Entrepreneurship as Strategic Network Creation and Design: Seizing Start-up Opportunities by Orchestrating Partners

As is well-known from research, entrepreneurship relies to a large extent on interpersonal and interorganizational networks. Respective relationships not only promote the discovery, creation and exploitation of opportunities... [ view full abstract ]

As is well-known from research, entrepreneurship relies to a large extent on interpersonal and interorganizational networks. Respective relationships not only promote the discovery, creation and exploitation of opportunities by building an organization, but also help to overcome the liability of newness and smallness. With this paper, we go a step further, focusing on those startups that see the strategic creation and design of inter­organizational networks less as being instrumental for, or as a mere complement to, organization creation, and more as the very core of entrepreneurship. We argue that some, if not an increasing number of startups even replace organization creation and design by means of what we call strategic network creation and design. Using a revelatory case study, we analyze how a science-based spinoff has created a strategic network and why this venture – after six years of growth and economic success – still lacks most constituents of an organizational design, in particular having no employees. Instead, the spinoff orchestrates an increasingly complex network of partners. We will analyze the network design practices, in particular those that are carried out in order to overcome issues of legitimacy, reflexivity and reciprocity prevalent in strategic networks.