Historiography and the excavation of nascent business venturing

Wim van Lent, Richard Hunt and Daniel Lerner
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Wim van Lent: LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Richard Hunt: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [Blacksburg]
Daniel Lerner: IE Business School, IE University

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Abstract: Few facets of business venturing are more challenging to capture than nascent-stage venture creation. The principal reason for this is the inherent difficulty scholars face when addressing the dynamic interplay between individuals and opportunities. Post hoc perspectives of venture creation typically involve high "narrativity," characterized by structured, linear, teleological sense-making that tends to omit unreasoned and unintended facets of entrepreneurship. While narrativity is indispensable to new venture storytelling, it is also the quintessence of post hoc reality restructuring, which often excludes and invariably mutates key aspects of entrepreneurial action. To mitigate the data narrativity problem, we formulate a historiographical procedure designed to (a) reveal the internal and external stimuli that govern venture creation and (b) elicit deeper understanding of the unreasoned logics that also guide entrepreneurial action. For practical benefit, we assess this procedure through the lens of four archetypal research contexts, each featuring start-ups as "sites" of historiographical analysis: "wastelands," "ruins," "construction sites," and "goldmines." Our methodological roadmap enables a richer depiction of nascent-stage venturing.

Date: 2022-09-28
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Published in Small Business Economics, 2022, 61, pp.285-303. ⟨10.1007/s11187-022-00691-w⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03979038

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-022-00691-w

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