Abstract
Interacting with customers to validate new product offerings is a crucial step in entrepreneurship, yet it requires resources that are limited in new ventures. The issue of when and how entrepreneurs allocate limited resources to acquire market information is new for marketing research, which has mainly focused on the impacts of market information acquisition. This paper investigates how entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy influences resource allocation to acquire market information and how resources allocated to market information acquisition influence new venture performance. Building on social cognitive theory and perceptual control theory, we propose that entrepreneurs with moderate marketing self-efficacy spend the most resources on market information acquisition. Since acquiring market information consumes resources, we hypothesize that a moderate level of market information acquisition is optimal for new venture performance. Regression analyses of a multi-informant three-wave survey with 210 new ventures from Canada, Chile, and China supported our hypotheses. The findings hold important implications for self-efficacy theories, information acquisition research, and lean startup.
