How Do Partnerships Lead to a Competitive Advantage?

220 Pages·2016·2.03 MB·English

Florida International University
FIU Digital Commons
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School
6-18-2010
How Do Partnerships Lead to a Competitive
Advantage? Applying the Resource Based View to
Nascent Social Ventures
Moriah A. Meyskens
Florida International University, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation
Meyskens, Moriah A., "How Do Partnerships Lead to a Competitive Advantage? Applying the Resource Based View to Nascent Social
Ventures" (2010).FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations.Paper 238.
http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/238
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FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Miami, Florida

HOW DO PARTNERSHIPS LEAD TO A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?

APPLYING THE RESOURCE BASED VIEW TO NASCENT SOCIAL VENTURES

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

by

Moriah Aurora Meyskens

2010
To: Dean Joyce Elam
College of Business Administration

This dissertation, written by Moriah Aurora Meyskens, and entitled How Do Partnerships
Lead to a Competitive Advantage? Applying the Resource Based View to Nascent
Social Ventures, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is
referred to you for judgment.

We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved.

_______________________________________
Alan Carsrud

_______________________________________
Karen Paul

_______________________________________
Mary Ann Von Glinow

_______________________________________
Kenneth Lipartito

______________________________________
Sumit Kundu, Major Professor
Date of Defense: June 18, 2010

The dissertation of Moriah Aurora Meyskens is approved.

_______________________________________
Dean Joyce Elam
College of Business Administration

_______________________________________
Interim Dean Kevin O’Shea
University Graduate School

Florida International University, 2010
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DEDICATION
Dedicated to my husband, Dany, who makes everything more fun, and every day
a magical event. You make the journey of life an exciting adventure! Siempre te voy a
hacer café y darte una docena en la mañana!

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank some of the individuals who played a key role in the
completion of this dissertation and to my Ph.D. process as a whole.
To my external co-chair and advisor, Dr. Alan Carsrud, thank you for your
continual support, guidance, and commitment to my development as a scholar and as a
member of the entrepreneurship community. I greatly appreciate your tireless efforts and
patient encouragement in training me to become a successful academic. You showed me
how to make my ideas relevant, taught me the ins and outs of research, and I am grateful that
through the years you have become a wonderful colleague and friend. To my co-chair, Dr.
Sumit Kundu, thank you for your constant support and guidance throughout the doctoral
process and the dissertation. To Dr. Kundu and my committee members, Drs. Karen
Paul, Mary Ann Von Glinow, and Kenneth Lipartito, thank you for your insight and
support through the past four years. I am extremely appreciative of your valuable
lessons, and the depth of your comments for the dissertation and for the other projects in
corporate social responsibility and international business in which we have engaged.
Thank you Alan, Sumit, Karen, Mary Ann, and Ken for all your support and mentoring in
every way! I look forward to working with all of you on research projects in the future.
To Drs. Paul Reynolds, Aya Chacar, William Schneper, William Newbury, Galen
Kroeck, Jim Jaccard, Juan Sanchez, Candy Brush, Miguel Rivera, and Elaine Allen -
thank you for your encouragement, and inspiration – you’ve taught me important lessons
about management research and made the PhD more interesting. To Dr. Paulette Johnson
thank you for your continual support with statistical analysis through numerous classes,
research projects, and the dissertation. To my fellow Phd students and their families - you
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made the Phd more enjoyable and fun! To Mark Adkins, thank you for your research
support and continual interest in social ventures. To the Management and PhD program
offices – Cris, Cassandra, Rosa and Sarah - thank you for your help through the years. To
the countless individuals who participated in my dissertation through interviews, surveys,
or informal discussions – thank you for your time and interest in my research! To FIU,
FIU CIBER, GSA, the Pino Center, and the Kauffman Foundation, thank you for your
financial support.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who supported me
throughout this journey and constantly encouraged me to follow my dreams and
showered me with strength, inspiration and love. I love you all very much! To my criança
husband Dany, thanks for always encouraging me to go forward, be patient, keep my butt
in the chair, and continue the ride so that I can have as many degrees as you. To my dear
siblings – Desy and Velli - I feel so lucky you are in my life – you are both so fun and
caring. To my parents – Mom, Dad, and Linda – you are the rocks that provide
unconditional love and support throughout life’s many twists and turns. Thank you for
always believing in me! To my immediate family gained through love and marriage -
Facu, Lucio, Cindy, Marta, Isidoro, Carina, Ariel, Ariela, and Tomy – I offer my
profoundest appreciation for your support, and interest in what I was doing. To my
extended family and friends who provided inspiration and support – you make the
journey worthwhile and fun! There is not enough space to thank everyone who has
played a part in my Ph.D. process. For those omitted in name, please accept my
profoundest gratitude for your participation in my Ph.D. – it’s been an enjoyable ride, and
I thank everyone who has played a part in it.
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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

HOW DO PARTNERSHIPS LEAD TO A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?

