Are scholars aligned and consistent with labelling and defining what organizational emergence Is? A conceptual structure point of view

This work is aimed at understanding whether and to what extent are scholars conceptually aligned when they refer to the “organizational emergence” phenomenon. Are all we thinking at the same moment and actions when we talk about a venture’s birth? Is it clear for the whole scholars’ community whether we are studying the new venture creation by having in mind a process, a single phase, or an undefined but special moment in an entrepreneur’s (or aspiring entrepreneur) life? Our intention, with this study, is to try to put a bit of order in the conceptual map of venture creation studies. Three main questions have guided us in achieving this goal: How many labels do we have in entrepreneurship to refer to the “new venture creation” phenomenon? If there are different labels, are they conceptually bounded? Are there any overlaps in the labels’ meanings and uses? This paper aims to address these questions by embracing a semantic perspective. The basic idea is that the study of the terms that scholars have adopted to address the concept of new venture creation is key to better clarifying the existing conceptual structure of this phenomenon. As in other scientific domains, such a strategy (Ronda-Pupo and Guerras-Martin 2012), the semantic perspective allows us to create the base for scientific awareness concerning the multiple theoretical perspectives characterizing the concept of interest. The conceptual structure is envisioned as a spatial representation of how terms are related to one another to form subgroups (Cobo, Chiclana et al. 2014). We refer to the key terms under the assumption that they represent the shared knowledge within a community and that the level of acceptance of their meanings might hinder or facilitate the progress of a field (Koontz 1980; Ronda-Pupo and Guerras-Martin 2012). We concentrate our attention on studying key-terms because we argue that their systematic representation might help clarify the conceptual boundaries of the topic, with concept specifications and overlaps. The major contribution of this study is its demonstration of whether different motivation and regulation processes are at the core of diverse intention types. A better understanding of these processes might foster our comprehension regarding the connection between intentions and behavior.