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How effectuation and bricolage can

resolve barriers to innovation

Master Thesis, MScBA, specialization Small

Business and Entrepreneurship

University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics

and Business"

July 2015

Kevin Sailer

Blekerslaan 4

9724 EJ Groningen

K.sailer@student.rug.nl

Student number 2723395

Supervisor / University:

dr. J. Kraaijenbrink / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Co-Assessor / University:

dr. ir. H. Zhou / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

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Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION ... 3" 1.1. Research question ... 5" 1.2. Methodology ... 6" 1.3. Chapter breakdown ... 6" 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ... 7" 2.1. INNOVATION ... 7" 2.1.1 Determinants of innovation ... 8" 2.1.2. Barriers to innovation ... 9" 2.2. EFFECTUATION ... 12" 2.2.2. Effectual Logic ... 13" 2.2.3. Bricolage ... 16" 2.2.4. How effectuation and bricolage may resolve barriers to innovation ... 18" 3. METHODOLOGY ... 21" 3.1. Case Selection ... 21" 3.2. Case Description ... 22" 3.3. Measures ... 24" 3.4. Data Analysis ... 28" 4. RESULTS ... 30" 4.1. BARRIERS TO INNOVATION EXPERIENCED BY ENTREPRENEURS . 30" 4.1.1. Human resources related constraints ... 30" 4.1.2. Financial constraints ... 31" 4.1.3. Awareness ... 31" 4.1.4. Inability to grow ... 32" 4.2. IDENTIFIED ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOURS ... 33" 4.2.1. Effectuation ... 33" 4.2.2. Bricolage ... 36" 4.3. HOW THE ENTREPRENEURS OVERCAME BARRIERS TO

INNOVATION ... 39" 4.3.1. Networking and strategic alliances ... 39" 4.3.2. Creativity ... 40" 4.4. SUMMARY ... 43" 5. DISCUSSION ... 44" EFFECTUATION AND BRICOLAGE THROUGH TAKING ACTION ... 44" OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO INNOVATION THROUGH STRATEGIC ALLIANCES ... 45" OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO INNOVATION THROUGH CREATIVITY .... 46" 5.1. SCIENTIFIC IMPLICATIONS ... 49" 5.2. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS ... 50"

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1.INTRODUCTION

The importance of innovation for the survival and competitiveness of organisations is an indisputable fact. The explosion of shared information, the growth of a more globalized economy and the rising crisis has changed the rules. Companies must conduct innovation processes to ensure sustainability and encourage prominent positions in their markets.

New technologies, new products, new services and entire new industries have

emerged. Since the Industrial Revolution, businesses rely upon technology as a driver of their progress. According to Garcia and Calantone (2002), “Innovation is an

iterative process initiated by the perception of a new market and / or new service opportunity for a technology-based invention which leads to development, production, and marketing tasks, striving for the commercial success of the invention.”

The ways innovative activities take place in industries and technologies may be quite different. One may find that in certain technologies innovative activities are

concentrated among few major innovators while in others innovative activities are distributed among several firms. In certain technologies large firms do the bulk of innovative activities while in others small firms are quite active. Finally, in some technologies new innovators continuously appear while in others only established firms innovate; and so on.

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organisational skills, such as the lack of expertise in the technologies used in

manufacturing-intensive sectors for example (Gort and Klepper, 1982 and Katila and Shane, 2005), lack of finance (Schoonhoven et al., 1990 and Katila and Shane, 2005), while market structure, in the traditions of both Schumpeter (1942) and Arrow (1962), may impose severe constraints in the form of competition, firm size and

appropriability conditions. New firms are likely to face higher barriers to innovation in larger and less competitive markets where incumbents are better placed to

capitalize on the capabilities for coordinating complementary assets which new firms often do not possess, (Schoonhoven et al., 1990, Tripsas, 1997 and Dean et al., 1998).

In entrepreneurship literature there are approaches, which may help overcome barriers to innovation. Sarasvathy (2001) introduced an approach to new venture creation and entrepreneurship, which is called effectuation. Effectuation is a non-traditional approach to venture creation and subsequent management, which is based on using immediate resources at hand which may not be of much depth and breadth and may not have been backed up by large amounts of capital. As effectuation is an approach that does not begin with set goals and fewer resources are at hand, it may face barriers when attempting to create innovative products.

Effectuation is still a relatively young approach in the field of entrepreneurship with a lack of empirical research or variety of different models/theories that it can be related to conceptually. Effectuation suggests how individuals might act in situations in which the assumptions of causal strategy are not met (Perry, Chandler & Markova (2011). The fact that effectuation represents a challenge to conventional, entrenched entrepreneurial strategy wisdom; the complexity associated with developing

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difficulty related to developing and validating effectuation measures are reasons why the research field has not been developed further with models (Perry, Chandler & Markova, 2011). It has been suggested by researchers who conducted research in the field, that further research into specific conceptual relationships between the

effectuation theory and other entrepreneurship-related theories and topics need to be conducted (Perry, Chandler & Markova, 2011). Therefore I intend to carry out further research (based on suggestion of previous studies) in order to make solid

contributions to the field (Perry, Chandler & Markova, 2011).

A different non-traditional approach to entrepreneurship closely related to Effectuation is Bricolage, coined by Levi-Strauss in 1967, which also may help resolve barriers to innovation. Baker (2005) developed a definition of Bricolage as “making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities.” Making do implies a conscious decision to take action to solve problems rather than conceptualizing solutions and not take action at all. The second part of bricolage refers to the reuse and combination of resources for applications they were not initially intended for.

1.1. Research question

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approach in which they tackle and overcome these barriers to innovation, hence the research question of this paper is “How effectuation and bricolage can resolve

barriers to innovation”.

