Problemistic search distance and entrepreneurial performance

• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Author: Ryan W. Angus
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3068

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Problemistic search distance and entrepreneurial

performance

Ryan W. Angus

Management Department, West Virginia

University, John Chambers College of

Business and Economics, Morgantown,

West Virginia

Correspondence

Ryan W. Angus, Management Department,

West Virginia University, John Chambers

College of Business and Economics, PO

Box 6025, 1601 University Avenue,

Morgantown, WV 26506.

Email: ryan.angus@mail.wvu.edu

Abstract

Research Summary:This paper seeks to extend the

problemistic search literature by investigating how farentre-

preneurialorganizations seeking to improvetheir chances for

success should search, depending on their level of past per-

formance. Drawingon a novel data set from the Google Play

app store, the paper finds support for its hypothesis that past

performance moderates the relationship between search dis-

tance and subsequent performance. As past performance

increases, the less beneficial (and potentially more harmful)

nonlocal search becomes. While the majority of app devel-

opers choose a nonlocal search strategy in response to low

first app performance, this is rarely the best choice. Instead,

the highest secondapp performance outcomes areassociated

with moderate search distances that fall between local and

nonlocal extremes.

Managerial Summary:This paper uses a large data set

obtained from the Google Play app store to explore the fol-

lowing question: when a nascent app developer's first app

performs poorly,how different should its second app be? By

comparing the text descriptions of developers' first and sec-

ond apps, the paperis able to show that as the performance of

a first app increases, the more harmful it becomes to make a

very different second app. Only at extremely low levels of

first app performance is it beneficial for developers to

make secondapps that are very different fromtheir first apps.

In all other cases, making second apps that are moderately

Received: 19 April 2018 Revised: 13 March 2019 Accepted: 24 May 2019 Published on: 5 August 2019

DOI: 10.1002/smj.3068

Strat Mgmt J. 2019;40:2011–2023. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/smj © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2011