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DARWINIANS, COMMUNITARIANS, AND MISSIONARIES:THE ROLE OF FOUNDER IDENTITY IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

EMMANUELLE FAUCHARTConservatoire National des Arts et Métiers Paris

andBusiness School, Lausanne

MARC GRUBERÉcole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

Drawing on social identity theory, we explore the identities, behaviors, and actions of49 firm founders in the sports-related equipment industry. Our analysis suggests theexistence of three pure types of founder identities and shows how these identitiessystematically shape key decisions in the creation of new firms, thereby “imprinting”the start-ups with the founders’ distinct self-concepts. We synthesize our findings in atypology that sheds light on the heterogeneous meanings that founders associate withnew firm creation and that improves understanding as to why fundamental differencesin firm creation processes and outcomes exist.

An identity is like a compass helping us steer acourse of interaction in a sea of social meaning.

–Burke and Reitzes (1981: 91)

One of the most remarkable characteristics ofentrepreneurship is that it provides individualswith the freedom to pursue their own goals,dreams, and desires in new firm creation. The pres-ent research builds on a small but growing litera-ture that takes into account the fact that entrepre-neurial activities are infused with meaning becausethey are an expression of an individual’s identity,or concept of self (Cardon, Wincent, Singh, & Drnov-sek, 2009; Hoang & Gimeno, 2010; Kimberly, 1979;Murnieks & Mosakowski, 2007; Shepherd & Haynie,2009). For instance, Cardon and colleagues (2009)invoked the identity concept to argue that individ-uals have preferences for particular roles in theentrepreneurial process because those roles aredeeply meaningful to their identity.

Yet, despite the pioneering insights that this nas-cent literature has provided into founder identity,an identity perspective could yield important ad-ditional insights for entrepreneurship research.This is largely because prior studies have drawn onrole identity theory and, thus, on a perspectivewithin identity research that emphasizes role-re-lated views of the self while discounting key socialaspects of self-concept, such as the basic socialmotivations that shape the behaviors and actions ofindividuals when they are engaging with others(Brewer & Gardner, 1996). However, these socialaspects of a founder’s self-concept are likely to beof importance in entrepreneurship because firmcreation is an inherently social activity, and organ-izations are themselves social constructions(Whetten & Mackey, 2002). For instance, by adopt-ing a role identity lens, one is unlikely to capturethe fundamental differences between the motiva-tions of entrepreneurs who create firms out of eco-nomic self-interest and those of entrepreneurs whostart their firms because of concern for others. Anexample of the latter is Muhammad Yunus, whocreated the Grameen Bank because he wanted tofight poverty by giving “microcredit” to the poor sothat they could launch their own firms (Yu-nus, 2007).

Thus, in the present study we propose that thetheory of social identity, which forms part of theliterature on social cognition (Tajfel, 1972; Tajfel &Turner, 1979), can serve as a valuable lens throughwhich to improve understanding of the heterogene-ity in meanings that founders associate with their

We wish to thank the College of Management of Tech-nology at EPFL, the University of Lausanne, and theInternational Academy of Sports Science and Technol-ogy (AISTS)—in particular, Claude Stricker—for theirsupport of this study. We appreciate feedback on draftsfrom Jean-Philippe Bonardi, Georg von Krogh, GuidoPalazzo, Sonali Shah, and Christopher Tucci. The com-ments of three anonymous reviewers and Associate Edi-tor Jim Combs are gratefully acknowledged. Both authorscontributed equally, and our names are listed alphabeti-cally.

Editor’s note: The manuscript for this article was ac-cepted for publication during the term of AMJ’s previouseditor, Duane Ireland.

� Academy of Management Journal2011, Vol. 54, No. 5, 935–957.http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0211

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entrepreneurial endeavors, as well as the effects ofsuch heterogeneity on firm creation processes andoutcomes. Social identity theory allows for richassessment of an individual’s sense of self, sincesocial identity is critical to beliefs, feelings, values,and actions in all social contexts, including newfirm creation (cf. Hogg & Terry, 2000). Social iden-tity theory may also provide a particularly power-ful means to increase understanding as to whythere are stark differences among the creation pro-cesses and outcomes of different firms, because itprovides a theoretical link that explains how socialidentification leads individuals to behave and actin ways that confirm their identities (Hogg & Terry,2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1979).

Hence, by drawing on social identity theory, weseek to accomplish two main goals: first, we seek toestablish a typology detailing the primary types offounders’ social identities. The typology will clar-ify the critical social categorizations that individu-als make as founders and, in particular, the mean-ings they associate with being founders. Second,we build on our typology to describe how foundersocial identity affects new firm creation, particu-larly the three initial strategic decisions that arewidely considered to define the cores of firms andto have important “imprinting” effects on emergingorganizations (Abell, 1980): the market segment(s)served, the customer needs addressed, and the re-sources and capabilities deployed to produce thefirms’ offering(s).1

To accomplish these goals, we conducted an in-depth exploratory study of 49 firm founders, eachof whom recently had created a business in thesports-related equipment industry. We analyzeddata collected through interviews and secondarysources using an inductive methodological ap-proach (Glaser & Strauss, 2006; Miles & Huberman,1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

On the basis of the distinct meanings that indi-viduals in our sample attached to their self-con-cepts as firm founders, the founders we inter-viewed could usually be classified as belonging toone of three “pure” types of founder identity—darwinian, communitarian, and missionary—or toa group of founders with a “hybrid” identity com-bining elements of the pure types. For instance,founders with a darwinian identity are focused on

competition with other firms and are driven bytheir own economic self-interest, but founders withcommunitarian and missionary identities deviatein fundamental ways from that standard. Commu-nitarians view their firms as social objects that sup-port and are supported by a particular communitybecause of mutually beneficial relationships. Mis-sionaries see their firms as political objects that canadvance a particular cause for the benefit of societyat large. Our results also show that founders behaveand act in ways that are consistent with their iden-tities and thereby imprint their self-concepts onkey dimensions of their emerging firms. These find-ings have a number of fundamental implicationsfor thinking about firm creation processes (includ-ing the early stage of opportunity identification),firm creation outcomes, and firm founders as enter-prising individuals.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ANDLITERATURE REVIEW

Ever since Simon’s (1947) notion of bounded ra-tionality—the idea that decision makers strive forrationality within the limits of their cognitive abil-ity—scholars have recognized the importance ofcognitive factors in explaining human action inorganizations. In this article, we draw on socialidentity theory (Tajfel, 1972; Tajfel & Turner, 1979)as a platform from which to analyze and describefounders’ self-conceptions and how they affecttheir new firms (Hogg & Terry, 2000).

Social Identity Theory: Linking a Person’sIdentity with Human Behavior and Actions

Questions such as “Who am I?” and “What is myrole in society?” are of fundamental concern tohumanity and have been deeply woven into philo-sophical discourse ever since Plato, Aristotle, andother ancient Greek philosophers examined themeaning of “self” and the origins of an individual’sconcept of self (Gioia, 1998). Since the late 19thcentury, the concern with identity has also beenevident in the social sciences, where awareness ofthe elemental human need for self-definition andfor finding one’s own place in society (Mead, 1934;Tajfel, 1972) has led writers to define identity as “ageneral, if individualized, framework for under-standing oneself that is formed and sustained viasocial interaction” (Gioia, 1998: 19).

Social identity theory, which originates in thediscipline of psychology, deals with the structureand function of identity as it relates to an individ-ual’s social relationships and, in particular, to hisor her membership in groups or social categories.

1 Although founders make a number of strategic deci-sions during the early stages of new firm creation, wefocus on this set of initial decisions because they strate-gically define a business (Abell, 1980). These decisionsare antecedents to many subsequent ones (such as thechoice of distribution channel) and tend to become per-manent as they cannot be reversed easily.

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Three elements in particular are essential to con-temporary understanding of social identity theory:

First, key to the development of an individual’sidentity is personal and symbolic interaction withothers, because such interaction allows the individ-ual to make social comparisons and categorizationsand to learn with which social groups he/she wantsto be associated, given the emotional and value sig-nificance of group membership (Gioia, 1998; Tajfel &Turner, 1979). Their membership in a particularsocial category or group (their in-group) providesindividuals with a frame of reference for self-eval-uation and for the evaluation of others who do notbelong to the group (their out-group). Thus, a per-son’s social identity serves as a system of socialorientation and plays an instrumental role in estab-lishing self-worth (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, &Wetherell, 1987).

Second, the self-categorization of individuals canvary in terms of level of inclusiveness. At one endof the spectrum, the most restricted level of socialself-categorization, is the category of self as aunique entity; that is, a person acts in terms of hisindividual goals and ambitions, rather than as amember of a social group (Brewer & Gardner, 1996).At the other end of the spectrum, individuals mayconceive of themselves as part of the human spe-cies and so act in terms of social motivations asso-ciated with concern for impersonal others (Harb &Smith, 2008).

Third, social identity theory allows for makingpredictions about behavioral choices and humanactions (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Because a person’sidentity serves as a cognitive frame for interpretingexperience and because identity increases sensitiv-ity and receptivity to certain cues for behavior,individuals are more likely to define the situationsinto which they enter in ways that make a highlysalient identity relevant and to strive for behaviorsand actions that are consistent with that identity(Hogg, Terry, & White, 1995; Stets & Burke, 2000).

Prior Research on Founder Identity

Among management scholars, the identity con-cept is perhaps best known in its (metaphorical)application to the organizational level in the formof organizational identity (Albert & Whetten, 1985;for a review, see Hatch and Schultz [2004]) andcorporate identity (Cornelissen, Haslam, & Balmer,2007). Since social identity theory has acquired thestatus of a key perspective for describing and ex-plaining individual behavior and action (Gioia,1998), and given the importance of individuals inthe creation of new firms, one might also expectidentity theory to have met with widespread inter-

est among entrepreneurship scholars. However,only a few studies to date have provided insightson the notion of founder identity and the effectsthat it may have on an emerging organization.2

Extant research on founder identity exclusivelydraws on role identity theory,3 thus applying atheoretical perspective that encourages investiga-tion of different role identities within the entrepre-neurial process (Cardon et al., 2009), the transitionfrom a previous employee role into an entrepre-neurial role (Hoang & Gimeno, 2010), and the dif-ferences between entrepreneurial role identity andother role identities (Murnieks & Mosakowski,2007). For instance, Cardon and colleagues (2009)built on the identity concept to examine the role ofpassion in entrepreneurship. Drawing on a taxon-omy of entrepreneurial activities established byGartner, Starr, and Bhat (1999), Cardon et al. sug-gested three entrepreneurial identities that under-lie a passion for different kinds of activities in theprocess of creating a new business: an inventor roleidentity (passion for activities such as exploringnew opportunities), a founder role identity (pas-sion for activities related to opportunity exploita-tion), and a developer role identity (passion foractivities related to growing a firm).

Extant research on the effects of the founder’sidentity on an emerging organization suggests thatthese effects should be relatively strong (Barney etal., 1998; Whetten & Mackey, 2002), both becauseorganizational decisions are often made by a singleperson (the founder) and because emerging firmsare typically small entities that are yet to be shaped.For instance, in their conceptual study Whettenand Mackey suggested a link between founderidentity and organization type (such as “church vs.

2 Of course, the overarching notion that the character-istics of leaders affect their organizations is not new tothe literature. In particular, the upper echelons perspec-tive introduced by Hambrick and Mason in 1984spawned a rich body of work that has shown how thecognitive characteristics and personalities of leaders arereflected in their organizations (e.g., Cannella & Hol-comb, 2005; Hambrick & Brandon, 1988; Miller, Kets deVries, & Toulouse, 1982; for an overview, see Finkelstein,Hambrick, and Cannella [2009].

3 Social identity theory and (role) identity theory aretwo distinct theoretical perspectives concerned with self-concept and the nature of an individual’s normative be-havior (Hogg et al., 1995; Stets & Burke, 2000). Whereassocial identity theory originates in psychology and treatsself-definition as deriving principally from social attri-butes and relationships (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), identitytheory has its roots in sociology and casts behavioralroles and role identities as the basis of an individual’sself-concept (Hogg et al., 1995).

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business organizational purpose” and “local mar-ket vs. global market”). They argued that “we candraw a rough parallel between founders’ selectionsof organizational forms and the inherent character-istics of individuals, in that we can treat these bothas category-based identity claims embedded in so-cially authorized conventions about what are ap-propriate and meaningful identities” (2002: 398).Even so, empirical evidence that could substantiatethese notions and provide systematic insights onhow the founder’s identity shapes an emerging firmis scant. In the only study found on this issue,Kimberly (1979) investigated the effects of an indi-vidual’s identity on the creation of a new medicalschool and described how that individual’s iden-tity was central to shaping the institution he estab-lished; for example, his identity shaped theschool’s curriculum (i.e., the product).

Taken together, these studies support the ideathat examining founder identity can help improveunderstanding of the characteristics of enterprisingindividuals and how they affect new organizations.Apart from the observation that extant research ismostly conceptual, not empirical, our literature re-view revealed at least two areas in which under-standing of founder identity and its effects on newfirms can be significantly improved.

First, we have seen that existing studies rely onrole identity theory and thus on a theoretical per-spective that encourages research on the roles withwhich people identify in the entrepreneurial pro-cess. However, by focusing on role-related founderbehavior, current conceptualizations of founderidentity discount the social aspects of the self and,as a result, the extent to which founders definethemselves in terms of their relationships in thesocial world (Hogg et al., 1995; Tajfel & Turner,1979). Since firm creation is an inherently socialactivity, and organizations are themselves socialconstructions (Whetten & Mackey, 2002), founders’conceptions of their social selves, as manifested intheir social motivations, bases of self-evaluation,and views of relevant reference groups, are argu-ably central to their decision making and their be-havior and actions relative to others (Brewer &Gardner, 1996). By applying a social identity lens,one should be able to capture the fundamental as-pects of an individual’s identity that are relevant tonew firm creation yet are outside the normal scopeof role identity theory. Take the case of a person’ssocial motivations: Although role identity theorydoes not systematically address this aspect of iden-tity, social identity theory distinguishes among dif-ferent levels of inclusiveness in people’s social mo-tivations (Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Harb & Smith,2008). Thus, social identity theory provides the

basis for capturing fundamental heterogeneity infounders’ social motivations for entrepreneurship;for instance, by applying a social identity lens, onecan capture the important difference between theself-concepts of people who start their firms be-cause of economic self-interest and those who starttheir firms because of concern for others.

Second, extant studies have not yet provided sys-tematic insights into the effects of founder identityon new firm creation, although identity researchhas shown that individuals strive for “identity rel-evance” in their behaviors and actions (Hogg et al.,1995; Stets & Burke, 2000). Since knowledge ofheterogeneity in people’s social identities couldprovide insights into why there is heterogeneity intheir behaviors and actions, social identity theorymay help explain why entrepreneurs facing similarcontexts may act differently. For instance, it seemsthat founders who start their firms primarily be-cause of concern for others may select competitivestrategies and market strategies that differ fromthose of founders who pursue only their economicself-interest.

Against the backdrop of these observations, thepresent study explores two main research questions:

(1) What are the primary types of founder identitiesfrom a social identity perspective?

(2) To what extent does a founder’s social identityinfluence key dimensions of new firm creation?

METHODS

To answer our research questions, we chose anexploratory, qualitative research design, which isrecommended for investigating phenomena that aresubtle and/or poorly understood (Strauss & Corbin,1998; Yin, 2003).

Study Setting

Since the present study explores the role offounder identity in new firm creation, we fol-lowed prior research on new firm creation andincluded firms in our sample that were indepen-dently held and eight years old or less (cf. Mc-Dougall, Covin, Robinson, & Herron, 1994). Wechose to study firms involved in the productionof sports equipment because many young firmsexist in this field, so we could collect rich, de-tailed, and accurate data directly from the firms’founders. For a number of reasons, new sportsequipment firms emerge relatively frequently.There is a relatively high amount of innovationfueled by oftentimes low research and develop-ment costs. Moreover, founders of new sports


equipment firms often face low capital expendi-tures when setting up their production processesand thus benefit from relatively low entry barriers.Examples of new sports equipment firms repre-sented in our sample include new ski, snowboard,snow scooter, bicycle, roller, and scooter firms.

All firms in our sample are located in the WestEuropean Alpine region (Switzerland, Germany,and France). We chose to study firms in this geo-graphical area because there is a high concentrationof sports equipment manufacturers, drawn by thearea’s institutional and natural resources. For in-stance, the area is home to many headquarters ofinternational sports associations (such as the Inter-national Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzer-land) and due to its idyllic landscape (mountains,lakes) provides attractive venues for a large numberof national as well as international sports competi-tions. Furthermore, the area boasts a temperate cli-mate and thus offers favorable conditions to ama-teurs as well as professional athletes practicingtheir sports.

Sampling Approach

Given our interest in first identifying the existingscope (maximum variation) of founder identitiesand then illuminating the link between a founder’sidentity and actions in the course of creating a newfirm, we relied on theoretical sampling. This ap-proach increased the probability that we wouldcollect different and varied data on founder identi-ties and actions and would have the opportunity todetermine their range of variability (Glaser &Strauss, 2006; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Theoreti-cal sampling involves data gathering that is “drivenby concepts derived from the evolving theory andbased on the concept of “making comparisons,”whose purpose is to go to places, people, or eventsthat will maximize opportunities to discover vari-ations among concepts and to densify categories interms of their properties and dimensions” (Strauss& Corbin, 1998: 201). We continued to collect datauntil we reached what Strauss and Corbin (1998)referred to as theoretical saturation—that is, thepoint at which no new insights emerged from ad-ditional interviews regarding a particular type offounder identity, the different types of founderidentities seemed well developed in terms oftheir properties and dimensions and demon-strated variation, and the relationships betweenfounder identity types and their behaviors andactions in new firm creation seemed well estab-lished and validated.

Data Sources

Multiple sources of data are critical to qualitativeresearch because they facilitate triangulation andvalidation of theoretical constructs. Data from sev-eral sources informed this research.

Interviews. In total, 56 interviews were con-ducted with the founders of 49 firms. If firms hadbeen founded by more than one individual, weconducted additional interviews with the cofound-ers in as many cases as possible to understand theiridentities and to obtain additional insights on thefirm creation process. We do not count interviewswith nonfounders in our interview statistics, butwe did use information provided by a number ofnonfounders to augment founder-reported data.Firms were identified through the use of three com-plementary strategies, as detailed below.

Introduction from the Academy of Sports Sci-ence and Technology. We began our study by con-ducting five interviews with founders introducedto us by the Academy of Sports Science & Technol-ogy in Lausanne, an organization that has links tomany entrepreneurs in the sports-related equip-ment industry.

Identification through conferences, sport-re-lated magazines, and websites. We searchedthrough a variety of public sources (such as the listsof firms presenting at the International Society forSports Engineering (ISEA) Conference and the In-ternational Sports Trade Fair (ISPO)), the advertiserindexes of several sports-related magazines (e.g.,TransWorld Snowboarding, Ski Magazine, SkiingMagazine, Bicycling Magazine), and several sport-related websites (e.g., www.snowboarding.com).We also searched the online directory of Swissfirms (www.zefix.ch) with keywords such as“sport” and “equipment” and the names of specificsports.

Snowball sampling. We also identified firmfounders through the technique of snowball sam-pling, in which interviewees are asked to recom-mend additional interviewees (Denzin & Lincoln,2000). For instance, to increase variation in ourdata, we triggered recommendations by asking“Whom do you know who sees things differently?”(Miles & Huberman, 1994: 29).

