat ein hohes Maß an unternehmerischer Aktivität im Sportsektor gezeigt. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob die hohe dichte an Unternehmertum von den Hauptakteuren des Sports abhängt, den Athleten. Um die spezielle Ausgangssituation von Athleten besser zu verstehen, die Athleten im Übertritt zu fördern und auf ihr enormes Potenzial durch die einzigartigen Erfahrungen hinzuweisen, befasst sich diese Dissertation mit der übergeordneten Forschungsfrage: “Was beeinflusst den Karriereübertritt von Athleten in eine unternehmerische Laufbahn?” Nach einer kurzen Einleitung, werden Leistungssportler als “second career entrepreneurs” eingeordnet. Der aktuelle Forschungsstand, dargestellt in 1.2, zeigt auf, dass Athleten-Gründertum als eigener untergeordneter Forschungsstrom von bestehender Forschung zu Sport-Gründertum abgegrenzt werden sollte. Abschnitt 1.3 führt neben einer grafischen Übersicht über die drei Studien dieser Dissertation die untergeordneten Teilforschungsfragen auf, welche unterschiedliche Aspekte der Theorie des geplanten Verhaltens (TPB) betrachten. Anschließend werden in Abschnitt 1.4 die Struktur und die Anwendungsbereiche der Dissertation aufgezeigt. Studie 1 in Abschnitt 2 wurde gemeinsam mit Andreas Kuckertz und Elisabeth S. C. Berger erstellt und befasst sich mit der Eignung von Leistungssportlern als Unternehmer. Es wurden die big five Persönlichkeitsmerkmale (Neurotizismus, Extraversion, Offenheit für Erfahrungen, Gewissenhaftigkeit und Verträglichkeit) sowie die Risikoneigung von Leistungssportlern (von Sportarten mit niedrigem und hohem Risiko) und Nicht-Sportlern erhoben und mit einer Varianzanalyse (ANOVA) und post-hoc Tests analysiert. Die Ergebnisse wurden mit den Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen verglichen, die Unternehmern zugesprochen werden. Dieser explorative Vergleich basiert auf der Theorie der Passung zwischen Person und Arbeit und zeigt die Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den Karrieren von Leistungssportlern und Unternehmern. Die übereinstimmenden Persönlichkeitsmerkmale führen zu dem Schluss, dass Unternehmertum eine geeignete Wahl für eine zweite Karriere von Leistungssportlern sein kann. Diese erste Studie der Dissertation bildet die Grundlage für die in Kapitel 2 und 3 folgenden Untersuchungen. Die zweite Studie in Kapitel 3 konzentriert sich auf den Prozess des Karriereübertritts aus dem Leistungssport in das Unternehmertum. Mit dem explorativen Ansatz werden zahlreiche Treiber und Hindernisse über elf semi-strukturierte Interviews identifiziert. Mit der Methode “comparative causal mapping” wurden Gemeinsamkeiten festgestellt, welche in Fähigkeiten und Eigenschaften, Ergebniserwartungen, Übertrittsbedingungen und Effekte gruppiert wurden. Durch das Einhalten des Person-Umwelt Fits unterstützen die Ergebnisse sowohl die Selektions- als auch die Sozialisationshypothese der Karriere. Außerdem wurden der Vorteil von Leistungssportlern herausgestellt, auf mögliche widrige Umstände verschiedene Bewältigungsstrategien zu entwickeln. Nachdem Einflussfaktoren auf den Karriereübertritt von Athleten-Gründern gefunden wurden, konzentriert sich Studie 3 in Kapitel 4, die gemeinsam mit Celine Ströhle erstellt wurde, auf den Einfluss von Resilienz auf die Gründungsneigung. Basierend auf der Annahme eines erhöhten Resilienzlevels von Leistungssportlern verglichen mit Nicht-Sportlern, wird Resilienz als Einflussfaktor auf die Gründungsneigung untersucht. Zunächst zeigt die Varianzanalyse zwischen den beiden Gruppen einen signifikanten Unterschied im Resilienzlevel auf. Die Strukturgleichungsanalyse bestätigt den Einfluss der Resilienz auf die Gründungsneigung bei Leistungssportlern und Nicht-Sportlern unter Einbezug der Theorie des geplanten Verhaltens. Außerdem wurde ein signifikanter Unterschied in der Beziehung zwischen wahrgenommener Verhaltenskontrolle und Gründungsneigung zwischen Leistungssportlern und Nicht-Sportlern festgestellt. Abschnitt 5 schließt die Dissertation mit einer Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten Ergebnisse ab. Die Ergebnisse werden in den Gesamtzusammenhang der Dissertation eingeordnet und der Beitrag zu den Forschungsgebieten Athleten-Gründertum, Karriereübertritt in das Unternehmertum sowie Förderprogramme und Ausbildung zum Unternehmertum werden herausgestellt. Dies zeigt die wegweisende Rolle dieser Dissertation in der frühen Entwicklung eines neuen und entscheidenden Forschungsgebietes.