1.2. Methodology

This research employs a qualitative research method, which allows for a better understanding of occurrences in their natural context, potentially enabling the discovery of relationships between behaviours and concepts and thus refining or building theory (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The research utilizes a multiple case study research which is advantageous because it creates novel and testable theory, and is most applicable as it is best used in the early stages of research on a specific topic or to provide a fresh new perspective to already researched areas (Eisenhardt, 1989). This study collects data in form of semi-structured interviews with seven different entrepreneurs of innovative companies across various industries and home countries.

1.3. Chapter breakdown

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2.LITERATUREREVIEW

2.1. INNOVATION

Schumpeter (1939) portrays the importance of innovation for long‐term profitability, considering innovation as a process of "creative destruction." To the author

innovation creates competitive advantage by avoiding changes in the achievement of the balance, through the destruction of businesses and business models.

Technological innovation has been a powerful force for industrial development, productivity growth and our rising standard of living throughout history (Abernathy & Clark, 1984). Innovation is a key element in competitive differentiation. Product innovations are usually more appropriate for firms entering new markets because product innovations allow firms to respond quickly to customers' needs, increase product quality and variety, and gain market share (Fritsch & Meschede, 2001; Nieto & Santamaría, 2010; Vaona & Pianta, 2008). In addition, firms increase their profit margins because buyers are willing to pay more for new products and firms earn monopoly rents until competitors manage to imitate the new products (Cohen & Klepper, 1996; Fritsch & Meschede, 2001). Firms face increasing difficulties to gain competitive advantage through innovation using only their own resources. Thus, firms often collaborate to overcome these difficulties. Collaboration yields three major benefits for collaborating parties: (1) access to complementary resources, (2) better tacit and codified knowledge transfer, and (3) lower risk and greater sharing of R&D costs (Faems, Van Looy, & Debackere, 2005).

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2.1.1 Determinants of innovation

Aligned to neo-Schumpeterian literature and the resource-based view (RBV), one of the determinants of innovation propensity of firms is shown to be human capital (or skilled labor). Human capital is considered as reflecting a firm's capacity to absorb, assimilate and develop ‘new knowledge and technology’ (Bartel & Lichtenberg, 1987; Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). The more such new knowledge and technology, the more innovation propensity of the firms is expected (Crepon et al, 1998; Hall & Mairesse, 2006).

Innovation studies provide different evidences concerning the exact role of firm size and the innovation propensity. Some studies show that the likelihood of being innovative is positively related to the size of firms (Mohnen et al, 2006; Patel & Pavitt, 1995; Janz et al, 2004).

Other studies provide evidence in favor of the high propensity to innovate among the very small firms. There are indeed evidences showing that large firms probably have competitive advantages over small ones within ‘mature’ industries, whereas small firms have competitive advantages in growing industries (Acs & Audretsch, 1987). The reason can be stated based on modified Schumpeterian hypothesis concerning innovation patterns: mature industries are commonly characterized as capital-intensive industries and existence of such capital-intensity tends to provide a

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Engagement in international trade requires overcoming the fixed and sunk costs of such engagements, which in turn require considerable physical capital stock (Bernard & Wagner, 1997; Bernard & Jensen, 1999). The large firms are usually assumed as the ones who own such capital stock and can afford such costs. Furthermore, the large firms are visible more in later stages of ILC in contrast with an earlier stage, which is dominated by small firms.

The classical determinant (input) of innovation intensity has been recognized as R&D investment (Griliches, 1979). Oslo Manual (2005) elaborates this classical input to six investment categories (i.e. innovation inputs), such as investment in internal R&D, investment in external R&D, acquisition of machinery, and training of employees. The relevance of this literature is that entrepreneurs intending to enter a technology industry may not possess many of these resources. Therefore it will be interesting to see whether these determinants are actually present in their effectual approach to innovation.

To summarize, the two classical determinants of innovation according to the literature above are human capital (knowledge capabilities) and R&D investment (internal and external R&D, machinery acquisition, training of employees).

2.1.2. Barriers to innovation

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Environmental ones include various government regulations, antitrust measures, and policy actions.

Internal barriers can be further subdivided into resource related, e.g. lack of internal funds, technical expertise or management time, culture and systems related, e.g. out-of date accountancy systems (Rush and Bessant, 1992), and human nature related, e.g. attitude of top manager to risk or employee resistance to innovation.

Barriers may act on one or more points of the innovation process. If this process is visualized as a simplified linear sequence of stages from the adoption of innovation through implementation, the effect of a barrier is probably higher in one stage rather than another. For example lack of finance will probably have a greater effect on the implementation stage.

The assumption behind the barriers approach is that once inhibitors of innovation are identified, their effect is understood and action is taken to eliminate them, then the natural flow of innovation will be re-established. Innovation, however, demands motivation, extraordinary effort and risk acceptance to proceed (Tidd et al., 1997). It is not an automatic or spontaneous process. Barriers may even act as innovation stimulants in some cases rather than inhibitors.

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cases makes, however, the direction of association between barriers and performance inconclusive.

The barriers faced by new firms may be related to lack of resources and market structure. The former includes knowledge and organisational skills, such as the lack of expertise in the technologies used in manufacturing-intensive sectors (Gort and Klepper, 1982; Katila & Shane, 2005), and lack of finance (Schoonhoven et al., 1990; Katila & Shane, 2005), while market structure, in the traditions of both Schumpeter (1942) and Arrow (1962), may impose severe constraints in the form of competition, firm size and appropriability conditions. New firms face higher barriers to innovation in larger and less competitive markets where incumbents are better placed to capitalise on the capabilities for organising complementary assets, which new firms often do not own (Schoonhoven et al., 1990, Tripsas, 1997 and Dean et al., 1998).

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Table 1. Internal and external barriers (Piatier, 1984; Rush and Bessant, 1992)

Internal barriers External barriers

Resource related (lack of internal funds, technical expertise or management time)

Supply barriers (difficulties in obtaining technological information, raw materials and finance

Culture and systems related (out-of-date systems)

Demand barriers (customer needs, perception of innovation risks, domestic/foreign market limitations)

Human nature related (attitude of top manager to risk or employee resistance to innovation)

Environmental barriers (government regulations, antitrust measures, and policy actions)

In this study, the focus will be on resource related, supply and environmental barriers.

2.2. EFFECTUATION

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context of attempting to start new businesses, Sarasvathy argued that effectual logic is emphasized in the earlier stages of venture creation with a transition to more causal strategies as the new firm and market emerge out of uncertainty into a more

predictable situation. Below follows an explanation on the behavioural principles relating to effectuation that an individual uses to exhibit the effectuation approach. This collective of principles is called Effectual Logic.

2.2.2. Effectual Logic Table 2 (Sarasvathy, 2001).

Effectuation Causation

1) Beginning with a set of means 1) Beginning with a given goal

2) Focusing on affordable loss 2) Focusing on expected returns

3) Strategic Alliances and pre-commitments

3) Emphasizing competitive analysis

4) Leveraging environmental contingencies

4) Exploiting pre-existing knowledge

5) Control unpredictable future 5) Predict risky future

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and pre-commitments; (4) exploiting pre-existing knowledge or leveraging environmental contingencies; and (5) trying to predict a risky future or seeking to control an unpredictable future. When an individual uses effectual logic, he or she will begin with a given set of means, focus on affordable loss, emphasize strategic alliances, exploit contingencies, and seek to control an unpredictable future.

Starting with means describes how entrepreneurs make important decisions by

focusing on the resources under their control—asking “Who am I?”; “What do I know?”; and “Whom do I know to uncover opportunities?” rather than focusing on a predefined end goal.

Affordable loss entails making decisions based on what one is willing to lose, and

committing a specific amount of resources to an endeavor with the understanding and acceptance that such resources may be lost, so that one can leverage limited means in creative ways to generate new ends as well as new means (Sarasvathy, 2008),

therefore creativity also plays a vital part.

Leveraging strategic relationships is one of the most important aspects of effectual

logic, therefore it is explained in more detail. It suggests that entrepreneurs can focus their attention on building partnerships rather than doing systematic competitive analysis. Competitive analysis has traditionally been a key input into strategy

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"building blocks", of networks can be vertical (exchanges between firms at different stages of production), horizontal (between firms of the same sector producing similar products) or lateral (between production-wise unrelated firms). Vertical linkages, especially with foreign suppliers, are certainly very important for overcoming barriers to innovation for firms in a small less developed country. External networks provide firms with an ideal platform for learning, as network partners bring diverse

information and resources when they work together with a focal firm on specific projects (Doz, 1996; Hamel, 1991; Inkpen, 2002; Inkpen & Tsang, 2005; Lui, 2009). A learning process between a firm and its network partners involves a firm acquiring from its network partners new knowledge that it cannot create on its own, and then turning the acquired knowledge into useful applications (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Hamel, 1991; Inkpen, 2002; Lane & Lubatkin, 1998). As the learning process

continues, the innovation output of the firm is likely to increase. Social networks are a significant portion of an entrepreneur’s social capital and also serve to enhance the return on human capital such as intellect and education (Burt, 1997). The importance of these network ties is underscored by findings that in many countries including transitioning economies such as Bulgaria (Manev et al., 2005) as well as

industrialized ones such as Holland (Bosma et al., 2004), human and social capital have been shown to impact small business performance. Social networking may be particularly significant in the early stages of a start-up where internal resources are frequently very limited (Jones and Jayawarna, 2010).

Exploiting contingencies entails embracing unexpected events and turning them into

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effectuation have been explained, innovation is defined and explained below. It is argued that effectual processes are related to uncovering and exploiting opportunities in new markets with high levels of uncertainty (Sarasvathy, 2001). Because of this, Sarasvathy (2001) suggests that successful early entrants into a new industry are more likely to have used effectuation processes than causation processes. Because effectuation does not involve elaborate planning and prediction, the costs associated with such activities are reduced (Bhide, 2000; Mintzberg, 1994).

Sarasvathy (2001) argues that if new firms created through processes of effectuation fail, they will fail early and/or at lower levels of investment than those created through processes of causation.

2.2.3. Bricolage

A different approach to entrepreneurship closely related to Effectuation is Bricolage, coined by Levi-Strauss in 1967. Lévi-Strauss (1967) offered no specific definition of Bricolage, and scholars have applied his insights to a vast range of phenomena, also without converging on a concise or consistent definition. During his research Baker (2005) developed an integrative definition of Bricolage as “making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities.” Lévi-Strauss (1967) described the “rules” of the bricoleur’s “game” as “always to make do with ‘whatever is at hand.’” This aspect of bricolage is very similar to the first point in effectual logic above. Making do implies a bias toward action and active

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model sometimes contrasted with bricolage (Lanzara, 1998, 1999) — acquired in response to the well-defined demands of a current project. A number of studies have emphasized such dependence on the preexisting elements at hand. Hargadon and Sutton (1997) examined the role of organizational memory in how a design firm brought to hand and combined problems and solutions created while working with a diverse network of clients. Rao (1998) noted that by effecting different combinations of antecedent ideological appeals, consumer organizations experienced different development trajectories.

