Toward the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunities: Organizing early-phase new-venture creation support systems

Support systems for early venturing efforts need to be harmonious with the emergent nature of those efforts. With the current literature treating the conceptions of new ventures as exogenous, there has been a limited focus on the transition of venturing efforts from nebulous, open-ended, and accidental toward becoming scalable, focused, and deliberate. We develop a dynamic model for organizing support systems for the early phases of new venture creation, where scattered ideas evolve into venture concepts as tokens, frames, and premises for further action. By viewing venturing efforts and opportunities as emergent and drawing on the literature on complexity and organizational space, we propose openness, self-selection, visibility, and connectivity as the defining characteristics for organizing support systems. In contrast to the literature’s predominant focus on a predictive, linear approach, we expand the theoretical scope of support systems to include organizing that is more attuned to the uncertain and nonlinear nature of new venture creation that they support. Our work has broader implications for organizing uncertain early-phase development processes. A video abstract of this paper can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDUZgGapMnM.