Choice or chance: How successful entrepreneurs talk about luck

Katrina M. Brownell, Melissa S. Cardon, Mark T. Bolinger and Jeffrey G. Covin

Journal of Small Business Management, 2024, vol. 62, issue 3, 1684-1717

Abstract: While it is generally acknowledged that luck plays an important role in new venture performance, academic exploration of the construct offers substantial challenges both theoretically and empirically. We suggest that one productive avenue through which to start addressing these challenges is through consideration of how entrepreneurs talk about luck as a contributing factor to their success. Using qualitative methods, we systematically examine how luck is invoked in post hoc performance evaluations in 70 interviews with successful entrepreneurs from the podcast How I Built This. Our analysis reveals that entrepreneurs perceive the influence of luck as a multifaceted combination of both structural and agentic factors. Determining what luck means to successful entrepreneurs and the impact they believe luck had on venture performance has implications for how we conceive of, define, and measure luck in entrepreneurship, and we explore three angles from which the notion of luck can be studied.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/00472778.2023.2169703

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