2. stvp.stanford.edu
Influence of the External Environment on
Tech-Based Entrepreneurship
• Individual
characteristics,
network ties, and
strategy
• Effective institutional
change influences
who starts firms, not
just how many firms
are started.
• Study a single country
(China, Chile, Japan, and
the U.S.) before and after
a major institutional
change
• natural experiments
• Empirical/large dataset,
international
fieldwork/interviews
4. stvp.stanford.edu
Stream 1: Formal Institutions
• Prior literature focuses on barriers to entry, self-employment
• Entrepreneurial activities of high human capital individuals – focus on high-
growth, technology-based firms.
•Eesley, C. 2016. Institutional Barriers to Growth: Entrepreneurship,
Human Capital and Institutional Change. Organization
Science
•Armanios, D., C.E. Eesley, K.M. Eisenhardt, J. Li. 2016. How entrepreneurs
leverage institutional intermediaries in emerging economies to acquire
public resources, Strategic Management Journal
•Eesley, C.; J.B. Li, and D. Yang. 2016. Does Institutional Change in
Universities Influence High-Tech Entrepreneurship?: Evidence from
China’s Project 985. Organization Science, 27(2): 446-461.
•Eberhart, R.; C. Eesley, and K. Eisenhardt. 2016 Failure IS an Option:
Institutional Barriers to Failure, Bankruptcy and New Firm Performance,
Organization Science, cond. acceptance
5. stvp.stanford.edu
Stream 1: Formal Institutions
Eesley, C. 2016. Institutional Barriers to Growth:
Entrepreneurship, Human Capital and Institutional
Change. Organization Science
• Amendment to the Chinese constitution reversing regulations
that favored firms with foreign investors and state-owned
enterprises
• Lowering BTG stimulates the founding of firms by high human
capital individuals
7. stvp.stanford.edu
• Eberhart, R.; C. Eesley, and K. Eisenhardt. 2016. Failure IS an
Option: Institutional Barriers to Failure, Bankruptcy and New Firm
Performance, Organization Science
• 2003 bankruptcy reform in Japan
• COSMOS2 database from Teikoku Databank, Ltd. 50,000 firms
over a 20 year time period, 10 variables, 10 million observations
• Lowering barriers to failure – increase churn, but also venture
growth rates (due to elites)
Stream 1: Formal Institutions – Barriers to
Failure
9. stvp.stanford.edu
Industry Environment
• Eesley, Charles E.; Hsu, D.; Roberts, E.B. 2013. The Contingent
Effects of Top Management Teams on Venture
Performance: Aligning Founding Team Composition with Innovation
Strategy and Commercialization Environment. Strategic
Management Journal, 35(12): 1798–1817.
• Eesley, Charles E. and Roberts, E.B. 2012. Are You Experienced or
Are You Talented?: When Does Innate Talent versus Experience
Explain Entrepreneurial Performance. Strategic Entrepreneurship
Journal. 6(3): 207-219. (Winner, Best Paper Proceedings Award,
AOM conference, Montreal, 2010.)
• Hsu, D.; Roberts, E.B.; Eesley, Charles. 2007. Entrepreneurs from
Technology-Based Universities: Evidence from MIT. Research
Policy 36, 768–788.
12. stvp.stanford.edu
Stream 2: On-going work on digital
platforms
• 30 months of firm-level data on
around 10,000 merchant
ventures
– Sales data
– # of distinct items sold
– pricing
– product categories
– customer review scores
– gender of owner
– age of owner
– registration date
– location (province & city)
• 200+ hours of interviews
• Alibaba – 1,000 Faces,
platform change (with Wesley
Koo)
• Customizing search results to
each individual consumer
• Forced merchants to focus on
particular consumer segments
14. stvp.stanford.edu
Stream 3: Informal Institutions
• Eesley, C.; Decelles, K.; Lenox, M. 2015. Through the
Mud or in the Boardroom: Activist Types and their
Strategies in Targeting Firms for Social
Change. Strategic Management Journal,
• Lenox, M. and Eesley, C. 2009. Private Environmental
Activism and the Selection and Response of Firm
Targets. Journal of Economics & Management
Strategy, 18(1), 45-73.
• Eesley, Charles; Lenox, Michael. 2006. Firm Responses
to Secondary Stakeholder Action. Strategic
Management Journal, 27(8):765-781.
16. stvp.stanford.edu
Influence of the External Environment
on Tech-Based Entrepreneurship
• Policy leaders wish to
foster high growth,
technology-based start-
ups
• Institutional changes can
significantly influence the
types of firms that are
created, who creates
them, and how they
perform.
