Modes, Models, and Momentum (M3) Decision-Making: Entrepreneurs collaborating on Complex Problems

M3 theory introduces a descriptive framework for entrepreneurial innovation through collaboration in pursuit of solutions to more complex market problems. Through a Social Realism epistemological lens, M3 coding presents complex strategic positions as essentialist (via modes), relative (via models), and dynamic (via momentum) to plot the dynamic trajectory of innovation transmuting over time. At a fundamental level, the M3 theory identifies a consistent set of rules that decision-makers intentionally or unintentionally engage with or ignore to take strategic positions based on four integrated yet polarized pairs of modes: +S, +R, and +C, +D. Systematic (+S) vs. responsive (+R) strategies juxtaposed the tension of processes dedicated to increasingly sophisticated +S bounded rational cognitive processes; planning, compartmentalizing, regulating emotions, against increasingly +R sensitized intuiting; reflectivity, associating, emotionally expressive action. The second pair, conforming (+C), vs. differentiating (+D) strategies. intersects but expresses the tension between +C’s converging; through adapting or conveying socially perceived superior norms, or exploiting existing resources and power, against +D’s departure from traditional norms; with exploration, novelty-seeking, sabotage, risk-taking, experimentation, play, flexibility, discovery. Finally, dynamism (momentum) informs how strategic modes and models of decision-making improve and adjust in sophistication under the pressure and demands of the four drives (+L). The M3 theory is informed by three distinct but interrelated and simultaneous empirical streams of data: (i) field data from five ethnographic case studies, with research participant feedback loops; (ii) the mapping of 200+ peer-reviewed decision-making models; and (iii) prototyping the principles in the construction of the emergent M3 theory. [This research is part of a larger doctoral project originally submitted in 2017. This paper was originally presented at the Academy of Management, August 2022, Seattle, WA. Version of Record: https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2022.13578abstract Open access is issued in 2025 under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.]