Networking and New Venture Resource Strategies: A Study of Information Technology Start-ups

Abstract

While the network theory and the resource-based view of the firm has emerged as a dominant paradigm of management research, entrepreneurship researchers continue to show limited interest in studying resource strategies and the role of network in building dynamic capabilities in entrepreneurial start-ups. Scant discussion is available in extant literature on the dynamics of new venture resource strategy to explain how entrepreneurs continuously augment, manage and develop resources to match the shifting product-market strategy and use networks in doing so on a sustainable basis. This article, based on an analysis of two Information Technology (IT) start-ups, explores the innovative and dynamic resource and networking strategies such firms follow. An attempt has been made to conceptualise and explain how these firms maintain flexibility in resources by using the network mode of organisation in order to avoid strategic rigidity and craft strategies that are suited to the high velocity environment. Several propositions have been developed and practical implications have been drawn in this regard.