Adaptation and survival in new businesses: Understanding the moderating effects of (in)dependence and industry.

New ventures as well as new business units experience significant difficulties in finding a viable market application or business model. They often need to adapt their initial business model and this need for adaptation is mainly due to high degrees of uncertainty and ambiguity they are confronted with. This paper hypothesizes that adaptation is crucial for new ventures' and new business units' survival, but that differences exist between the need for adaptation in business units of established companies versus in independent start-ups. According to insights obtained from institutional isomorphism as well as from the resource-based theory of the firm, the effects of adaptation on survival are complex and multifaceted. We test the adaptation-survival hypothesis through a survival analysis of a sample of 117 new ventures and new business units. We find that the main effect of adaptation on survival is negative, but that this effect is moderated and even reversed by the (in) dependence of the new business and by the industry in which it is active.Innovation; Research; Model; Companies; Performance; Startups; Processes; Factors; Effects; Industry; Market; Uncertainty; Theory; Dependence;

Entrepreneurial adaptation: Insights from existing literature and possibilities for new research.

Recent research shows that new ventures have great difficulties in defining a viable business model from the outset and that minor or major adaptations to this initial business model are needed as the venture evolves. Entrepreneurial adaptation or the entrepreneur's willingness and ability to make appropriate adjustments to the business concept become critical. If adaptation is so important for entrepreneurial companies, we need to ask ourselves a number of questions. (1) What causes this need for adaptation? (2a) What is the precise effect of adaptation on a start-up's performance or survival and (2b) is this effect similar for all start-ups? Also, (3) what do we know about the process of adaptation? And (4) what are factors enabling this adaptation process? Finally, we also need to determine (5) how the concept of adaptation in entrepreneurial companies is related to existing concepts of change and adaptation. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of different literature streams that are specifically relevant to entrepreneurial adaptation and the questions listed above, and to point out gaps in the existing literature requiring further investigation. We look at whether and how the existing literature can provide insight into each of those five questions. In a final section, we point out directions for further research.Innovation; Research; Model; Companies; Performance; Startups; Processes; Factors;

New ventures on the search for viable business models: Taking into account levels of uncertainty / ambiguity.

There exists evidence that most initial selections of business models by new ventures have to be adapted later on and that minor this need for adaptation stems from the high degrees of uncertainty and ambiguity new ventures are confronted with, both on the technology and the market level. The main research question of this paper is whether different levels of uncertainty and ambiguity have an effect on the appropriateness of different search strategies new ventures can use to adapt their business model; and if yes, what this effect is. We first present the relevant literature. We then put forward a simulation model - based on the model developed by Kauffman (1989, 1993) - as a formal basis for addressing our research question and analyze the simulation results. To conclude, these results are discussed in the light of existing research on entrepreneurship and innovation and some limitations of our research methodology are presented.Innovation; Market; Model; Models; Research; Selection; Simulation; Strategy; Technology; Uncertainty;

Single exciton spectroscopy of single-Mn doped InAs quantum dots

The optical spectroscopy of a single InAs quantum dot doped with a single Mn atom is studied using a model Hamiltonian that includes the exchange interactions between the spins of the quantum dot electron-hole pair, the Mn atom and the acceptor hole. Our model permits to link the photoluminescence spectra to the Mn spin states after photon emission. We focus on the relation between the charge state of the Mn, $A^0$ or $A^-$, and the different spectra which result through either band-to-band or band-to-acceptor transitions. We consider both neutral and negatively charged dots. Our model is able to account for recent experimental results on single Mn doped InAs PL spectra and can be used to account for future experiments in GaAs quantum dots. Similarities and differences with the case of single Mn doped CdTe quantum dots are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Understanding new venture market application search processes: A propositional model.

Technology-based ventures are confronted with complex decisions on how to apply their technology platform in highly uncertain and ambiguous market environments. Based on four case studies, a dynamic decision model is developed in which we highlight the similarities between the search and learning processes in venture development contexts and in new product development contexts. This entrepreneurial search and learning process is understood as consisting of sequences of episodes – characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity - and scripts – i.e. approaches to market application search. The model implies that a venture's adaptability - i.e. its ability to move efficiently and effectively between these episodes and their related scripts - influences its survival.Case studies; Decision; Decisions; Learning; Market; Model; Processes; Product; Product development; Research; Sequences; Similarity; Studies; Technology; Uncertainty;

Spin-orbit-induced circulating currents in a semiconductor nanostructure

Circulating orbital currents produced by the spin-orbit interaction for a single electron spin in a quantum dot are explicitly evaluated at zero magnetic field, along with their effect on the total magnetic moment (spin and orbital) of the electron spin. The currents are dominated by coherent superpositions of the conduction and valence envelope functions of the electronic state, are smoothly varying within the quantum dot, and are peaked roughly halfway between the dot center and edge. Thus the spatial structure of the spin contribution to the magnetic moment (which is peaked at the dot center) differs greatly from the spatial structure of the orbital contribution. Even when the spin and orbital magnetic moments cancel (for $g=0$) the spin can interact strongly with local magnetic fields, e.g. from other spins, which has implications for spin lifetimes and spin manipulation.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Geometric and compositional influences on spin-orbit induced circulating currents in nanostructures

Circulating orbital currents, originating from the spin-orbit interaction, are calculated for semiconductor nanostructures in the shape of spheres, disks, spherical shells and rings for the electron ground state with spin oriented along a symmetry axis. The currents and resulting orbital and spin magnetic moments, which combine to yield the effective electron g factor, are calculated using a recently introduced formalism that allows the relative contributions of different regions of the nanostructure to be identified. For all these spherically or cylindrically symmetric hollow or solid nanostructures, independent of material composition and whether the boundary conditions are hard or soft, the dominant orbital current originates from intermixing of valence band states in the electron ground state, circulates within the nanostructure, and peaks approximately halfway between the center and edge of the nanostructure in the plane perpendicular to the spin orientation. For a specific material composition and confinement character, the confinement energy and orbital moment are determined by a single size-dependent parameter for spherically symmetrical nanostructures, whereas they can be independently tuned for cylindrically symmetric nanostructures.Comment: 22 pages, 20 figure

g-Factors and diamagnetic coefficients of electrons, holes and excitons in InAs/InP quantum dots

The electron, hole, and exciton g-factors and diamagnetic coefficients have been calculated using envelope-function theory for cylindrical InAs/InP quantum dots in the presence of a magnetic field parallel to the dot symmetry axis. A clear connection is established between the electron g-factor and the amplitude of the those valence-state envelope functions which possess non-zero orbital momentum associated with the envelope function. The dependence of the exciton diamagnetic coefficients on the quantum dot height is found to correlate with the energy dependence of the effective mass. Calculated exciton g-factor and diamagnetic coefficients, constructed from the values associated with the electron and hole constituents of the exciton, match experimental data well, however including the Coulomb interaction between the electron and hole states improves the agreement. Remote-band contributions to the valence-band electronic structure, included perturbatively, reduce the agreement between theory and experiment.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure