Venture Review

VENTURE REVIEW No.27

Article

Chiaki Ito/Satoshi Ajiro/Jinichiro Yamada/Yoshihiro Eshima

What causes entrepreneurial failure?


This article is an exploratory single-case study that aims to clarify the sensemaking process of business failure by a entrepreneur. The article focuses on the retelling of reflective dialogue and the update of schema to explain business failure outcomes. An analysis of the verbatim record of dialogue with the researcher revealed findings on the sensemaking process of business failure. First, the role of others motivates the entrepreneur's critical reflection and behavior to cope with the crisis. Second, the change in differentiating the intropunitive and extrapunitive impact in addition to noticing and considering external judgment. The results indicate reflective entrepreneurial practice regarding the management of negative emotions associated with the business failure. Further, the results imply the presumption of change in the entrepreneur's judgment criteria.

Key words:Business failure, Sensemaking, Entrepreneurial narrative, Reflection, Retelling

Case Study

Takaaki Houda

Trigger and Motivation to Participate in Hometown Tax in the Japanese Market


Japanese local governments are allowed to raise fund through unique system, called "hometown tax". I have conducted an empirical research of hometown tax cases to examine the factors affecting the amount of fund provided by individuals, their triggers and motivations. There are three major findings. First, the average amount of fund provided is higher by those who have some relationships or connections to local towns. Second, those who do not designate the use of proceeds provide higher amount of money in average. Third, in marketing, internet media works to those with ages from 20's through 40's, while TV, radio and word of mouth work for over those ages. Especially if the name of a fund raiser is yet small, the importance of word of mouth increases. In order to raise fund through home town tax effectively, local governments should build personal relationships to individuals widely and put emphasis on word of mouth marketing initially.

Key words:Hometown Tax, Kamishihoro, Higashikawa

VENTURE REVIEW No.28

Article

Tomohiro Nakayama

New Products Diffusion Model and 4 Types for the Innovation Forecast


Some kinds of studies about innovative products diffusion like the product lifecycle and innovation diffusion theories exist, however, they dictate only the past phenomenon or the analysis of the limited diffusion process by conducting the consumer survey with the specific target consumers. Under the recent instable business situation, it is difficult to reproduce the future projection with the studies in the business practice.
In this paper, new products diffusion model is defined as supporting the innovation forecast. Mainly Japanese twenty-four innovations are analyzed by applying them to the model in order to identify the diffusion type and provide objectively the strategic proposals by the model.
As the result, the paper can validate that the feature of the innovation adaptors are identified with the model parameters and the diffusion forecast can be classified to four diffusion types. The analysis results are applicable for the venture or the business development section in a large company to decide the initial (or additional) marketing investment or to plan the optimal release timing of the next new products as KPI of management strategy. In addition, the analysis is to be useful for the venture capitalists who should monitor the companies invested by themselves after the funding.

Key words:innovation diffusion model, new product diffusion curve, judgement on marketing investment, product lifecycle

Daisuke Kikawa

Does Corporate Venture Capital Investment Affect Firm’s Connoisseurship?


Recently an emerging discussion regarding corporate venture capital investment (CVC) is getting attention as a new research theme. These discussions have focused on inter-organizational knowledge acquisition by which firm imitates technologies or ideas of entrepreneurial ventures. Previous literature also has suggested that imitations of technologies or ideas by backing firms are limited in industries which intellectual property protection is weak for an appropriability of product innovation.
However, if these suggestions by previous literature are correct, we cannot have enough answer for why firms do CVC investment in industries which patent protection is strong. To provide a solution for this problem, we focused on a moderating effect of CVC investment on firm's absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). In particular, we evaluate how corporate value changes when a focal firm acquires external knowledge. For an empirical analysis, we use licenses and acquisitions panel data of patents in the pharmaceutical industry.
According to the result of the analysis, greater CVC investment positively correlates with firm's value when acquiring uncertain external knowledge. In contrast, greater CVC investment negatively correlates firm's value when acquired external knowledge is relatively certain. These findings suggest that information accumulation via CVC investment reduces technological uncertainty in that area. These findings also suggest that CVC investment may contribute to both venture financings and venture's exit.

Key words:Corporate Venture Capital, Pharmaceutical Industry, External Knowledge Acquisition, Absorptive Capacity, Intellectual Property

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