توسعه سرمایه گذاری مشاغل جدید
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical background
3. Methodology
4. Case study: the story of DIS
5. Analysis
6. Conclusions and implications
Appendix A. Interview guides
References
Abstract
New business ventures have rather limited resources, generally suffer from liabilities of smallness and newness and rely on external business relationships, typically with suppliers, for developing and acquiring necessary resources. Yet, to date, research on how new ventures develop initial relationships with suppliers and how these affect the nascent business has been limited. Taking the business network perspective and relating it to studies of supply chain and supplier involvement in product development, our study contributes to the rather limited body of knowledge on new ventures’ supplier relationships. Empirically, we draw on a longitudinal, in-depth singlecase study of the first two years of operation of a start-up. Our study shows that the development of the key initial supplier relationships starts from open-ended expectations of mutual future relational benefits and involves a stepwise ‘inter-definition’ of solutions in interaction between the parties. We observe that interdependences arise between the new venture and its key suppliers and these enable but also limit, the development paths of both partners. We argue that the key initial supplier relationships extend a new venture’s resource and capability base and are an integral part of a new venture’s business model.
Introduction
This paper explores supplier relationships in the early stages of development of new ventures, with a particular focus on how such initial relationships develop and affect the new venture. Following Gartner (1985), we look at the development of new ventures as a process of organizing in the Weickian sense: “to organize is to assemble ongoing interdependent actions into sensible sequences that generate sensible outcomes” (Weick, 1979, p. 3). We espouse the network perspective on B2B markets (Håkansson, Ford, Gadde, Snehota, & Waluszewski, 2009; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995), which highlights the context of business as a network of interdependent business relationships with ubiquitous interaction processes and distinct dynamics. Casting the context of business as a network of business relationships leads to the framing of new venture development as establishing a new node in a pre-existing business network, which requires developing business relationships with different parties, primarily customers and suppliers (Gadde & Mattsson, 1987; Mattsson, 1989; Snehota, 2011). This study adds to previous research on interaction processes between a new venture and the surrounding network of actors stressing the importance of early relations for the venture’s development (Aaboen, Dubois, & Lind, 2013; Baraldi, Gregori, & Perna, 2011; Ciabuschi, Perna, & Snehota, 2012; La Rocca & Snehota, 2014).