The paradox of new venture legitimation within an entrepreneurial ecosystem

By D. Kuratko, G. Fisher, James M. Bloodgood, J. Hornsby. 2017

158 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The current rise in research on entrepreneurial ecosystems notes that many questions are still unanswered. We, therefore, theorize about a unique paradox for entrepreneurs trying to establish legitimacy for their new ventures within and beyond an entrepreneurial ecosystem; that is, when pursuing opportunities with high levels of technological or market newness, entrepreneurs confront a significant challenge in legitimizing their venture within an entrepreneurial ecosystem, while those entrepreneurs pursuing ventures using existing technologies or pursuing existing markets have a much easier path to garnering legitimacy within that ecosystem. However, the diffusion of that legitimacy beyond the ecosystem will be wider and more far-reaching for those pursuing the newer elements compared to those using existing technologies or pursuing existing markets, thus, creating a paradox of venture legitimation. Prior research outlines approaches for new venture legitimacy but it is unclear when these approaches should be applied within and beyond an entrepreneurial ecosystem. To address this paradox, we integrate ideas from the entrepreneurship and innovation literature with insights from the legitimacy literature to describe how different types of venture newness employ different legitimation strategies which results in different levels of legitimacy diffusion beyond an ecosystem. We conclude with a discussion of our concepts and offer suggestions for future research efforts.

Subfields: Accounting, Management of Technology and Innovation, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a47642e8b7c6fbabdb24e2488bbc3b23f43e7d8a

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In Accounting

In Management of Technology and Innovation

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Entrepreneurial ecosystem research: present debates and future directions (2018, unknown): “For instance, Kuratko et al. (2017) have illustrated the paradox of new venture legitimation within EEs, while Acs et al. (2017) have examined the roots of EE in terms of its antecedents in literature.”
The lineages of the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach (2017, unknown): “It is in this domain that issues of legitimacy are raised and further studies could address the questions regarding types of ventures and the legitimacy strategies that can be employed as suggested by Kuratko et al. (2017).”
The governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems (2019, background): “2017), and define who is in, and who is not (Kuratko et al. 2017).”