How entrepreneurs engage with feedback during value creation – a taxonomy
| Date | 14 August 2024 |
| Pages | 109-128 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-02-2024-0056 |
| Published date | 14 August 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,HR & organizational behaviour,Organizational structure/dynamics,Accounting & finance,Accounting/accountancy,Behavioural accounting |
| Author | Gabi Kaffka,Norris Krueger |
How entrepreneurs engage
with feedback during value
creation –a taxonomy
Gabi Kaffka
UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands and
Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, and
Norris Krueger
College of Doctoral Studies, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona, USA and
Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
Abstract
Purpose –Focused feedback, such as mentoring and coaching, is a crucial ingredient for generating the
intellectual capital needed for successful venture creation and has become a structural resource offered to
entrepreneurs in business incubator/accelerator programs. Yet so far, literature has remained silent on the way
that entrepreneurs differ in their engagement with focused feedback in such programs. This study poses the
question of how focused feedback engagement shapes cognitive development during value creation (i.e.
business opportunity development), aimed at the construction of a taxonomy of such feedback engagement.
Design/methodology/approach –Focusing on cognitive learning outcomes, we carried out a qualitative
analysis using NVivo to perform content analysis on the logbooks of 70 entrepreneurs engaged in business
opportunity development in a highly regarded accelerator program.
Findings –Results show that engagement with focused feedback and its effects relate to the state of
tangibility of the entrepreneur’s value offer and to the amount of prior entrepreneurial experience. We also
develop a promising taxonomy to classify entrepreneurs on their learning needs and outcomes (e.g. procedural
versus declarative knowledge).
Originality/value –This study brings together types of human learning (types of knowledge acquired) with
types of focused feedback. This connection has been speculated to exist in entrepreneurial settings; this study
provides strong initial evidence that argues for more explicit consideration in practice. Adding the intellectual
capital perspective further enabled this study to better address implications for practice as well as motivate
powerful new directions for research.
Keywords Entrepreneurship, Cognition, Human capital, Coaching, Learning
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Human capital is one of the three central dimensions of intellectual capital and key for venture
start-up, survival and growth (Calza et al., 2014), in particular in the high-tech sector (Zane,
2023). Research also shows that cognition is an intrinsic and important component of human
capital (Shela et al., 2023).
Journal of
Intellectual
Capital
109
© Gabi Kaffka and Norris Krueger. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published
under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute,
translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes),
subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be
seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
We would like to express our gratitude to Jeroen Kraaijenbrink, Aard Groen and Raja Singaram who
were invaluable in supporting previous versions of this manuscript. We also thank the staff and the
participants of Venture Lab Twente (VLT) for providing the opportunity for data collection. Last but not
least we would like to thank the Europees Fonds voor Regionale Ontwikkeling (EFRO) for co-financing
the VLT.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1469-1930.htm
Received 1 March 2024
Revised 19 May 2024
Accepted 2 July 2024
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 25 No. 7, 2024
pp. 109-128
Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-02-2024-0056
Focused feedback, such as mentoring and coaching, is a critical ingredient in evolving the
entrepreneur’s cognition towards a more expert entrepreneurial mind, while correspondingly
evolving the entrepreneur’s venture (Krueger, 2007;Gr
egoire et al., 2011).
Scholars recognize that there is a significant relationship between focused feedback and
entrepreneurial cognitive development. For example, studies have looked at the role of
feedback in such development, for example the process (Van Werven et al., 2023) as well as
satisfaction with focused feedback by entrepreneurs (Van Werven et al., 2023). St-Jean and
Audet (2012) showed that focused feedback contributes to the development of
entrepreneurial cognition, by facilitating the process of “re-organization”of knowledge.
Meanwhile, we know little about how differing roles of entrepreneurs affect their feedback
engagement as well as associated knowledge development. Grimes (2018) mentions various
passion- or identity-related typologies of entrepreneurs which prior studies have shown are
enacted by entrepreneurs during business opportunity development, however urged scholars
to “move beyond creating typologies that define the range and parameters of possible roles
and social categories”but instead to examine “how these roles and categories are in flux”.
Moreover, one critical component of new strategic tools for entrepreneurs such as lean startup
and design thinking is focused learning from focused feedback (Camuffo et al., 2020;Ghezzi, 2020).
It is thus important to understand at a deeper level what entrepreneurs need to learn and how they
learn it. In fact, how we make sense of the world –and how this changes –is central.
Intellectual capital is a growing topic in entrepreneurship research, for example, seminal work
by Pena (2002) and the recent work by Crupi et al. (2021) that supports and details the importance
of intellectual capital for startups. In this study, we center our attention on the role(s) of focused
feedback. In this study, we aim to identify factors that enable a taxonomy that accounts for the
dynamic nature of entrepreneurs’feedback engagement and associated cognitive development.
We pose the following research question: How does focused feedback engagement impact
the entrepreneur’s cognitive development? Our study makes the following contributions to the
literature. One, scholars have called for a better integration of insights and suggestions from
entrepreneurship theory with studying IC as such studies help understand the IC
entrepreneurship relationship and in particular, how IC can be practically managed “in
order to let its potential to be fully exploited”(Crupi et al., 2021, p. 552). We answer this call by
synthesizing insights from entrepreneurship, social cognitive and human capital theory to
contribute to a better scholarly understanding of factors that help explain knowledge transfer
processes during novel value creation. For example, one reason for the power of newer tools
like customer discovery is that when executed skillfully, they engage in what has been
described as sense breaking (Giuliani, 2016), crucial in IC (development).
Second, knowledge acquired by founders is a crucial component of a venture’s ability to
gain a competitive advantage (Crupi et al., 2021) however we lack nuanced understanding of
how entrepreneurs access and obtain advice, according to Gately and Cunningham (2014).
Similarly, Maaravi et al. (2020) urged scholars to study different entrepreneurship pedagogies
and associated impact on knowledge development. Our study contributes to this literature by
comparing the role of different feedback sources on entrepreneur’s cognitive development.
Theoretical development
Focused feedback
Prior research has found that different feedback sources influence how individuals are
affected by feedback. This has critical implications for skillful mentoring which is even
more important for entrepreneurs from underrepresented populations (Assenova, 2020).
For example, individuals are affected differently by feedback depending on the credibility
of the feedback source (Kim et al.,2014). And Bisk (2002) found that entrepreneurs’ageand
education impact on whether entrepreneurs benefited from the mentoring engagement.
JIC
25,7
110
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