Another central theme running through many studies invoking bricolage and which slightly differs from the concept of effectuation is the combination and reuse of resources for different applications than those for which they were originally intended or used. Effectuation does not explicitly include this step in the entrepreneurial process. Lévi-Strauss (1967) showed in detail how Neolithic tribes adopted the symbols of neighbouring and earlier tribes but combined them in new ways to

represent new meanings, and Garud and Karnoe (2003) provided a rich description of how Danish engineers and entrepreneurs combined the resources at hand to solve a variety of problems and exploit new opportunities in the Danish wind turbine

industry. Baker and Nelson (2005) inductively derived the foundations of a theory of entrepreneurial bricolage. They proposed that when entrepreneurs are confronted with penurious environments — environments that present new challenges without

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physical inputs—contributing forgotten, discarded, worn, or presumed single-application materials with new use-value; (2) labor inputs—involving customers, suppliers, and hangers-on in providing work on projects; (3) skills inputs— permitting and encouraging the use of amateur and self-taught skills that would otherwise go unapplied; (4) customers/markets—providing products or services that would

otherwise be unavailable; and (5) institutional and regulatory environment—refusing to enact limitations with regard to many “standards” and regulations, and by actively trying things in a variety of areas in which entrepreneurs either do not know the rules or do not see them as constraining. Baker and Nelson (2005) proposed that

entrepreneurs vary in their enactment of bricolage, and this variation affects firm outcomes over time.

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Resource related barriers

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Supply related barriers

Some of the critical resources that impact the success of start-ups include financial capital, access to markets and availability of information (Deakins et al., 1997; Basu, 1998; Ven et al., 2007; Szilagyi and Schweiger, 1984). These barriers to

entrepreneurship are quite similar to the supply barriers to innovation, which include difficulties in obtaining technological information, raw materials, and finance (Piatier, 1984). As stated before, external networks provide firms with an ideal platform for learning, as network partners bring diverse information and resources and materials when they work together with a focal firm on specific projects (Doz, 1996; Hamel, 1991; Inkpen, 2002; Inkpen & Tsang, 2005; Lui, 2009). It is therefore likely that the third pillar of effectual logic (leveraging strategic relationships) may become very crucial in overcoming supply barriers to innovation as well as resource related barriers through building ties.

Environmental barriers

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3.METHODOLOGY

As mentioned in the literature review, this paper attempts to provide a contribution to the literature by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the way

entrepreneurs can overcome barriers of innovation with the application of effectual logic and bricolage. As this paper tries to provide a more complete understanding, the knowledge generating process of theory development fits best with this objective. The main goal of research is to aim for inter-subjective agreement. Inter-subjective

agreement is the harmony between the actors who deal with a research problem (van Aken, Berends & van der Bij, 2012).

The observation of this phenomenon consisted of the collection of primary data (semi-structured interviews). Below is a breakdown on the case selection process with a description of each participant of the sample. This is followed by a breakdown of the measures as well as a description of the data analysis.

3.1. Case Selection

As this paper is based on a specific literature gap and focuses on a particular type of entrepreneurs and businesses, I selected suitable respondents operating in

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The actual final sample for the interviews was acquired through personal networks I possess in the relevant industries identified in prior research papers. I began by identifying small businesses - that operate in the industries given in the read research papers, - which have managed to create innovative products or services and created their ventures with a limited amount of financial and human resources. Initially, this resulted in a list of 9 firms. After thorough research of their operations, products and services they offer, I filtered out the businesses that did not fit my desired sample, leaving me with seven firms.

3.2. Case Description

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offering music and video content, established by William Kyeremeh. The full table of firms selected is below (Table 3).

Table 3. Full list of entrepreneurial firms in sample DoubleDutch (US/NL) Activ Invest SRL (Romania) Hussle Creed Ent. (UK) Risksoft (Romania) TroTro Inc (Ghana) AMac (NL) Appau (Ghana) Founders Lawrence Coburn Doru Ungurasu, Marian Ghita William S. Kyeremeh Adrian Chiran Kwaku Agyemang René de Vries Joe Appau Nature of innovative business Event Management mobile application Electronic telecom components and consulting service Multimedia Company (Music & Video) IT Vehicles and Components PCs and other office equipment Innovative construction company Year founded 2011 2009 2012 2001 2008 2012 2003 Core product

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Data

Interviews 2 2 2 1 1 1 2

3.3. Measures

Early in the project, the entrepreneurship and innovation literature was carefully reviewed. Then the theoretical perspectives to be used to interpret and analyze the case data were selected. Effectuation, and bricolage were chosen because of their prevalence in the literature and aforementioned reasons in their literature gap between innovation. The foundational articles relating to each of these theoretical perspectives were carefully reviewed, along with other articles that have examined behaviors pertaining to the various perspectives (e.g., Chandler et al., 2011, for effectuation; Senyard et al., 2009, for bricolage).

Research done to validate the effectuation construct (Chandler et al., 2011) suggests that effectuation has four distinct dimensions: (1) experimentation – trying different approaches in the marketplace before settling on a business concept; (2) affordable loss—predetermining how much one is willing to lose and experimenting within the bounds of that constraint; (3) flexibility—adapting to changing circumstances,

unexpected events, and new knowledge; and (4) precommitments—establishing early relationships with customers, suppliers, and other strategic partners to reduce

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from research into Effectuation, Causation and Bricolage conducted by Fisher (2012). To identify the type of entrepreneurial behaviour associated with the entrepreneurs I asked questions on their entrepreneurial processes (see appendix) and matched specific keywords in their answers given in the interviews to the effectuation and bricolage behaviour criteria. The table of actions (Table 4 & 5) with examples of keywords is below:

Table 4. Effectuation, adapted from Chandler et al., (2011); Sarasvathy (2001). Items pertaining to the effectuation construct loaded onto four factors:

Effectuation Behavior Example of keywords

Experimentation

Developed multiple variations of a product or service in arriving at a commercial offering

Prototypes, versions, multiple products

Experimental with different ways to sell and/or deliver the product or service in arriving at a commercial offering

Experiment, multiple ways, avenues, advertise

Changed the product or service substantially as the venture developed

Product changes, through time

Affordable Loss

Committed only limited amounts of resources to the venture at a time

Limited resources, short-handed means

Flexibility

Responded to unplanned opportunities as they arose

Respond, sudden

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Precommitments

Entered into agreements with customers, suppliers and other organisations

Agreements, commitments, customers, suppliers, written, verbal, contracts

Table 5. Bricolage adapted from Baker & Nelson, (2005); Senyard et al., (2009).

