Dispersed knowledge and an entrepreneurial theory of the firm

By Nicholas Dew, S. Velamuri, Sankaran Venkataraman. 2004

193 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this article, we propose an entrepreneurial theory of the firm that is based on dispersed knowledge. We argue that the dispersion of knowledge over people and places and over time leads to uncertainty. This uncertainty, combined with heterogeneous expectations and the nexus of an individual and opportunity, explains the emergence of new firms. We then suggest that the theory of the firm proposed by us answers questions that have been overlooked by alternative theories. The specific question we discuss in this article is when and why an entrepreneurial opportunity will be taken to market through an existing firm, and when and why a new firm will be chosen as a vehicle for taking a new idea to market, i.e., whether the residual will be concentrated in an existing or in a new firm. D 2003 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Subfields: Accounting, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a7a357f87439ee97d3d5ea3bfd2e5cfebb76e00d

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Citations in the corpus

Capital Is Not Enough: Innovation in Developing Economies (2012, background): “Since his seminal work, scholarly interest in the topic has not only increased (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Casson, 1995; Dew et al., 2004; Eckhardt and Shane, 2003; Sarason et al., 2006; Shane, 2003; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000), it has evolved with distinctions made among allocative, discovery, and…”
Making sense of the elusive paradigm of entrepreneurship (2015, background): “Thus, this view tends to have a focus on why some businesses or individuals engage in such behavior, while others do not (Sarasvathy et al. 2003; Dew et al. 2004).”
Entrepreneurship, Subjectivism, and the Resource-Based View: Towards a New Synthesis (2008, unknown): “…underscores the relevance of the social context in a particular fi rm setting, especially the composition and dynamics (interactions) in entrepreneurial teams, as this context may infl uence the ability of the team to discover and pursue new opportunities (Dew, Velamuri, and Venkataraman, 2004).”
Institutional Entrepreneurship (2006, background): “Fifth, there are links between the ideas in this paper and the long-running debate over the place of entrepreneurship in the theory of the firm, if any (Casson, 1999, 2000; Alvarez and Barney, 2004, 2005; Dew et al, 2004, Boudreaux and Holcombe, 1989).”
Clusters, knowledge spillovers and new venture performance: An empirical examination (2008, background): “Dew, Velamuri, and Venkataram (2004) distinguish between contingent knowledge, which is knowledge deriving from an agent's place in time and space, idiosyncratic knowledge, or knowledge deriving by virtue of the agent being the agent, and specialized knowledge, which is knowledge deriving from an a”
The entrepreneur-environment nexus: uncertainty, innovation and allocation (2010, unknown): “Dew et al. (2004) argue that the dispersion of knowledge (Hayek, 1945) and Knightean uncertainty combine to create heterogeneous expectations across individuals regarding the value of entrepreneurial innovations.”
Organising new business in a turbulent context: Opportunity discovery and effectuation for IJV development in transition markets (2009, unknown): “…proposed that the focus of academic interest in entrepreneurship should be on studying opportunity-discovery and effectuation behaviours (e.g. Bruyat and Julien 2000; Shane and Venkataraman 2000; Sarasvathy 2001; Davidsson 2003; Dew et al. 2004; Zahra et al. 2005; Chiles et al. 2007; Hjorth 2007).”
Outlines of a behavioral theory of the entrepreneurial firm (2008, background): “small firms, young firms, or pre-firms ( Dew, Velamuri et al. 2003 ).”