Access Type
Open Access Dissertation
Date of Award
January 2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Communication
First Advisor
Rahul Mitra
Abstract
As the world faces the ongoing and intensifying impacts of climate change, a group of innovative changemakers known as climate tech entrepreneurs (CTEs) are working on climate adaptation, mitigation, and/or resilience efforts by brining innovative technologies to the global market (UNFCC, 2018; Endeavor 2022). To realize the full potential of these technologies—tools, techniques, specialized knowledge or skillsets—they must be developed, deployed, and implemented at scale (IPCC, 2000). To do this, CTEs require external funding support, especially during a crucial period of the start-up lifecycle known as the “valley of death”. In this period between development and commercialization, production costs and technology risks are high while market penetration and profits remain low, resulting in a funding gap from which many start-ups never emerge (Ghosh & Nanda, 2010; Hegeman & Sørheim, 2021). Venture capital investors (VCs), a critical source of funding in this period, are of particular importance to CTEs given their role as de facto gatekeepers for climate technologies into the marketplace. The relationships formed between CTEs and VCs during compliance gaining, when entrepreneurs attempt to persuade VCs to provide the resources they require to cross the valley of death, are often complex. Tensions may arise in relationships between CTEs—who simultaneously pursue financial outcomes while creating environmental, social, economic, and policy impact for a broad group of stakeholders—and VCs—who are traditionally driven by financial logics. Furthermore, the critical communicative processes, including negotiation and tension management, that constitute these relationships are understudied phenomena. Taking a social constructionist perspective, this study takes up the call from scholars for further inquiry into the everyday actions and communicative acts that constitute entrepreneurship. It adopts a process view of entrepreneurship known as entrepreneuring (Steyaert, 2007), and explores the dynamics of relationship building and tension management between these actors to understand how CTEs engage in compliance gaining with VCs. This study combines two theoretical frameworks to address this topic. First, Dillard’s (2008) Goals-Plans-Action (GPA) theory, a multiple goals theory which recognizes compliance gaining goal pursuit as driven by primary goals to influence message targets, but as also shaped by secondary goals, which may be related to resources, identity, or relationships. Second, it utilizes a tension-centered approach (Trethewey & Ashcraft, 2004), which recognizes tensions as an inherent part of organizing and considers the productive capacities of tension management for organizations and organizational actors. Combining these approaches allows for a more nuanced understanding of tension management within goal pursuit and the compliance gaining process. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 21 CTEs provided the data required for this qualitative analysis, which was conducted using constructivist grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2014). Findings from this study expound upon the compliance gaining process, highlighting the variety of resource-, identity-, relational-, and impact-related goals of CTEs. The plans they generate and the actions they implement in pursuit of these goals come together to form a matrix of communicative actions, such that the GPA process is recursive and dynamic. Additionally, findings show that throughout the GPA process, as a variety of tensions become salient to CTEs, which are then framed as either contradictions, complementary dialectics, or double binds and subsequently managed via a typology of tension management techniques. Findings from this study point to several theoretical implications for compliance gaining and GPA literature, for studies that adopt a tension-centered approach, and for organizational communication literature on entrepreneuring. There are also practice-based takeaways for CTEs, VCs, and other climate tech ecosystem stakeholders.
Recommended Citation
Lucas, Allison, "Crossing The “valley Of Death”: How Climate Technology Entrepreneurs Navigate Relationships With Venture Capital Investors" (2024). Wayne State University Dissertations. 4100.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/4100
Included in
Communication Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, Sustainability Commons
