< Back to previous page
Project
Unpacking strategic flexibility of young ventures: the role of CEO heuristics
The creation and growth of new ventures is a key driver of economic and social prosperity. Yet, due to the high uncertainty they face, less than 50% of young European ventures survive more than five years (Eurostat, 2020). A deciding factor in favour of venture survival is their ability to evolve their strategy to address new opportunities and threats in their environment. To date though, what such strategic flexibility capability entails remains largely a black box. To help unpack the sources of this critical capability, we propose a novel approach centred on the role of heuristics – or simple rules – that CEOs of young ventures use to evolve key strategic choices of their ventures. Our first research objective is thus to identify and classify these CEO heuristics. Validating their effect on the realized strategic flexibility of young ventures and understanding the impact of individual and contextual moderators is our second objective. And finally, we focus on the role of an important player in the entrepreneurial ecosystem – incubators. We propose heuristics as part of the mechanism through which incubators influence the strategic flexibility of young ventures. Our third objective is therefore to validatethis proposition. With this research project, we will raise our understanding of differences in young ventures’ ability to survive the high uncertainty they face.
Date:15 Jan 2021 → 14 Jan 2024
Keywords:entrepreneurship
Disciplines:Information, knowledge and uncertainty, Microeconomics not elsewhere classified, Innovation, research and development, technological change, intellectual property rights
Project type:PhD project