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Cultural entrepreneurship: stories, legitimacy, and the acquisition of resources
Author(s) -
Lounsbury Michael,
Glynn Mary Ann
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
strategic management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 11.035
H-Index - 286
eISSN - 1097-0266
pISSN - 0143-2095
DOI - 10.1002/smj.188
Subject(s) - legitimacy , competitor analysis , entrepreneurship , resource acquisition is initialization , embeddedness , resource based view , resource (disambiguation) , complementary assets , identity (music) , capital (architecture) , marketing , venture capital , scope (computer science) , storytelling , competitive advantage , business , economics , sociology , market economy , narrative , political science , social science , philosophy , law , history , computer network , linguistics , archaeology , computer science , acoustics , resource allocation , programming language , physics , finance , politics
We define cultural entrepreneurship as the process of storytelling that mediates between extant stocks of entrepreneurial resources and subsequent capital acquisition and wealth creation. We propose a framework that focuses on how entrepreneurial stories facilitate the crafting of a new venture identity that serves as a touchstone upon which legitimacy may be conferred by investors, competitors, and consumers, opening up access to new capital and market opportunities. Stories help create competitive advantage for entrepreneurs through focal content shaped by two key forms of entrepreneurial capital: firm‐specific resource capital and industry‐level institutional capital. We illustrate our ideas with anecdotal entrepreneurial stories that range from contemporary high‐technology accounts to the evolution of the mutual fund industry. Propositions are offered to guide future empirical research based on our framework. Theoretically, we aim to extend recent efforts to synthesize strategic and institutional perspectives by incorporating insights from contemporary approaches to culture and organizational identity. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.