Clear and Present Danger: Planning and New Venture Survival Amid Political and Civil Violence

Strategy theory often takes for granted the role of state institutions in providing stable, predictable environments in which new firms are founded. Yet, many states around the world (such as Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo) lack political institutions of sufficient strength to ensure personal safety and public order, thereby creating environments where civil and political violence can ferment. This paper explores the impact of such violence on new venture processes. Results show that comprehensive planning was negatively correlated with venture survival in such environments. While there are implications for strategy theory, the study is also relevant to entrepreneurs and organizations promoting new venture planning in less-developed countries, particularly those experiencing political and civil turmoil. Currently, prospective entrepreneurs are taught the importance of business planning by both universities and non-governmental organizations that offer entrepreneurial training. But this study suggests that such training will have mixed effects on new venture survival, depending on the extent to which these entrepreneurs pursue ventures in violent and uncertain environments. In such contexts where governments fail to maintain public safety and order, these training programs may actually increase the likelihood of new venture failure. Key concepts include:

• This paper theorizes and tests how contexts characterized by weak political institutions and ensuing high levels of violence create uncertain and unpredictable environments that alter entrepreneurial behavior and disrupt resource flows and organizational routines, thereby increasing new venture failure rates.
• In contexts of high uncertainty as a result of violence, the benefits of comprehensive planning vanish as prior predictions become obsolete and even harmful to venture survival.
• Strategy theories often assume specific types of environments. But it is important to consider carefully the macro institutional factors.