Understanding the antecedents of social entrepreneurship is critical for unleashing the potential of social entrepreneurship and thus for tackling social problems. While research has provided valuable insights into imprinting of the conventional entrepreneur, research on differences between social and conventional entrepreneurship suggests that social entrepreneurs evolve differently. Using survey data of 148 social entrepreneurs, we draw on the concepts of imprinting and critical incident recognition as a framework for understanding how social entrepreneur's childhood experiences and parental exposure to social entrepreneurship affect social entrepreneurial activity in adulthood. First, our results suggest that social entrepreneurs are imprinted by their childhood experiences but not by parental exposure to social entrepreneurship. Second, imprints tend to persist over time when they are linked to critical incidents regarding social entrepreneurship. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of imprinting mechanisms in social entrepreneurship contexts and highlight the importance of making examples of social entrepreneurship tangible to children.

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Research shows that early internationalization is more likely when founders have international and business-related experience. But what if experience was obtained in other ways? We study the scientist-founders of 149 academic spin-offs (ASOs), using cognition theory to argue for a curvilinear relationship between breadth of pre-founding R&D collaboration and internationalization timing. Our longitudinal study combines survey and patent data to show that increased breadth of collaboration with international scientists increases and then decreases the likelihood of early internationalization. The results are similar but less robust for collaboration with industry partners. Our findings suggest that studies on experience in new venture internationalization underestimate the role of R&D collaboration and the research-based heritage of many new firms.

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