Research focus entrepreneurship

Our research bases on a process perspective on entrepreneurship and focuses on creating, identifying, evaluating, and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. Further, it is theory-driven, evidence-based, and published in high-ranked scientific entrepreneurship and management journals. We cooperate with leading experts of the research field and provide key implications for students, researchers, entrepreneurs, and companies.

Based on an entrepreneurial decision-making perspective, our center does research on Entrepreneurial Finance, Entrepreneurial Strategy, Experimental Entrepreneurship, Technology Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, and Corporate Entrepreneurship. At this, we maintain manifold co-operations with international leading business schools, universities, and technical universities.

Current research projects in collaborations with our partners are:

KEEN project: "Knowledge Empowered Entrepreneurship Network" - European Commission Horizon 2020 project, in cooperation with the University of Wuppertal, Cranfield University, and the Kaunas University of Technology
SNF Research Project: "Antecendents, Processes, and Consequences of Business Model Design in Technology Ventures" - in cooperation with EPFL Lausanne

Building on our research insights, we teach entrepreneurial thinking and promote entrepreneurial action. We base our work on international standards in research and education, further the state-of-the-art in the research domain and foster start-ups at the University of St.Gallen. Through our ongoing cooperations with practitioners we refer to the entrepreneurial reality in all fieds of activities.

Representative publications

Grichnik, D., Hess, M., Probst, D., Antretter, T. & Pukall, B. (2020). Startup Navigator - Guiding Your Entrepreneurial Journey. London: Macmillan International Higher Education.

Antretter, T., Blohm, I., Sirén, C., Grichnik, D., Malmstrom, M., & Wincent, J. (2020). Do algorithms make better—and fairer—investments than angel investors? Harvard Business Review, ISSN 0017-8012.

Antretter, T., Sirén, C., Grichnik, D., & Wincent, J. (2020). Should business angels diversify their investment portfolios to achieve higher performance? The role of knowledge access through co-investment networks. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(5).

Blohm, I., Antretter, T., Sirén, C., Wincent, J., & Grichnik, D. (2020). It's a peoples game, isn't it?! A comparison between the investment returns of business angels and machine learning algorithms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.

Hudecheck, M., Sirén, C., Grichnik, D., & Wincent, J. (2020, April 17). Monitoring the COVID-19 Crisis From Space. MIT Sloan Management Review, Retrieved from https://sloanreview.mit.edu

Hudecheck, M., Sirén, C., Grichnik, D., & Wincent, J. (2020, March 09). How companies can respond to the Coronavirus. MIT Sloan Management Review, Retrieved from https://sloanreview.mit.edu

Sirén, C., He, V. F., Wesemann, C. H., Jonassen, Z., Grichnik, D., & von Krogh, G. (2020). Leader emergence in nascent venture teams: The critical roles of individual emotion regulation and team emotions. Journal of Management Studies, 57(5), 931-961.

Grichnik, D. (2019). Entrepreneurial Living – 7 Steps to Entrepreneurial Happiness. London: Union Bridge Books.

Brinckmann, J., Grichnik, D., Villenueva, J., & Singh, L. (2019). Sources of strategic flexibility in new ventures: an analysis of the role of resource leveraging practices. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 13(2), 154-178.

Antretter, T., Blohm, I., Grichnik, D., & Wincent, J. (2019). Predicting new venture survival: A Twitter-based machine learning approach to measuring online legitimacy. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 11(June). doi: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2018.e00109

Palmié, M., Huerzeler, P., Grichnik, D., Keupp, M.M., & Gassmann, O. (2018). Some principles are more equal than others: Promotion- vs. prevention-focused effectuation principles and their disparate relationships with entrepreneurial orientation. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 13(1), 93-117. doi: 10.1002/sej.1305

Brinckmann, J., Dew, N., Grichnik, D., Mayer-Haug, K. & Read, S. (2018). Of those who plan: A meta-analysis of the relationship between human capital and business planning in SMEs. Long Range Planning, 52(2), 173-188.

Grichnik, D., Hess, M., Probst, D., Antretter, T., & Pukall, B. (2018). Startup Navigator – Das Handbuch. Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch.

Markowska, M., Grichnik, D., Brinckmann, J., & Kapsa, D. (2018). Strategic orientations of nascent entrepreneurs: Antecedents of prediction and risk orientation. Small Business Economics, 53(4), 859-878. doi: 10.1007/s11187-018-0107-4

Sirén, C., Patel, P. C., Örtqvist, D., & Wincent, J. (2018). CEO burnout, managerial discretion, and firm performance: The role of CEO locus of control, structural power, and organizational factors. Long Range Planning, 51(6), 953-971.

He, V. F., Sirén, C., Singh, S., Solomon, G., & von Krogh, G. (2017). Keep calm and carry on: Emotion regulation in entrepreneurs’ learning from failure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(4), 605-630. doi: 10.1111/etap.12273

Sirén, C., Hakala, H., Wincent, J., & Grichnik, D. (2017). Breaking the routines: Entrepreneurial orientation, strategic learning, firm size, and age. Long Range Planning, 50(2), 145-167.

Grichnik, D., Brettel, M., Koropp, C., & Mauer, R. (2017). Entrepreneurship ‑ Unternehmerisches Denken, Entscheiden, und Handeln in innovativen und technologieorientierten Unternehmungen (2nd ed.). Germany: Schäffer‑Poeschel.

Baierl, R., Anokhin, S., & Grichnik, D. (2016). Coopetition in corporate venture capital: The relationship between network attributes, corporate innovativeness, and financial performance. International Journal of Technology Management, 71(1-2), 58-80.

Grichnik, D. (2016). Entrepreneurial Living. München: Carl Hanser Verlag.

Thiess, D., Sirén, C., & Grichnik, D. (2016). How does heterogeneity in experience influence the performance of nascent venture teams?: Insights from the US PSED II study. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 5(June), 55-62.

Thorgren, S., Sirén, C., Nordström, C., & Wincent, J. (2016). Hybrid entrepreneurs' second-step choice: The nonlinear relationship between age and intention to enter full-time entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 5(June), 14-18.

Dew, N., Grichnik, D., Mayer‐Haug, K., Read, S., & Brinckmann, J. (2015). Situated entrepreneurial cognition. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17(2), 143-164.

Grichnik, D., Brinckmann, J., Singh, L., & Manigart, S. (2014). Beyond environmental scarcity: Human and social capital as driving forces of bootstrapping activities. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(2), 310-326

Haug, K., Read, S., Brinckmann, J., Dew, N., & Grichnik, D. (2013). Entrepreneurial talent and venture performance: A Meta-analytic investigation in SMEs. Research Policy, 42(6-7), 1251-1273.

Freiburg, M. & Grichnik, D. (2012). Institutional investments in private equity funds: Social ties and the reduction of information asymmetry. Venture Capital, 14(1), 1-26.

Welpe, I., Spörrle, M., Grichnik, D., Michl, T., & Audretsch, D. (2012). Emotions and opportunities: The interplay of opportunity evaluation, fear, joy, and anger as antecedent of entrepreneurial exploitation. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(1), 69-96.

Brinckmann, J., Grichnik, D., & Kapsa, D. (2010). Should entrepreneurs plan or just storm the castle? A meta-analysis on contextual factors impacting the business planning-performance relationship in small firms. Journal of Business Venturing, 25(1), 24-40.

Grichnik, D., Smeja, A., & Welpe, I. (2010). The importance of being emotional: How do emotions affect entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation and exploitation?. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 76(1), 15-29.