Preparing for a Day that May Never Come: Venturing in Limbo

Abstract

AbstractThe new venture creation process is a central phenomenon in entrepreneurship research. Typically, scholarship has sought to identify common, linear stages of development in this process in pursuit of a sustained, growing venture. In contrast to this theory, this study reveals dynamic, non‐linear venturing processes that allowed for venture persistence despite failing to ‘progress’ toward traditional outcomes. We generate these insights from qualitative data on Syrian refugee entrepreneurs seeking to create and sustain ventures in Lebanon while living in a state of limbo – a precarious situation where the future is unknown and unknowable. We organize our findings in a model of venturing in limbo, which explains why and how entrepreneurs persist in venture creation practices despite experiencing repeated and significant setbacks that return them ‘to square one’. We reveal dynamic venture creation processes that allow for adaptive responses to erratic environmental shifts by producing entrepreneurial readiness, which consists of behavioural, cognitive, and psychological/emotional capabilities. Entrepreneurial readiness enables persistence of venturing efforts in the face of chronic precarity. Our study contributes to theory on new venture creation in entrepreneurship and organizational liminality.