Organizational Routines and Capabilities in New Ventures

Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) 2005

Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 2005

14 Pages Posted: 21 Dec 2009

See all articles by Yan Gong

Yan Gong

University of California, Irvine

Ted Baker

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Anne Miner

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Management and Human Resources

Abstract

Organizational routines and capabilities play a key role in organizational survival and prosperity. This inductive paper explores the interplay between the development of routines and capabilities in new firms. The rich field data revealed a surprising variety of processes through which new ventures develop routines and these routines intertwine with capabilities. Our findings show several distinct trajectories between routines and capabilities in new firms. For example, in some cases capabilities preceded supporting routines, rather than the other way around. Further, non-routine behavior including improvisational actions could provide foundations for capabilities.Our propositions advance theories of organizational learning and entrepreneurship. First, we uncovered a rich set of patterns through firms succeeded or failed to learn from their own experience in developing new routines and capabilities. Learning from failure in new ventures is aided by declarative knowledge but inhibited by procedural knowledge within founding team. Second, we also found a pattern of absorptive inertia – some new firms developed the capacity to absorb knowledge from outside the firm, but at the same time developed an unwillingness to absorb external knowledge.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship

JEL Classification: M13

Suggested Citation

Gong, Yan and Baker, Ted and Miner, Anne, Organizational Routines and Capabilities in New Ventures. Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) 2005, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1516651

Yan Gong (Contact Author)

University of California, Irvine ( email )

Campus Drive
Irvine, CA California 62697-3125
United States

Ted Baker

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

Anne Miner

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Management and Human Resources ( email )

Madison, WI
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
230
Abstract Views
1,464
Rank
241,240
PlumX Metrics