Using case study research to investigate aspects of commercialization is a well- established method (Woodside & Baxter, 2012), and while qualitative data sources cannot generally be used to test constructs, they have the advantage that they add to theory development (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Full-scale qualitative work typically involves multiple cases sourced by means of probabilistic sampling (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2002) or purposively selected cases sourced based on perceived maximum variance (Eisenhardt, 1989; George & Bennett, 2005). This study does not aim to be a full-scale qualitative study; it merely entails a smaller sampling aiming at typical cases, that is, cases that include a streamlined and identifiably consistent conception of the phenomenon under scrutiny—here, entrepreneurial
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judgment and commercialization in a specific and seemingly unattractive market. The measure of typicality is that, for industry practitioners and experts, the cases would appear recognizable and similar to the mean of their conception of similar type firms in the same industry. This entails that potential tendencies observed in the cases are generalizable in the shared context.24 In other words, the aim in case
selection for this paper was for the cases to share validity as regards phenomena such as size, customertype, legal frameworks and more (Flyvbjerg 2006).
To illustrate the potential validity and application of the heuristic model to entrepreneurial judgment, the paper investigates two case companies over a period of time in order to separate the decision-making elements from the influences on these. The case companies were selected based on their sharing the key attributes of belonging to the same industry, offshore supply, and serving two distinct industries: offshore oil extraction and offshore wind power. This is an important selection criterion, as it demonstrates the contextual embeddedness and subjective understanding of commercial opportunities as viewed from a firm perspective, as opposed to the objective appearance often portrayed ex-post in research. Another selection criterion was size—both firms are SMEs—as such companies typically lack the resources of larger organizations (Hill, 2001) and the key selling skills and capabilities25 of their staff are typically underdeveloped (Douglas & Brodie, 2010). Thus, it is a fair assumption that, based on their nature as small enterprises,
24 This is similar to what Lorenzen and Foss (2009) refer to as prototypical cases. As this paper
uses two cases and highlights both their similarities and differences, the word typical is more suited to this method.
25 Regarding the use of the term “capability” in this paper: it is not the aim to contribute to the
literature on capability; the reader is requested to understand the use of this term in the broadest possible sense. For readers interested in capability studies in energy supply see, for instance, Garcia, Lessard, and Singh (2014), and Shuen, Feiler, and Teece (2014).
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SMEs are permeated with personal viewpoints and constructed realities (Drucker, 1974; Powell, Lovallo, & Fox; 2011). Hence founders’ and managers’ individual biases and heuristics will have a significant impact on performance, as minimal bureaucracy exists to limit them (Foss, Klein, & Lien, 2016). It was hence also a selection criterion that the founders still be involved in daily operations.
To find typical cases, firms for the case study were selected based on external input provided by industry experts and sources. For the cases selected, interview responses were triangulated with other internal data (strategy reports, financial reports, etc.) and external data (media coverage, industry reports, academic papers, etc.). The interviews were open-ended, with anchored questions on how commercialization was approached and done. From this point, the interviewer picked up on emergent themes, while also drawing on issues of firm formation and changes in strategy over time. The findings were clustered around the themes that emerged and that had received the most “airtime” in the interviews. Such themes are likely those that suffer from the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974; Dhami, 2016), and are hence also likely to be the themes that were most likely to be recalled in everyday decisions. In addition to the verbal answers, the first round of interviews included a series of small risk games that tested risk perception, centered on loss aversion, and a repeated version of the dollar auction (Shubik, 1971) developed by the author. Two rounds of interviews were conducted over 12 months. The interviews were conducted by the author and recorded, with a colleague reviewing the recordings and comparing these to the paper statements. The paper employs state-of-the-art case methodology, as suggested by Gibbert, Ruigrok, and Wicki (2008), who recommend evaluating case-based research based on the samples’ internal validity, construct validity,
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external validity, and reliability. Table 1 lists how this was conducted for the sample. Figure 3 illustrates the data sources and their relations.
While more comprehensive qualitative case research would have included interviews with other stakeholders, such as customers and employees, these were deliberately omitted to focus on the personal biases of the founders. Precisely because the aim of the method is not to access objective truth—rather, a subconscious viewpoint of the truth—this choice is appropriate for this paper (Woodside & Baxter, 2012).
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Table 1—Overview of case methodology Methodological elements The sample Internal validity (the causal relationships between variables and results)
+ Literature gap in mainstream entrepreneurship theory related to biases, infused with behavioral economic theory foundations.
Construct validity
(the extent to which a study investigates what it claims to investigate)
+ Original interviews conducted face-to-face with single interviewees.
+ Risk games conducted face-to-face.
+ Interview content reviewed by one person not present at the interview, and by the informant in question.
+ No framing or priming; interviewees were not told the precise goal of the research other than that the topic is
commercialization in SMEs.
External validity
(the extent to which the phenomenon investigated is also present in other cases)
+ Double-cross and nested approach in which the interviewer asked about one innovative project in early, launch, and running stages, which providing six commercialization projects distributed across two companies in the same industry, plus general insight into the funding and operations of the case companies themselves.
+ The case selection itself: both case companies are Danish but work internationally. They are highly innovative and operate as suppliers. Both companies have fewer than 100 full-time employees.
+ Triangulation with other sources. + Pre-case selection process.
- No customers or regular employees interviewed, which may have added further validity.
Reliability
(the extent to which the study is
transparent and replicable)
+ Actual names of case companies are used.
+ Semi-structured interviews, which were recorded and written in a protocol.
+ Additional interviews were requested to further elaborate when required in order to secure information.
+ Some answers were tested using small behavioral risk games.
Source: Based on Gibbert et al. (2008)