Browsing by Author "Varas, German"
“The Basis of Aaaalll of Our Program!” The Start-Up Chile Playbook as Metagenre
(IEEE, 2023) Sabaj-Meruane, Omar; Spinuzzi, Clay; Varas, German; Cabezas, Paula; Gerard, Valentin
Background: Following previous professional communication research into entrepreneurship, we examine key genres of a specific business accelerator, Start-Up Chile (SUP). Through a triangulated study of interviews, texts, and videos, we examine how the Playbook serves as a regulatory metagenre that represents the SUP experience to the participating firms. We find that aspects of the Playbook's representation are at odds with the other data, divergences that we argue emerge from a broader tension among SUP's stakeholders and goals. Literature review: We review the professional communication literature on entrepreneurship, literature on startups and accelerators, and on writing, activity, and genre research (WAGR). Specifically, we examine WAGR research on metagenres and professional identity formation. Research question: How does this successful international accelerator regularize the learning experience of its exceedingly diverse startups? Specifically, how does SUP regulate the startups' different experiences, reframing the experience of entrepreneurship and teaching these startups to form their professional identity as entrepreneurs? Research methodology: We structured this research as a qualitative case study of SUP. Data included documents, videos, interviews, and social media. We triangulated these data sources to identify points of convergence (in which different data sources supported the same assertions) and divergence (in which data sources contradicted each other). Results: SUP provides the Playbook and Newsletter as metagenres that regulate complex interactions among other genres and events, guiding firms into having roughly equivalent experiences as well as maintaining relationships among volunteers such as mentors. But the Playbook also reframes the experience of entrepreneurship so that it can fit into SUP's program: it reframes the cyclical entrepreneurship process as linear, and it reframes promises of future action as tracking of past actions.
Value Creation in Start-Up Discourse: Linking Pitch and Venture Through Logics of Justification
(2023) Varas, German; Sabaj-Meruane, Omar; Cabezas, Paula; Spinuzzi, Clay; Fuentes, Miguel; Gerard, Valentin
How do start-ups create value through the language of their business pitches? In this article, we investigate that question by identifying the logics of justification they use, traditionally conceptualized as orders of worth. In this study of short written pitches in a 6-month Chilean accelerator program, we describe how we detected logics of justification through pitch language, and we identify (a) co-occurrence patterns among logics of justification, (b) associations between logics of justification and industry sectors, and (c) associations between logics and a firm’s customer segment (B2B, B2C). This study provides unique insights into how start-ups sometimes justify innovations by using specific patterns of language depending on a venture’s features.