All interviewees were asked a series of open-ended questions, which were augmented by fol-low-up questions that allowed deep probing of theinterviewees’ answers as well as questions thatserved to clarify answers (Spradley, 1979). Ques-tions addressed the following broad issues: (1)founders’ experiences in founding their firms, in-cluding how they came upon their initial productofferings and how they engaged in a variety of


firm-organizing activities; (2) the founders’ experi-ences in running the firms, including specificdecisions made in the areas of hiring initial em-ployees, manufacturing, sales and marketing, in-tellectual property, and sourcing raw materials;(3) the founders’ relationships with a variety ofstakeholders; (4) the founders’ views of compet-ing firms; and (5) the founders’ backgrounds. Toencourage candor, interviewees were guaranteedanonymity. As part of the study design, wedid not inquire about identity directly, as doingso may have led subjects to rationalize their be-haviors, motivations, and actions (Spradley,1979). At the conclusion of the interviews, weasked interviewees to comment on issues thatthey had not yet brought up.

Interviews, which were generally conducted bytelephone and recorded to facilitate data analysis,ranged in length from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours(70 minutes was the average). Because our inter-viewees spoke French and German as their mothertongues, interviews were conducted in these lan-guages, transcribed, and then translated into Eng-lish (the language common to the authors).

Website and archival data. Whenever possible,we analyzed public materials related to the firmswhose founders we interviewed (e.g., websites,magazine articles); these materials helped us gaingeneral background information prior to an inter-view, better understand (and visualize) the range ofproduct offerings of the firms, acquire informationon the firm’s history, and augment and validate the(basic) data supplied by the founders.

Data Coding and Analysis

Our review of social identity theory indicatedthat the meanings embedded in a particular iden-tity emerge through social contacts and compari-sons. Since individuals “construct themselves” tohave a set of core characteristics that define theirself-concepts, their identity orientations are re-flected in the types of identity statements theymake. Having identified the identities, identity re-searchers assess the link between these identitiesand an individual’s behaviors and actions.

In keeping with the social identity literature andguidelines for coding and analyzing qualitativedata (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss & Corbin,1998), we identified identity meanings by analyz-ing our transcribed interviews. Studying the inter-views line by line, each of us first coded all re-sponses that provided information on the identitymeanings that the interviewees associated with be-ing a founder (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss &Corbin, 1998). We then compared how we classi-

fied each sentence or group of sentences (interrateragreement: .91) and discussed any differences inour coding until we reached agreement. For eachinterviewee, we transferred the identity-related in-formation to a common file to make that informa-tion more readily accessible.

After all identity-related content was transferredto the common file, we focused our analysis onthose identity meanings that provided informationon an individual’s social identity, and we catego-rized these identity meanings according to thethree main dimensions that researchers use to de-fine social identity: an individual’s (1) basic socialmotivation, (2) basis of self-evaluation, and (3)frame of reference (cf. Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Foreach of these three dimensions, we examined themeanings that pertained to it and iteratively fleshedout distinct thematic groupings of these meanings(i.e., “themes” [Strauss & Corbin, 1998]). This cod-ing process led to three distinct themes for each ofthe three social identity dimensions. For instance,for the dimension “basic social motivation,” themeanings could be grouped into the three themes“self-interest,” “support and be supported by acommunity,” and “advancing a cause.”4

As a result, the revised common file providedcoded information on the founders and their socialidentity dimensions, enabling us to determine eachfounder’s social identity. Specifically, for each ofthe three dimensions of social identity, we ana-lyzed whether a founder’s meanings pertained toone particular theme or to multiple themes in thatdimension.5 We captured the result for each dimen-sion of social identity in a score using the format(x1; x2; x3), where xy indicated the relative share ofcontent pertaining to a particular theme in thatdimension. For instance, if the meanings that thefounder associated with new firm creation all per-tained to the first theme, his/her score was (1.0; 0;0) for that dimension; if half of a founder’s mean-ings pertained to the first theme, half to the second,and none to the third, his/her score was (0.5; 0.5; 0).Once the scores for each founder were obtained, weperformed another iteration of our content analysisto verify the scores.

To derive the founders’ social identities, we ex-amined the scores of all three social identity di-

4 The themes identified for the social identity dimen-sions “basis of self-evaluation” and “frame of reference”can be seen in Table 1.

5 For example, in the identity dimension “social mo-tivation,” the meanings individuals associate with newfirm creation may pertain to the theme “self-interest,” toanother theme within this dimension, or to multiplethemes within this dimension.


mensions and found two principal groups: (1) in-dividuals whose meanings pertained to one theme6

in each of the three dimensions (the pure types)and (2) individuals whose meanings were spreadout across different themes in at least one socialidentity dimension (the hybrid types). Among thepure types, we then searched for regularities in thearrangement of scores and found three distinctgroups of founders. Individuals in a given groupshared the same arrangement of scores for each ofthe three social identity dimensions. Using the dis-tinct meanings these three groups of foundersassociated with new firm creation, we labeledtheir social identities as the “darwinian,” the“communitarian,” and the “missionary” identi-ties (see below).

Having derived the social identities of the found-ers, we assessed whether their identities led thefounders to make decisions related to the creationof their new firms that corresponded to the mean-ings of their social identities. In a final step, thedimensions, the founder identities, and their corre-spondence to the focal set of firm-related decisionswere validated with a professor of psychology whowas not otherwise involved in the study.

FINDINGS

An identity provides an individual with a cogni-tive frame of reference with which to interpret bothsocial situations and (potential) behaviors and ac-tions. We begin our analysis by describing the vari-ance of meanings that individuals associate withbeing a firm founder and, drawing on this assess-ment, discuss the three pure identity types and thehybrid types (which combine elements of the puretypes) that we identified. We then analyze the linkbetween founder identity and a founder’s decisionsin terms of (1) market segment(s) served, (2) cus-tomer needs addressed, and (3) resources/capabili-ties deployed, as these decisions are considered tostrategically define a new firm (Abell, 1980).

Founder Identities and Meanings

Following the data analysis procedure outlinedabove, we explored three primary dimensions ofmeaning that are fundamental in defining an indi-vidual’s self-concept as a firm founder (cf. Table 1):basic social motivation as a founder, basis of self-

evaluation in the founder role, and frame of refer-ence as a founder (Brewer & Gardner, 1996):

Individual’s basic social motivation as afounder. As Table 1 indicates, considerable vari-ance exists along this dimension. For some individ-uals, being a founder means (1) that they can makemoney and build their own financial wealth; forother founders it means (2) that they can advancethe community with their innovative equipmentand benefit from the support of the community inreturn, or (3) that they can pursue their politicalvision and advance a particular cause (such as asocial or an environmental mission).

Individual’s basis of self-evaluation as afounder. We observe high variance on this dimen-sion as well, because some founders evaluate them-selves in terms of (1) their ability to act profession-ally and apply solid business competencies,whereas others see (2) their authenticity (e.g., interms of bringing a truly useful product to fellowcommunity members) or (3) their socially respon-sible behavior as critical for their self-evaluation.

Individual’s frame of reference (i.e., relevantothers) as a founder. Individuals also possessstarkly different frames of reference as firm found-ers, as some view (1) the competition as the rele-vant comparison group in the “social space,”whereas others view (2) a particular community(i.e., the sports community), or (3) society as awhole as the relevant reference in the “socialspace.” Specifically, we note an important differ-ence between the second and third group, as acommunity orientation is based on interpersonalrelationships, but a societal orientation is associ-ated with impersonal collectives.

Our interviews revealed that most founders inthe sample could be classified as having one ofthree pure identities, each of which differs system-atically from the others along the three dimensionsof identity meanings just described. As noted in theMethods section, we labeled these three pure iden-tities the “darwinian identity” (left column of Ta-ble 1), the “communitarian identity” (middle col-umn), and the “missionary identity” (rightcolumn). Several founders possess a hybrid iden-tity that combines elements of the primary types.Table 2 shows the distribution of these identities inour data set.

In the following, we use data from founders thathave one of the three primary, pure identities toillustrate our conceptual findings cleanly. The hy-brid identities are discussed as an extension to ouranalysis. Furthermore, because some of the firms inour sample were created by a team of founders, wecomment on the role of founding teams in thisextended analysis as well.

6 Individuals with at least 80 percent of their mean-ings associated with a single theme in a given dimensionwere coded as having one theme in that dimension.


Darwinian identity. The first main type offounder identity observed in our sample, the dar-winian identity, is one that we would expect whenthinking about new firm creation, because it is as-sociated with traditional business-oriented mean-ings. Individuals who fall into this category focustheir attention mainly on establishing strong andprofitable firms. Although they generally feel someattraction to the sport domain in which their firmsoperate and also practice the sport at times, theydevote most of their attention to activities aimed atensuring the firm’s success. As the commentsshown below illustrate, these founders started theirfirms with the primary motive of making profitsand accumulating personal wealth.

I was thinking of a way to make money; it was a verystrong motivation. If I hadn’t had money troubles, Iwould certainly not have started out on this adven-ture. I would have kept the models to myself. (E.R.,scooter firm founder)It is the goal when one creates a firm; it is to increaseits value and, if one earns a little less at the begin-ning, one can expect a bonus on the partial or totalsale of the firm. (J.M.M., sport equipment firmcofounder)

In keeping with this strong interest in profit, dar-winian founders value a professional, “business

school” approach to creating and running a firmand pay close attention to managing their firmsaccording to solid business principles. Not surpris-ingly, darwinians oftentimes express the idea thatthey could have started the business in anotherdomain, emphasizing their generic approach tofirm creation.