Next match entrepreneurship : three studies exploring the career transition from professional athletes to entrepreneurs
(2022) Steinbrink, Kathrin Michaela; Kuckertz, Andreas
With great interest, society watches sports stars’ career transitions. However, not only famous Olympia winners and world champions have to reconsider their career paths in their younger years. All professional athletes, also those competing on a national level or top athletes proceeding niche sports, are confronted with the need for a completely different profession at some point in their sports career. Previous research finds a high intensity of entrepreneurship within the sports sector. Therefore, the question arises on what factors that high entrepreneurial density depends on. To better understand the specific starting position into career transition, support athletes on the way out of sports, and acknowledge the great potential of athletes with unique experiences, this dissertation is guided by the overall research question: What affects the career transition of professional athletes into an entrepreneurial career? Following the short introduction, athletes are introduced as potential second career entrepreneurs. The current state of the literature on athlete entrepreneurship in 1.2 shows that athlete entrepreneurship should be considered an own sub-research stream in deferral to the existing research on sports entrepreneurship. Section 1.3 gives a graphical overview of three studies conducted within this dissertation and provides an overview of the sub-research questions addressing different aspects of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). After that, section 1.4 shows the structure and scope of this dissertation. Study 1 in section 2 was co-authored with Andreas Kuckertz and Elisabeth S. C. Berger and addresses the suitability of top athletes as entrepreneurs. The big five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness for experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) and risk-propensity are investigated over top athletes (practicing low-risk or high-risk sport) and non-athletes. The results are analyzed with an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc tests and compared to the personality traits associated with entrepreneurship. The explanatory comparison builds upon the person-job fit theory, showing the similarities between the athletes’ and the entrepreneurs’ careers. The matching personality traits lead to the conclusion that entrepreneurship might be an appropriate second career choice for athletes. The first study builds a basis for the following research in studies 2 and 3. Study 2 in section 3 concentrates on the career transition process of top athletes into an entrepreneurial career. The explorative approach identifies numerous athlete entrepreneurs’ drivers and barriers within eleven semi-structured interviews. Comparative causal mapping was used to identify commonalities clustered into skills and traits, outcome expectations, transitions conditions, and effects. Findings support selection as well as socialization processes of careers by retaining the person-environment fit. Furthermore, exploiting different coping strategies on possible adversities is identified as a significant advantage for athlete entrepreneurs. After identifying influencing factors on the career transition of athlete entrepreneurs, study 3 within section 4, co-authored with Celine Ströhle, concentrates on the role of resilience influencing entrepreneurial intention. Based on the assumption of athletes higher resilience level than non-athletes, resilience is examined as a determining factor on entrepreneurial intention. First, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows a significant difference in the level of resilience between the two groups. The structural equation analysis supported the influence of resilience on entrepreneurial intention within the frame of the TPB for top athletes and non-athletes. Furthermore, the influence of perceived behavioral control on entrepreneurial intention was found significantly different between top athletes and non-athletes Section 5 closes the dissertation by summarizing the main findings. Placing the findings in the overall context of this dissertation and highlighting the contributions to the research areas of athlete entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial career transition, and support programs and entrepreneurship education accentuates the pioneering role of this dissertation in the early development of a new vital research stream.
