168: Scaling Up Accelerator Research: (13092)

Friday, August 9, 2024

14:15 – 16:15 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

Location: Hyatt: Plaza Ballroom B

Session Number: 168
PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/k97r8a

Session Chair(s)

VG

Violetta Gerasymenko

Oregon State U., United States

Participant(s)

JH

JungYun Han

National Taiwan U., Taiwan
SV

Siddharth Vedula

TUM School of Management, Technische U. München, Germany

Session Chair(s)

SC

Susan L. Cohen

U. of Georgia, United States

Participant(s)

VA

Valentina Assenova

The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania, United States
LB

Lyda S. Bigelow

U. of Utah, United States
MF

Markus Andreas Fitza

Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Germany
RP

Rebecca Preller

U. of Bayreuth, Germany
AZ

Amy Zhao-Ding

Technical U. of Munich, Germany
SY

Sandy Yu

U. of Minnesota, United States

Over the past decade, accelerators have become an important feature of the global entrepreneurial landscape. Over the past four years, in our PDW, we focused on (1) discussing the effects of accelerators on the emergence of entrepreneurial identity, (2) considering different venture-specific factors that determine the extent to which ventures will benefit from participation in accelerators, (3) re-examining the effects of different mechanisms of accelerators on ventures’ performance, and (4) identifying lessons for generating novel theory by discussing the implications from accelerator research beyond accelerators. The goal of this PDW will be to take a much deeper dive into the key three areas of accelerator research such as “pre-accelerator”, “acceleration”, and “post-acceleration”. We aim to deepen our inquiry and understand how various stakeholders such as nascent entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and accelerator sponsors contribute to the selection process, accelerator program design, and potential long-term impact of accelerator programs. Specifically, we aim to unveil (1) how accelerator managers navigate multiple and heterogeneous goals of entrepreneurs and corporate stakeholders and how founders’ background determines the potential selection and benefits of accelerator programs, (2) how accelerators shape entrepreneurial learning and experimentation as well as competition and collaboration processes within accelerators (3) whether accelerators have long-term performance implications by using rigorous methodologies to isolate selection effects from heterogeneous accelerator treatment effects and. Our discussion will emphasize the role of accelerators in startup learning and growth and falls squarely in line with the 2024 AOM theme "Innovating for the Future."