Getting into this with the competencies we had wasa very calculated risk. Because having businesscompetency and technical proficiency . . . is alreadysomething remarkable, it’s an enormous advantageto our project. . . . That’s the difference between ourbrand and other emerging brands: these others areoften created only by skiers. I don’t want to be mean,but they have no idea about the business aspect.What I see with our skiers, you can’t ask them toprepare a business plan or do market research. It’sclearly not their job, not their competency. Sowhat’s attractive to stores and so on is that they see,“Oh, there’s a very organized business part to thisproject. We’re not going to order skis that will not bedelivered” and that kind of thing. (S.R., ski firmfounder)

I could have done that in many other domains ofactivity. . . . I think one can choose many differentdomains of activity and understand what is it allabout, understand the ins and the outs and then findthe relevance of a given offer, of a proposition, but

TABLE 1Identity Dimensions

Identity Dimensions Variance in Meanings

Basic socialmotivation (asfirm founder)

Self-interestfirm creation enables the individual

to pursue his self-interest(making money, creating personalwealth, building a business thatwill be inherited by the nextgeneration)

Support and be supported by acommunity

firm creation is indiscernible fromthe individual’s involvement ina community (firm bothsupports and is supported bythe community because ofmutually beneficialrelationships)

Advancing a causeFirm creation supports the political

vision of the individual and theambition to advance a particularcause (social,environmental, etc.)

Basis of self-evaluation (asfirm founder)

ProfessionalismBusiness-related competences as

the basis for self evaluation:being professional is perceived ascritical

AuthenticityAuthenticity as the basis for self-

evaluation: bringing somethingtruly useful to the community isperceived as critical (based onintimate knowledge of and carefor the needs of fellowcommunity members)

Responsible behaviorResponsibility as the basis for self

evaluation: contributing to abetter world is perceived ascritical (truly responsible peopledo act)

Frame of reference/relevant others(as firm founder)

Competitors-Competing firms as the primary

frame of reference-Being distinct from other firms

seen as core to theentrepreneurial process

Community benefiting fromproduct

-Social group as the primaryframe of reference

-Offering products (services) thatsupport the community seen ascore to the entrepreneurialprocess

Society-Society as the primary frame of

reference-Demonstrating that alternative

social practices are feasible andleading by example seen as coreto the entrepreneurial process


you must believe in yourself without lying to your-self, without bluffing yourself. (N.R., ski clothingfirm founder)

Tomorrow, that could be something else. I’m notattached to the product. What pleases me for now isthe project. (P.F., sport equipment firm founder)

Darwinians view competing firms as the primaryexternal point of reference in their social space.Being new and generally small producers, they tryto achieve competitive advantage by differentiatingtheir firms from the competition. Competing firmsare seen as rivals, yet darwinians also tend to valuethe competitive exchange as a process that allowsthe best firms to prevail.

[Our objective] is to make industry—leading prod-ucts in terms of design, materials/manufacturingand graphic—and compete against the mainstreambrands with a product that is fairly priced and offerssimilar or better technology. . . . Competition is ahealthy thing—it makes all of us strive to create abetter product at a cheaper cost. . . . I would alsolike to say that, on the flip side of this topic, Idefinitely do not believe in supporting a local in-dustry if it can’t create a competitive, high-qualityproduct. (T.W., ski firm founder)

I think it’s really a battle. Between people who aretruly in the same segment, I think we all try to be themost innovative and the strongest. (M.C., bike firmfounder)

And I really worked on positioning the brand in themarket and in finding my raison d’être in this ex-tremely competitive and narrow market. (N.R., skiclothes firm founder)

Communitarian identity. The second main typeof founder identity observed in our sample is thecommunitarian identity. Founders with this type ofidentity were typically strongly engaged in a sport

domain and often started getting into entrepreneur-ship as they gradually realized that the sportsequipment they had designed for themselves was ofinterest to fellow community members.

For 3–4 years, I tinkered in my grandmother’s ga-rage, making boards for my buddies, for buddies’buddies, like that. . . . I also worked on anotherboard for myself, precisely the swallowtail, thispowder board. And I started to sell them, as I hadmy friends, and I knew a lot of people in the ski-snowboard field, and also in windsurfing (. . .). Ev-eryone knows each other, and my friends kept say-ing, “K, why don’t you do this, more of this?.” . . . Iwas in a field where I had friends all over the place,in Chamonix, in Tignes, and when I showed up at aresort for some event, because I was still doingmonoskiing, “Oh, K, there you are, have you gotyour boards? I’ve got a friend who’s been harassingme for a week, he wants one, I’ll introduce you.” . . .People were coming up to me, saying, “are youcrazy? Your boards are great, I tried this, I had thebest time.”

[Interviewer: they encouraged you?]

They encouraged me, yes, because for me, starting abusiness was like attaching a ball and chain to myfoot. (K.K., snowboard firm founder)

These founders are enthused by their ability tocontribute to the community with their innovativeproducts and value the support they receive fromfellow community members in their entrepreneur-ial endeavors. They see their activities as foundersas an important catalyst for the development of thecommunity and for achieving recognition bytheir peers.

At some point one seeks for recognition. We all havea need for recognition. Being not good enough to goon the podiums, I realized that I could give good

TABLE 2Sample Characteristics

Characteristic Darwinians Communitarians Missionaries Hybrid

Number of firms in sample 19 13 6 11Average firm agea 5 5 5 4Average age of foundera 43 35 38 40Highest education level

High school 1 1 1 1University 12 6 4 5Other 5 5 2 5

Industry (including multiple answers)Ski/snowboard/snowscooter 3 9 1 9Bicycle/scooter/roller 6 2 0 0Measurement in sports 2 0 0 0Other 9 2 6 2

Firm founded by individual/team 10/9 8/5 5/1 6/5

a At time of the interview.


advice, that I could improve the equipment. It camelike that. (S.C., ski firm founder)

I was playing on my name a bit as well, to tell youthe truth; I rely on the fact that I have a history . . .I’m an active rider, out on the slopes, with somebackground, so I can rely on that, it’s a little addedplus, that’s also what allows me to . . .

[Interviewer: so you told yourself, well, with myreputation, I should sell a little, enough to recovermy investment, at least.]

Yes, precisely, that’s it exactly. . . . There was lots ofdemand behind me, lots of people I know. Whenyou’ve been on the slopes for a while, you see lots ofpeople, and many of them would say, yeah, comeout with the skis and we’ll get them, and that’s whathappened—actually, that’s how it works . . . I thinkif all that hadn’t been there, I might not have done it.(S.P., ski firm founder)

In line with their strong identification with thecommunity, communitarians believe that authen-ticity is the core asset that they can bring to theirventure. In particular, they argue that because oftheir status as sports enthusiasts they have unique,firsthand insights into the needs of fellow commu-nity members and thus can design “authentic”products that not only meet real needs but alsoallow for strong identification between the firm(the founder) and community members. In partic-ular, they frequently mention that they are able toproduce higher quality and care for their custom-ers, but that business-oriented founders do notidentify with their offerings and provide customerswith standardized, off-the-shelf products.

There needs to be authenticity, you need to be asportsman. (T.V., bike firm founder)

Snowboarding is something created by people whoare passionate about it, not businessmen, that thingsare not just business, there’s also those who are in itfor the passion of practicing the sport. What we doin terms of quality, no big brand is capable of doing.We want to get clients by identification . . . in bigindustry, there isn’t much identification. (S.P., skifirm founder)

In front of our customers, we have a better credibil-ity than their commercial stuff because we know ourproducts and market better than they do. (J.B., skifirm founder)

Fellow community members—“similar others”—serve as a communitarian founder’s primary frameof reference in the social space. In this vein, com-munitarians have a strong sense of “we-ness” whenit comes to their relationships with a community’smembers and make a clear distinction betweenpeople who are in the group and outsiders. Therelationship that these founders have with their

community is highly emotional because it revolvesaround shared passion for a sport.

Kitesurfers—these are guys who come from fun-boards, passionate guys like in snowboarding, guyswho make their own boards in their garages, like insnowboarding 15 years ago, and we end up with amultitude of brands, and there’s a lot of sharing, nocompetition, what I like is the mood, the environ-ment. I like that because it brings me back to 15years ago, in ideology and environment, and I enjoyit. (SP, snowboard and kitesurf firm founder)

I have invented the practice, so of course the peopleknow me. So far, I have organized 80% of the com-petitions, but now there is a Swiss federation andthere is a federation in France, they are all friends ofmine and they all have taken up the torch. It is themwho organize, but I am always around with mysnowscoots to help the riders—but I do not rideanymore. In the beginning I was riding and, ofcourse, I won the first competition.

[Interviewer: Hum, it is too easy when one has in-vented the practice!]

[laughs] Yes sure. This was at Avoriaz and therewere 70 persons, and there were only 20snowscoots, they were struggling to get one. Theseare unforgettable memories.

What I like most is to arrive at a world champion-ship in snowscoot, and to be able to tell to myselfthat there are 150 guys from 12 different countries,that the parking lot is full of cars with snowscoot onthe top and that the guys speak only of that. (F.P.,snowscooter firm founder)

Missionary identity. The third pure type offounder identity observed in our sample is the mis-sionary identity. Missionary founders believe thatfirms can be powerful agents of change in societyand engage in new firm creation to establish a plat-form from which they can pursue their politicalvisions and advance particular causes, generally ofa social or environmental nature.

I am not an artist, but I have discovered that one canexpress himself through a firm with its employees,its networks, its projects and its logos. . . . By mak-ing T-shirts in India, you are able to build schools. Ihave already built nine schools; because you use7,000 litres of water each day, you build recyclingfacilities, and also we pursue social projects, ecolog-ical ones; it is something that is coherent. . . . Moneyis just an engine for an entrepreneur, it is not a goal.The goal is not to earn money, it is to have revenuesto pursue your projects, possibly to live well, butone should not confuse ends and means. (R.C., sportclothing firm founder)

Well, the goal is not to grow the firm and becomerich. Rather, we want to reach a point where we arecompletely satisfied with the high level of sustain-


ability inherent in our products, from “cradle tocradle.” Especially, we want to show to others thatbetter business processes are possible. . . . In addi-tion, we want to devote resources towards support-ing the [name] foundation with the money we earn;its goal is to support social and ecological projects.My cofounder is already the president of this foun-dation! (M.Z., sport clothing firm founder)

Missionaries live by the principle that their ac-tions can positively affect the well-being of othersand seek to act in a responsible, transparent, andempathetic manner to make the world “a betterplace.” They view their firms as entities that engagein activities that make “sense” and in this respectself-evaluate their behaviors and actions throughtheir contribution to the social world and/or“planet earth.” To advance their cause, missionar-ies not only offer products but also see their wholefirm and the way in which business is conducted asa role model for society.