Sustainable entrepreneurship and the bioeconomy transition
(2023) Hinderer, Sebastian; Kuckertz, Andreas
Transgressing planetary boundaries endangers the safe operating space for humanity. Thus, a transition of socioeconomic systems toward sustainable development is needed. Prior research elevated the role of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) in the transition process toward sustainable development in general and the bioeconomy in specific. Bioeconomy strategies worldwide acknowledge the importance of entrepreneurship for the transition process. There is consensus in research that entrepreneurs are needed to implement the vision of a bioeconomy as defined in these strategies. However, it remains unclear how opportunities for entrepreneurial activity in the bioeconomy come into existence and how entrepreneurs contribute to the bioeconomy transition by acting on the provided opportunities. Thus, this dissertation aims to shed light on the interface of SE and the bioeconomy, specifically by investigating the interplay between SE and the bioeconomy transition in light of planetary boundaries and the role of entrepreneurs within the transition. The four empirical studies included in this dissertation take different perspectives on the interface of SE and the bioeconomy and thus contribute different insights to the overall picture drawn in this dissertation. For instance, Study 1 examines a transition pathway to a sustainable bioeconomy by involving an international expert sample in a Delphi survey and subsequent cross-impact analysis. Study 1 presents a list of events necessary to achieve the transition ranked by the experts to reflect their urgency. The cross-impact analysis facilitates combining the most urgent events to create an integrated model of the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy. The findings suggest that rather than bioeconomy strategies, technological progress leveraged by innovative bioeconomy startups and investments currently constitute the main bottleneck hindering a transition to a bioeconomy. Study 2 zooms into the level of new bioeconomy ventures. Based on interviews with ten bioeconomy entrepreneurs from six European countries, it investigates how entrepreneurial opportunities emerge in the bioeconomy context and what competencies entrepreneurs need to act on them. Conceptualizing the bioeconomy transition as an external enabler for SE, Study 2 opens new avenues for research on sustainable development and innovation policy. Furthermore, Study 2 shows that new venture creation in the bioeconomy requires unique knowledge and specific competencies. Study 3 asks how to scale sustainable new ventures and puts it in the context of the ongoing de-growth debate. In recent years the de-growth paradigm has gained popularity in the sustainability discourse. Questioning the absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation, de-growth proponents suggest downscaling production and consumption to reduce resource extraction and energy consumption. Applying latent class analysis to reveal de-growth attitudes among 393 surveyed entrepreneurs and subsequent regression analysis, Study 3 answers how de-growth attitudes among (sustainable) entrepreneurs are associated with their decision-making on scaling strategies for their ventures. Furthermore, it shows that the development level of the economy an entrepreneur is active in is an essential factor in the decision-making on scaling strategies. Study 4 investigates how sustainable new ventures gain legitimacy to acquire the necessary resources to grow. Previous research suggested being distinctive yet understandable as key to legitimacy for new ventures. However, Study 4 describes complex entrepreneurial identities, i.e., unconventional combinations of entrepreneurial identity claims from the founder and venture levels, as an additional source of legitimacy that benefits only sustainable new ventures but not conventional ones. Since sustainable startups aim to tackle complex problems, external audiences expect them to be different from established conventions of the status quo. An analysis of 15,116 crowdfunding campaigns and their creators’ user profiles via topic modeling and subsequent regression analysis supports this argumentation. The findings show that sustainable ventures with complex – or even odd – entrepreneurial identities receive more support from crowdfunders, while conventional ventures do not. Overall, this dissertation conceptualizes a bi-directional and potentially reinforcing relationship between SE and the bioeconomy transition by building on extant literature and collecting and analyzing new data in four empirical studies. Moreover, it highlights the role of entrepreneurs who need unique knowledge and specific competencies and differ significantly from conventional entrepreneurs in their behavior and entrepreneurial identity. Finally, this dissertation discusses how policy and societal norms can foster productive entrepreneurship that is innovative and sustainable within planetary boundaries.
