Frederik von Briel

Digital Technologies as External Enablers of New Venture Creation in the IT Hardware Sector

We develop theory about how and when digital technologies enable new venture creation processes. We identify two fundamental properties of digital technologies—specificity and relationality—and develop propositions that link these properties to six enabling mechanisms: compression, conservation, expansion, substitution, combination, and generation. We use the linked properties and mechanisms to determine how and when in the venture creation process—from prospecting to developing to exploiting—digital technologies have enabled start-ups in the IT hardware sector and develop stage-dependent propositions about their sector-level effects. We conclude our theorizing by discussing its implications beyond digital technologies and the IT hardware sector.

Crowdsourcing Large-Scale Ecological Monitoring: Identifying Design Principles to Motivate Contributors

Addressing the impact of humans on the environment is arguably one of the biggest challenges society faces, and large-scale ecological monitoring is needed to reliably assess the impact and establish relevant policies. However, such large-scale monitoring is often infeasible, primarily owing to resource limitations. Recently, organizations have started to use information technologies to enable public participation in such efforts. One major problem is how to motivate people to contribute and, more importantly, to encourage sustained participation. In this conceptual paper, we integrate research from crowdsourcing, human–computer interaction, and motivational affordances to propose design principles enhancing the intrinsic motivation of contributors to large-scale ecological monitoring projects. Specifically, drawing on research on crowdsourcing and motivational affordances, we argue that instantiating design principles addressing people’s needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness can increase participants’ motivation and present recommendations for designers of systems supporting such projects.

How Enterprise Social Media Can Facilitate Innovation

Many organizations use enterprise social media (ESM) to encourage their employees to collaborate, share knowledge, and innovate. Although previous research has focused on ESMs influence on employee collaboration and productivity, its role in assisting employee innovation and the cultural implications are unclear. The authors examine the case of a global retailer that has adopted ESM to boost productivity and innovation. They share several interesting findings that highlight factors that motivate employees to use work-based ESM and the cultural implications of deploying ESM for innovative and routine work practices.

External Enablers in New Venture Creation Processes: A Framework

It is widely acknowledged that phenomena like new technologies, regulatory or demographic shifts, and changes to the socio-cultural, political or natural environment are important “external enablers” of entrepreneurial action and success. There is also increasing agreement that on the level of the (emerging) venture, entrepreneurship is most fruitfully viewed as a process. Yet, existing theoretical frameworks do not easily accommodate a focus on the influence of “external enablers”, especially not from a dynamic, process perspective. Therefore, this paper develops such a framework. We discuss external enablers in terms of their characteristics, roles, and mechanisms, develop sub-concepts under each, and discuss possible interrelations and future research agendas. We believe this framework can prove useful for furthering research currently positioned within the Discovery Theory framework by adding attention to continued process and dynamism beyond “opportunity recognition”. Second, the framework can assist researchers subscribing to versions of Creation Theory in paying systematic attention to objective, external factors in their theorizing. Third, it can help researchers interested in instances of societal change from a sociological or historian-like vantage point to theorize across such instances and to examine the micro-level, entrepreneurial processes which are triggered by and give shape to macro-level changes.

Absorbing Knowledge from and with External Partners: The Role of Social Integration Mechanisms: Absorbing Knowledge from and with External Partners

Dynamic capabilities that enable innovation are crucial to survival and success in todays highly competitive business environment, because they enable organizational adaptation, transformation, and seizing of opportunities. Absorptive capacity is an important dynamic capability that enables organizations to leverage external knowledge for innovation purposes. In this theory-building article, we address the fundamental research question of how organizations can leverage external partners as external sources of knowledge. We offer three primary contributions to the literature on managerial decision-making. First, by conceptualizing knowledge absorption as a collaborative, interorganizational endeavor, we extend the literature on absorptive capacity, thereby enabling its application to innovation-related contexts aside from R&D, to which it has traditionally been applied. Second, by focusing on social integration mechanisms as links between the capabilities, expertise, and knowledge of individuals, groups, and the organization as a whole, we heed calls to clarify the microfoundations of organizational capabilities. Third, although social integration is a multidimensional construct, few studies have addressed the influence of its individual dimensions. We outline how individual social integration dimensions exert differing influences on the individual knowledge absorption stages, thereby taking a first step toward unraveling the multidimensional nature of social integration and laying the foundation for future social integration research both in and beyond the absorptive capacity context.

An Empirical Investigation on the Impact of Crowd Participation on the Degree of Project Success: The Perspective of Crowd Capital

Fundraisers expect to raise as much funds as possible even after they have reached initial threshold of funding goal. This study focuses on the degree of project success defined as the total amount of funds a project can obtain after it is already successful (reached the initial threshold of funding goal). Drawing upon the theory of crowd capital, this study aims to explore the effect of the crowds—represented as crowd participation—on the degree of project success. Three types of crowd participation are identified, namely funds pledge, popularity creation, and on-site communication. We postulate that funds pledge will have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the degree of project success; while the other two factors will positively influence the degree of project success. Our empirical data from a reward-based crowdfunding platform supported our predictions for funds pledge and on-site communication. Future research and implications are discussed.

The Dual Nature of Information Systems in Enabling a New Wave of Hardware Ventures: Towards a Theory

Hardware ventures are emerging entrepreneurial firms that create new market offerings based on development of digital devices. These ventures are important elements in the global economy but have not yet received much attention in the literature. Our interest in examining hardware ventures is specifically in the role that information system (IS) resources play in enabling them. We ask how the role of IS resources for hardware ventures can be conceptualized and develop a framework for assessment. Our framework builds on the distinction of operand and operant resources and distinguishes between two key lifecycle stages of hardware ventures: start-up and growth. We show how this framework can be used to discuss the role, nature, and use of IS for hardware ventures and outline empirical research strategies that flow from it. Our work contributes to broadening and enriching the IS field by drawing attention to its role in significant and novel phenomena.