Open perseverance: the sensemaking narrative of startup entrepreneurs
Keywords:
innovation, creativity, startup, entrepreneur, sensemaking, viability triad, brenda dervin, narrative
Abstract
The irruption of startups and entrepreneurs has transformed the economic landscape. Entrepreneurs propose innovative business models that must progressively respond to the viability triad, the complex and uncertain process by which an idea becomes a product. Based on the theoretical and practical contributions of Dervin's sensemaking methodology, the objective of this study is to understand the narrative of entrepreneurs in their creation of meaning, identify the uncertainties, identify the practices used to address these uncertainties, and thus obtain a deep knowledge of the sensemaking mechanisms. The results of 43 interviews with entrepreneurs are presented in the form of a narrative composed of four stages and three major gaps, illustrating the practical ways in which entrepreneurs overcome uncertainty and create metastable sense.Downloads
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References
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Alter, N. (2013). L’innovation ordinaire. Paris: PUF.
ASCRI (2007). Asociación Española de Capital, Crecimiento e Inversión – First Quarter 2018, in: https://www.ascri.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NP-Congreso-ASCRI-2018.pdf
Attfield, S.; Fields, B.; Wheat, A.; Hutton, R.; Nixon, J.; Leggatt, A.; & Blackford, H. (2015). Distributed sensemaking: a case study of military analysis. ICNDM 2015, McLean.
Balogun, J. & Johnson, G. (2004). Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4): 523-549.
Bessant, J. &Tidd, J. (2011). Innovation and entrepreneurship. New York: Wiley.
Blank, S. &Dorf, B. (2012). The startup owner’s manual. The step by step guide for building a great company. New York: K&S Ranch.
Carayannis, E.G.; Dagnino, G.B.; Alvarez, Sh.; & Faraci, R. (2018). Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the diffusion of startups. Cheltenham: Edward Felgar.
Case, S. (2017). Third wave: an entrepreneur’s vision of the future. New York: Simon + Schuster Inc.
Chan Kim, W. & Mauborgne, R.A. (2014). Blue Ocean Strategy. How to create uncontested market space and make competition irrelevant. Harvard: Harvard Business
Review Press.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: Thousand Oaks.
Chesbrough, H.W. (2006). Open Innovation: researching a new paradigm. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Choo, C.W. (2002). Sensemaking, knowledge creation and decision making: organization knowing as emergent strategy, in Choo, C. W. & Bontins, N. (eds.). The strategic management of intellectual capital and organizational knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press (157-178).
Cornelissen, J.P. & Clarke, J.S. (2017). Imagining and rationalizing opportunities. Inductive reasoning and the creation and justification of new ventures. Academy of Management Review. 35(4): 35-72.
Deakins, D. & Whittman, G. (2000). Business startup. Theory, practice and policy, in: Carter, S. & Jones-Evans, D. (eds.). Entreprise and Small business, practice and policy. London: Prentice Hall (115-131).
Dervin, B. (1983). An overview of sense-making research. Concepts, methods, and results to date. International Communication Association Annual Meeting, Dallas.
Dervin, B. (1992). From the mind’s eye of the ‘user’: the sense-making qualitative-quantitative methodology, in Glazer, J.D. y Powell, R.R. (eds.). Qualitative research in information management. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited (61-84).
Dervin, B. (1998). Sense-making theory and practice: an overview of user interests in knowledge and use. Journal of Knowledge Management, 2(2), 36-46.
Dervin, B. (2003). Chaos, order, and sensemaking: a proposed theory of information design, in Dervin, B. & Foreman-Wernet, L. (eds.). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin. Cresskill: Hampton (325-340).
Dervin, B. (2008) Interviewing as dialectical practice: sense-making methodology as exemplar. International Media and Communication Research (IAMCER) Meeting, Estocolmo.
Dervin, B. & Foreman-Wernet, L. (2012). Sense-making methodology as an approach to understanding and designing for campaign audiences: a turn to communication communicatively, in Atkin, C. & Rice, R.E. (eds.) Public Communication Campaigns. New York: Sage Publications (147-162).
