Unpacking entrepreneurial learning: How prior related experience and uncertainty affect learning behaviors

This study provides insights into why new ventures adopt different learning behaviors when managing uncertainty associated with commercializing products, services or processes. The research builds on a comparative case-study methodology using 21 in-depth semi-structured interviews and company documents. The comparative analysis builds up to an overall understanding of how new ventures develop their learning behavior over three phases: (i) research and development, (ii) opportunity framing and reconfiguration, and (iii) organization. The study demonstrates that the relatedness of prior experience to the ventures’ new context mediates how they judge and manage uncertainties, and thus the learning behaviors they pursue as a result.