Entrepreneurship Seminar Series

The Entrepreneurship Cross-Enterprise Leadership Centre (ECELC) will be hosting a series of research seminars with Entrepreneurship faculty from institutions across North America. For more information on visit schedules and paper sessions, contact the centre at iveyentre@ivey.ca

• November 2, 2015
  Sharon Matusik | University of Colorado - Boulder
  
  

  Social Cues and Firm Specific Information: Competing Influences on U.S. VC Internationalization Decisions
  Sharon Matusik & Siddharth Vedula

  Over the past two decades U.S. venture capital firms (VCs) have increasingly invested in foreign markets, and many countries have relied on these investments to develop their entrepreneurial ecosystems.  We currently know relatively little about factors that drive such investment decisions, especially in the case of the highly uncertain initial internationalization events of these firms. In this study we find that social cues (imitating peer firms in local markets) are a primary driver of these decisions, but prior analogous experiences (in the form of domestic non-local investments) can attenuate social pressure effects. We discuss implications for theory, practice, and policy.

• November 23, 2015
  Shon Hiatt | University of Southern California
  
  

  From farms to fuel tanks: Differential effects of collective action on firm entry in the emergent U.S. biodiesel sector
  Shon Hiatt (University of Southern California) & Chad Carlos (Brigham Young University)
  

  Scholars have argued that entrants into markets promoted by collective activists will be homogenous, sharing similar identity attributes and features. Yet, a review of empirical studies shows diverse firms do in fact enter these markets in great numbers. We seek to resolve the inconsistency between prior theory and findings by outlining conditions that influence market entry of category-conforming (focused) and category-spanning (hybrid) firms. Using in-depth qualitative and quantitative data on all ventures that enter the U.S. biodiesel market from 1990 to 2008, we develop and test theory to explain how market proponents’ evolving influence and rising opposition activism affect entrepreneurs’ market perceptions and entry. The findings contribute to research on social movements, entrepreneurship and market categories.
  
  
• December 14, 2015
  Alejandro Amezcua | Syracuse University
  
  

  Location, competition, and organizational sponsorship
  Alejandro Amezcua (Syracuse University), Tiago Ratinho (University of Baltimore) & Parvathi Jayamohan (Syracuse University)

  The literature on economic agglomeration uniformly shows that economic growth is positively related to the concentration of people and firms. As urban areas grow in size, their economic productivity increases. At the industrial level of analysis, the literature strongly shows that as clusters of firms grow that economies also grow. However, one thing that is not clear in these related research streams is whether growth benefits most from increased industrial specialization or diversification. For entrepreneurs, this is an important matter because location choices may permanently imprint their development based on level of industrial specialization of their residence. Speculating on this matter, McCann and Folta (2011) suggest that young firms may benefit most from locating in clustered economies and that incubators may serve their tenants best by attracting firms that can benefit from clusters. This paper answers the fundamental question: how does location and competition affect the effectiveness of organizational sponsorship (i.e. incubation)? We test our hypotheses in a comprehensive database that includes over 42,000 firms in the period of 1998-2007. Our results reveals that as agglomeration increases, incubated firms cease operations much sooner. This is also true as industrial clusters grow. Noteworthy is the finding that as both agglomeration and industrial clusters increase, incubation prolongs the operations of incubated firms.