Parent Inheritance, Founder Expertise, and Venture Strategy: Determinants of New Venture Knowledge Impact

43 Pages Posted: 4 Jul 2014

See all articles by Sandip Basu

Sandip Basu

City University of New York (CUNY) - Narendra Paul Loomba Department of Management

Arvin Sahaym

Washington State University

Mike Howard

Texas A&M University - Mays Business School

Warren Boeker

University of Washington - Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Date Written: July 3, 2014

Abstract

A genealogical theory of new venture creation posits that "parent" firm routines are transferred to "progeny" ventures founded by the former employees of these parents. This study examines how the knowledge available to a venture from its parent firms and individual founders, as well as its initial technological direction, influence its own creation of impactful knowledge. We argue that new knowledge creation involves the recombination of underlying knowledge elements and hypothesize that the degree to which the venture’s knowledge domain overlaps with the parents’ knowledge has positive, but diminishing effects on the impact of knowledge created by the venture. We also predict that the breadth of founders’ personal knowledge has a positive effect, but that the divergence between individual founders’ and parent firm’s knowledge domains has a negative effect on the creation of impactful knowledge by the venture. We test our predictions using a sample of 219 biotechnology ventures founded over the eleven year period 1990-2000 and tracked through 2010. Our results contribute to the entrepreneurship, knowledge creation, and genealogical literatures.

Keywords: New ventures, Knowledge creation, Knowledge recombination, Organizational genealogy, Biotechnology industry

JEL Classification: 032

Suggested Citation

Basu, Sandip and Sahaym, Arvin and Howard, Mike and Boeker, Warren, Parent Inheritance, Founder Expertise, and Venture Strategy: Determinants of New Venture Knowledge Impact (July 3, 2014). Journal of Business Venturing, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2462223

Sandip Basu (Contact Author)

City University of New York (CUNY) - Narendra Paul Loomba Department of Management ( email )

NY
United States

Arvin Sahaym

Washington State University ( email )

Wilson Rd.
College of Business
Pullman, WA 99164
United States

Mike Howard

Texas A&M University - Mays Business School ( email )

Wehner 401Q, MS 4353
College Station, TX 77843-4218
United States

Warren Boeker

University of Washington - Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship ( email )

Seattle, WA
United States

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