The entrepreneur's social self and its impact on the entrepreneurial process
(2021) Brändle, Leif; Kuckertz, Andreas
Economic action is embedded into social systems. Prior research in entrepreneurship research has made substantial progress in delineating the impact of entrepreneurial activity on societal progress. The early agentic view on entrepreneurship relies on perceiving individual entrepreneurs as actors who shape their economic and social environments. However, entrepreneurs and their organizations are, at the same time, embedded in and driven by their social environments. Positions in social systems, in particular, might inform how individuals discover, evaluate, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. This doctoral thesis aims to shed light on how individuals’ feelings of belonging and status in social environments influence key mechanisms in the entrepreneurial process. More specifically, the thesis builds and tests a theory on how the social class origins of individuals influence their beliefs in entrepreneurial feasibility and alter their entrepreneurial career intentions. Furthermore, it addresses how the perceived belonging to a social group—namely, the social identity of founders—influences the strategic orientations of new ventures and ultimately impacts the entrepreneurship outcomes for the organization, the community, and the society. By drawing on the extant literature and collecting new data, this thesis analyzes the interplay between individuals’ feelings of social belonging, their status, and the key mechanisms of the entrepreneurial process over the course of four quantitative studies. In building on the existing discussions about the compatibility of structural and agentic views, it develops a theoretical model of the entrepreneur’s social self, functioning as intermediary between social systems and an entrepreneur’s behavior. For instance, the first study of this dissertation asks how social class origins affect entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Based on a sample of 700 individuals that are largely representative of the German student population, the findings show that early social environments imprint cognitive tendencies toward entrepreneurship such as an individual’s perceived entrepreneurial self- efficacy. However, in line with the study’s hypotheses, individuals can alter these cognitive imprints through selecting and creating more favorable environments at later points in time. Specifically, education and perceptions of social mobility alter initial cognitive imprints toward individuals’ belief of adequately responding to relevant entrepreneurial tasks. Whereas the first study of this dissertation enhances the understanding of the role of individuals’ perceived positions in social systems over time on their perceived feasibility of the entrepreneurial process, the second study sheds light on how such perceptions of feasibility and social position affect entrepreneurial career entries. Based on a survey among 1,003 young adults in a critical career phase, the study’s findings indicate that social class origins influence how rather than if individuals intend to enter an entrepreneurial career. That is, the higher the individuals’ social class origins, the more likely their intention to combine paid employment with self-employment activities as entrepreneurial career path. While the first two studies highlight the role of positions in social systems for the entrepreneurial process, the remaining two studies in this dissertation turn toward how perceptions of belonging to social systems drive individual entrepreneurial cognition, firm-level strategic decision making and performance. Hence, one study asks how entrepreneurs’ social identities affect their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Since social identities represent individual feelings of belonging to groups in social systems, the study hypothesizes how belonging to particular founder groups alters individuals’ beliefs in their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Drawing on a survey among 753 nascent entrepreneurs, the study finds that feelings of belonging generally increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy beliefs. Furthermore, nascent entrepreneurs identifying with a group of self-oriented entrepreneurs (driven by economic self-interest) more likely experience entrepreneurial self-efficacy compared to those entrepreneurs identifying with a group of others-oriented entrepreneurs (driven by interests in communitarian and societal value generation). The final study of this dissertation takes up the difference between self- and other oriented founder identities in order to examine its impact on new ventures’ strategic decision making and performance. Based on a sample of 318 active founders, the study’s findings delineate how founders’ social identities influence the innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness of their newly found ventures. Furthermore, the findings indicate that these strategic orientations only partially succeed in translating founders’ social identities into performance. Whereas founder social identities that focus on creating value for others trigger more innovative ventures, self-oriented social identities are related to more risk-taking at an organizational level, which leads to higher performance outcomes at the enterprise, community, and societal levels. Overall, the results of this dissertation contribute to research on how individuals interpret their social environments and accordingly form decisions in the entrepreneurial process. Particularly, the findings speak to the emerging field of research on the interplay between social inequality and entrepreneurial organizations. However, this doctoral thesis can only be an intermediate step of understanding the inclusiveness of the entrepreneurial process. Hence, it formulates a call and outlines a future research agenda on how social status influences the ways in which individuals identify, evaluate, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. This might lay the ground for further research on the role of the entrepreneur’s social self in the entrepreneurial process.
