Technology ventures' engagement of external actors in the search for viable market applications: on the relevance of Technology Broadcasting and Systematic Validation
File(s)Accepted_manuscripts.pdf (6.21 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Andries, Petra
Clarysse, Bart
Costa, Sergio
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In order to succeed, technology ventures need to find a profitable market application for their technology. Although external market actors may provide important information for the identification and validation of potential technology-market combinations, it remains largely unclear how technology ventures can involve them in this process. Building on insights from organizational search literature, this study follows five university spin-offs trying to commercialize early-stage technologies. We find that ventures are cognitively constrained in proactively identifying and approaching external market actors. Interestingly, the better performing ventures in our sample engage in a previously undocumented market search process we label Technology Broadcasting. They communicate their technological competencies to a broad range of market actors and react to these actors' assessment and spontaneous expressions of interest, thereby overcoming their own cognitive constraints. Resource constraints require filtering these expressions of interest through Systematic Validation with additional market players. These results complement the existing insights on market search by entrepreneurial ventures and advance the literature on organizational search.
Date Issued
2021-11
Date Acceptance
2021-07-30
Citation
Journal of Business Venturing, 2021, 36 (6)
ISSN
0883-9026
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Business Venturing
Volume
36
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
Copyright © Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000703183800002&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
ADAPTATION
ALLIANCE PORTFOLIOS
Broadcasting
Business
Business & Economics
ENTREPRENEURS
EXPERIMENTATION
External market actors
FIRM
INNOVATION
Market search
OPPORTUNITIES
PERFORMANCE
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Social Sciences
STRATEGY
Technology ventures
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
106145
Date Publish Online
2021-08-10