Dervin, B. & Naumer, C.M. (2009). Sense-making. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. New York: Taylor and Francis.
DiMaggio, P.J. & Powell, W.W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2): 147-160.
Emerson, R.M. (1996). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Ernst&Young (2013). Funding the future. Access to finance for entrepreneurs in the G20, in:https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY_G20_-_Funding_the_future:/$FILE/EY-g20-Funding-the-future.pdf
Feldbrugge, K. (2014). Making sense of the temporary organization in innovation: a case description. 28th IPMA Congress, Rotterdam.
Foreman-Wernet, L. (2003). Rethinking communication: Introducing the Sense-Making Methodology. Reprinted, in: Dervin, B. & Foreman-Wernet, L. (Eds.). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin. Cresskill: Hampton (3-16).
Gaglio, G. (2011). Sociologie de l’innovation. Paris: PUF.
Geersbro, J., & Ritter, T. (2010). External performance barriers in business networks: Uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 25(3): 196-201.
Gephart, R. P. (1997). Hazardous measures: An interpretive textual analysis of quantitative sensemaking during crises. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18: 583-622.
Heinze, I. (2014). Entrepreneur sensemaking of business failure. Small Enterprise Research. 20(1): 21-39.
Hoyte, C.A.S. (2015). Making sense of entrepreneurial opportunities. Doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham, Nottingham.
Hunsaker, T. & Thomas, D.E. (2017). The viability triad. Desiderability, feasibility, and sustainability. Journal of Management Policies and Practices. 5(2): 1-4.
Jones, O. & Li, H. (2017). Effectual entrepreneuring: sensemaking in a family-based start-up. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development. March, 1-34.
Kelly, G. & Morley, M.J. (2011). On the value of cognitive sense-making theory in modeling the dynamics of international executive repatriation, en: Benson, P.G. (ed.). Emerging themes in international management of human resources. New Mexico: Information Age (235-256).
Kitzmiller, R.R.; Anderson, R. & McDaniel, R.R. Jr. (2010). Making sense of health information technology implementation. A qualitative study protocol. Implementation Science, 5, 2-8.
Lyon, S.J. (2017). Sensemaking in entrepreneurial ventures. Doctoral thesis, University of Warwick, Warwick.
Macintyre, A. (1981). After virtue. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
Maitlis, S. (2005). The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 1(Feb): 21-49.
Maitlis, S. & Christianson, M. (2014). Sensemaking in Organizations: taking stock and moving forward. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1): 57-125.
Marx, G.T. (2017). Windows into the soul. Surveillance and society in an age of high technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mazzucato, M. (2018). The value of everything. Making and taking in the global economy. New York: Public Affairs.
Moore, D.T. & Hoffman, R.R. (2011). Sensemaking: a transformative paradigm. American Intelligence, 29(1): 26-36.
MWCB (2018). Digital startup ecosystem overview, in: http://www.awex.es/sites/default/files/Mobile_World_Capital_Barcelona_-_Digital_Startup_Ecosystem_Overview_2018.pdf
Narayan, B. & Olsson, M. (2013). Sense-making across space and time: implications for organization and findability of information. ASIST 2013, Montreal.
Nouri, P. & Kafeshani, A.A. (2014). Sensemaking, a new entrepreneurial approach for today’s uncertain business environment. IJAREMS. 3(6): 201-206
Peneder, M. (2009). The Meaning of Entrepreneurship: A Modular Concept. WIFO Working Papers, Nº 335.
Pettigrew, A. (1992). The character and significance of strategy process research. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 5-16.
Pich, M.T., Loch, C.H. y Meyer, A. (2002). On uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity in project management. Management Science, 48, 1008-1023.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy. New York: Free Press.
Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup. How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. New York: Crown Business.
Ries, E. (2017). The startup way. How modern companies use entrepreneurial management to transform culture and drive long growth. New York: Currency.
Sabino de Freitas, A. & Bandeira-de-Melho, R. (2012). Managerial action and sensemaking in e-learning implementation in Brazilian business schools. Computers & Education, 59, 1286-1299.