The phenomenon of corporate venture capital from an entrepreneurial finance perspective
(2018) Röhm, Patrick; Kuckertz, Andreas
The dissertation sheds light on several aspects of the corporate venture capital (CVC) phenomenon, and thereby contributes to the ongoing development of the research field as such. In addition to a structural literature review (Chapter 2), two studies (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4) with a special focus on the motivational drivers within the CVC dyad and two further studies (Chapter 5 and Chapter 6) were conducted. First, the investment motivation is observed at the CVC level—investigating how CVC units interpret their mission as delegated by the corporate mother. And thereby going beyond the well-established “either-or approach” of previously-published articles by focusing on the continuum between the financial and strategic investment motivation of CVC units (Chapter 3). Second, the study presented in Chapter 4 applies the framework of exploration and exploitation to scrutinize the interplay of corporate venture capital investments and subsequent startup acquisitions. The final two articles then address the application of new approaches in the context of CVC research. On the one hand in stimulating the use of isomorphic tendencies in the CVC context, and on the other hand in developing a data-cleaning procedure to enable future scholars to achieve academic rigor by identifying CVC units among the data records of information providers.
Third Mission Advancement in Higher Education : developing and envisioning entrepreneurial pathways for higher education institutions
(2020) Stolze, Audrey; Kuckertz, Andreas
In 1983, Henry Etzkowitz coined the term ‘entrepreneurial universities’ to explain the strategic developments taking place at some American higher education institutions (HEIs) that have engaged in industry partnerships and generating revenue from new sources, such as patents. The involvement of HEIs in economic activities has led scholars to propose that HEIs currently have a third mission beyond the traditional two missions of teaching and researching. In the past few decades, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of policy-makers, researchers, and HEI leaders, with new developments being documented in many countries around the world. Nevertheless, one aspect of this phenomenon that remains poorly understood is the entrepreneurial pathways pursued by HEIs in their attempt to strategically develop their third mission. Therefore, the overarching research question addressed in this dissertation is: how can HEIs become more entrepreneurial and strategically advance their third mission? The purpose of this dissertation is to envision and develop entrepreneurial pathways for HEIs, contributing to the research domain of higher education entrepreneurialism from a managerial perspective. This dissertation comprises three studies: (1) a systematic literature review of the transformation journey of 36 HEIs across the globe establishes the researching status quo, proposes core entrepreneurial pathways and an action-framework, and identifies specific research avenues for the topic; (2) an international foresight study adds a novel perspective by proposing five future scenarios for HEIs based on the interests, preoccupations, and expectations of entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders from sixteen countries; and (3) a confirmatory study which identifies two mechanisms through which dynamic capabilities translate into third mission strategic advancements. Combined, these studies shed light on the strategic choices HEIs must take when developing their third mission, effectively explaining how HEIs can become more entrepreneurial. This dissertation thereby contributes concomitantly to the theory on entrepreneurial universities and HEIs’ management practice.