• Theoretical contributions
– institutional barriers to
growth and failure,
founding team alignment,
informal inst.
• Methods contributions
– look beyond developed
North American and
European economies.
– differences-in-differences,
randomized field
experiments, regression
discontinuity, instrumental
variables
22. Methods contributions
• Alumni Surveys
• Platform/Field Randomized Experiments
• Web scraping, platform data – Alibaba/Taobao (Wesley),
Chinese regional government websites (Daniel), LinkedIn
(Xinyi),
• Lab experiment – Tsinghua Executive MBAs (Xinyi)
• QCA analysis, In-person interview surveys (Daniel, Jamber)
• (A) showing how to measure talent, (B) using alumni surveys
to reduce success bias, (C) collecting data internationally, (D)
using randomized field experiments, and (E) analyzing multi-
industry databases with state-of-the-art statistics (Regression
discontinuity, instrumental variables, differences-in-
differences)
23. Why study high-tech
entrepreneurship?
• Driver of economic growth and technical progress
• Driver of economic and social mobility
• Important intersection of technical and social science
issues
• Young field, interesting methodological, statistical issues
24. stvp.stanford.edu
Public Research Institutions and
Entrepreneurship
Science Parks
• How entrepreneurs leverage institutional intermediaries in
emerging economies to acquire public resources.
(Strategic Management Journal with D. Armanios, J. Li
and K. Eisenhardt),
• Provide multiple paths that expand the set of people who
can become successful entrepreneurs.
• Distinguish which entrepreneurs benefit from certification
v. capability-building
– new constructs: skill adequacy and context relevance.
25. stvp.stanford.edu
Chinese Academy of
Sciences Reform
• w/ Daniel Armanios (Carnegie
Mellon)
• Combining web scraping via Python
script and government database of
high tech certification
• Dataset of >10,000 Chinese high
tech ventures
R&R at Administrative Sciences
Quarterly
29. stvp.stanford.edu
Stanford Alumni Survey
% of
firms
median
emp#
median rev
($mil)
Est.
aggregate
total emp#
Est. aggregate
total sales ($mil)
Less than
1000 97% 10 $1 1,762,000 $1,711,000
1,000–10,000 2.6% 1,947 $250 2,248,000 $704,000
More than
10,000 0.3% 16,000 $1,950 1,377,000 $251,452
Total 100% 11 $1.2 5,387,000 $2,667,000
30. stvp.stanford.edu
Heavy Innov Moderate Innov Little Innov Total
Percent of firms 25% 25% 50% 100%
Revenue (in millions of
$) $1,270,000 $531,000 $864,000 $2,667,000
% of total revenues by
all Stanford firms 48% 20% 32% 100%
Employees 1,141,000 2,003,000 2,242,000 5,387,000
% of total employment
by all Stanford firms 21% 37% 42% 100%
Stanford Alumni Survey
33. The Experiment
• Analytic Strategy
– Regression Discontinuity Design. (Imbens & Lemieux, 2008)
• Treated: Domestic entrepreneurs who were barely accepted into the
program.
• Control: Domestic entrepreneurs who were barely rejected from the
program.
– Self-reported value assessment comparison.
– Interviews.
• Treatment
– Participation in Start-Up Chile.
• Data
– Pre- and post-treatment surveys. (Shadish, Cook & Campbell, 2002)
– Self-assessment survey of beliefs and behaviors, corrected by
socially desirable responding. (Paulhus, 2002)
– Relative change comparison. (Hennig, Mullensiefen & Bargmann, 2010)
Editor's Notes
Public policy that started 4 years ago.
$40,000 equity free to foreign and domestic entrepreneurs.
Founders’ intuition:
Domestic entrepreneurs had less audacious business models than foreign entrepreneurs as a consequence of deficient individual level characteristics.
Caused by the country’s insularity.
By forcing social interaction between domestic and foreign entrepreneurs, domestic entrepreneurs would improve.
It’s founders goal:
To spur national entrepreneurialism by connecting Chilean entrepreneurs with Global entrepreneurs.
Incentive for foreigners: equity free capital and a work visa.
Incentive for nationals: not so obvious at first,
As an aside, this program was highly controversial in its early stage. Tax payer money going to foreigners? Increasing competition for limited resources?
However, now national entrepreneurs fight to get in, and prefer receiving $40,000 to get into SUP than $80,000 to go into an incubator.