Exploring Entrepreneurial Learning: A Comparative Study of Technology Development Projects

Abstract

The conditions that influence successful learning inentrepreneurial innovation are explored.First, the learning context inentrepreneurial ventures, which is marked by ambiguity and a paucity ofresources, is described.Next, data from interviews with the foundingpartners and employees of a Milanese company engaged in two separate technologydevelopment projects are offered.A longitudinal analysis is performed onthe projects, one of which was considerably more successful than theother. The firm's different stories of success and failure in technologydevelopment suggest the existence of a self-reinforcing cycle that drivesentrepreneurial learning.An interpretive model of this learning processis presented.This cycle is sustained by the entrepreneur's decision todevote more resources, time, and attention to projects perceived as morepromising. The entrepreneur's increasing control over the process andincreasing capacity to estimate the extent and the likelihood of commercialreturns are the cornerstones on which the cycle is based.In addition tohighlighting the role of resource scarcity, the interpretive model alsoaccounts for the ways in which ambiguity affects entrepreneurial learning andfor the potential loss of control implied by the need to rely on outsideassistance for critical learning activities. (SAA)