Toward a configurational understanding of entrepreneurship using qualitative comparative analysis
(2016) Berger, Elisabeth S. C.; Kuckertz, Andreas
This doctoral thesis aims to promote a configurational understanding of entrepreneurship by showing the potential challenges involved in applying qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a research method to study complex phenomena in entrepreneurship. In order to achieve this aim, the thesis presents four empirical studies, each of which has been presented repeatedly at scientific conferences and been developed further based on experts’ comments at presentations and from reviews. Three of the studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals or edited volumes and the fourth study is currently under review. The introduction of the thesis establishes the link between complexity and entrepreneurship and argues that the discipline can benefit from a configurational perspective. This also requires research designs to consider methods that can embrace characteristics of complexity such as the irreducibility of elements, interdependencies, non-proportionality and dynamics. QCA is a promising research method originating from political science, which facilitates dealing with complex phenomena. In the first study titled Is Qualitative Comparative Analysis an Emerging Method? – Structured Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis of QCA Applications in Business & Management Research, I present a structured literature review which studies the state of the art of the application of QCA in business and management and conveys the particularities of the research method. Among the 96 reviewed articles, ten articles might be assigned to entrepreneurship, but those have so far not included analysis on a country level, rarely introduced other methods, or used larger sample sizes. Three studies then apply QCA as a research method intending to show the benefits of adopting a configurational approach to entrepreneurship both at a macro and a micro level. In the second study titled What drives entrepreneurship? A configurational analysis of the determinants of entrepreneurship in innovation-driven economies, QCA is applied to analyze the configurations of institutional frameworks across 23 innovation-driven economies that foster high levels of opportunity-driven and necessity-driven entrepreneurship. By applying fsQCA for the cross-country comparison, the study moves from focusing on one construct to embracing the complexity of all three dimensions. Apart from revealing the causal conjuncture between conditions explaining entrepreneurial activity, it also shows that for entrepreneurial activity causation needs to be understood as equifinal and asymmetric. In the third study titled The more the merrier? Economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity I ask how elements of economic freedom need to be designed in economies in order to foster entrepreneurial activity. This study illustrates the asset of applying QCA in a cross-country setting. Despite small sample sizes, the study identifies patterns of the configurations of economic freedom that explain high or low levels of entrepreneurial activity. The results also stress the aspect of equifinality with regard to how to design elements of economic freedom and thereby point to the questionable nature of rankings of economic freedom, which imply more economic freedom is equivalent to a promise of more growth and development. In the fourth study titled Overcoming the Matthew effect in status-dominated environments – a configurational analysis of venture capital investments, the authors apply QCA on a micro-level using a large longitudinal sample by investigating what combination of deal resources accumulated by venture capital partners leads to high deal performance. The aim is to analyze if new entrants can nonetheless overcome the burden of being new. The results point to a path that enables even new entrants to the status-dominated market to succeed. Applying QCA in this context provides an alignment between theory and research design, as other research methods such as regression or cluster analysis suggest eliminating outliers and would have prevented us from identifying this rare path of how new entrants can overcome the Matthew effect. In sum, this thesis has provided a review of past applications of QCA in business & management and three empirical studies highlighting the new insights and benefits of taking a configurational perspective and applying a research method that complies with it to study complex phenomena in entrepreneurship. While this thesis has made a major contribution to promote a configurational understanding of entrepreneurship by setting out designs on how to study in the face of the growing complexity faced by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship research, I have also emphasized the challenges still to be overcome in order to establish the configurational perspective of entrepreneurship.
Towards asymmetric partnership management against the background of corporate entrepreneurship and open innovation literature
(2019) Allmendinger, Martin P.; Kuckertz, Andreas
The disruptive force of digitalisation and the acceleration of the innovation markets are radically changing the way in which large and established organisations innovate and how they bring new solutions to existing and new markets. Large corporate firms have started to rethink their innovation strategy by enabling partnerships with new and smaller innovation partners such as highly-skilled and technology-driven startups. To leverage the full innovation market potential, large firms seek opportunities and mechanisms to effectively manage these asymmetric partnerships and to ultimately generate new strategic competitive advantages. Based on the corporate entrepreneurship and open innovation literature, this dissertation offers broad and deep insights on the still under-researched phenomenon of Asymmetric Partnership Management. By including the perspectives of both partners, this manuscript highlights the necessity for large corporate firms to reconsider their collaborative innovation behaviour in terms of the individual needs of startup entrepreneurs. The results of the empirical studies demonstrate that large firms are willing to learn from the startup community and proactively pave the way for asymmetric partnerships by testing and maintaining new structures, processes, and activities. Large corporate firms invest in a startup-oriented partnership capability to increase the effectiveness of their Asymmetric Partnership Management and to ultimately become an innovation partner of choice. However, startup entrepreneurs are more willing to enter asymmetric partnerships when they perceive large corporate firms to be trustworthy based on different partner selection criteria. The findings of this dissertation contribute to entrepreneurship, innovation, partnership, and trust research and have practical implications for the future orientation and design of innovation and partner management of large firms. In addition to innovation managers, startup entrepreneurs can benefit from these insights and learn to improve their collaborative behaviour and to proactively realise the full potential of innovation-oriented partnerships.
