Value Through Venturing: Resilience Outcomes in the Wake of Potentially Traumatic Events

New ventures are value-generating mechanisms for both the venture creator and relevant stakeholders. While organizational emergence and positive organizational research has expanded beyond economic value creation, there is still much to be learned about how venture creators generate non-economic value for themselves (through their venturing activities), especially in the aftermath of a surprising and disrupting exogenous shock. Research following one type of environmental shock (i.e., natural disasters) has typically couched the phenomenon of venturing in broad conceptualizations of disaster planning, detailing benefits for society or the environment. However, less is known about the effect (psychological value) venture creation has on the venture creator who endures potentially traumatic events, particularly in terms of whether he or she experiences resilience outcomes following the event. Drawing on theory of organizational emergence and the clinical psychology research on resilience, we use structural equation modeling to test a venture creation model of resilience following a potentially traumatic event and find that those who create new ventures in response to such an event experience more resilience outcomes than those who do not. In addition, we find that new venture creation mediates the relationships between founder experiences and resilience outcomes and between personal loss and resilience outcomes.