Cornelissen: Imagining and rationalizing opportunities: inductive reasoning and the creation and justification of new ventures

16 important questions on Cornelissen: Imagining and rationalizing opportunities: inductive reasoning and the creation and justification of new ventures

Describe the main question of the study of Cornelissen:

How entrepreneurs come to create and justify new ventures in such way that the acquire institutional legitimacy and the necessary resources for venture growth? Cornelissen argues that the sensemaking approach which emphasizes a direct relationship among language, cognition, and enactment of entrepreneurs, may help develop a combined cognitive and symbolic conception of the process by which the idea for a novel venture is imagines, refined and justified by others.

Using analogies or metaphors people are verbally referring to other cases and domains of experience. They give structure, allowing entrepreneurs to make sense of puzzling or unfamiliar situations. Define metaphors and analogies: (Cornelissen)

1. Metaphors = figurative comparisons where the creation of a new venture is linked to cultural domains of experience outside a specific entrepreneurial or business context (f.e. sports) = abstract (I have a dream)
2. Analogies: literal references to cases and observations associated with entrepreneurship, market, or industry contexts, and ventures and business in general. An analogy conjoins cases from the same category of observations. (= concrete)

Analogical and metaphorical reasoning as changing mindsets and generating new ideas. Analogies and metaphors (verbally and cognitively referring to other cases and domains of experiences) can guide thinking, can generate new insights and can create understanding and social acceptance. Explain both construct (Cornelissen).

1. Analogies, in the context of strategies, involve literal references to cases and observations associated with market or industry context and other organizations
2. Metaphors refer to figurative, and hence cross-categorical, comparisons where strategies or organizational situations are likened to cultural domain of experience outside a specific business context.
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Why is framing essential (Cornelissen)?

1. A frame as structured set of background assumption, typically invoked by words and whose structure is rooted in some motivating cultural context.
2. A crucial way of facilitating understanding of novel isntances (such as a strategic change or innovations) involves uses analogical or metaphorical frames that can create or expand categories of understanding in order to incorporate the change.
3. Analogies or metaphors also bring familiarity, aid comprehension and license certain inferences (f.e. war on terror)
> It's a way of communicating

On what does the use of analogies and metaphors depend on? (Cornelissen)

1. Previous experiences
2. Activation of social pressures to demonstrate the predictability and legitimacy of a venture to stakeholders.

Cornelissen argues that creating novel ventures consists of inductive analogical and metaphorical reasoning, which generates a platform for the creation and commercialization of novel ventures and facilitates the comprehension and justification of a venture. Cornelissen argues that such inductive reasoning is shaped by two determinants, which 2?

It is shaped by two determinants (the applicability of prior entrepreneurial experience and the motivation to resolve uncertainty and acquire legitimacy) that interrelate to predict and explain patterns of analogical and metaphorical reasoning by which novice and experiences entrepreneurs construct meaning for themselves as well as others in the early stages of creating a venture.

Explain how Cornelissen sees the sensemaking approach?

A sensemaking approach emphasizes a direct relationship among the language, cognition and enactment of entrepreneurs. It may help develop a combined cognitive and symbolic conception of the process by which the idea for a novel venture is imagines, refined and justified to others.

Entrepreneurs are likely to rearrange words creatively in the form of analogies/metaphors of speech: this allows them to imagine future opportunities and make these understanable to others.

Which 4 contributions does Cornelissen makes with this study?

1. He conceptualizes processes of induct analogical and metaphorical reasoning supporting the creation and justification of novel ventures.
2. He develops a process theory of new venture creation that specifies two determinants: the availability and applicability of prior entrepreneurial experience. And the motivation to resolve uncertainty and to gain legitimacy for novel ventures.
3. He combines and reconceptualize the predictions of theory on entrepreneurial cognition and institutional legitimacy in his process theory.
4. The process theory he proposes provides also a methodological contribution: it can be analyze shifts and changes in how entrepreneurs inductively reason about novel ventures.

What is the focus regarding the new ventures of Cornelissen in this study?

The focus is on the development of independent new ventures that are not sheltered by sponsoring organizations. Such ventures are associated with high levels of uncertainty: this forces the entrepreneur to make the enterprise comprehensible and meaningful to key stakeholders.

The study of new venture creation primarily has been addresses in two related but separated bodies of literature. Explain which 2. (Cornelissen)

1. Cognitive perspective: focus on the cognitive characteristics of individual entrepreneurs and the possession of prior knowledge as the primary basis for identifying and designing new ventures.
2. Institutional theory: located entrepreneurship within a social context and has focused on cultural and symbolic realms of meaning construction around new ventures.

Cornelissen argues that the foci and limitations of both literature traditions are complementary. Explain:

The cognitive tradition stresses the internal, self-conscious and cognitive process of entrepreneurs' developing an account of what is going on, while the institutional tradition emphasizes the external, strategic process of evoking meaning in line with political interests.

What does sensemaking implies according to Cornelissen?

That the world does not present itself in a direct of "raw form", but rather entrepreneurs actively construct it using available linguistic frames, including prefabricated vocabularies that become elaborated in a coherent way, thus shaping thinking while speaking.

Cornelissen argues that in absence of directly relevant prior experiences and observations, entrepreneurs will induce metaphors to suggest an opportunity and to construct a basic scenario for the creation and commercialization of a new venture in an unfamiliar industry. Which first proposition suits this?

P1: The degree to with entrepreneurs have depth of experience in industries related to the target is associated with the use of analogies (presence) or metaphors (absence) when they are initially speaking to others about the venture.

Cornelissen suggests that entrepreneurs prefer to project inferences that build on a whole set of relations than can be discursively projected to or aligned with a target domain. The retailing domain was also intimately familiar to the founding entrepreneur and executives. Retailing concepts had already been an established part of their vocabulary, while speaking to each other. Which proposition suits this?

P2: Entrepreneurs with dept and breadth of experience in multiple industries are likely to induce analogies that highlight a common set of relations between an (experienced or observed) industry and the target industry when they are initially speaking to other about a novel venture.

According to Cornelissen in the initial stages of a venture, the default induction of argument construction that are metaphorical will be used to describe the basic idea of the venture in the target industry. Which proposition suits this?

P3: Entrepreneurs who lack prior experience in industries associated with the new venture are likely to extend argument construction metaphorically when they are initially speaking to others about it.

Cornelissen has theorized about how inductive reasoning through analogies or metaphors is central not only to how entrepreneurs envision an opportunity for a novel venture but also to the way in which they communicate about that venture so that it can be understood and made acceptable and legitimate in the eyes of key stakeholders. What is highlighted by Cornelissen?

Connection strand of cognitive and institutional research, Cornelissen highlighted two determinants (prior experience and uncertainty about the predictability and legitimacy of a novel venture|) that influence how entrepreneurs envision and rationalize the opportunity for a novel venture.

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