Bricolage Behavior Example of keywords

Bricolage definition

Making do – Took action to solve problems (rather than questioning whether a workable solution could be found

Making the most, making do, action, initiative

Combination of resources for new purposes – Combined existing resource in creating solutions

Combination, resources, new goals, purposes

Combination of resources for new purposes – Reused resources for purposes other than they were originally designed for

Reuse, repeated use, resources, new goals, purposes

The resources at hand – Used existing resources (rather than seeking resources from outside)

Available resources, means at hand, usage

Bricolage domains

Physical inputs – used forgotten, discarded, worn, or presumed “single-application” materials to create new solutions

Old, used, one-time only, materials, new products, solutions

Labor inputs – involved customers, suppliers, and hangers-on in providing work hangers-on projects

Customers, suppliers, stakeholders, input, involve, project, development

Institutional/regulatory environment – rejected the limitations of the environment. Worked around rules and standards

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These behaviours above were utilized in order to identify and validate whether the businesses above are truly being businesses that were set up and operated through effectuation and/or bricolage. My main data source were interviews conducted with the entrepreneurs and/or managing directors of the identified firms and using

transcripts. The interviews consisted of a semi-structured interview protocol designed to capture the intricacies of the firm founding process and in particular its method of operating and specific barriers in their innovative processes which had to be

overcome.

To identify the entrepreneurial behaviours of the entrepreneurs, I asked relevant questions in relation to their operational processes in the beginning stages of their ventures as well as their current stage. To recognize the barriers to innovation the entrepreneurs were facing, they were asked to recall specific events or situations were they felt at a disadvantage or circumstances where it was not likely for them to

operate their business at an optimal level. The interviews as stated previously were semi-structured and allowed room for the entrepreneurs to articulate their answers thoroughly.

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innovation, which were illustrated in the table of the literature review. I then

examined these cases comparatively, developing a series of matrices in which I coded the cases according to a variety of simple typologies that emerged during the process (Miles and Huberman, 1994).

3.4. Data Analysis

The analysis process of the data collection consisted of within-case analysis to gain familiarity with the data (Eisenhardt, 1989). To implement this, read the interviews and conducted coding and subsequent interpretation of these interviews. Following this, a cross-pattern analysis was conducted to look at the data from different views and angles. The findings of the interviews and were compared in a table to see the differences and similarities.

The cross-analysis of the case study data using the various theoretical perspectives of effectuation and Bricolage provides a platform for comparing and contrasting the behaviors of entrepreneurs in technological environments when facing barriers to innovation underlying the different theories. It also aids the act of identifying consistent themes across the various theoretical perspectives in the entrepreneurship literature. In order to draw some conclusions from the analysis, I carefully observed patterns in the data by labeling relevant words, sentences and sections and repeating this process. The coding involved highlighting sections and statements of the

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categories or themes were determined and connections between them uncovered, which are explained in the results section below.

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4.RESULTS

4.1. BARRIERS TO INNOVATION EXPERIENCED BY ENTREPRENEURS

4.1.1. Human resources related constraints

The results suggest that the most prevalent obstacle according to the entrepreneurs was actually the acquisition of the ‘right’ staff, paired with the lack of knowledge, expertise and training of their current employees. Four out of the seven firms were suffering from these barriers. Some firms made references to the difficulty of finding the right people to join their business, which is working in a risky and unpredictable environment, with one of the entrepreneurs making the following specific reference: “… But most importantly, getting the right people in who come from a comfortable job and enter a start-up without any pension scheme for example, but the upside is insane. Because you don’t know what is going to happen. It feels risky but if people are up for the challenge it is ideal, we have so many core values and one of them is “Be Remarkable”. So if you come from a comfortable area and you jump into this there will be some definite growing pains for you and us well. I think in the beginning these were the barriers we were facing in the beginning.“ (Alexander Draajier,

Managing Director at DoubleDutch, Amsterdam).

Another example of human resources and capital constraints comes from Kwaku Agyeman’s TroTro Inc. Kwaku emphasized on the issue of him and his employees initially lacking sufficient knowledge and expertise in optimally building their taxis from the vehicle components they were producing and making available for sale: “ My employees are self trained engineers, everything they know they taught

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knew how to put the engines together but not how to paint and so on. We were definitely lacking the experts in some vital areas.”

4.1.2. Financial constraints

Financial constraints were another major deterring obstacle to innovation for the entrepreneurs in their respective innovative industry. All seven firms initially began with a very limited amount of capital. DoubleDutch was the only company out of the sample, which has been able to receive financial backing from venture capitalists in the United States after a few years into their operations. Joe Appau, entrepreneur of the innovative construction company Appau expressed how difficult it was to advertise the houses and complexes after they have been built.

