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In order to obtain a better understanding why some entrepreneurs retain more control over their venture than others, this article analyzes the relationship between the social identity of the entrepreneur and her/his desire for control. In fact, entrepreneurs face an important tradeoff between attracting resources required to build company value and retaining decision-making control. Yet, we currently lack insight into whether and how entrepreneurs’ social motivations shape this trade-off. This study draws on social identity theory and a unique sample of 148 buyout entrepreneurs, as this setting confronts aspiring entrepreneurs directly with the value–control tradeoff. In our logistic regression, we find that entrepreneurs with a strong missionary identity, where venture creation revolves around advancing a cause, hold a higher desire for control. We do not observe a significant relationship between entrepreneurs having a Darwinian (driven by economic self-interest) or communitarian (driven by the concern for the community) identity and the desire to control their venture. When adding the moderating role of the portion of personal wealth the entrepreneur is willing to invest in her/his venture, the relationships between having a Darwinian or missionary social identity and the desire for control become significantly positive when the entrepreneur is looking to invest a larger portion of her/his wealth.

Over the past decades, public policy has promoted the establishment of science parks to support the development and growth of technology-based firms and, as such, spur economic prosperity. However, despite the worldwide proliferation of science parks and scholarly interest, their contribution is yet to be fully understood. This paper presents the current state of knowledge on science park contribution using the Input–Mediator–Outcome framework and is based upon an analysis of 175 journal articles published between 1988 and 2018. Furthermore, the paper uncovers critical methodological and theoretical deficiencies in the literature, and identifies promising avenues for future research, which will provide important insights to both academics and practitioners.

Science parks are a type of organizational sponsorship initiative aimed at generating resource-munificent environments through the provision of bridging and buffering services. While extant research has studied the relationship between these services and firm outcomes, it has neglected to provide insights into when tenant firms utilize these services to a greater or lesser extent. Our study evaluates science parks’ buffering mechanism and identifies firm-level characteristics affecting tenants’ use intensity of buffering services. To do so, we build upon survey data collected from 201 tenant firms located in science parks in three European countries. Taking a resource dependence perspective, our findings indicate that tenants’ managerial resources (particularly top management team size and functional experience) and boundary-spanning capacity jointly determine the extent to which firms rely upon the science park’s buffering mechanism. This study contributes to the organizational sponsorship, resource dependence, and science park literatures, as well as has important practical implications.Plain English SummaryWhich firm-level factors determine the use intensity of science parks’ buffering services? We study our research question in a sample of 201 firms located in 35 science parks in Denmark, Spain, and Belgium. Our results show that firms with smaller top management teams or higher levels of functional experience in the top management team use these services to a larger extent. Furthermore, smaller top management teams utilize buffering services to a larger extent if they have greater boundary-spanning capacity. Our study contributes to the ongoing debate on the boundary conditions of organizational sponsorship by providing an understanding of when buffering services are actually used by potential beneficiaries. Accordingly, our study is particularly relevant for science park managers and policymakers.