A firm that succeeds is a firm that makes productsthat make sense. When making a product, threequestions must be answered: (1) Why do we do it? Ifit is for money, it is useless. (2) How do we do it? So,under which conditions? (3) And where do we do it?Traceability. For me, a firm that succeeds is a firmthat makes sense. Then, incidentally, it should notlose money. (R.C., sport clothing firm founder)

I do not want to sell only an innovation, an innova-tive product. I want to build a firm that is a socialmodel. . . . This is a role model for an ethical busi-ness—here and internationally. (B.B., sport shoefirm founder)

Success means to me that I want to reach a largenumber of people, make them realize what sustain-able consumption in terms of clothing means. (M.S.sport clothing firm founder)

Missionaries advocate new social practices thatthey perceive as having universal scope. They be-lieve that the purpose of their firm is to show thatalternative practices are feasible and to demon-strate to society how the status quo can be changed(e.g., the way society consumes its resources, the

way society engages with the planet). In this sense,the “relevant other” for missionaries is not a par-ticular group of individuals or firms but societyat large.

We absolutely need to save our planet, this topicneeds to be of primary concern to all of us! . . . Ihave difficulties in defining a target group, it iseveryone—everyone is wearing clothes and every-one should do so in a sustainable fashion. . . . In tenyears, there should only be sustainable clothing!(M.Z., Sport clothing firm founder)

Businessmen, they only see the short term. Whatwill decide the evolution of the society will be thelong term. We must reintroduce politics. We mustthink in terms of civilization; we are only passing;we are nothing; we must see things as a trend; all theremaining is cosmetic. A coherent firm must under-stand that money is just the oil for the engine. (R.C.,sport clothing firm founder)

The Influence of a Founder’s Identity on NewFirm Creation

To reiterate the social identity theory argument,when an identity is salient, it predicts the behav-iors that an individual will adopt. Thus, in thecontext of the present study, we would expect that,for example, a founder with a communitarian iden-tity would act in ways that match the particularmeanings he or she associates with being a firmfounder (Table 1). In keeping with this fundamen-tal prediction from social identity theory, our find-ings suggest that founders with different identitiesdiffer systematically across the set of key entrepre-neurial decisions that are explored in the presentstudy. Our findings are summarized in Tables 3and 4 and are explained in greater detail below.

Founder Identity and Core Strategic Decisions inNew Firm Creation

Market segment(s) served. Our interviews indi-cate that darwinian founders work at identifying

TABLE 3Quantitative Description of Founder Actions

VariableDarwinian

IdentityCommunitarian

IdentityMissionary

IdentityHybridIdentity

Firm count 19 13 6 11Market study prior to launch 11 0 4 7Diversification within sports 12 4 3 4Diversification outside sports 8 0 1 0Salaried employment (beyond founder) 15 3 6 6Marketing expenditures 13 0 6 6Patented innovation 9 1 1 6


the most profitable markets in their sport domains.These founders typically produce equipment eitherfor the average customer in the mass market or fora rapidly growing market segment. Although theymay start off in an inferior market segment, theydo not stick with it but keep on exploring othersegments.

Apart from the bicycle market, there seems to bevery professional market for HID search lights,which means military or so-called law enforcement:police, fire-fighters, those. (D.K., diving light firmfounder)

At the beginning we were thinking especially ofprofessional, high-level sports. . . . We targeted theequipment manufacturers and I think we were righton this. This market is probably there; it exists. . . .However, there is another market that we think to-day has a real demand: it is what we call the con-firmed amateurs, which is made of sportsmen ofgood level, open to new technologies, and ready tobuy equipment, including quite expensive ones.(R.P., sport equipment firm founder)

In particular, darwinians believe it is a personalstrength that they are not deeply involved in thesport for which they are selling equipment. Forinstance, they claim that the immersion of commu-nitarians in their sport and their close associationwith their clientele make it harder to adopt anobjective view of the market and to identify addi-tional, potentially more lucrative target marketsthat provide opportunities for diversification andgrowth (Penrose, 1959). As a case in point, quanti-tative evidence obtained from our sample indicatesthat darwinian founders pursue diversification op-portunities much more often than do communitar-ian founders (see Table 3).

Yes, but I truly love the product and I know it. Butthe fact that I am not a keen biker allowed me toreally listen to many people, rather than drawingfrom my own life. (B.V., bicycle firm founder)

[People who are very involved in the sport and whocreate a business] are called “nerds.” They are sospecialized in their area, in their sport, so active ina particular sport, they are blind to what sport thegeneral public needs. And that’s where many fail.[They] can’t accept that you make your money withthe general public. (P.F., training equipment firmfounder)

When you listen to those people, you would thinkthe entire world consists of core customers. . . . Youhave to go away from that and go to a lower-levelmentality, to the normal general consumer, so tospeak. That is a very important process. I don’t haveany problems with that because I have always beena consumer. (A.F., mountain bike firm founder)

The communitarian founders usually producefor people who are like themselves, that is, userswho practice the sport in question regularly(Franke & Shah, 2003; von Hippel, 1988). Unlikedarwinian founders, who typically conduct marketstudies prior to launch (Table 3), they often do notrealize that a market exists until they have alreadydesigned and made a prototype of their product forthemselves. Feedback from friends and other com-munity members who try out the prototype andthen ask for it typically leads to the realization thatthere is market demand and that a firm can becreated to satisfy that demand (Shah & Tripsas,2007). Although some of these customers may besport professionals, most are intense amateurs whoare passionate about the sport.

Our customers are people who know us: profession-als or passionate amateurs who are looking for anoriginal product. (J.B., ski firm founder)

[My customer] is either someone who skis very reg-ularly despite work, or it’s someone who’s not a proin the etymological sense of the word, but who issomeone who’s going to spend all winter in thesnow. (S.P., ski firm founder)

Missionaries choose their market to be congruentwith their political vision; that is, they define it ina way that promises to advance their cause in themost powerful manner. For instance, as some of themissionaries in our sample seek to change a generalconsumption pattern in society, they address themass market and build a distribution system thatallows them to reach the average consumer.

Our market is basically everyone who wears sportsclothing, as everyone should wear sustainableclothes! Hence, our products have a style that ap-peals to the general public. . . . At the moment wesell our goods through our webshop, through agentsin Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and throughdistribution partners in other countries. (M.Z., sportclothing firm founder)

What I seek to accomplish is to reach as many peo-ple as possible and let them know the problems ofmodern consumption and offer them an alternativewhen it comes to their clothing. And we also planon doing the same with snowboards. (M.S., sportclothing firm founder)

Customer needs addressed. The three types offounders also diverge markedly in terms of thecustomer needs that their firms address (Table 4).Darwinians typically design a product that meetscustomer needs already known to be important fora wider audience, such as ease of use or safety(Riggs & von Hippel, 1994). Addressing this kind ofneed is consistent with darwinians’ motivation toestablish a profitable firm and to produce a com-


mercially appealing product. Thus, although theirproducts typically do not incorporate novel func-tionalities, they may still represent an improve-ment over what has been offered in the market-place.

Kids today don’t need to buy an 80–100 euros pairof Nikes in order to walk, but they will buy thembecause they want to because Nike has the ability tomake products that create the desire. This is astrength that I believed in from the beginning . . .: ifthey desire this product, well, then they’ll buy it.

[Interviewer: and what made this bike different fromthe ones already on the market?]

It was a little bit about its look, the design, theassembly. Yes, it was pretty. (M.C., bicycle firmfounder)

There is no innovation in the technology. The inno-vation has to do with applying it to sports. I in-vented nothing, I took existing tools, existing needs,and applied these tools to these needs. (P.F., sportequipment firm founder)

Communitarians usually create products that ad-dress novel kinds of customer needs in their sportdomains. They often start by creating a product fortheir own use because their own customer needsare not satisfied by current market offerings. Hence,their newly developed products often embody anentirely new dimension of functionality that some-

times even opens up new practice areas in thesport. The customer needs addressed with the newproduct reflect those needs that the founder expe-rienced himself and that led to the development ofthe new product (Franke & von Hippel, 2003).

Yes it is me, I have invented that. . . . I studied at theHotel School in Glion and after having received ourdiploma, we had two or three months without doinganything and with friends we were living in a smallchalet in the mountains. There was no snow and wewere snowboarding on the grass. We were puttingwater on the slope and, of course, it was not conve-nient and we got bored. So I suggested something Ihad had in mind for three years; well, to create aBMX bike for snow. We made it during the night,we cut a snowboard and used a part of a scooterwe had. We tinkered all night and in the morningthere was a snowscoot in front of the chalet! (F.P.,snowscooter firm founder)

Missionaries offer products that are intended tochange the consumption patterns of customers to amore environmentally friendly and/or socially re-sponsible pattern. Thus, by buying the product of amissionary founder, consumers not only fulfilltheir basic needs but also show their responsibilitytoward fellow citizens because consumers “vote”with their consumption.