Another example of lack of financial resources is from RiskSoft, who found it very difficult to obtain all the resources needed to efficiently produce their product due to lack of financial capital and cash flow. William Kyeremeh from Hussle Creed Ent. had similar issues in his business operations. He stated: “I had literally no capital at all, all I had was my equipment I bought previously and spent my last few pounds on. There was no telling if I would be successful but I went on to give it a try anyway.”

4.1.3. Awareness

Two out of the seven firms in the sample were restricted in their innovation

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actually buy whatever innovative products or services you produce. So we were close to laying off of developing our app for a while but we figured it out in the end.”

René de Vries of AMac stated how awareness was also a barrier to his business: “…We were open for a good two weeks before people actually started to enter our shop, we thought that just by us setting up the website and being positioned in the town centre we would have enough exposure so it would make sense for us to carry on making the office equipment, we were wrong.”

4.1.4. Inability to grow

Activ Invest SRL was the only business, which stated that the inability to grow in terms of clients was a barrier to innovation. Doru Ungurasu explained: “In order for our innovations to reach commercial success we felt like we needed more quickly so it makes sense. However we were not growing a desired rate which held us back as a company.”

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4.2. IDENTIFIED ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOURS

4.2.1. Effectuation

The results suggest that the dimensions of affordable loss, flexibility, and

experimentation are useful for explaining the actions of the entrepreneurs in the case studies examined here. Table 5 below provides an overview of the identified specific entrepreneurial behaviours that have been carried out by the entrepreneurs in their business operations after conducting the interviews.

Behaviours associated with affordable loss were consistently applied across all three firms. All seven firms only committed limited amounts of resources to their ventures at a time and this resulted in all entrepreneurs depending on their creativity to operate in their environment. One example comes from William Kyeremeh and his

multimedia venture. In the interview he stated: “I literally started the venture with a computer, midi-keyboard, a drum machine and a camera. All of which I already had in my possession before I decided to start this venture. I used the music equipment to produce the music of course and then used the camera for photo shoots, music videos and mini films. I did not have any money to buy additional software or hardware like sound cards to improve the quality so I had to make the best out of what I had in my possession. It also made sense to me to do so, I figured this way I won’t put any money to waste initially.”

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with the customer so I do not produce the end product all for nothing and therefore lose valuable money I cannot waste.”

All seven firms displayed flexibility with an interesting example in the case of Joe Appau. Joe Appau runs his construction company, while also being a luxury car salesman in Accra and also does consulting work and mentoring young aspiring entrepreneurs in the local community.

Table 6

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Experimental with different ways to sell and/or deliver the product or service in arriving at a commercial offering ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Changed the product or service substantially as the venture developed ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Affordable Loss Committed only limited amounts of resources to the venture at a time ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Flexibility Responded to unplanned opportunities as they arose ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Adapted what they were doing to the resources on hand

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Precommitments

Entered into agreements with customers, suppliers and other organisations

4.2.2. Bricolage

All three elements of the bricolage definition—making do and combining resources

for new purposes—were useful for describing the behaviors outlined in the data. Joe

Appau’s business displayed one factor of Bricolage, which is applying the resource combination. He did this at the shifting point when his business changed from constructing houses to constructing entire neighborhood complexes including the streets for those residential areas by using the same resources to produces the streets and for the neighbourhood complexes. All seven firms displayed the ‘making do’ element, which revolves around taking action to solve problems instead of

conceptualizing solutions. Some of these specific actions are outlined in the section of how the entrepreneurs overcame the barriers of innovation (4.3.). The seven firms all showed behaviours of using the resources at hand in the first stages of their ventures rather than seeking them from external sources. One example comes from

DoubleDutch, where initially only internal resources were used but eventually they received financial backing from venture capitalists in order to grow their business at a quicker rate. In terms of the bricolage domains, only three entrepreneurs showed usage of them. Joe Appau for example rejected regulatory limitations to the

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properties and eventually become the owner of the land. Below is a table illustrating all firms, which showed entrepreneurial behaviours, related to Bricolage.

Table 7. Bricolage approach to Entrepreneurship (Baker and Nelson, 2005) Bricolage Behavior DoubleDutch

(US/NL) Activ Invest SRL (Romania) Hussle Creed Ent. (UK) Risksoft (Romania) TroTro Inc (Ghana) AMac (NL) Appau (Ghana) Bricolage definition Making do – Took action to solve problems (rather than questioning whether a workable solution could be found

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Combination of resources for new purposes – Combined existing resource in creating solutions

Combination of resources for new purposes – Reused resources for purposes other than they were originally designed for

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The resources at hand – Used existing resources (rather than seeking resources from outside)

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Bricolage domains

Physical inputs – used forgotten, discarded, worn, or presumed “single-application” materials to create new solutions ✓ Labor inputs – involved customers, suppliers, and hangers-on in providing work on projects ✓ ✓ Institutional/regulatory environment – rejected the limitations of the environment. Worked around rules and standards

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4.3. HOW THE ENTREPRENEURS OVERCAME BARRIERS TO INNOVATION

4.3.1. Networking and strategic alliances

The common theme of overcoming barriers to innovation for all firms revolved around networking. All firms either engaged in strategic alliances or other types of network structures and relationships with other companies or entrepreneurs in order to gain knowledge, expertise or tangible resources they were previously missing to overcome their barriers to innovation and subsequent success.

Joe Appau stated that to overcome his barrier of lack of training and expertise of his staff, he built relationships with foreign entrepreneurs of the same industry in different parts of the world who frequently visited Ghana. Through building those relationships he was able to acquire more cutting edge machinery and access to raw materials of better quality. The acquisition of new machinery came also along with the relevant training sessions on operating the machinery by the respective foreign entrepreneurs who passed the knowledge on to him and the entire firm. Additionally, Joe Appau used established links with individuals in the multimedia industry, which resulted in advertisement spots in local radio stations and television to increase exposure of the firm. This way he managed to attract more customers as well as employees for the business.

