Essays on entrepreneurial support organizations, capabilities, and digital sustainability

Thesis Advisory Committee

Prof. Amit Karna
Prof. K V Gopakumar
Prof. Mukesh Sud
Prof. Shameen Prashantham

Abstract

The concept of digital sustainability has been defined “as the organizational activities that seek to advance the sustainable development goals through creative deployment of technologies that create, use, transmit, or source electronic data (George et al., 2020, p. 1000).” In this thesis, I study how organizations develop capabilities for digital sustainability.
In the first essay, I review the literature on capability development in entrepreneurship. In summary, entrepreneurship research on capability development needs a better understanding of (a) how new ventures build capabilities for digital sustainability, (b) the role of entrepreneurial support organizations (ESO) such as accelerators in the capability development of new ventures, and (c) the capability development at the ESO or accelerator level. The second and third essays attempt to understand these questions.
I study the role of accelerators in the capability development of new ventures in the second essay. Accelerators are cohort-based programs designed to support new ventures by providing resources such as mentoring, capital, and industry connections. Using eight cases of new ventures in an accelerator, I study how they develop capability for digital sustainability during the program. I find four stages of capability development: co-identification of needs, availing resources, learning, and origin of capability. Further, these capability outcomes depend on the venture stage, founder’s expectations and perceptions, team, priorities, external dependencies, and engagement with the program.

In the third essay, I explore the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities of an accelerator. While accelerators have proliferated in the last decade, they represent a relatively new form of organization operating in dynamic environments. These accelerators need sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities to support new ventures. Using a single case of accelerator focusing on digital sustainability ventures, I study its sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities. I find that it sensed the opportunities to support ventures by understanding the segment, selecting relevant ventures, and identifying their support areas. It seized those opportunities by engaging, providing support, mentorship, and advice, working with partners, and connecting ventures. Further, due to its learning across cohorts, it realigned activities related to focus and selection, bootcamp and training, portfolio support, and program.