This paper extends entrepreneurship into the domain of alliances, and investigates the effect of alliance proactiveness on market‐based firm performance (defined in terms of sales growth, market share, market development and product development). Alliance proactiveness is defined as the extent to which an organization engages in identifying and responding to partnering opportunities. The effect of alliance proactiveness on performance is tested within a contingency framework, with size and perceived environmental uncertainty as moderators, and using data from 182 firms. We estimated the model using partial least squares. Results indicate that alliance proactiveness leads to superior market‐based performance, and that this effect is stronger for small firms and in unstable market environments. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We study subsistence entrepreneurship, defined as entrepreneurial actions undertaken by individuals living in poverty. Subsistence entrepreneurs are important elements of the global economy. By virtue of being poor themselves and co-locating in the same community as their customers living in poverty, subsistence entrepreneurs create value for their customers more effectively than outside entities. We suggest that this marketing exchange (micro-level phenomenon) leads to the building of a communitylevel exchange system that is unique and inimitable (meso-level phenomenon). Viewing through the theoretical lens of social capital, we develop insights gleaned from qualitative interviews with subsistence entrepreneurs. Community marketing systems that arise out of micro-level interactions between subsistence entrepreneurs and their customers form the glue holding the so-called ''informal economy'' together in subsistence economies.

Research Summary This study examines motivations and team building processes of employee entrepreneurs in the disk‐drive industry. Our inductive, grounded theory building approach uncovers that ringleaders—founders who spearhead spinout creation—are driven by a nonpecuniary desire to create in a fertile environment, when they encounter frictions within the parent firm. Cofounders share the desire to create, but ensure departure on good terms to retain the option of returning to paid employment as a safeguard against entrepreneurial risk. We uncover an endogenous team building process in which more successful founding teams engage in “workplace instrumentality”—creating workplaces through deliberate selection of cofounders who have complementary functional knowledge, but are similar in that they possess superior problem‐solving abilities, best‐in‐class talent, and common workplace values. Managerial Summary The paper examines the motivations and founding team building processes of individuals who leave existing firms to create new ventures. In contrast to conventional wisdom that suggests preformed teams working on innovation projects leave together, we find founding teams are created when a “ringleader” chooses to venture out and subsequently seeks out cofounders. Ringleaders and cofounders alike are motivated by a desire to create given fertile opportunities and care deeply about equity, but ringleaders additionally experience at least one organizational push factor. Almost all founding teams are created to ensure the presence of complementary, functional knowledge. However, more successful spinouts also select cofounders who are hands on problem‐solvers, best‐in‐class talent, and who share common workplace values.

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