Venture survival after environmental jolts

This research examines founder skills and efforts to overcome liabilities of newness and smallness in buffering a venture against environmental jolts. We surveyed 115 Korean technology-based ventures in 1997, just before the Asian IMF crisis, and then tracked their survival or failure in 2000. Our analysis reveals that a founder's education and experience in the venture's industry is associated with survival after a jolt. Organizational Commitment to Employees (OCE) and external relationships were also associated with survival in our study, suggesting that building the internal organisation and forming external relationships can help a venture overcome the effects of major environmental shocks.