Vangelis Souitaris is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Cass Business School in London. He joined in 2004 and became Cass’s youngest full professor in 2006 (age 34). Before Cass, Vangelis spent 6 years at Imperial College London. Vangelis also held visiting appointments at Wharton (2008-09), Bologna (2007-08), and Vlerick (2005). In 2011, he was recognized as one of the top 40 business school professors under 40 years old, by the online business education magazine “Poets and Quants”. He is the subject leader for Entrepreneurship at Cass and the PhD director for the Management pathway. Vangelis specialises in technology entrepreneurship. He has studied multiple aspects of the phenomenon, namely the creation, financing, innovation, and strategy of new technology ventures. Currently he focuses on 3 specific areas: 1) Temporal aspects of strategic decision making in new ventures, 2) Corporate Venture Capital and 3) Academic entrepreneurship.
Creating new ventures is one of the most central topics to entrepreneurship and is a critical ste... more Creating new ventures is one of the most central topics to entrepreneurship and is a critical step from which many theories of management, organizational behavior, and strategic management build. Therefore, this review and proposed research agenda are relevant to not only entrepre-neurship scholars but also other management scholars who wish to challenge some of the implicit assumptions of their current streams of research and extend the boundaries of their current theories to earlier in the organization's life. Given that the last systematic review of the topic was published 16 years ago, and that the topic has evolved rapidly over this time, an overview and research outlook are long overdue. From our review, we inductively generated 10 subtopics: (a) lead founder, (b) founding team, (c) social relationships, (d) cognitions, (e) emergent organizing, (f) new-venture strategy, (g) organizational emergence, (h) new-venture legitimacy , (i) founder exit, and (j) entrepreneurial environment. These subtopics are then organized into three major stages of the entrepreneurial process: co-creating, organizing, and performing. Together, the framework provides a cohesive story of the past and a road map for future research on creating new ventures, focusing on the links connecting these subtopics.
Research Summary: We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions-group fear and group hope-... more Research Summary: We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions-group fear and group hope-in entrepreneurial team decision-making. We are interested in which emotion will be more strongly related to whether entrepreneurial teams escalate their commitment to a currently failing venture versus terminating that venture. Using a longitudinal start-up simulation and based on data from 66 teams across 569 decision-making rounds, we find that group "hope trumps fear." That is, the relationship between group hope and escalating commitment to a failing venture is stronger than the relationship between group fear and terminating that venture. We predict and find that team engagement mediates these relationships. We find partial support for a predicted moderation effect of group friendship strength. Theoretical implications are discussed. Managerial Summary: Emotions are a critical but often unacknowledged part of entrepreneurial decision-making. We tested whether group fear or group hope will most strongly influence teams' decisions to escalate their commitment , versus terminating a currently failing venture. Using a longitudinal entrepreneurial simulation, based on data from 66 teams across 569 decision-making rounds, we find that "hope trumps fear." That is, the relationship between group hope and escalating commitment to a failing venture is stronger than the relationship between group fear and terminating
Venture capital (VC) syndicates involve repeated transactions among partners and therefore posses... more Venture capital (VC) syndicates involve repeated transactions among partners and therefore possess network-like characteristics. Although networks provide access to important externalities, extant literature has not studied the effects of the focal firm's resource needs on performance benefits arising from different network structures. We investigate the impact of two proxies for firm-level resources, namely maturity and status, on the relationship between network cohesion and VC performance. We find that mature and high status VCs benefit less from network cohesion. We also show that maturity and status simultaneously determine the performance effects of network cohesion.
Despite the recent increase in academic entrepreneurship research, we still know relatively littl... more Despite the recent increase in academic entrepreneurship research, we still know relatively little about the degree of involvement of academic inventors in university spinouts. In this study, we distinguish between academic inventors who leave the university after the creation of a spinout (academic exodus) and those who maintain their university affiliation (academic stasis). Drawing from the literature on innovation-supportive climates and from organizational support theory, we argue that perceptions of institutional support and departmental norms regarding entrepreneurship are associated with the exodus versus stasis decision. We find that inventors who have higher perceptions of institutional support for entrepreneurship are less likely to leave. This relationship is enhanced by perceptions of favorable departmental norms toward entrepreneurship. We discuss the implications of our work for the literature on academic entrepreneurship, innovation-supportive climates, and perceived organizational support. Our study has clear policy implications for universities, policymakers, and funders who aim to stimulate academic entrepreneurship, but are concerned about losing entrepreneurial faculty. Specifically, we advise universities and policymakers to actively support academic inventors wishing to spin out and to monitor this support in a customer-friendly manner, in order to ensure that the inventors’ perceptions of support are favorable. It is also important for universities to look out for inconsistencies between a supportive environment for entrepreneurship at the institutional level and unfavorable norms toward entrepreneurship at the departmental level; such inconsistencies can lead good faculty members out of academia. More broadly, universities can pursue an aggregation strategy that aims to retain both a research and commercialization identity while building strong links between them.