Sacks, H. (2006). Lectures on conversation. Volume I & II. Edited by Gail Jefferson, with an Introduction by Emanuel A. Schegloff. Oxford: Blackwell.
Salhman, W.A.; Stevenson, H.H.; Roberts, M.J. & Bhide, A.V. (1999). The entrepreneurial venture. Harvard: Harvard Business School Press.
Sarasvathy, S.D. (2008). Effectuation: Elements of entrepreneurial expertise. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Schaper, M.; Volery, T., & Weber, P. (2014). Entrepreneurship and Small Business. A Pacific Rim perspective. Milton: Wiley & Sons.
Segger Macri Russo, R.F.; Sbraggia, R.; & Sih Oih Yu, A. (2017). Unknown unknowns in innovative projects: early signs sensemaking. Brazilian Administration review, 14(3): 2-24.
Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as qualitative research. A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York: Teachers College Press.
Sennett, R. (2007). The culture of the new capitalism. New York: Yale University Press.
Shane, S. & Venkatramana, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.
Sneddon, J. (2008). Innovation in the Australian wool industry: a sensemaking perspective, University of Western Australia, Perth.
Startup Genome (2018). Global startup ecosystem report 2018, in: https://startupgenome.com/reports/2018/GSER-2018-v1.1.pdf
Stiegler, B. (20015). La societé automatique 1. L’avenir du travail. Paris: Fayard.
Thiel, P. & Masters, B. (2014). Zero to one. Notes on startups, or how to build the future. New York: Currency.
Walls, J. (2017). Sensemaking and school failure: lessons from two cases. Journal of Organizational Theory in Education. 2, 1-26.
Weick, K. (1995). Sense-making in Organizations. London: Sage.
Weick, K.E.; Sutcliffe, K.M. & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4): 409-421.
Weiss, R.S. (1995). Learning from strangers. The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press.
Wickhman, P. (2004). Strategic entrepreneurship. Harlow: Prentice-Hall.
Wiles, R.; Crow, G.; Heath, S. & Charles, V. (2008). The management of confidentiality and anonymity in social research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11, 417-428.
Yin, R.K. (2011). Qualitative research from start to finish. New York: Guilford Press.
Zhang, P. & Duohuai, G. (2014). Collective sensemaking in social media. A case study of the H7N9 Flu Pandemic in China. iConference 2014, B
Alter, N. (2013). L’innovation ordinaire. Paris: PUF.
ASCRI (2007). Asociación Española de Capital, Crecimiento e Inversión – First Quarter 2018, in: https://www.ascri.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NP-Congreso-ASCRI-2018.pdf
Attfield, S.; Fields, B.; Wheat, A.; Hutton, R.; Nixon, J.; Leggatt, A.; & Blackford, H. (2015). Distributed sensemaking: a case study of military analysis. ICNDM 2015, McLean.
Balogun, J. & Johnson, G. (2004). Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 47(4): 523-549.
Bessant, J. &Tidd, J. (2011). Innovation and entrepreneurship. New York: Wiley.
Blank, S. &Dorf, B. (2012). The startup owner’s manual. The step by step guide for building a great company. New York: K&S Ranch.
Carayannis, E.G.; Dagnino, G.B.; Alvarez, Sh.; & Faraci, R. (2018). Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the diffusion of startups. Cheltenham: Edward Felgar.
Case, S. (2017). Third wave: an entrepreneur’s vision of the future. New York: Simon + Schuster Inc.
Chan Kim, W. & Mauborgne, R.A. (2014). Blue Ocean Strategy. How to create uncontested market space and make competition irrelevant. Harvard: Harvard Business
Review Press.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: Thousand Oaks.
Chesbrough, H.W. (2006). Open Innovation: researching a new paradigm. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Choo, C.W. (2002). Sensemaking, knowledge creation and decision making: organization knowing as emergent strategy, in Choo, C. W. & Bontins, N. (eds.). The strategic management of intellectual capital and organizational knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press (157-178).
Cornelissen, J.P. & Clarke, J.S. (2017). Imagining and rationalizing opportunities. Inductive reasoning and the creation and justification of new ventures. Academy of Management Review. 35(4): 35-72.
