Emancipated entrepreneuring in the nascent commercial spaceflight industry: Authoring ecosystems by Branson, Diamandis, and Musk Ewan Reid A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Technology Innovation Management Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario Copyright © 2018 Ewan Reid Emancipated entrepreneuring in the nascent commercial spaceflight industry: Authoring ecosystems by Branson, Diamandis, and Musk. Copyright © 2018 Ewan Reid _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract The emancipatory perspective on entrepreneuring examines the activities undertaken by entrepreneurs to bring about change. Business ecosystems are a mode of organizing economic production that differs from markets and organizational hierarchies, and is increasingly associated with collaborative innovation, opportunities for technology entrepreneurship, and rapid technological progress. This thesis examines how business ecosystems feature in the emancipation actions of entrepreneurs in the commercial spaceflight industry. The research design is a case-based event study of three entrepreneurs and their space ventures: Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic, Peter Diamandis and XPRIZE, and Elon Musk and SpaceX. Results show that business ecosystems can be emancipating – as a means for escaping constraints, in the authoring activities to enact change, and in making declarations to mobilize support, manage interpretations, and motivate change from others. Contributions include a formal operational specification for event studies using the emancipation perspective that can be applied in other field settings. ______________________________________________________________________ ii Emancipated entrepreneuring in the nascent commercial spaceflight industry: Authoring ecosystems by Branson, Diamandis, and Musk. Copyright © 2018 Ewan Reid _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Acknowledgments I would like to thank Judy Senecal of Carleton’s MacOdrum Library for her introduction to NVivo and help procuring the source material in a format that could be imported to NVivo. I would like to thank Emily Byron of the Technology Innovation Management department for her continual support and helping me to navigate the waters of graduate school. Most importantly I would like to thank Professor Steven Muegge for his critical contributions, ideas, and academic guidance for this thesis in addition to personal support and encouragement throughout my career at Carleton University, without which this thesis could not have been completed. ______________________________________________________________________ iii Emancipated entrepreneuring in the nascent commercial spaceflight industry: Authoring ecosystems by Branson, Diamandis, and Musk. Copyright © 2018 Ewan Reid _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Table of contents Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements............................................................................................................iii Table of contents.................................................................................................................iv List of tables......................................................................................................................vii 1 Introduction......................................................................................................................1 1.1 Objective...................................................................................................................4 1.2 Deliverables..............................................................................................................4 1.3 Relevance..................................................................................................................4 1.4 Contribution..............................................................................................................5 1.5 Overview of research design and method.................................................................6 1.6 Organization of the document...................................................................................7 2 Literature review..............................................................................................................8 2.1 Entrepreneuring as emancipation..............................................................................8 2.1.1 Seeking autonomy............................................................................................11 2.1.2 Authoring.........................................................................................................12 2.1.3 Making declarations.........................................................................................14 2.1.4 Inventory of published articles.........................................................................15 2.1.5 Empirical studies of entrepreneuring as emancipation....................................17 2.2 Business ecosystems...............................................................................................22 2.2.1 Business ecosystems as an organizational form..............................................24 2.2.2 Related ideas....................................................................................................24 2.2.3 Classical view of markets and hierarchies.......................................................28 2.2.4 Refinements and extensions.............................................................................29 2.3 Linking business ecosystem and emancipation constructs.....................................34 2.3.1 Seeking autonomy and business ecosystems...................................................34 2.3.2 Authoring and business ecosystems.................................................................37 2.3.3 Making declarations and business ecosystems................................................40 2.3.4 Ecosystems constraints....................................................................................42 2.4 Summary and synthesis of key findings from the literature...................................43 3 Research design and method..........................................................................................44 3.1 Step 1: Conceptual development............................................................................45 3.2 Step 2: Select cases.................................................................................................49 3.3 Step 3: Refine and validate coding.........................................................................50 3.4 Step 4: Incident coding...........................................................................................52 3.5 Step 5: Event coding...............................................................................................53 3.6 Step 6: Organizational form coding........................................................................53 3.7 Step 7: Cross-case comparison...............................................................................54 ______________________________________________________________________ iv Emancipated entrepreneuring in the nascent commercial spaceflight industry: Authoring ecosystems by Branson, Diamandis, and Musk. Copyright © 2018 Ewan Reid _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4 Results............................................................................................................................56 4.1 Constructs and frameworks.....................................................................................56 4.2 Case selection..........................................................................................................56 4.2.1 Candidate entrepreneurs and space ventures...................................................57 4.2.2 Applying the selection criteria.........................................................................57 4.2.3 Case 1: Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic...........................................59 4.2.4 Case 2: Peter Diamandis and XPRIZE............................................................59 4.2.5 Case 3: Elon Musk and SpaceX.......................................................................60 4.3 Coding pilots...........................................................................................................61 4.4 Incidents..................................................................................................................62 4.5 Events......................................................................................................................64 4.5.1 Branson............................................................................................................65 4.5.2 Diamandis........................................................................................................68 4.5.3 Musk................................................................................................................72