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Full-Text Articles in Business
Amphibious Entrepreneurs And The Origins Of Invention, Kurt Sandholtz, Walter W. Powell
Amphibious Entrepreneurs And The Origins Of Invention, Kurt Sandholtz, Walter W. Powell
Faculty Publications
In this chapter, we examine entrepreneurs who carry ideas, technologies, values, and assumptions between previously unrelated spheres of economic or cultural activity, and in the process, change the existing order of things. We label such individuals amphibious entrepreneurs and explore their characteristics via four case studies. Their stories suggest a distinct species within the genus of entrepreneur: more pragmatic than heroic, and as likely to invent by not knowing any better as by calculative creation. We discuss their role in creating interstitial spaces, contrast them to other boundary-spanning actors, and identify directions for future research at the intersection of social …
Amphibious Entrepreneurs And The Emergence Of Organizational Forms, Walter W. Powell, Kurt Sandholtz
Amphibious Entrepreneurs And The Emergence Of Organizational Forms, Walter W. Powell, Kurt Sandholtz
Faculty Publications
We study the emergence of organizational forms, focusing on two mechanisms—reconfiguration and transposition—that distinguish the founding models of the first 26 biotechnology companies, all created in the industry's first decade, from 1972 to 1981. We analyze rich archival data using hierarchical cluster analysis, revealing four organizational variants of the dedicated biotech firm (DBF). Three were products of reconfiguration, as executives from Big Pharma used past practices to incorporate new science. One DBF variant resulted from 'amphibious' scientists who imported organizing ideas from the academy into their VC-funded start-ups. We argue that such transpositions are fragile, yet charged with generative possibilities. …