Entrepreneurs, pivots and shocks: an exploration of organizational learning processes in nascent ventures

Knowledge is considered the most strategically important organizational resource (Grant, 1996). How organizations process knowledge and learn is increasingly important for the study of entrepreneurship due to rapid changes and high levels of uncertainty. This thesis constitutes three empirical papers; paper 1 studies underlying micro-mechanisms at the level of the individual entrepreneur to explain how and why tie strength influences organizational learning in the context of Nigerian women entrepreneurs in a financial training setting, and how learning impacts their eudaimonic well-being in four contextually relevant dimensions; sense of self, doing good for others, freedom to participate in social settings and control over the environment. The second paper explores intraorganizational learning in nascent ventures during internal shocks to explore the role of emotions in the process of recovery. The third paper studies intraorganizational knowledge transfer, as a subprocess of organizational learning, at the level of organizational groups to explore how nascent ventures overcome cognitive and affective impediments to knowledge transfer within the organization by using emotional appeals.