Navigating success: Configurations of founder social identities and strategic entrepreneurship in new ventures

Author: Philipp Sieger  (University of Bern)

Abstract: Whether and how founders with different value creation goals can create high performing ventures is not well understood in the literature. Drawing on the literature on founder social identity and strategic entrepreneurship, we use a configurational approach to study how founder social identities combine with entrepreneurial and strategic behaviors to explain new venture performance. Our analysis of a two-wave dataset comprising 60 founders shows that founders can take different paths to success, and that founders who are not primarily focused on creating economic value can also achieve high new venture performance through distinct combinations of entrepreneurial and strategic behaviors. Our empirical findings and corresponding propositions advance the literature on founder social identity and strategic entrepreneurship in important ways.

Host: Miriam Bird