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talk to innovators. Thanks to Start-Up Delta we have been on television with part of the committee. And right now we have a mature team, so we also do something to support the local community. With now 47 people just over a year we can have an impact in the local area. So now we identify projects we can do to support, can be painting a local welfare house or whatever. We are going to do something to help the local community, dedicate some working days to do something for them. Networking is extremely important ”

This affiliation with the association helped DoubleDutch to increase their brand awareness, which also was one of their specific barriers they needed to overcome. Doru Ungurasu, co-founder of the electronic component company Activ Invest SRL in Romania expressed how building a key relationship with Samsung opened up doors and opportunities for them to gain more resources and connections with potential clients to help the firm grow to what it has become today.

4.3.2. Creativity

The second theme across all firms that was found to be an important to overcoming barriers to innovation was creativity. The entrepreneurs found new inventive ideas as well as creative ways of using the means they currently possess at hand to help overcome their barriers. DoubleDutch for example came up with some interesting methods to reach the community and potential clients in order to gain brand

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to recruitment fairs, we do a recruitment Open House here, where we give pitches to people. We invite everybody so a lot of people get to see what we offer, what type of company we are. They can feel our core values are crazy important. So they get a sense and people start talking about it and start thinking positively about the company.”

Joe Appau explained how he found creative ways of employing suitable and dedicated staff for his construction company: “…Instead of employing people the traditional and boring way, I gave them (candidates or applicants) a tour of my already constructed houses which followed a tour of a slum in the same

neighbourhood not too far away. I then asked them all is this how you want to live? If yes, feel free to stay here. If no, join my company and help build up this

neighbourhood and improve living conditions! After I initiated these tours I managed to recruit people that were more serious about helping the cause.”

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Table 7. Barriers experienced and actions to overcome barriers to innovation DoubleDutch (US/NL) Activ Invest SRL (Romania) Hussle Creed Ent. (UK) Risksoft (Romania) TroTro Inc (Ghana) AMac (NL) Appau (Ghana) Barriers to innovation Brand Awareness + Trying to find the right people to join the team (Human resources) Inability to grow in terms of number of clients Lack of financial backing and support for media production Lack of financial capital

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4.4. SUMMARY

To summarize, all firms in the sample showed entrepreneurial behaviours of effectuation and bricolage. In relation effectuation, the dimensions of

experimentation, affordable loss and flexibility were predominant in the operational behaviours of the entrepreneurs. In terms of bricolage, the three elements of its definition (making do or taking action, combining resources for new purposes and using resources at hand) were all evident in the behaviours of the entrepreneurs. The main kind of barriers to innovation experienced by the entrepreneurs centred around resource constraints which can also be split into 1) human resource related constraints such as finding the right staff to employ and 2) financial constraints such as the lack of capital to invest into the business or the lack of financial support from other parties. Based on the results, there are two themes that emerged regarding how the

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5.DISCUSSION

The results from this analysis provide a number of interesting insights for

entrepreneurship theory and practice that can help answer the research question of this paper. From a theoretical perspective, the application of different entrepreneurship theories to the same case study data provides insight into the similarities and differences between the theories at the level of entrepreneurial behavior. Although this is a specialized setting and the findings from this analysis cannot be generalized to all entrepreneurial ventures, in this context, the behaviors associated with

effectuation and bricolage appeared to be more representative of what entrepreneurs do in building their businesses. Across all three ventures, the behaviors associated with effectuation were prevalent. The most prevalent barriers to innovation stated by the sample of entrepreneurs were resource constraints, especially acquiring the most suitable human resources along with financial constraints.

EFFECTUATION AND BRICOLAGE THROUGH TAKING ACTION

What can be taken away from the analysis is that in its initial form, taking action can serve as a means for overcoming resource constraints. The traditional logic of

entrepreneurship is to recognize an opportunity and then to go out and access

resources to exploit that opportunity (Hsu, 2008). One of the most consistent findings in the data was that all the entrepreneurs “demonstrated a bias toward action and active engagement with problems or opportunities rather than lingering over questions of whether a workable outcome can be created from what is at hand” (Baker &

Nelson, 2005), and this action orientation provided the push the entrepreneurs needed to overcome the resource constraints associated with the production of their

innovative product and services. Within the data, entrepreneurs took action to

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while working on other jobs; (2) actively experimenting with low-cost solutions to see which solution worked best; (3) leveraging resources on hand (e.g., databases,

computer code, hardware) in devising possible solutions; and (4) actively engaging with external entrepreneurs and associations to build relationships that can benefit them in acquiring resources they are currently lacking. These actions fit with the logic in Sarasvathy’s (2001) paper on effectuation in which she states that “sufficiency is provided by active implementations of imagined solutions . . . effectuation processes are far more frequent and very much more useful in understanding and dealing with spheres of human action” (p. 250). The action orientation of the entrepreneurs in the case studies served as a means to overcome resource constraints and to find a

workable solution. By acting upon their ideas, the entrepreneurs examined were able to discover creative ways to overcome their obstacles, as well as build significant key relationships through strategic alliances so as to operate in resource-constrained technological environments.