TABLE 4Founder Identity Types and Core Strategic Decisions in New Firm Creation

Decisions Darwinians Communitarians Missionaries

Marketsegment(s)served

-Produce for the average consumer or forquickly growing segments (the criteriaof likelihood and value drive thechoice of market served)

-Tend to serve additional segments overtime/extend applications to newsegments to achieve firm growth

-“Our customers are like us” (thecriterion of similarity drives thechoice of market served)

-Stick to initial segmentaddressed because it is the onlyplace perceived as legitimate

-Produce for those consumers wherethey expect the greatest socialimpact; ultimately society is theiraudience

-May serve additional segments, ifthis allows the firm to leverage itssocio-political mission

Customer needsaddressed

-Tend to address known dimensions ofmerit (e.g., safety, ease-of-use)

-Derived from market analysis

-Tend to address novel kinds ofcustomer needs

-Derived from own needs

-Tend to address new socialpractices (e.g., new modes ofconsumption or production)

-Derived from what the founderwould like the world to become

Capabilitiesand resourcesdeployed

-Focus on cost-effective and mass-production methods (which arenecessary to reach profitability)

-International sourcing of productioncapabilities (if needed)

-Value intellectual property rightsprotection/help in achievingbusiness goals

-Tend to use highlyindividualized and artisanalproduction methods (productsoften considered works of art)

-Reliance on personal capabilities-Reluctance to use intellectual

property rights protectionwithin community/would runcounter to sharing values

-Focus on socially responsibleproduction methods

-Sourcing from suppliers that matchstrict criteria (according tomission)

-Demonstration of firm capabilitiesto diffuse the exemplary model


The more you buy and seek to use your so-calledbuying power, the more the objects make your exis-tence heavy. The more you have, the less you are.Look around you. People ask one another, “Doesthat shirt suit me well?” instead of asking “Are youfeeling well? No?” It is incredible! And what I do isthat I sell clothes that make sense. (R.C., sport cloth-ing firm founder)

We want to educate consumers, show them what itmeans to buy clothes in a more responsible andsustainable manner. Here, the topic of sustainabilityshould be of concern to everyone—just like it isalready with other everyday topics such as cleandriving or responsible food supply. (M.S., sportclothing firm founder)

Capabilities and resources deployed to pro-duce goods. Darwinians, communitarians, andmissionaries also differ markedly with regard to thecapabilities and resources deployed to producetheir goods (Table 4). Corresponding to their stronginterest in firm profit, darwinians focus on cost-effective, mass production methods, often out-sourcing production to factories in low-wage na-tions. They tend to protect their productionprocesses and designs so they can shield them-selves from competing firms.

But we knew that if we increased the volume, we’dbuy cheaper. . . . And we are only now four years in,finding solutions that will allow us to lower theprices, but that’s normal—that’s entirely normal.The first four years are pretty much brand develop-ment and product development. Then there’s agiven moment when you begin to really turn aprofit. (S.R., ski firm founder)Thus, we have the whole production departmentcentralized in Taiwan, where many parts are man-ufactured nowadays because of market require-ments; therefore, our bikes are put together thereand also distributed from there. (M.C., bike firmfounder)I just think we are very exciting because we arebacked by lots and lots of patents, which makes it somuch more thrilling. . . . And if you spend 180,000euros on patents alone, like we have done, then youare talking about a serious business. (F.B., mountainbike firm founder)

In contrast, communitarians tend to use highlyindividualized, artisanal production methods.They typically consider their products works of artand pay a great deal of attention to each unit pro-duced. Moreover, as communitarians value the ex-change with fellow enthusiasts, they believe thatpreventing others from using their ideas (produc-tion processes, designs, etc.) may inhibit progressin the field.

What happens in a major brand is, the guy is makingpowder boards; they’re going to make a mold, and

there’s a guy paid minimum wage to make a mold,and—boom—in a week, the whole stock is in. WhatI think people like, with me, is the artisan side of it,the manual, personal aspect. I make each board my-self; I know what goes into every board. I applymyself to that because my biggest nightmare is get-ting a return. I really don’t want someone coming tome saying, “Shit, I bought this board last week, andthere’s something wrong with it. This came un-glued.” That’s horrible for me. (K.K., snowboardfirm founder)

I’m more into a sharing logic. Everything I do, allyou have to do is go to my site to see I’ve got totaltransparence: how I lay my fibers, where I lay them,my suppliers—it’s all told. (S.P., ski firm founder)

With this type of product you cannot be the only oneto make it, otherwise it is not a sport anymore. If youwant you can try to protect your product, but youshould not prevent the others from doing similarproducts. (F.P., snowscooter firm founder)

Following the ideal of creating a socially/envi-ronmentally responsible firm, missionary founderstake great care in building production capabilitiesand resources that can serve as exemplars for “bet-ter” practices and thus have the potential to inspirea more widespread adoption in their industry andbeyond. Applying a holistic understanding of whatit means to be a responsible producer, they spendmuch effort on finding suppliers that share theirworld view and principles, and invest in buildinglong-term relationships.

We take extreme care in establishing productionprocesses that meet or exceed the strictest environ-mental criteria, we want to be the role model. . . .Unfortunately, there are firms that simply pretendthat they are concerned about the environment, theso-called “greenwashers” . . . they do the bare min-imum in order to advertise with that. (M.Z., sportclothing firm founder)

It starts from an idea that we want to have cleansuppliers. And to have suppliers that are clean, youhave to have long-term relationships because weask them to make a certain number of investmentsand so you cannot do what they call cherry-pick-ing. . . . What we are doing is that we are looking forsome people who are in the same spirit as us. . . . Ithas to be long-term negotiations. When they say,“Not now, I cannot,” you believe them; you are nottrying to economize on the last penny. . . . We dogroup sessions with the suppliers . . . and we workon themes like sustainable development. We havelessons that are organized every two or three years totalk about family planning, condoms, working con-ditions—all that is necessary for sustainable devel-opment. (D.A., manager, supplies and productdevelopment)


It is important to note that in the darwinian andcommunitarian cases, the choice of the firm’s sup-pliers was largely unaffected by the founder’s iden-tity. Although communitarian founders focused onartisanal production methods, some of them pur-chased their materials from the same sources astheir darwinian counterparts, and they also applieda primarily cost-benefit logic when making pur-chasing decisions. This observation gives rise to amore fundamental one, as our findings indicatethat identity will affect only those strategic deci-sions that are identity-relevant along the dimen-sions of the meanings that the individual associateswith being a founder. In other words, if a particularstrategic decision is unrelated to these meanings,founders will base decisions on some standard cri-teria they are aware of—such as the aforementionedcost-benefit logic in the case of communitarians.

Extension to the Analysis: Hybrid Identities andthe Role of Founding Teams

To provide a clean illustration of our findings,the analysis has thus far focused on the three puretypes of identities found in our sample. Beyondthese pure types, our sample also contains 11 indi-viduals with what we call a hybrid founder iden-tity, one that combines elements of the pure types(Table 1). Most of these hybrid founder identities inour sample are characterized by a combination ofmeanings from the communitarian identity and thedarwinian identity, and our analysis suggests twomain ways in which this combining seems to occur.First, the founder has a background that combinesbusiness experience with community experience.For example, one such founder had worked at alarge ski firm before starting his own firm whilealso enjoying his membership and his status in thesports community. Second, it seems that externalpressures drive the founder to make concessions toappeal to investors, who typically demand highlevels of financial performance. In terms of theircore strategic decisions, our analysis indicates thatfounders with hybrid identities evolve in manydifferent and—from an identity perspective—hard-to-predict directions. For instance, in the case offounders who combine elements of the communi-tarian and the darwinian identities, we found thatthey sometimes base their strategic decisions onmeanings associated with one of the identities, orthat a particular strategic decision combines themeanings of both identities.

Our sample also contains firms that were estab-lished by a team of founders, rather than an indi-vidual. These cases provide some insight into therole of multiple founder identities in new firm cre-

ation (cf. Drnovsek, Cardon, & Murnieks, 2009).Specifically, by distinguishing cases of homoge-neous and heterogeneous founder teams, our dataanalysis suggests that individuals who share thesame type of identity will behave and act in ahighly consistent manner when setting up theirfirms. For instance, in the communitarian cases, wesaw that the prospective founders typically meteach other while performing the sport and thoughtit would be interesting to start a firm because ofshared aspirations to pursue their passion for thesport and contribute to the community. Our dataalso contain a few cases in which the founders havedifferent types of identities and differing notionsabout what goals the firm should pursue, whichactivities it should undertake, and so on. Thesedifferent views were often the subject of intensenegotiation between the founders, so divergentidentities can be a major source of conflict within afounding team. Oddly enough, founding teams inour sample usually were not aware that the root oftheir conflict lay in their divergent social identitiesbut believed the conflicts to be simple differencesin opinion. For instance, in one of the ski firms weexamined, the founding team was comprised of acommunitarian and a darwinian who had repeateddisagreements about the way in which the skisshould be manufactured and marketed. Ultimately,the darwinian founder left the business and went towork in the soft drink industry, and the communi-tarian founder launched a new ski firm. Comment-ing on his former darwinian colleague, the commu-nitarian noted:

I think it stemmed from a lot of discontent on themanufacturing and administrative side of the busi-ness. Not to put words in his mouth, but he becameincreasingly more frustrated with production, out-put, and administrative response from our supplier.He decided he had grown weary and frustrated withmanufacturing and wanted to leave the partnership.I do not know what he will do. But I will continue tobuild skis here. (S.D., ski firm founder)

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

We began this study by noting that classical en-trepreneurship theory portrays the prospect ofmonetary gain as the primary motivation for creat-ing a new firm. Our findings critically extend thisconception, as founders in our sample could fre-quently be classified as belonging to one of threepure social identity types, with each of these typesassociating distinct meanings with their entrepre-neurial activities: darwinians, who have a type ofidentity that we would expect to dominate in in-dustry settings, given the norm for what it means to


be a successful firm founder in a competitive mar-ket system; communitarians, who deviate in funda-mental ways from the darwinian norm by viewingtheir firms as social objects; and missionaries, whoalso deviate from the darwinian model by seeingtheir firms as political objects.7

Beyond documenting the existence of these puretypes of founder identities and describing their fea-tures, our study provides evidence of how theseidentities are reflected in distinct entrepreneurialbehaviors, actions, and outcomes. In particular, ouranalysis provides detailed examples that indicatestark differences along several core strategic dimen-sions of new firm creation, thereby illustrating howfounders seek to behave and act in ways that areconsistent with their self-concepts.

