Abstract Research Summary Prior studies have often conceptualized entrepreneurial experimentation as an activity over which founders exert a high amount of discretion in decision‐making. However, the locus of control over experimentation programs is dynamic, shifting with varying external stakeholder influence and venture growth. This paper proposes an integrative framework explaining how different stakeholder influence mechanisms function as frictions or enablers, shaping a venture's experimentation program. Resource provision mechanisms determine ventures' capacity for experimentation, while stakeholder strategic orientation and governance mechanisms shape the context within which ventures experiment, influencing how ventures deploy resources toward experiments. We further discuss how a venture's development stage shapes the relative value and impact of these stakeholder influences. Managerial Summary Experimentation and the Lean Startup approach are well‐established methods for navigating the inherent uncertainties of entrepreneurial ventures. While conventional wisdom often portrays founders as exercising substantial discretion over experimentation, this research demonstrates that a venture's experimentation program can be systematically shaped by external stakeholders. Rather than being solely founder‐driven, entrepreneurial experimentation is embedded in a broader stakeholder context that conditions what can be tested, how broadly, and how radically. Stakeholders shape ventures' experimentation by providing and controlling resources, influencing strategic directions, and structuring governance relationships. Strategic attention to which actors influence experimentation, how that influence is exercised, and how its relative importance shifts across venture development stages is important for fostering experimentation and improving venture performance.
Lee et al. (Mon,) studied this question.