Escaping the knowledge corridor
Research Paper Title:
“Escaping the knowledge corridor: How founder human capital and founder coachability impacts product innovation in new ventures”
Authors:
Matthew R. Marvel (Ball State University)
Marcus T. Wolfe (University of Oklahoma)
Donald F. Kuratko (Indiana University)
Background:
Innovation is of central importance to entrepreneurship research, as independent entrepreneurs account for the most fundamentally novel product offerings. This study investigates how founder human capital and founder coachability relate to exploiting product innovation in new ventures.
Methodology:
Sample: Dyads comprised of startup coaches and founders.
Sample Size: 656 dyads
Analytical Approach: Survey
Hypotheses:
a) General human capital (i.e. education and experience) is positively related to product/service innovativeness.
b) Specific human capital (i.e. prior knowledge of customer problems, existing markets, and ways to serve the market) is negatively related to product/service innovativeness.
Founder coachability is positively related to product/service innovativeness.
a) Coachability will moderate the relationship between founder's general human capital and product/service innovativeness such that this relationship will be more positive for founders with high levels of coachability.
b) Coachability will moderate the relationship between founder's specific human capital and product/service innovativeness such that this relationship will be less negative for founders with high levels of coachability.
Results:
General human capital does have a significant positive relationship with product/service innovativeness (β = 0.02, p < 0.05), thereby providing support for Hypothesis 1a.
Specific human capital does have a significant negative relationship with product/service innovativeness (β = −0.14, p < 0.01), thereby providing support for Hypothesis 1b.
Founder coachability does have a significant positive relationship with product/service innovativeness (β = 0.31, p < 0.01), thereby providing support for Hypothesis 2.
Analysis did not find a significant interactive effect between coachability and general human capital on product/service innovativeness (β = −0.01, p > 0.10), therefore Hypothesis 3a is not supported.
The analysis does indicate a significant interactive effect between coachability and specific human capital on product/service innovativeness (β = 0.16, p < 0.01). The results indicate that indeed coachability does lessen the negative relationship between specific human capital and product/service innovativeness, thereby providing support for Hypothesis 3b.
Conclusion:
The findings underscore and illustrate how founder human capital both broadens and constrains the knowledge corridor for exploiting innovation. Perhaps more importantly, the researchers introduce coachability as a learning mechanism beneficial for exploring new knowledge, while also alleviating the constraining effects of prior knowledge, to create innovative offerings.