Three essays on the cultural aspects of entrepreneurial innovation

• Autores: Anastasia Sergeeva
• Directores de la Tesis: Christoph Zott (dir. tes.), Carlos Rodríguez Lluesma (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universidad de Navarra ( España ) en 2020
• Idioma: inglés
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Marta M. Elvira (presid.), Fabrizio Ferraro (secret.), Ivanka Visnjic (voc.), Matthew S. Kraatz (voc.), Dimo Dimov (voc.)
• Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias de la Dirección por la Universidad de Navarra
• Materias:
  • Ciencias económicas
    • Organización y dirección de empresas
      • Investigación operativa
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • An entrepreneur is frequently conceptualized as a self-interested and rational agent, exercising judgement and calculating risks under conditions of Knightian uncertainty. However, with the rise of studies on social, institutional, and cultural entrepreneurship, there have been calls to develop a richer perspective on entrepreneurial agency. One way of pursuing this research direction is to explore the cultural aspects of entrepreneurial innovation, a critical aspect of entrepreneurial agency. In my dissertation, I explore how various cultural entities, such as values and analogies, shape the process of entrepreneurial innovation, and how entrepreneurs alter cultural landscapes they navigate. This dissertation consists of three studies that focus on three different manifestations of entrepreneurial innovation. More specifically, in my dissertation, I examine the cultural entrepreneurial process of new practice creation; a value-laden cooperative organization design that fosters efficiency and innovation by protecting the entrepreneurial autonomy of its members; and the use of analogies by entrepreneurs advancing their entrepreneurial projects. Two studies are based on the historical analysis of private archival and interview data covering over 50 years of existence of the legendary photo agency Magnum Photos. The third study is conceptual, and illustrated with an empirical vignette of Starbucks. My findings indicate that values as aspirational ideals, motivate entrepreneurs to develop novel organizational practices, and by mitigating hazards of opportunism, foster efficiency and innovativeness of their entrepreneurial ventures, and that analogies aid in coping with uncertainty during entrepreneurial journeys. Overall, the dissertation contributes to developing a better understanding of entrepreneurial innovation as a culturally contingent process, thus expanding the prevailing view of entrepreneurial agency in entrepreneurship literature.