THE CHALLENGES FOR BUSINESS START-UPS

The challenges for business start-ups

Conventional Entrepreneurship

The study of entrepreneurship emerged around what we regard as “conventional entrepreneurs,” those individuals who develop businesses by bringing innovations to market (Chen, Yao, & Kotha, 2009, Pp.199-214). One of the most common assumptions of research in this area is that entrepreneurial success is a function of the individual skills, abilities, and decisions of the entrepreneur (Campbell, Marsden, & Hurlbert, 1986, Pp. 97-117). The literature describes conventional entrepreneurs in terms of characteristics such as creativity (Cardon, 2008, Pp. 77-86), alertness to opportunities (Chen, Yao, & Kotha, 2009, Pp.199-214), optimism (Cardon, 2008, Pp. 77-86), risk orientation (Battilana & D'Aunno, 2009, pp. 31-58), and passion (Chen, Yao, & Kotha, 2009, Pp.199-214). The very characteristics that make these individuals successful as entrepreneurs, however, can generate tension when the business reaches the stage where it requires ongoing management skills. Research suggests that management and entrepreneurship are contrasting paradigms (Battilana & D'Aunno, 2009, pp. 31-58), and that the process of ongoing management requires the curbing of entrepreneurial passion in the interest of organizational survival and growth (Baron, & Markman, 2000, 106-127). Until recently, both management and economics scholars assumed that commercial profit was the underlying motive driving entrepreneurial success—that the majority of conventional entrepreneurship research occurred in market-driven, profit-making contexts in which the ultimate mission was to create economic value and wealth for shareholders. Over the past two decades, however, there has been growing acceptance of the idea that conventional entrepreneurs need not be profit-driven at the expense of their vision (Battilana & D'Aunno, 2009, pp. 31-58), nor must they even be associated with business.

Indeed, many ventures lauded in the conventional entrepreneurship literature might just as easily appear in the social entrepreneurship literature. Patagonia, for example, is a privately owned for-profit outdoor clothing manufacturer that posted $270 million in revenues in 2006 (Austin, Stevenson & Skillern, 2006, Pp. 27). Its mission is to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire, and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” It pioneered several innovative business practices, including an insistence on LEED-certified facilities, recycled raw materials, and social benefits for employees. It monitors an ethical supply chain and donates a percentage of its profit toward environmental conservation initiatives. Its mission, activities, and processes imply that Patagonia is not just a business, but also a social entrepreneurial venture. Investigating Patagonia only through a conventional entrepreneurship lens may not be capturing all of the activities and processes that make Patagonia successful in both economic and social terms.

Research in the conventional entrepreneurship literature focuses on the relationship between a firm's success and its ability to access a wide range of resources and factors of production, including physical, human, financial, and knowledge-based resources(Campbell, Marsden, & Hurlbert, 1986, Pp. 97-117). Some of the processes associated with mobilizing these resources include storytelling (see, e.g., Cardon, 2008, Pp. 77-86) and social network building (Baker, & Nelson, 2005, Pp. 39). Bricolage— creating something from whatever resources is at hand—is another key driver of ...