Curt B. Moore

Multilevel Challenges and Opportunities in Social Capital Research

Social capital refers to the resources derived from social relationships. Although the concept of social capital has been applied at the individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis, researchers have yet to fully embrace social capital’s potential as a multilevel lens through which we might better understand management and organizational phenomena. With a central objective of advancing social capital’s potential as a multilevel theoretical perspective, the authors make two contributions to the management literature. First, the authors comprehensively review two decades of management research to highlight how social capital has been empirically applied across levels of analysis. Second, based on the shortcomings and challenges revealed through the literature review, the authors identify and discuss avenues for future multilevel research, including suggestions for both macro and micro researchers.

Social Capital and Entrepreneurship : A Schema and Research Agenda

This introduction to the special issue considers past and current research on “Social Capital and Entrepreneurship” to develop a schema and an associated research agenda. With the general goal of establishing social capital as a foundational theory of entrepreneurship, we discuss how future research can utilize social capital perspectives across levels of analysis and contexts to explain a wide variety of entrepreneurship phenomena.

Country of Origin and Foreign IPO Legitimacy: Understanding the Role of Geographic Scope and Insider Ownership

Foreign firms from emergent economies are increasingly seeking equity capital in developed economies like the United States. Utilizing institutional, signaling, and agency theories this research examines the legitimacy of foreign IPOs (initial public offerings) in the United States. Employing the population of foreign IPOs listed on U.S. stock exchanges between 1997 and 2004, it is demonstrated that firms from countries with governmental policies and institutional practices that protect the economic freedom of its citizens are significantly less underpriced than IPOs of firms originating from countries experiencing lower levels of economic freedom. The evidence further indicates that firms from emerging economies can overcome negative country perceptions associated with lower levels of legitimacy by increasing their international scope of operations prior to beginning the IPO process as well as by retaining acceptable levels of ownership in their respective firms.

The Impact of Economic Integration on Cross-Border Venture Capital Investments: Evidence from the European Union

Despite major policies surrounding economic integration among countries (e.g., the European Union [EU], North Atlantic Free Trade Area, and Mercosur), the theoretical and empirical research addressing the impact of such policies on various countries’ entrepreneurial activities has yet to fully emerge. To address this issue, this paper draws on institutional, economic, and entrepreneurship literatures to examine if two specific economic integration mechanisms, namely market and currency commonality, increase cross–border venture capital flows made by participating nations in the EU. Findings suggest that broad scale economic integration policies do influence the extent of foreign venture capital investments made into other member countries.

Strategic Consistency of Exploration and Exploitation in Family Businesses

This study advances family business research by examining how the strategic consistency with which family businesses pursue exploration and exploitation initiatives affects performance. Using panel data of 94 family businesses operating in four high-tech industries over 12 years, we find that higher strategic consistency—continuity with past exploration and exploitation strategies stemming from managerial intentionality—yields higher levels of performance. This relationship is also moderated by environmental dynamism, munificence, and organizational size, which demonstrates the contingent and complex nature of the main relationship. Furthermore, in contrast to 113 nonfamily businesses, we find that the main relationship is stronger for family businesses.

Institutions and Foreign IPO Firms: The Effects of “Home” and “Host” Country Institutions on Performance

In the current study, we develop an institutional embeddedness explanation of foreign initial public offering (IPO) performance. To explain the performance differentials of these firms, we investigate the effects of both “home” and “host” country institutional signals on IPO underpricing using a sample of foreign IPOs listed in two different institutional environments, namely, the U.S. and U.K. stock exchanges. Supporting the view that signals are institutionally embedded and that their value is not universal, we find the salience of signals associated with country of origin is contingent on the institutional environment of the listing exchange.

The Deal Structuring Stage of the Venture Capitalist Decision-Making Process: Exploring Confidence and Control

This exploratory study examines the deal structuring stage of the venture capitalist decision‐making process. Here, the primary issues of concern are investor confidence and potential control of a venture in relation to the level of financing the investor provides and the structure with which the funding is delivered. Confidence comes in support of the entrepreneur, the venture itself, or a combination of the two, prior to capital transfer, but after the initial “invest or not invest” decision has already occurred. Findings support a multicriteria perspective of the pre‐investment decision‐making process and a distinct difference between entrepreneur confidence and venture confidence in the deal structuring stage.

Interpreneurship: How the Process of Combining Relational Resources and Entrepreneurial Resources Drives Competitive Advantage

This chapter introduces the term “interpreneurship” to refer to entrepreneurship that occurs through inter-organizational alliances, which represent a salient vehicle for combining complementary resources and capabilities across firms in order to gain a competitive advantage. The interpreneurship concept implies the integration of internal (firm) and external (network) resources through alliance formation and management. The purpose of this research is to introduce social structure to the rational action paradigm by examining the complementarity of entrepreneurial and relational resources in achieving organizational goals in an alliance context. In this study, interpreneurial capability is operationalized as the combination of entrepreneurial resources (via an internal growth strategy) with relational resources (via an external growth strategy). These effects are assessed through the examination of three competing research models. The hypothesized interaction-only model tests the impact of complementarity of entrepreneurial and relational resources on firm-level performance for both partners to an alliance. A second model tests relational resources as a mediator of the relationship between entrepreneurial resources and the alliance partners’ performance. Finally, a third model assumes that the two resources have independent effects on the alliance partners’ performance. We find that the interaction-only model yields the strongest relationship to organizational performance, supporting the interpreneurial perspective we proffer in this chapter.

Time to recalibrate? Exploring entrepreneurial orientation of family businesses before, during, and after an environmental jolt

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has become a construct of considerable interest in the family business literature. Despite such attention, scholars have yet to examine if and how EO in family businesses changes over time. This study explores this gap by investigating both continuous and discontinuous changes in EO in a sample of S%P 500 family businesses between 2001 and 2012. We find that EO changes before, during, and after an environmental jolt, which is defined as a major unforeseen and discontinuous environmental change. More specifically, we find that EO gradually increases at a linear rate prior to the occurrence of a jolt, discontinuously decreases during the initial stage of the jolt, then resumes a gradual linear growth trend following this period. We further explore the relationship between time and EO by examining change in EO across different industries, finding significant changes between family firms in different industries.

Project Complexity and Bonding Social Capital in Network Organizations

This study conceptually and empirically explores how project complexity and bonding forms of social capital influence performance outcomes in network organizations. Specifically, we focus on how bonding social capital within network organizations—measured as frequency of collaboration and degree of network coupling—can influence project performance outcomes both (a) directly by facilitating cooperative interaction and (b) contingently by mitigating the transaction costs associated with the management of complex projects. Using longitudinal data on contracted construction jobs to test our hypotheses, we find that project complexity is negatively related to project performance and bonding social capital has both direct and moderating effects. Contrary to expectations, however, we find that the different types of bonding social capital affect project performance uniquely and not always in an improved direction. Our findings suggest a more multifarious relationship than previous social capital research might imply.