Boyd Cohen

An Entrepreneurial System View of New Venture Creation

This paper reports the results of a two‐phase study that explores new venture creation within the context of an entrepreneurial system. First, a genealogy of high‐technology companies is presented depicting a high spin‐off rate resulting from the presence of seven incubator organizations. Second, semantic structure analysis (Spradley 1980) based on semi‐structured interviews with founders is used to develop a taxonomy. This taxonomy depicts the relationship among components in one entrepreneurial system, Boulder County, Colorado, that encourages, supports, and enhances regional entrepreneurial activity. Findings indicate that incubator organizations, spin‐offs, informal and formal networks, the physical infrastructure, and the culture of the region are related uniquely and interact to form a system conducive for dense high‐technology entrepreneurial activity. Additionally, greater rates of new venture formation were found following critical moments in the life of incubator organizations.

Ride on! Mobility Business Models for the Sharing Economy

The public perception of shared goods has changed substantially in the past few years. While co-owning properties has been widely accepted for a while (e.g., timeshares), the notion of sharing bikes, cars, or even rides on an on-demand basis is just now starting to gain widespread popularity. The emerging “sharing economy” is particularly interesting in the context of cities that struggle with population growth and increasing density. While sharing vehicles promises to reduce inner-city traffic, congestion, and pollution problems, the associated business models are not without problems themselves. Using agency theory, in this article we discuss existing shared mobility business models in an effort to unveil the optimal relationship between service providers (agents) and the local governments (principals) to achieve the common objective of sustainable mobility. Our findings show private or public models are fraught with conflicts, and point to a merit model as the most promising alignment of the strengths of agents and principals.

The City as a Lab: Open Innovation Meets the Collaborative Economy

This article introduces the special issue on the increasing role of cities as a driver for (open) innovation and entrepreneurship. It frames the innovation space being cultivated by proactive cities. Drawing on the diverse papers selected in this special issue, this introduction explores a series of tensions that are emerging as innovators and entrepreneurs seek to engage with local governments and citizens in an effort to improve the quality of life and promote local economic growth.

The Making of the Urban Entrepreneur

Pressures on infrastructure—due to growing urban populations, the ubiquity of new technologies, and collaborative business models—are fostering a new form of entrepreneurship focused on addressing quality of life in cities. Urban entrepreneurs are challenging the logic of formal market structures, forcing us to re-frame our thinking around the interactions between place, individuals, institutions, and the resulting innovative outcomes. Urban entrepreneurs—operating at the neighborhood, city, and global levels—are developing alternative forms of private-public-people partnerships and unique business strategies.

Toward a Theory of Purpose-Driven Urban Entrepreneurship

Inspired by Shrivastava and Kennelly, we aim to extend theory on place-based entrepreneurship by highlighting the uniqueness of cities and the interplay between purpose-driven entrepreneurs and the urban places where they operate. This article sets out to conceptualize a middle-range theoretical framework and establish the boundary conditions for purpose-driven urban entrepreneurship based on a combination of inductive reasoning and deductive theorizing. We draw from sustainability and territorial development literatures and the complexity science view of entrepreneurship to establish units, laws of interaction, boundaries, and system states of purpose-driven urban entrepreneurship across three geospatial layers, and elaborate a complexity model comprising sources of opportunities, context, and venturing process. We conclude with potential avenues for further theoretical and empirical development of the purpose-driven urban entrepreneurship construct.

Entrepreneurial Narratives in Sustainable Venturing: Beyond People, Profit, and Planet: JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Sustainable venturing, the process of starting a new sustainable enterprise, has been studied extensively through the triple‐bottom‐line lens. The narratives employed by sustainable entrepreneurs, however, have proven to be more complex and diverse. In this paper, we set out to inductively explore the narratives underlying sustainable venturing. We conducted an interpretative analysis to elucidate how these entrepreneurs perceive, think about and give meaning to sustainability as they develop their ventures. Findings allow for an expansion of the role of narratives in business venturing toward a more sophisticated conceptualization grounded in how actual entrepreneurs experience and enact sustainability in the context of their ventures.

A Compass for Navigating Sharing Economy Business Models

The sharing economy has emerged in recent years as a disruptive approach to traditional business models. Drawing on a multi-year research program and a design-based methodology, this article introduces a framework and generative tool called the Sharing Business Model Compass. As an actionable framework, the Compass helps elucidate the multiple, innovative forms sharing economy businesses are adopting. As a generative tool, it enables entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, and incumbents interested in entering the sharing economy to create, present, and evolve a compelling sharing business model as well as evaluate its extent of robustness.

Entering Conscious Consumer Markets: Toward a New Generation of Sustainability Strategies:

More than 40% of U.S. consumers participate in the

Entrepreneurship Policy and Its Impact on the Cultural Legitimacy for Entrepreneurship in a Developing Country Context

300 billion conscious consumer market (CCM). In the past decade, the growth of the CCM has not gone unnoticed by startups and established multinational corporations. Yet what differentiates success and failure of such forays is not fully understood. By using multi-case study design, this article explores how a range of firms have approached entry into the CCM. It develops a CCM Entry Strategies Matrix that suggests alternate market entry strategies dependent on the scope of the marketplace and the values of the target consumer segment.

Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entrepreneurship

In Chile, during the past two decades several reforms have been implemented with a goal of dismantling institutional barriers constraining equity funding along with the allocation of government investment in public financing programs. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how public policy may influence the cultural legitimacy of entrepreneurship in a region. Understanding how entrepreneurship policy and programs, and specifically the unique Start Up Chile initiative, may impact the culture towards entrepreneurship and the perception of entrepreneurship as a career choice. The main findings suggest that the introduction of Startup Chile resulted in a spike in interest in Chile as an entrepreneurial ecosystem.