@article {556, title = {Applying the Theory of the Firm to Examine a Technology Startup at the Investment Stage}, journal = {Technology Innovation Management Review}, volume = {2}, year = {2012}, month = {05/2012}, pages = {23-27}, publisher = {Talent First Network}, address = {Ottawa}, abstract = {The investment stage of a new technology firm is when resources, opportunities, investors, and early customers first converge. Currently, technology entrepreneurs make many expensive mistakes. They invest in assets and develop capabilities that prove to have limited value. They take too long to discover and validate the product-market fit for their firms during the investment stage and run out of time and money. Understanding how theory can help entrepreneurs make decisions during the investment stage is important to accelerate new-firm formation and growth as well as to reduce the uncertainty of founders and stakeholders of technology firms. This article introduces a model developed to examine deal making during the investment stage of a new technology firm. It is an extension of a model of lateral firm scope proposed by Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom. The extensions come from considering a technology firm as being both a deal-making entity and a pool of resources during the investment stage. A deal is the result of a decision the entrepreneur and others make to coordinate (i.e., work together to achieve a common objective). Benefits from a deal include cash profits for the firm and private benefits for the entrepreneur. This extended model is then applied to examine the author{\textquoteright}s firm which is still in the investment stage. Application of the extended model to a real-life situation generated two important insights: i) when private benefits include learning from experimentation, the number of deals increases and ii) at the start of the investment stage, private benefits drive deal-making, whereas at the end of the investment stage, cash profits derived from asset ownership drive deal-making. }, keywords = {deals, investment, technology entrepreneurship, theory of the firm}, issn = {1927-0321}, doi = {http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/556}, url = {http://timreview.ca/article/556}, author = {Michael Ayukawa} } @article {521, title = {Entrepreneurial Effort in the Theory of the Firm}, journal = {Technology Innovation Management Review}, volume = {2}, year = {2012}, month = {02/2012}, pages = {13-16}, publisher = {Talent First Network}, address = {Ottawa}, abstract = {This article develops a link between the theory of the firm and entrepreneurship theory to enable the study of employee entrepreneurial behaviour. First, we describe how incomplete contracts permit employee entrepreneurial effort in the theory of the firm. Next, we argue that emancipation offers an explanation for entrepreneurial effort that is not motivated by financial gain. Finally, we show how new technology creates conditions where the boundary of the firm may change and where entrepreneurial effort by employees may occur.}, keywords = {emancipation, employee, entrepreneurship, technology, theory of the firm}, issn = {1927-0321}, doi = {http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/521}, url = {http://timreview.ca/article/521}, author = {David Hudson} } @article {633, title = {Managing Entrepreneurial Employees Who Bring Their Own IT to Work}, journal = {Technology Innovation Management Review}, volume = {2}, year = {2012}, month = {12/2012}, pages = {6-11}, publisher = {Talent First Network}, address = {Ottawa}, abstract = {Why do some employees invest their own time and money to acquire consumer information technology (IT) for use in the workplace as corporate IT? This behaviour occurs even when their firms already possess considerable IT resources. Moreover, IT governance policies typically oppose the use of unsanctioned IT within the firm. IT governance assumes that the only IT assets that are relevant to the firm are those that are owned by the firm. However, employees can create value for the firm by combining their personal IT assets with the firm{\textquoteright}s IT assets. Creating novel asset combinations is consistent with entrepreneurship but entrepreneurship theory does not address this type of voluntary employee entrepreneurship using personal IT assets. This article proposes a link between the theory of the firm and entrepreneurship theory to explain why employees act entrepreneurially. This link is significant because it advances the notion that employees of established firms can be entrepreneurial when they use their own consumer IT as corporate IT. This link is also significant because it suggests that managing employee entrepreneurship requires tolerance of value creation that is emergent and can occur within a firm. }, keywords = {consumer IT, corporate IT, entrepreneurship, intrapreneur, theory of the firm, value creation}, issn = {1927-0321}, doi = {http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/633}, url = {http://timreview.ca/article/633}, author = {David Hudson} }