Founders in the Living-Dead Trap: A Theoretical Exploration at Entrepreneurship’s Dark Core

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of the living-dead trap (LDT), a pervasive state of entrepreneurship resulting from the decision to persevere in the operation of a venture in the face of sustained financial underperformance and personal psychological disutility. Financially underperforming firms can survive for long periods, usually with injections of sweat equity and debt, often decimating in the process the capital of their founders and investors as well as the obligations incurred to employees and other creditors. More specifically, this paper suggests a personal composite of specific cognitive and affective processes that leads entrepreneurs to commit to “failing but not failed” projects. That is, to fall into a trap known as the living-dead trap. We posit the living-dead phenomenon as a most pervasive state in firm founding drawing on cognitive and affective perspectives to model the attendant decision-making processes.

Green supply chain management and innovation persistence–Based on environmental turbulence perspective

“…For firms, on the one hand, management should develop a suitable GSCM strategy according to their situation and adjust it dynamically at the right time. As far as private firms and heavily polluting firms are concerned, GSCM should be carried out gradually considering the existing resources and implementation costs of firms to prevent them from falling into the "exploration trap" in the short term due to high investment costs (Casas and Hilb, 2016). For SOEs and non-polluting firms, it is worth exploring how to fully use GSCM to improve their development persistence.…”