Extant literature has drawn attention to the ‘halo effect’ of the good reputation of a core organ... more Extant literature has drawn attention to the ‘halo effect’ of the good reputation of a core organizational activity on the outcome of a peripheral activity. We contribute to the literature on organizational reputation by illustrating a halo effect in the opposite direction – from the periphery to the core. We show that developing a reputation for a peripheral activity (in our context, universities’ social impact via spinoffs) may have positive spillovers for core organizational activities (in our context, university research), a phenomenon we term the ‘peripheral halo effect’. We also show that this effect is more prominent for high-status than for low-status organizations. Our research also contributes to the academic-entrepreneurship literature by revealing that spinoff portfolios can generate income for universities not only directly via equity positions but also indirectly via reputational benefits.
Creating new ventures is one of the most central topics to entrepreneurship and is a critical ste... more Creating new ventures is one of the most central topics to entrepreneurship and is a critical step from which many theories of management, organizational behavior, and strategic management build. Therefore, this review and proposed research agenda are relevant to not only entrepre-neurship scholars but also other management scholars who wish to challenge some of the implicit assumptions of their current streams of research and extend the boundaries of their current theories to earlier in the organization's life. Given that the last systematic review of the topic was published 16 years ago, and that the topic has evolved rapidly over this time, an overview and research outlook are long overdue. From our review, we inductively generated 10 subtopics: (a) lead founder, (b) founding team, (c) social relationships, (d) cognitions, (e) emergent organizing, (f) new-venture strategy, (g) organizational emergence, (h) new-venture legitimacy , (i) founder exit, and (j) entrepreneurial environment. These subtopics are then organized into three major stages of the entrepreneurial process: co-creating, organizing, and performing. Together, the framework provides a cohesive story of the past and a road map for future research on creating new ventures, focusing on the links connecting these subtopics.
Research Summary: We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions-group fear and group hope-... more Research Summary: We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions-group fear and group hope-in entrepreneurial team decision-making. We are interested in which emotion will be more strongly related to whether entrepreneurial teams escalate their commitment to a currently failing venture versus terminating that venture. Using a longitudinal start-up simulation and based on data from 66 teams across 569 decision-making rounds, we find that group "hope trumps fear." That is, the relationship between group hope and escalating commitment to a failing venture is stronger than the relationship between group fear and terminating that venture. We predict and find that team engagement mediates these relationships. We find partial support for a predicted moderation effect of group friendship strength. Theoretical implications are discussed. Managerial Summary: Emotions are a critical but often unacknowledged part of entrepreneurial decision-making. We tested whether group fear or group hope will most strongly influence teams' decisions to escalate their commitment , versus terminating a currently failing venture. Using a longitudinal entrepreneurial simulation, based on data from 66 teams across 569 decision-making rounds, we find that "hope trumps fear." That is, the relationship between group hope and escalating commitment to a failing venture is stronger than the relationship between group fear and terminating
Venture capital (VC) syndicates involve repeated transactions among partners and therefore posses... more Venture capital (VC) syndicates involve repeated transactions among partners and therefore possess network-like characteristics. Although networks provide access to important externalities, extant literature has not studied the effects of the focal firm's resource needs on performance benefits arising from different network structures. We investigate the impact of two proxies for firm-level resources, namely maturity and status, on the relationship between network cohesion and VC performance. We find that mature and high status VCs benefit less from network cohesion. We also show that maturity and status simultaneously determine the performance effects of network cohesion.
Despite the recent increase in academic entrepreneurship research, we still know relatively littl... more Despite the recent increase in academic entrepreneurship research, we still know relatively little about the degree of involvement of academic inventors in university spinouts. In this study, we distinguish between academic inventors who leave the university after the creation of a spinout (academic exodus) and those who maintain their university affiliation (academic stasis). Drawing from the literature on innovation-supportive climates and from organizational support theory, we argue that perceptions of institutional support and departmental norms regarding entrepreneurship are associated with the exodus versus stasis decision. We find that inventors who have higher perceptions of institutional support for entrepreneurship are less likely to leave. This relationship is enhanced by perceptions of favorable departmental norms toward entrepreneurship. We discuss the implications of our work for the literature on academic entrepreneurship, innovation-supportive climates, and perceived organizational support. Our study has clear policy implications for universities, policymakers, and funders who aim to stimulate academic entrepreneurship, but are concerned about losing entrepreneurial faculty. Specifically, we advise universities and policymakers to actively support academic inventors wishing to spin out and to monitor this support in a customer-friendly manner, in order to ensure that the inventors’ perceptions of support are favorable. It is also important for universities to look out for inconsistencies between a supportive environment for entrepreneurship at the institutional level and unfavorable norms toward entrepreneurship at the departmental level; such inconsistencies can lead good faculty members out of academia. More broadly, universities can pursue an aggregation strategy that aims to retain both a research and commercialization identity while building strong links between them.