Although our findings offer a number of impor-tant insights into the field of entrepreneurship, oneof the main contributions of the present study is anovel typology that provides a multidimensionalconceptualization of firm founders (cf. Table 2), aswell as a powerful explanation for why founderswith different types of identities make vastly dif-ferent decisions in new firm creation (cf. Table 4).To clarify the implications that the proposed typol-ogy may have for theory development in entrepre-neurship and related research, it is important toassess whether the relevance of the three purefounder identity types is likely to extend beyondthe current empirical context and how the pro-posed typology relates to existing typologies in en-trepreneurship.

First, in terms of the typology’s empirical rele-vance, we cannot necessarily expect all threefounder identities to be of equal importance in allindustries. The results of this study suggest thatfounders with darwinian identities are more com-mon than founders with communitarian or mis-sionary identities. Specifically, we estimate that inmost industries, founders with missionary identi-ties are the rarest, because of the inherent tensionbetween pursuing a political mission and ensuringfirm survival. As an illustration for our typology

that reaches beyond the area of sports, considerbanking, one of the most traditional economic sec-tors in which all three types coexist. Banks foundedby darwinians represent most banks in moderneconomies, yet it seems reasonable to speculatethat many countries contain a nonnegligible num-ber of communitarian banks whose founders wantto build better and sustainable local communitiesby, for example, offering employment opportuni-ties for local residents, keeping local capital in thecommunities, providing a local investment optionfor shareholders, and funding community proj-ects—in addition to providing quality banking ser-vices.8 As in the sports-related equipment industry,it seems likely that missionary founders representthe rarest type of founder in the banking industry.Consider the example of the Alternative Bank ofSwitzerland, founded by several individuals whowere active in ecological and social movements.Being aware of the responsibility banks have in thefunctioning of modern economies and questioningthe predominant economic logic encountered inbanking, the founders established a new type ofbank that follows universal principles of social re-spect, pursues ecological responsibility and trans-parency in its operations, and plays an active rolein the ecological and social transformation of thenational economy (König & Wespe, 2006).

As for founders with hybrid identities, it seemsthat such individuals may be fairly common inmost industry settings and that they may becomeeven more prevalent in coming years, given theincreasing demands placed on traditional businessfirms to internalize social and environmental re-sponsibility. In a globalized world, nations andgroups of nations are faced with declining capaci-ties to establish market frameworks that guide eco-nomic behavior (Scherer & Palazzo, 2007). In thisvein, as Sachs suggested, “Each company needs tobe part of the solution and needs to stretch itsactivities beyond normal market activities. Thisdoes not mean to turn the company upside down orinto a charitable institution, but rather to identifythe unique contribution the company may make aspart of a broader effort to solve a major social chal-lenge” (2008: 321). These solutions may manifestthemselves in a variety of business initiatives, in-cluding corporate social entrepreneurship pro-grams (Hemingway, 2005).

7 The missionary founder identity identified in ourresearch may remind readers of the “missionary organi-zation” described by Mintzberg (1989). Looking at theapproaches that these organizations pursue to fulfill theirmissions, Mintzberg identified three different forms: “re-formers,” “converters,” and “cloister missionaries.” Fu-ture inquiry into the approaches that the missionaryfounders identified in our research use to pursue theirmissions may uncover similar forms. We thus might beable to establish a link between findings based on theapplication of social identity theory in entrepreneurshipand Mintzberg’s observations.

8 In this vein, the frequently used term “communitybank” does not necessarily refer to an institution with acommunitarian approach to banking; community banksoften follow purely darwinian business principles.


Second, in terms of its relationship to other ty-pologies, the conceptual framework that appears tobe most closely related to the one developed in thepresent study is the “growth vs. lifestyle ventures”typology (e.g., Morris, Schindehutte, & Allen,2005). In this typology, “growth ventures” are char-acterized by a founder’s strong aspirations forwealth creation, whereas the founders of “lifestyleventures” aim at generating sufficient personal in-come to pursue other goals in their lives that theydeem more important. Beyond observing that thistypology neither draws on a distinct theoreticalbase nor specifies how the aspirations of foundersmanifest themselves in their strategic decisions,one may, prima facie, be tempted to perceive someresemblance between the darwinian firms and thegrowth-oriented ventures on one hand, and be-tween the communitarian firms and the lifestyleventures on the other. This perception may be fu-eled by the fact that we studied founders in thesports-related equipment industry, a domain thathas some natural association with lifestyle. How-ever, from a social identity perspective, lifestyle,along with other goals, can be a goal in the “utilityfunction” of any type of entrepreneur; in fact, ourdata indicate that lifestyle considerations play arole with a number of founders of all types. Forinstance, some darwinians choose to live in smallalpine villages so they can enjoy a desired lifestyle(spending time on the slopes, in nature, etc.) andrun their firms at the same time. In the aforemen-tioned example of the banking industry, althoughall three types of founder identities seem to coexist,given the nature of banking, one would not betempted to think of lifestyle as important to any ofthe three. Hence, although they appear to be re-lated, the growth versus lifestyle typology and thesocial identity typology lead to examination of en-trepreneurship from different vantage points and,as a consequence, the two typologies offer distinctcontributions to the literature.

Furthermore, our typology of founder identitiesand the associated insights on what it means to bean entrepreneur can be related to the domain ofpolitical philosophy, a domain characterized by along and profound discourse on what it means to bea “human agent, a person, or a self” (Taylor, 1989:3). In fact, scholars of political philosophy oftendistinguish among three fundamental conceptionsof human nature (Beitz, 1979; Taylor, 1989) thatshow intriguing parallels with the three founderidentity types identified in the present study: theatomistic self, the communitarian self, and the cos-mopolitan self.

First, following Hobbes (1651/1962), one way ofconceiving of human nature is to see a person as a

wolf to another person. In this view, the individualis an “atomistic self” who is self-sufficient, outsidesociety, independent, and focused on the pursuit ofprivate interest, and for whom social relationshipsare driven primarily by rivalry (Rawls, 1971).

A second way of conceiving of human nature isto see a person as a situated self—that is, a com-munitarian self. In this view, “Man is by nature amember of a community [and a] social ani-mal . . . because he is not self-sufficient outside apolis” (Taylor, 1985: 190; see also Sandel, 1981).Individuals are shaped by the values of their com-munity, want to nurture their relationships withtheir community, and believe that they have obli-gations toward it (Kymlicka, 1989; MacIntyre,1995; Walzer, 1983).

Finally, a third way of conceiving of human na-ture is to see a person as a citizen of the world, aconcept framed by Diogenes of Sinope (Laërtius,1925), and thus as a “cosmopolitan self” who is amember of a single, universal human community inwhich all are subject to the same moral standards(Kant, 1795/2003). In this view, the task of worldcitizens is to “make all human beings more like ourfellow city dwellers” (Hierocles, quoted in Nuss-baum, 1997: 9; also see Levinas, 1990; Pogge, 1992).

Implications for Entrepreneurship Research

The results presented in this article can informtheory development in entrepreneurship in severalways. Most generally, our findings suggest that so-cial identity theory has the potential to serve as avaluable platform from which to expand generalunderstanding of entrepreneurship. This approachestablishes a common frame of reference for ex-plaining the different meanings that founders asso-ciate with the creation of a new firm—notably,meanings that reach well beyond the classical viewthat founders are driven primarily by the prospectsof personal monetary gain (e.g., Schumpeter, 1942).Furthermore, as individuals strive for behaviorsand actions that are consistent with their identity,the social identity approach helps to explain whyfounders choose to pursue particular behaviors andactions in new firm creation, thereby providingnovel insights into stark differences among differ-ent firms’ creation processes and outcomes.

The link between founder identity on the onehand and behaviors and actions on the other seemsto be particularly tight in the case of communitar-ian and missionary identities, given that behaviorsand actions common to these types of identitiesform a relatively small subset of all potential ac-tions that may be pursued when creating a newfirm. The meanings internalized by darwinians are


somewhat more abstract, suggesting a larger scopeof potential actions; however, for a variety of rea-sons, darwinian founders also restrict themselvesto a subset of potential actions when setting up afirm. For instance, their pursuit of only “profes-sional” approaches and their strong profit andgrowth orientations lead them to discard some mar-ket segments, some types of production processes,and more radical innovations. Therefore, a found-er’s social identity establishes an important re-strictive corridor, because only some behaviorsand actions are considered appropriate in entre-preneurship and not others—a circumstance thatcould also be a fundamental source of conflictwhen a team of founders is composed of individ-uals with different identities.

In this regard, it seems unfortunate that scholars’understanding of many topics in entrepreneurship,such as the choice of a firm’s target market or itsresource deployment strategies, relies largely onthe assumption that founders make decisions in acalculating manner (e.g., by applying cost-benefitanalyses or analyzing market attractiveness using arange of indicators). The findings presented in thisstudy suggest a more nuanced view of entrepre-neurial decision making in that the sampled found-ers frequently applied criteria related to how welldecisions matched their identities. Therefore, fu-ture studies may revisit some of the earlier findingson decision making in entrepreneurship from thisperspective.