Tradition und Erneuerung durch Nachfolge : wie Familienunternehmen ihr langfristiges Bestehen sicherstellen können
(2021) Kuckertz, Andreas; Brändle, Leif; Wilmes, Rolf
Familienunternehmen besitzen ein unternehmerisches Erbe. Das sind die gemeinsamen Ansichten in Bezug auf das Unternehmertum. Diese Ansichten entstehen durch Prägungen, die Familien im Laufe der Firmengeschichte gesammelt haben. Das unternehmerische Erbe von Familienunternehmen beeinflusst deren Fähigkeit, gleichzeitig Bestehendes zu verbessern und Neues zu erkunden (Ambidextrie). Unsere empirische Studie zeigt: Erstens fördert die intergenerationale Übertragung des unternehmerischen Erbes die Ambidextrie von Familienunternehmen. Zweitens begünstigen Nachfolgeprozesse, die für ein unternehmerfreundliches Umfeld sorgen, die organisationale Ambidextrie stärker, wenn eine Übertragung des unternehmerischen Erbes stattfindet. Drittens werden negative Auswirkungen des familiären Zusammenhalts auf die organisationale Ambidextrie abgeschwächt, wenn Nachfolger und Nachfolgerinnen ein ausgeprägtes unternehmerisches Erbe besitzen.
Valuable learning experience or stigmatizing event? - Three studies exploring entrepreneurs’ lives subsequent to business failure
(2016) Mandl, Christoph; Kuckertz, Andreas
The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a detailed examination of the business failure phenomenon and to contribute to this important stream of research by formally investigating how business failure affects the subsequent lives of entrepreneurs. Building on an attributional perspective, diverse literature streams, and multiple methodological approaches, I seek to provide some new insights on this emerging stream of literature. Entrepreneurs’ lives after business failure can be studied as a process consisting of multiple stages uniting a great variety of phenomena ultimately resulting in affective, cognitive and behavioral outcomes for failed entrepreneurs. This thesis attempts to reflect and account for this process by exploring three selected phenomena determining entrepreneurs’ lives after business failure in depth. More specifically, I will explore and analyze selected immediate effects (i.e. the social costs and potential stigma associated with business failure), intermediate effects (i.e. the way entrepreneurs make sense of and explain their previous entrepreneurial endeavor), and finally long-term effects (i.e. how the sensemaking efforts of failed entrepreneurs could signal their future decision making and behavior). Overall, this dissertation provides a balanced and comprehensive picture of entrepreneurs’ lives after business failure. The results presented may represent an important step in the theory building process to better understand entrepreneurs’ reactions in response to the failure of their business. I am confident that the contributions of this dissertation pave the way for further empirical studies investigating the diverse effects of business failure on entrepreneurs’ subsequent lives.
What’s hot in entrepreneurship research 2018?
(2018) Prochotta, Alicia; Kuckertz, Andreas
Taking stock of what has been achieved in a particular research field, where a field currently stands, and where it might move to in the near future is an important undertaking. In this research brief, we present the results of a survey of 225 experienced entrepreneurship researchers who shared their insights on a) what topical areas are currently important in entrepreneurship research and b) what methods might be especially useful to provide interesting and relevant answers to old and new research questions. The results suggest no dramatic differences in the relevance of topics compared to our original survey conducted five years ago (Kuckertz 2013), but do indicate that the field is moving forward in terms of methods by embracing the “gold standard” of academic rigor inspired by the natural sciences (e.g., experimental designs) and by considering methods that make it possible to capture the complexity of entrepreneurial phenomena.