Extant literature has drawn attention to the ‘halo effect’ of the good reputation of a core organ... more Extant literature has drawn attention to the ‘halo effect’ of the good reputation of a core organizational activity on the outcome of a peripheral activity. We contribute to the literature on organizational reputation by illustrating a halo effect in the opposite direction – from the periphery to the core. We show that developing a reputation for a peripheral activity (in our context, universities’ social impact via spinoffs) may have positive spillovers for core organizational activities (in our context, university research), a phenomenon we term the ‘peripheral halo effect’. We also show that this effect is more prominent for high-status than for low-status organizations. Our research also contributes to the academic-entrepreneurship literature by revealing that spinoff portfolios can generate income for universities not only directly via equity positions but also indirectly via reputational benefits.
"Most of the entrepreneurship literature has addressed the benefits and necessity of using social... more "Most of the entrepreneurship literature has addressed the benefits and necessity of using social network ties as opposed to market methods in early venture finance, but it has largely understated the potential limitations and costs of doing so. Specifically, very sparse research has examined the factors that influence entrepreneurs’ choice between using networks versus market methods. In this study, we propose a contingent model of network utilization when approaching initial investors, based on the dimensions of human capital of the entrepreneurs. We test this model with primary field survey data from 226 new high-tech ventures in Singapore and Beijing. The results show that high occupational status and relevant industrial work experience are positively associated with the entrepreneurs’ propensity to utilize existing networks by enhancing the resourcefulness of their network ties (social capital); however, such influences are alleviated by entrepreneurs’ marketing or
managerial experience, which increases the entrepreneurs’ ability to interact with strangers (an aspect of social competence)."
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involvement of academic inventors in university spinouts. In this study, we distinguish between academic inventors who
leave the university after the creation of a spinout (academic exodus) and those who maintain their university affiliation
(academic stasis). Drawing from the literature on innovation-supportive climates and from organizational support
theory, we argue that perceptions of institutional support and departmental norms regarding entrepreneurship are
associated with the exodus versus stasis decision. We find that inventors who have higher perceptions of institutional
support for entrepreneurship are less likely to leave. This relationship is enhanced by perceptions of favorable
departmental norms toward entrepreneurship. We discuss the implications of our work for the literature on academic
entrepreneurship, innovation-supportive climates, and perceived organizational support. Our study has clear policy
implications for universities, policymakers, and funders who aim to stimulate academic entrepreneurship, but are
concerned about losing entrepreneurial faculty. Specifically, we advise universities and policymakers to actively
support academic inventors wishing to spin out and to monitor this support in a customer-friendly manner, in order to
ensure that the inventors’ perceptions of support are favorable. It is also important for universities to look out for
inconsistencies between a supportive environment for entrepreneurship at the institutional level and unfavorable norms
toward entrepreneurship at the departmental level; such inconsistencies can lead good faculty members out of
academia. More broadly, universities can pursue an aggregation strategy that aims to retain both a research and
commercialization identity while building strong links between them.
involvement of academic inventors in university spinouts. In this study, we distinguish between academic inventors who
leave the university after the creation of a spinout (academic exodus) and those who maintain their university affiliation
(academic stasis). Drawing from the literature on innovation-supportive climates and from organizational support
theory, we argue that perceptions of institutional support and departmental norms regarding entrepreneurship are
associated with the exodus versus stasis decision. We find that inventors who have higher perceptions of institutional
support for entrepreneurship are less likely to leave. This relationship is enhanced by perceptions of favorable
departmental norms toward entrepreneurship. We discuss the implications of our work for the literature on academic
entrepreneurship, innovation-supportive climates, and perceived organizational support. Our study has clear policy
implications for universities, policymakers, and funders who aim to stimulate academic entrepreneurship, but are
concerned about losing entrepreneurial faculty. Specifically, we advise universities and policymakers to actively
support academic inventors wishing to spin out and to monitor this support in a customer-friendly manner, in order to
ensure that the inventors’ perceptions of support are favorable. It is also important for universities to look out for
inconsistencies between a supportive environment for entrepreneurship at the institutional level and unfavorable norms
toward entrepreneurship at the departmental level; such inconsistencies can lead good faculty members out of
academia. More broadly, universities can pursue an aggregation strategy that aims to retain both a research and
commercialization identity while building strong links between them.
managerial experience, which increases the entrepreneurs’ ability to interact with strangers (an aspect of social competence)."