World Media Economics and Management Conference 2016

There is an unsatisfied need to understand the underlying mechanisms through which industrial sectors shape entrepreneurship phenomena. In this paper, we elaborate on the legitimacy-building mechanisms used by entrepreneurs in media industries. We suggest that in highly institutionalized contexts, start-up entrepreneurs may build trust in their ventures by borrowing sociopolitical legitimacy from neighboring fields. We also analyze the implications that these mechanisms may have on the cognitive and competitive configuration of the disrupted industry set-up. Our results propose that bricolage-entrepreneurs may succeed not only in developing a competitive advantage but also in creating a truly native, new legitimacy base in the media industry. We illustrate our theoretical analysis with the growing phenomenon of journalism entrepreneurship.