Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and Effective Business-model Design

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: McDonald, Rory M.; Eisenhardt, Kathleen M.
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Stanford University
• 刊物名称: ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-8392
• DOI: 10.1177/0001839219852349
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 483-523
• 关键词: OPTIMAL DISTINCTIVENESS; SOCIAL-PARTICIPATION; strategy; entrepreneurship; INNOVATION; industry; legitimacy; search; ORGANIZATIONS; CONSTRUCTION

摘要

Prior research has advanced several explanations for entrepreneurial success in nascent markets but leaves a key imperative unexplored: the business model. By studying five ventures in a nascent financial-technology market, we develop a novel theoretical framework for understanding how entrepreneurs effectively design business models: parallel play. Similar to parallel play by preschoolers, entrepreneurs engaged in parallel play interweave action, cognition, and timing to accelerate learning about a novel world. Specifically, they (1) borrow from peers and focus on established substitutes for their services or products, (2) test assumptions, then commit to a broad business-model template, and (3) pause before elaborating the activity system. The insights from our framework contribute to research on optimal distinctiveness and to the learning and evolutionary-adjustment literatures. More broadly, we blend organization theory with a fresh theoretical lens-business-model processes-to highlight how organizations actually work and create value.