Different Perspectives on Entrepreneurial Experimentation

The last two decades have seen increasing interest in entrepreneurial experimentation, both from academia and practice, with a focus on better understanding the efficacy of adopting an experimental approach to guide entrepreneurs’ decision-making. While the survival and performance benefits of adopting different types of experimental approaches are increasingly well-understood, relatively little research examines different underpinning processes both at the organizational and individual levels that guide experimentation processes and choices as well as their performance implications. The papers in this proposed symposium address the gap in existing literature through multiple perspectives. First, they explore how different strategic choices support entrepreneurial experimentation. Such choices include organizational decision-making processes, management of internal and external key stakeholders, real-options-based decision-making, and the adoption of a scientific approach for opportunity creation. Second, these papers draw upon different theoretical perspectives to enrich our understanding of experimentation. We expect this symposium to add value to the field by facilitating discussion across different aspects of experimentation and generating insights for future research. Third, all of these papers consider experimentation as “part of a larger system,” investigating different factors and processes that underpin a focal venture’s experimentation. Collectively, the papers to be presented in this symposium highlight different pathways that entrepreneurs might undertake to better manage experimentation. The Politics of Experimentation Author: Todd Hall; U. of Kansas Author: Sharique Hasan; Fuqua School of Business, Duke U. Real Options and Business Model Experimentation Author: Yong Li; U. of Nevada, Las Vegas Author: Joseph T. Mahoney; U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Theory-driven Experimentation: Crafting Theories for Optimal Unknown-unknown Exploration Author: Arnaldo Camuffo; Bocconi U. Towards the System of Entrepreneurial Experimentation: A Review and Research Agenda Author: Hyeonsuh Lee; West Virginia U. Author: Gianluigi Viscusi; Linköping U. Author: Christopher L. Tucci; Imperial College Business School