Luca Grilli

Sharing economy platforms are external digital enablers of entrepreneurship, in the sense that they enable the entry of new entrepreneurs at negligible costs for very different levels of investment and engagement. However, we argue that their potential for entrepreneurial opportunities is not always the same in different “market contexts.” This study investigates how the characteristics of a local market influence entrepreneurship enacted by a platform in that specific geographic area. We study the hospitality industry and Airbnb where entrepreneurs can endogenously decide their “scale of operations.” We highlight how small- and large-scale entrepreneurs are equally driven by the perceived demand and labor market conditions; still, they respond differently to competition structure, demand quality, and opportunity costs. Interestingly, the decision to upscale from a small scale to a large scale is determined by the same economic reasoning driving entry with a large scale at first.

This study examines how venture capital (VC) firms have modified their short-term investment practices in response to the COVID-19 crisis. We categorise VCs’ investment practices according to their level of visibility to external parties and hypothesise that unobservable investment practices are more likely modified than observable ones, since VC firms must comply with the objectives stated in their contracts with limited partners (LPs), and deviations may be viewed negatively by investors. Changing investment practices may have a negative impact on a VC firm’s reputation, but this potential reputational damage could vary along with the reputational capital already possessed by the VC firm and its degree of exposure in a VCs’ network. An empirical analysis based on a global survey of VC firms confirms these theoretical presumptions, shedding light on how the industry operates and responds to unique crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, younger and smaller VC firms are found to be more reluctant than larger and older ones to modify observable investment practices. Similarly, VC firms that are more central in a network of investors are also found to be more hesitant to modify observable investment practices.

Artificial intelligence is likely to revolutionize multiple aspects of organizational creativity. Through a multilevel theoretical lens, the present paper reviews the extant body of knowledge on creativity at individual, team and organizational levels, and draws a series of propositions on how the implementation of artificial intelligence may affect each level. Spanning cognitive, behavioural and psychological domains, our propositions aim at directing future research efforts on important creativity‐related areas likely to be affected by artificial intelligence, including the trade‐off between convergent and divergent thinking, the distribution of skills within groups, and the absorptive capacity of organizations.

Start-up firms often operate under high levels of uncertainty and resource constraints, which makes hiring a particularly challenging process. Integrating perspectives from the resource- and competence-based views of the firm and signaling theory, we posit that founders’ start-up experience and the initial presence of corporate or university shareholders can mitigate challenges associated with hiring and facilitate the recruitment of employees in the nascent stages of a firm. Moreover, we propose that early-stage hiring will be more likely in start-ups that combine such a strong set of initial competences and resources with a strategic orientation towards innovation. We find support for our hypotheses with a rich dataset of Italian innovative start-ups.