The findings of this study also enrich under-standing of the early stage of entrepreneurial op-portunity identification. Specifically, we have seenthat individuals who have a particular identityidentify and exploit opportunities along major di-mensions (such as target market and the resourcesutilized to cater to that market) that are systemati-cally different from those identified by individualswith other types of identities. Furthermore, wehave observed fundamental differences in the typeof value creation potential that individuals associ-ate with their opportunities, as darwinians look foropportunities that will lead to personal monetarygain, but communitarians strive for opportunitiesthat will allow them to support and be supportedby their community. Missionaries look for oppor-tunities that have the potential to advance theircause. Hence, it seems that, because identity servesas a cognitive frame for interpreting experience andbecause identity increases sensitivity to certaincues for behavior, founders perceive as opportuni-ties only those situations that are consistent withtheir self-concepts as they strive for identity-rele-vant actions in creating their new firms. Thus, an

individual’s identity can be considered a key factorin opportunity identification that is separate fromother factors discussed in the literature, such asprior knowledge, different access to information,and different cognitive abilities (Shane, 2003;Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Furthermore, ourfindings suggest that the identity-based affinity to aparticular opportunity may explain why somefounders do not take alternative, perhaps finan-cially more attractive opportunities into accountwhen they create new firms (Gruber, MacMillan, &Thompson, 2008).

Along these lines, the results of this study alsooffer intriguing insights on the different concep-tions of firm performance that founders with differ-ent types of identities associate with new firm cre-ation. Darwinians view the financial performanceof their firms as their primary measure of success;communitarians are mainly interested in support-ing and in being supported by a particular commu-nity, and they derive strong personal satisfactionfrom being a useful and respected communitymember. For their part, missionaries are primarilyinterested in seeing that their political vision isfollowed, supported, and implemented by as manypeople as possible, so that the world can become a“better place” according to their mission. Hence,empirical studies as well as theories building onthe conventional assumption that founders engagein new firm creation to achieve strong financialperformance outcomes could, to some extent, bemisleading.

This study also has interesting implications forresearch on entrepreneurial teams (Wright &Vanaelst, 2009), because most research on thistopic examines demographic characteristics, suchas the educational background of team members, toassess heterogeneity within founding teams (e.g.,Franke, Gruber, Harhoff, & Henkel, 2008). Our re-sults indicate that heterogeneity in founders’ iden-tity seems to be an important team dimension thatto date has largely gone unnoticed in this area ofresearch. Looking at our data, we found it particu-larly intriguing to observe that such heterogeneitycan be a fundamental source of team conflict, al-though a team of founders may themselves simplyview their ongoing conflict as recurring differencesof opinion. Likewise, it seems that homogeneity onthe identity dimension can be a fundamentalsource of positive energy and enthusiasm in entre-preneurial teams.

Overall, this discussion indicates that the iden-tity concept can lead to valuable insights on avariety of topics that are core to the field ofentrepreneurship. Hence, from a methodologicalperspective, researchers may want to develop


scales with which to measure the identities offirm founders to make the identity concept acces-sible for large-scale empirical studies.

Implications for Related Literature

The results of our study also have implicationsfor the related literature on organizations and stra-tegic management. First, our results add to researchon upper echelons (Finkelstein et al., 2009) byshowing how an agent’s social identity is reflectedin firm-level outcomes and, more generally, by il-lustrating how the social identity approach canhelp to explain organizational features. Specifi-cally, because this approach emphasizes the impor-tance of the social dimension in a person’s conceptof self, it can enrich current conceptualizations ofhuman agents in upper echelons research by high-lighting the social meanings that humans attach totheir work-related activities.

Second, our findings provide novel insights forthe literature on organizational imprinting (Baron,Hannan, & Burton, 1999; Boeker, 1988). This liter-ature has focused on how a founder’s pre-entryknowledge imprints an emerging organization. Al-though the importance of pre-entry knowledge en-dowments has been the subject of considerable the-oretical and empirical research, we are unaware ofany study that highlights the fundamental influ-ence that the founder’s identity can have on anew firm.

Finally, our findings offer novel insights into theways in which firm heterogeneity arises in a par-ticular industry (Zott, 2003) by highlighting therole of founder social identity as an importantsource of firm-level differences in a particular in-dustry. These insights can also inform understand-ing of the origins of competitive advantage, thepersistence of financially underperforming firms(Gimeno, Folta, Cooper, & Woo, 1997), and thedifferent types of individual-level utility functionsin business settings (Podolny & Scott Mor-ton, 2002).

Limitations and Opportunities for FutureResearch

In studying firm founders in the sports-relatedequipment industry using a sampling strategy de-signed to maximize heterogeneity, this researchidentified three pure types of founder identities, aswell as hybrid forms. However, in spite of cross-checks in other industry settings that provided ev-idence in support of our results, more research isneeded to ascertain whether the findings of thisstudy can be more broadly generalized.

In addition, the patterns that emerged in thisresearch must be interpreted within the limitationsof a cross-sectional, exploratory research design,particularly its inability to determine directions ofcausality. The development of one’s social identityis typically a long-term process that begins withsocial observations made in childhood (Turner,1968). In support of this notion, the limited data wecollected on the founders’ biographies suggest thatthe differences in their identities had emerged earlyin their lives. For instance, as an expression of theiridentity, darwinian founders often chose to obtainan education in management or economics beforeembarking on their entrepreneurial careers, butcommunitarians and missionaries often studied intechnology fields prior to launching their firms.However, the founders we interviewed, like mostpeople, tended to reinforce and question their iden-tities over the course of their careers because expe-riences in the social sphere and the types of socialcontracts in which they engage are fundamental totheir sense of self (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Hence,the founders’ behaviors and actions we observedwere likely to have resulted from their identities,but their actions are also likely to have influencedtheir identities via feedback received from the so-cial environment. Yet, since the three pure types offounder identities are associated with distinctmeanings that represent individual self-conceptand are based on very different worldviews, itseems unlikely that their firms’ actions and thefounders’ subsequent observations of the associ-ated outcomes would lead to the formation of thesedistinct identities. However, since we cannot fullyrule out such a pattern in the present research,in-depth biographical or longitudinal research proj-ects would be useful in clarifying the causal rela-tionships and feedback loops among the aforemen-tioned concepts. For instance, future researchcould study how a founder’s identity initially de-velops, how social identity influences the specifickinds of knowledge to which one is exposed, andhow such exposure may reinforce or challengeone’s self-concept.

In this study, we looked at social identity on theindividual level, and at how it affects the firmsfounders create, but our research raises interestingquestions about the critical link between individu-al-level identity and firm-level identity (Barney etal., 1998; Whetten & Godfrey, 1998). Preliminaryinsights gathered from our data suggest two mainmechanisms through which the founder’s identityshapes a firm’s identity as the founder strives foridentity-relevant actions on the firm level: (1) the


founder’s hiring practices (which lay the founda-tion for the firm’s organizational identity) and (2)the founder’s activities in establishing the firm’soutward presentation (which lay the foundation forthe firm’s corporate identity). For instance, our datasuggest that communitarian founders typically hireother communitarians to ensure that their organi-zation acts in ways congruent with the meanings oftheir own identity. However, there are also cases inwhich darwinians deliberately deviate from theirown identity by establishing a different type ofidentity—particularly a communitarian one—fortheir firms. In other words, it seems that a commu-nitarian (missionary) identity on the individuallevel is typically reflected in the same type of iden-tity on the firm level, but not every communitarian(missionary) firm identity is associated with thesame type of individual identity.

Another research opportunity would arise fromviewing our findings in conjunction with Cardonand colleagues (2009), a study focused on entrepre-neurs’ identity claims in terms of their preferredroles within the entrepreneurial process (such aslaunching the firm). Since our study made foundersocial identity the focal study subject, when bothstudies are viewed in combination, it seems thatthe process-oriented role identities described byCardon and colleagues may function within each ofthe three types of founders’ social identities iden-tified in our study. Hence, future research couldattempt to integrate both identity concepts to fur-ther refine researchers’ understanding of the effectsof founder identity on emerging firms.

The findings of the present research may also berelevant to research on family businesses. For in-stance, researchers may want to explore the identi-ties of founders and their successors in such busi-nesses, since divergence in the identities ofmembers of two generations may be an importantsource of conflict and may explain why familyfirms are run differently after their founders passthe firms on to the next generation.

Finally, the results of the present study can serveas a promising point of departure for an investiga-tion of the mid to long-term financial performanceof new ventures founded by individuals with dif-ferent types of identities. In this vein, one mayspeculate that, although firms established by com-munitarians are not founded with the objective ofcreating financial wealth, at least some of thesefirms may become growth businesses as their com-munities grow. Similarly, missionary firms may ex-perience significant growth once their missions aremore widely acknowledged in society.

Conclusions

Social identity theory has acquired the status of akey concept in describing and explaining individ-ual behavior and action (Gioia, 1998), yet knowl-edge of the role of founder identity in entrepreneur-ial processes and outcomes is in its very earlystages. Beyond providing a compelling explanationfor why founders who operate in a particular in-dustry setting establish different types of firms andpursue particular actions, and not others, thestrength of the social identity approach lies in itsability to clarify the different meanings that found-ers associate with new firm creation. Hence, byhelping scholars to better understand “what itmeans to be an entrepreneur,” the application ofsocial identity theory to entrepreneurship providesthe opportunity to obtain fundamental insights intofounders and their entrepreneurial endeavors.

It has been more than 2,400 years since the Greekstatesman and orator Pericles provided what can beconsidered the first statement of social identity:“What does it mean to be Athenian?” (Gioia, 1998).Because the identity concept captures an essentialaspect of what it means to be human, the notioninitially invoked by Pericles is as topical today as itwas in ancient Greece, and it seems to be a keysource of new insights into the functioning of(new) firms.

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Emmanuelle Fauchart ([email protected]) is an affil-iated member of the laboratory of econometrics of theConservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris andan associate professor at the Business School, Lausanne.She received her Ph.D. from the University of Paris 1Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research interests includenorms-based intellectual property systems, innovationstrategies and regimes, the role of innovation and entre-preneurship in industry dynamics, and the collectivestrategies of communities of firms.

Marc Gruber ([email protected]) is a full professor atthe College of Management of Technology at the ÉcolePolytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He receivedhis Ph.D. from the University of St. Gallen and his habil-itation from the Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich.His research examines the processes underlying newfirm creation, entrepreneurial opportunity identification,and technology commercialization.


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