Drivers for Entrepreneurial Learning. Entrepreneurial learning is often described as the continuous process that facilitates the development of knowledge necessary to start, grow, and manage a new venture (Politis 2005). Learning in start-ups is a continuous and highly dynamic process over the entire lifetime of the organisation. Entrepreneurial learning is not limited to the initial years of the young firm (Cope 2005). In the start-up phase of technology-based new ventures, entrepreneurial learning is dominated by higher-level learning. Single-loop or adaptive learning assumes a less important position in the early stages of organisational development (Cope 2005; Ravasi and Turati 2005). Second-order learning is especially important in turbulent environments (Xxxxxx, Xxxxxxx, and Xxxxxxxxx 1992). One reason for this therefore is the fact that entrepreneurial firms need to develop certain skills in order to establish processes and routines rather than focus on efficiency increases. Entrepreneurial learning is mostly experiential, i.e. start-up firms acquire knowledge through experiences (Xxxxxxx and Xxxxx 1989; Cope 2005; Politis 2005). Experience- based learning fosters the creation of tacit knowledge (Zollo and Winter 2002), which is considered as an important source of competitive advantage. In fact, experimentation, prototyping, and learning-by-doing facilitates the creation of capabilities in high- technology firms (Verona 1999). Experiences can be gained in two different ways. On the one hand, entrepreneurs may have prior business experiences that they can leverage. However, since technology-based new ventures are usually established around innovations, past experiences are mainly useful to solve managerial problems. On the other hand, start-ups have to experiment and thus invest in learning-by-doing to resolve technological challenges (Xxxxxxxxxx and Deeds 2006). Based on instinct and existing knowledge, founders make certain decisions and wait for the corresponding outcomes. Once the consequences of the performed actions become available, entrepreneurs repeat only those decisions that outperformed the initial goals (Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxx 2001). Organisational learning can be influenced in different ways. In the following sections, I provide various drivers that are supposed to have a positive impact on learning in technology-based new ventures. In order to test for these influences, I formulate various hypotheses, which will be tested in the remainder of this document.
