Journal
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
Volume -, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
INFORMS
DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2021.1561
Keywords
entrepreneurship; organizational structure; organizational evolution and change; new venture professionalization; scaling up; organizational design; entrepreneurial strategy
Categories
Funding
- Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study explores how the initial market positioning of entrepreneurial ventures affects their professionalization over time, finding that ventures pursue different professionalization paths based on their initial market positioning, contrary to existing literature assumptions.
We explore how the initial market positioning of entrepreneurial ventures shapes how they professionalize over time, focusing specifically on the development of functional roles. In contrast to existing literature, which presumes a uniform march toward professionalization as ventures scale and complete developmental milestones, we advance a contingent perspective, distinguishing between the development of external interface functions (marketing & sales and customer development) and internal process functions (accounting, human resources, and finance). Specifically, we argue that positioning in an unconventional market space raises demand for external engagement that focuses ventures' attention and resources toward developing external interface roles. At the same time, such unconventional ventures are less apt to elaborate their internal process roles relative to more conventional peers. We test these predictions using a novel longitudinal data set on the internal organizations of 3,748 U.S.-based entrepreneurial ventures. In contrast to common assumptions of convergent professionalization, our theory and findings advance the perspective that ventures pursue divergent professionalization paths based on their initial market positioning as they scale up.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available