Deakins, D. & Whittman, G. (2000). Business startup. Theory, practice and policy, in: Carter, S. & Jones-Evans, D. (eds.). Entreprise and Small business, practice and policy. London: Prentice Hall (115-131).
Dervin, B. (1983). An overview of sense-making research. Concepts, methods, and results to date. International Communication Association Annual Meeting, Dallas.
Dervin, B. (1992). From the mind’s eye of the ‘user’: the sense-making qualitative-quantitative methodology, in Glazer, J.D. y Powell, R.R. (eds.). Qualitative research in information management. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited (61-84).
Dervin, B. (1998). Sense-making theory and practice: an overview of user interests in knowledge and use. Journal of Knowledge Management, 2(2), 36-46.
Dervin, B. (2003). Chaos, order, and sensemaking: a proposed theory of information design, in Dervin, B. & Foreman-Wernet, L. (eds.). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin. Cresskill: Hampton (325-340).
Dervin, B. (2008) Interviewing as dialectical practice: sense-making methodology as exemplar. International Media and Communication Research (IAMCER) Meeting, Estocolmo.
Dervin, B. & Foreman-Wernet, L. (2012). Sense-making methodology as an approach to understanding and designing for campaign audiences: a turn to communication communicatively, in Atkin, C. & Rice, R.E. (eds.) Public Communication Campaigns. New York: Sage Publications (147-162).
Dervin, B. & Naumer, C.M. (2009). Sense-making. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. New York: Taylor and Francis.
DiMaggio, P.J. & Powell, W.W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2): 147-160.
Emerson, R.M. (1996). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Ernst&Young (2013). Funding the future. Access to finance for entrepreneurs in the G20, in:https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY_G20_-_Funding_the_future:/$FILE/EY-g20-Funding-the-future.pdf
Feldbrugge, K. (2014). Making sense of the temporary organization in innovation: a case description. 28th IPMA Congress, Rotterdam.
Foreman-Wernet, L. (2003). Rethinking communication: Introducing the Sense-Making Methodology. Reprinted, in: Dervin, B. & Foreman-Wernet, L. (Eds.). Sense-Making Methodology reader: Selected writings of Brenda Dervin. Cresskill: Hampton (3-16).
Gaglio, G. (2011). Sociologie de l’innovation. Paris: PUF.
Geersbro, J., & Ritter, T. (2010). External performance barriers in business networks: Uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 25(3): 196-201.
Gephart, R. P. (1997). Hazardous measures: An interpretive textual analysis of quantitative sensemaking during crises. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18: 583-622.
Heinze, I. (2014). Entrepreneur sensemaking of business failure. Small Enterprise Research. 20(1): 21-39.
Hoyte, C.A.S. (2015). Making sense of entrepreneurial opportunities. Doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham, Nottingham.
Hunsaker, T. & Thomas, D.E. (2017). The viability triad. Desiderability, feasibility, and sustainability. Journal of Management Policies and Practices. 5(2): 1-4.
Jones, O. & Li, H. (2017). Effectual entrepreneuring: sensemaking in a family-based start-up. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development. March, 1-34.
Kelly, G. & Morley, M.J. (2011). On the value of cognitive sense-making theory in modeling the dynamics of international executive repatriation, en: Benson, P.G. (ed.). Emerging themes in international management of human resources. New Mexico: Information Age (235-256).
Kitzmiller, R.R.; Anderson, R. & McDaniel, R.R. Jr. (2010). Making sense of health information technology implementation. A qualitative study protocol. Implementation Science, 5, 2-8.
Lyon, S.J. (2017). Sensemaking in entrepreneurial ventures. Doctoral thesis, University of Warwick, Warwick.
Macintyre, A. (1981). After virtue. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
Maitlis, S. (2005). The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 1(Feb): 21-49.
Maitlis, S. & Christianson, M. (2014). Sensemaking in Organizations: taking stock and moving forward. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1): 57-125.
Marx, G.T. (2017). Windows into the soul. Surveillance and society in an age of high technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mazzucato, M. (2018). The value of everything. Making and taking in the global economy. New York: Public Affairs.
