This book has been submitted as dissertation at the Faculty of Business Man­ agement and Economics at Dresden University of Technology, Germany on January 19, 2005. Throughout the completion of this thesis, I received much encouragement and advice from mentors, colleagues and friends. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Michael Schefczyk for providing a fruitful research atmosphere at the SAP Chair for Entrep- neurship and Innovation at Dresden University of Technology. His comments and support helped me develop and complete this thesis. Moreover, I thank Prof. Schefczyk for supporting my ambitions to conduct research in the United States. Second, I am especially grateful to Prof. Andrew L. Zacharakis, Ph.D. for hosting me as visiting scholar at Babson College and for supervising my project during this time. This thesis benefited tremendously from his knowledge and from his out­ standing support. His encouragement and support also helped me survive less pro­ ductive times. A great debt is to Prof. Dr. Herman Locarek-Junge who accepted the burden of being my second examiner at Dresden University of Technology. The final paper benefited tremendously from conversations with several experi­ enced researchers and practitioners in the United States. I want to thank Elaine I.