The Role of Advisory Boards in Establishing Legitimacy and Increasing the Survival of New Ventures

New ventures need to establish legitimacy to acquire resources necessary for survival. Research examining ways to establish legitimacy has paid relatively little attention to the use of advisory boards as a mechanism for establishing legitimacy. This paper develops a conceptual model of how the creation of advisory boards can help new ventures establish legitimacy and increase the likelihood of survival. The proposed model emphasizes cognitive legitimacy, a perceptual measure, maintaining that stakeholders perceive high prestige entrepreneurial teams and advisory boards as more legitimate and this increases the firm’s likelihood of survival. Research propositions and an outline for a proposed study will allow researchers to test relationships in the model.