APPLYING THE RESOURCE BASED VIEW TO NASCENT SOCIAL VENTURES

by

Moriah Aurora Meyskens

Florida International University, 2010

Miami, Florida

Professor Sumit Kundu, Major Professor

This dissertation is one of the earliest to systematically apply and empirically test
the resource-based view (RBV) in the context of nascent social ventures in a large scale
study. Social ventures are entrepreneurial ventures organized as nonprofit, for-profit, or
hybrid organizations whose primary purpose is to address unmet social needs and create
social value. Nascent social ventures face resource gaps and engage in partnerships or
alliances as one means to access external resources. These partnerships with different
sectors facilitate social venture innovative and earned income strategies, and assist in the
development of adequate heterogeneous resource conditions that impact competitive
advantage. Competitive advantage in the context of nascent social ventures is achieved
through the creation of value and the achievement of venture development activities and
launching. The relationships between partnerships, heterogeneous resource conditions,
strategies, and competitive advantage are analyzed in the context of nascent social
ventures that participated in business plan competitions. A content analysis of 179 social
venture business plans and an exploratory follow-up survey of 72 of these ventures are
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used to analyze these relationships using regression, ANOVA, correlations, t-tests, and
non-parametric statistics.
The findings suggest a significant positive relationship between competitive
advantage and partnership diversity, heterogeneous resource conditions, social
innovation, and earned income. Social capital is the type of resource most significantly
related to competitive advantage. Founder previous start-up experience, client location,
and business plan completeness are also found to be significant in the relationship
between partnership diversity and competitive advantage. Finally the findings suggest
that hybrid social ventures create a greater competitive advantage than nonprofit or for-
profit social ventures. Consequently, this dissertation not only provides academics
further insight into the factors that impact nascent social value creation, venture
development, and ability to launch, but also offers practitioners guidance on how best to
organize certain processes to create a competitive advantage. As a result more insight is
gained into the nascent social venture creation process and how these ventures can have a
greater impact on society.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW.......................................................1
Research question...........................................................................................................3
Theoretical lens...............................................................................................................4
Conceptual model...........................................................................................................7
Method............................................................................................................................9
Contributions and findings............................................................................................10
Dissertation format........................................................................................................13

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................14
Social ventures..............................................................................................................14
Entrepreneurial characteristics..................................................................................19
Resource conditions..................................................................................................20
Value creation...........................................................................................................21
Social innovation......................................................................................................22
Earned income..........................................................................................................24
Legal structure..........................................................................................................25
Resource based view.....................................................................................................27
Resource conditions..................................................................................................29
Partnerships...............................................................................................................34
Competitive advantage..............................................................................................40

CHAPTER 3: HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT............................................................43
Social ventures, partnerships, resource conditions, and competitive advantage..........43
Partnerships, resources conditions, and competitive advantage...................................46
Partnerships, strategies, and competitive advantage.....................................................51

CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY....................................................................................56
Sample...........................................................................................................................56
Business plan competitions.......................................................................................57
Data collection..........................................................................................................59
Convenience sample.................................................................................................65
Measurement techniques...............................................................................................67
Content analysis........................................................................................................67
Survey instrument.....................................................................................................70
Variables.......................................................................................................................72
Dependent variables..................................................................................................73
Independent variables...............................................................................................79
Control variables.......................................................................................................88

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS..................................................................................................91
Descriptive statistics.....................................................................................................91
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Dependent variables..................................................................................................91
Independent variables...............................................................................................96
Control variables.....................................................................................................101
Results.........................................................................................................................105
Discussion...................................................................................................................124

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION.......................................................................................134
Contributions...............................................................................................................134
Implications.................................................................................................................141
Future research............................................................................................................144
Limitations..................................................................................................................146
Concluding words.......................................................................................................148

REFERENCES...............................................................................................................150

APPENDICES................................................................................................................171

VITA...............................................................................................................................203

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