Moore, D.T. & Hoffman, R.R. (2011). Sensemaking: a transformative paradigm. American Intelligence, 29(1): 26-36.
MWCB (2018). Digital startup ecosystem overview, in: http://www.awex.es/sites/default/files/Mobile_World_Capital_Barcelona_-_Digital_Startup_Ecosystem_Overview_2018.pdf
Narayan, B. & Olsson, M. (2013). Sense-making across space and time: implications for organization and findability of information. ASIST 2013, Montreal.
Nouri, P. & Kafeshani, A.A. (2014). Sensemaking, a new entrepreneurial approach for today’s uncertain business environment. IJAREMS. 3(6): 201-206
Peneder, M. (2009). The Meaning of Entrepreneurship: A Modular Concept. WIFO Working Papers, Nº 335.
Pettigrew, A. (1992). The character and significance of strategy process research. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 5-16.
Pich, M.T., Loch, C.H. y Meyer, A. (2002). On uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity in project management. Management Science, 48, 1008-1023.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy. New York: Free Press.
Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup. How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. New York: Crown Business.
Ries, E. (2017). The startup way. How modern companies use entrepreneurial management to transform culture and drive long growth. New York: Currency.
Sabino de Freitas, A. & Bandeira-de-Melho, R. (2012). Managerial action and sensemaking in e-learning implementation in Brazilian business schools. Computers & Education, 59, 1286-1299.
Sacks, H. (2006). Lectures on conversation. Volume I & II. Edited by Gail Jefferson, with an Introduction by Emanuel A. Schegloff. Oxford: Blackwell.
Salhman, W.A.; Stevenson, H.H.; Roberts, M.J. & Bhide, A.V. (1999). The entrepreneurial venture. Harvard: Harvard Business School Press.
Sarasvathy, S.D. (2008). Effectuation: Elements of entrepreneurial expertise. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Schaper, M.; Volery, T., & Weber, P. (2014). Entrepreneurship and Small Business. A Pacific Rim perspective. Milton: Wiley & Sons.
Segger Macri Russo, R.F.; Sbraggia, R.; & Sih Oih Yu, A. (2017). Unknown unknowns in innovative projects: early signs sensemaking. Brazilian Administration review, 14(3): 2-24.
Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as qualitative research. A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York: Teachers College Press.
Sennett, R. (2007). The culture of the new capitalism. New York: Yale University Press.
Shane, S. & Venkatramana, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 217-226.
Sneddon, J. (2008). Innovation in the Australian wool industry: a sensemaking perspective, University of Western Australia, Perth.
Startup Genome (2018). Global startup ecosystem report 2018, in: https://startupgenome.com/reports/2018/GSER-2018-v1.1.pdf
Stiegler, B. (20015). La societé automatique 1. L’avenir du travail. Paris: Fayard.
Thiel, P. & Masters, B. (2014). Zero to one. Notes on startups, or how to build the future. New York: Currency.
Walls, J. (2017). Sensemaking and school failure: lessons from two cases. Journal of Organizational Theory in Education. 2, 1-26.
Weick, K. (1995). Sense-making in Organizations. London: Sage.
Weick, K.E.; Sutcliffe, K.M. & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4): 409-421.
Weiss, R.S. (1995). Learning from strangers. The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: Free Press.
Wickhman, P. (2004). Strategic entrepreneurship. Harlow: Prentice-Hall.
Wiles, R.; Crow, G.; Heath, S. & Charles, V. (2008). The management of confidentiality and anonymity in social research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11, 417-428.
Yin, R.K. (2011). Qualitative research from start to finish. New York: Guilford Press.
Zhang, P. & Duohuai, G. (2014). Collective sensemaking in social media. A case study of the H7N9 Flu Pandemic in China. iConference 2014, B
Published
2018-11-22
How to Cite
Morente, F., & Ferràs, X. (2018). Open perseverance: the sensemaking narrative of startup entrepreneurs. Journal of Business, Universidad Del Pacífico (Lima, Peru), 10(2), 2-23. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21678/jb.2018.955
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Articles
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