Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • June 2020
  • Article
  • Administrative Science Quarterly

Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and the Effective Design of a Business Model

By: Rory McDonald and Kathleen Eisenhardt
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Prior research advances several explanations for entrepreneurial success in nascent markets but leaves a key imperative unexplored: the business model. By studying five ventures in the same nascent market, we develop a novel theoretical framework for understanding how entrepreneurs effectively design business models: parallel play. Similar to parallel play by preschoolers, entrepreneurs engaged in parallel play interweave action, cognition, and timing to accelerate learning about a novel world. Specifically, they (1) borrow from peers and focus on established substitutes, (2) test assumptions, then commit to a broad business-model template, and (3) pause before elaborating the activity system. The insights from our framework contribute to research on optimal distinctiveness, and to the learning and evolutionary-adjustment literature on search. More broadly, we blend organization theory with a fresh theoretical lens—business-model processes—to highlight how organizations actually work and create value.

Keywords

Search; Legitimacy; Organizational Innovation; Organizational Learning; Mechanisms And Processes; Institutional Entrepreneurship; Qualitative Methods; Business Model Design; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Emerging Markets; Adaptation; Competition; Strategy

Citation

McDonald, Rory, and Kathleen Eisenhardt. "Parallel Play: Startups, Nascent Markets, and the Effective Design of a Business Model." Administrative Science Quarterly 65, no. 2 (June 2020): 483–523.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Rory M. McDonald

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • December 2022
    • Administrative Science Quarterly

    Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics

    By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald
    • October 2022
    • Academy of Management Journal

    How Leaders with Divergent Visions Generate Novel Strategy: Navigating the Paradox of Preservation and Modernization in Swiss Watchmaking

    By: Ryan Raffaelli, Rich DeJordy and Rory M. McDonald
    • September 2022
    • Strategy Science

    A Spanner in the Works: Category-Spanning Entrants and Audience Valuation of Incumbents

    By: Rory M. McDonald and Ryan T. Allen
More from the Authors
  • Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald
  • How Leaders with Divergent Visions Generate Novel Strategy: Navigating the Paradox of Preservation and Modernization in Swiss Watchmaking By: Ryan Raffaelli, Rich DeJordy and Rory M. McDonald
  • A Spanner in the Works: Category-Spanning Entrants and Audience Valuation of Incumbents By: Rory M. McDonald and Ryan T. Allen
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College