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO INNOVATION THROUGH STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

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pharmaceutical firms benefit from their alliances. The biotechnology firms provide new technology and new products (innovation), while the pharmaceutical firms provide the distribution networks and marketing capabilities to successfully commercialize the new products. The larger established pharmaceutical firms also gain value through access to their partners’ new technology. As a result of applying of the partners’ complementary assets, alliances help the larger, established companies adapt to the technological incoherence created by the introduction of the radical new technology. Radically new and disruptive technologies can often upset an industry’s value chain, challenging firms to quickly learn either how to create more of the value using traditional practices or more likely how to create value in ways different from historically practices (Albrinck et al., 2001). Above all, external networks can be valuable because they offer the opportunity to learn new capabilities (Anand and Khanna, 2000; Dussauge, Garrette and Mitchell, 2000; Hitt et al., 2000). Networks then allow firms to compete in markets without first owning all of the resources necessary to do so, which is evident in the entrepreneurs’ examples in my study results. This is particularly important to new venture firms because they often have limited resources (Starr and MacMillan, 1990; Dubini and Aldrich, 1991; Cooper, 2001), again supported by my findings. Research by Baum, Calabrese and Silverman (2000) suggests new start-up firms can enhance their chances of survival and eventual success by establishing alliances and developing them into an effective network.

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point for the process model of entrepreneurial bricolage, and out of this environment an entrepreneur can choose to “make do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities” (Baker & Nelson, 2005, p. 353). In

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with a perception of resource constraints, team members tend to look for alternatives beyond “the path of least resistance” (Moreau & Dahl, 2005), which was shown to lead to higher ratings on innovativeness of the outcomes produced (e.g., Goldenberg, Mazursky, & Solomon, 1999; Moreau & Dahl; Ward, 1994).

To summarize, based on the theoretical arguments in the emerging entrepreneurship theories, and linking those with the findings from the data the research question “How effectuation and bricolage can resolve barriers to innovation” can be answered in the figure below:

Figure 1.

Way 1 Way 2

Entrepreneurs in a technological environment using effectual logic and/or bricolage to operate their businesses can overcome identified deterring barriers to innovation by taking action in two ways. 1) Applying creativity to create inventive and fresh

solutions for their barriers and 2) acquiring lacking resources by seeking and forming external networks and forming strategic alliances. The way of overcoming innovation

Effectuation/Bricolage"(taking" action)

Creativity" Strategic"alliances"

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barriers by creativity is in turn achieved through effectuation and/or bricolage

behaviours, for example a new way of combining resources, which has not previously been identified or experimenting to produce different outcomes. Using strategic alliances to overcome barriers to innovation is related to the third aspect of

Sarasvathy’s effectual logic. In this aspect, firms look for whom to work with rather than whom to compete with (Sarasvathy, 2001).

5.1. SCIENTIFIC IMPLICATIONS

The research conduct here provides interesting insights and connections between the non-traditional approaches of entrepreneurship and research into innovation. It highlights similarities of entrepreneurs’ behaviors and actions towards barriers of innovation across technological industries, which provides a foundation for future research to develop a more in-depth perspective of entrepreneurs’ actions and behaviors when facing innovation barriers. Previously, innovation barriers would have been managed by innovation management approaches such as the Stage Gate Model. However based on the findings of this study, non-traditional entrepreneurial approaches can be utilized to overcome barriers to innovation. The findings also shed additional support to the theory that strategic alliances are vital in overcoming

resource related barriers to innovation (Rush and Bessant, 1992). To conclude, the emerging theories of entrepreneurship (effectuation and bricolage) appear to be similar in many respects conceptually and provide important insights focusing on the relationships between innovation, resources, entrepreneurial behaviors, action,

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5.2. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The research findings have potentially important implications for business owners. The findings are not necessarily to be generalized across all settings and types of entrepreneurs and business but they do hint at certain behavioral actions of

entrepreneurs who operate their business on bricolage and effectual logic that may make a difference when entrepreneurs face barriers to innovation. As creativity seems to be an important factor in successfully tackling resource related barriers based on the findings of this study, it suggests that the more creative the entrepreneur is, the more likely his or her firm may be in surviving in their industry and successfully competing with more matured incumbents. This can provide entrepreneurs with confidence in surviving in their industries, as the lack of resources does not have to be discouraging to an entrepreneur, as long as they channel their inner creativity to tackle their innovation barriers.

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5.3.LIMITATIONSANDSUGGESTIONSFORFURTHERRESEARCH As with all research, there are some limitations in this research that need to be acknowledged. These limitations open the door and provide opportunities for future researchers to make a contribution to this field. The first limitation relates to the sample of cases that are used in the analysis. In this research, the cases were selected because of the access to valuable and rich details about the effectual actions and behaviors of the entrepreneurs behind each venture along with details on their

innovation obstacles. The findings around the occurrence of behaviors associated with effectuation and bricolage are not generalizable to other entrepreneurial activities without strong caution. This opens an opportunity for researchers to repeat this study but with a more longitudinal duration and with a larger sample of effectual

entrepreneurs and firms that represent a larger amount of different technological industries, in order to achieve more representative data and findings.

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6.APPENDIX

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. Tell me a little about the business, where did the idea come from and how did it begin?

2. Did the business start with a goal and plan in mind? Or did it begin with resources and were goals developed along the way?

3. Take me through your every day processes, how do you run your business (in detail)?

4. What are your beliefs, attitudes and in core values of your business?

5. In particular, with what kind of attitude do you approach the running of your business?

6. What makes your business innovative in your opinion and different from the competition?

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8. What actions did you take to cope with your problems? (Please provide specific examples)

9. Were you successful in your actions to tackles these issues?

10. What were the main benefits you received after overcoming your barriers?

11. What was your mind state like when tackling obstacles?

12. Did you have to change your goals/processes quite a lot during as time has gone by?

13. Have you re-used the same resources for different goals? (If yes, please provide specific examples)

14. Do you have a relationship with your competitors?

15. Did you know that your competitors were doing better at coping with similar issues if they had them?

16. If yes, how?

17. Do you have an extended network?

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19. How were the relationships built or formed?

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