To pivot or to persevere? That is the entrepreneur’s question.

Information Systems and Operations Management 

Speaker: Danny Ralph (Cambridge Judge)

Room S122 

Abstract: 

A recent surge in the strategy and entrepreneurship literature has reopened search and dynamic choice models as a way to capture pivots in entrepreneurial ventures. Motivated by several examples of pivots, in this study we are introducing a model of venture founder decision making that reflects both the bounded rationality and the imperfect information they are facing when making choices about pivoting or persevering. We delineate some of the parameters that describe the solution landscape, and develop a framework that showcases when persevering (also viewed as a less flexible choice strategy) ends up being the best choice strategy for the founder.

Co-authors: Danny Ralph, Professor of Operations Research, Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS), University of Cambridge, Stelios Kavadias, Professor of Enterprise Studies, and Kostas Ladas, Associate of the Entrepreneurship Centre, CJBS.