Exploring tensions of early-stage ventu...

How ventures deal with sustainability tensions is an issue of high relevance for both, scholars, and practitioners. So far, however, research has focused mainly on tensions faced by large established firms in their transition to more sustainable business practices. While these are important insights, they are only transferable to early-stage ventures that strive for sustainability to a limited extent. These ventures have extremely limited resources and often finite opportunities to successfully establish themselves. This exerts enormous pressure on these ventures and can hamper their much-needed sustainable businesses. There is a pending research gap regarding the tensions early-stage ventures face when developing viable business models. In particular, our understanding of the nature of sustainability tensions is limited. To close this gap, the present study examines tensions faced by ventures during their pre-seed and seed phase. We sampled eight Austrian ventures which took part in a four-month accelerator program. We traced their business model development and the occurring related tensions longitudinally by applying a content analysis. The contributions of this study are manifold. First, we expand the current understanding about tensions between the economic and the social/ecological dimension. Second, tensions that may arise within a sustainability dimension are uncovered. Third, we show fluidity in the identified tensions by using multiple measurement time points. In particular, we found different patterns of temporal occurrence among tensions. It became evident that some tensions persist over a longer period of time whereas others are only evident temporarily. Particularly interesting in terms of fluidity are these tensions that even reappear after some time. Fourth, our results also demonstrate how the investigated ventures used various coping strategies to manage tensions