1 FACULTEIT ECONOMIE EN BEDRIJFSKUNDE TWEEKERKENSTRAAT 2 B-9000 GENT Tel. : 32 - (0)9 – 264.34.61 Fax. : 32 - (0)9 – 264.35.92 WORKING PAPER Bootstrapping as a Resource Dependence Management Strategy and its Association with Startup Growth 1 Tom Vanacker Sophie Manigart Miguel Meuleman Luc Sels September 2011 2011/740 1 We are grateful to Peter Bryant, Dietmar Grichnick, Hans Landström, Eddy Laveren, Hana Milanov, Jennifer Walske, Teijuan Wang among others, for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. The paper further benefited from presentations at IE Business School, the 2010 Academy of Management Meeting (Montreal), the 2010 Belgian Entrepreneurship Research Day (Antwerp) and the 2010 ICAMPA Conference (Suzhou). We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Flemish Policy Research Center in Entrepreneurship and International Business (STOIO). Errors and omissions remain our own. D/2011/7012/xx