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A classical approach to collecting and elaborating information to make entrepreneurial decisions combines search heuristics, such as trial and error, effectuation, and confirmatory search. This paper develops a framework for exploring the implications of a more scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision making. The panel sample of our randomized control trial includes 116 Italian startups and 16 data points over a period of about one year. Both the treatment and control groups receive 10 sessions of general training on how to obtain feedback from the market and gauge the feasibility of their idea. We teach the treated startups to develop frameworks for predicting the performance of their idea and conduct rigorous tests of their hypotheses, very much as scientists do in their research. We let the firms in the control group instead follow their intuitions about how to assess their idea, which has typically produced fairly standard search heuristics. We find that entrepreneurs who behave like scientists perform better, are more likely to pivot to a different idea, and are not more likely to drop out than the control group in the early stages of the startup. These results are consistent with the main prediction of our theory: a scientific approach improves precision—it reduces the odds of pursuing projects with false positive returns and increases the odds of pursuing projects with false negative returns. This paper was accepted by Marie Thursby, entrepreneurship and innovation.

The aim of the article is a comprehensive study of the theoretical and practical aspects of managing the startup development process at all stages of their life cycle – from the idea generation to business scaling, as well as identifying efficient approaches, methods, and tools that ensure their successful functioning in a dynamic and uncertain market environment. By analyzing, systematizing, and summarizing the scientific works of domestic and foreign scholars, the evolution of approaches to interpreting the essence of startups was examined and their role in the modern innovative economy was determined. As a result of the study, the main scientific approaches to understanding startups were summarized, in particular structural, process, functional, innovative, and institutional approaches, which made it possible to reveal their multidimensional nature as an economic phenomenon. It was substantiated that a startup is a complex dynamic system that combines features of an organizational form, an innovative process, and a scalable business mechanism. Key characteristics of startups have been identified, including innovativeness, a high level of risk and uncertainty, limited resources, flexibility, a focus on finding a business model, and the ability to scale rapidly. It has been proved that startups play an important role in the development of an innovative economy, contribute to digital transformation, enhance competitiveness, and create new markets. It has been found that efficient management of startup development requires a systematic approach considering the specifics of each stage of their life cycle, including the stages of idea generation, validation, launch, growth, and scaling. The necessity of using modern management tools has been substantiated, such as agile methodologies, the development of a minimum viable product (MVP), testing business hypotheses, key performance indicators analytics, and integrated approaches to managing both product and team. It has been proven that the application of an iterative approach and market-oriented focus increases the likelihood of success for startups and their ability to adapt in conditions of uncertainty. It has been determined that the development of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem is characterized by gradual recovery, despite the influence of crisis factors, including military challenges, as well as maintaining a focus on innovative development and global markets. It has been found that during crisis periods, investment activity undergoes a transformation – from quantitative growth to qualitative project selection, which promotes the concentration of resources in more promising and technology-oriented startups. Prospects for further research in this area include the development of practical models for managing startups taking into account industry specifics, improving mechanisms for their financial support, as well as studying the processes of integrating Ukrainian startups into global innovation ecosystems and developing tools to support entrepreneurship in the context of the digitalization of the economy.

Corporate accelerators (CAs) have emerged as a key component of entrepreneurship ecosystems, offering startups corporate guidance, industry connections, and resources for accelerated venture creation. Although their proliferation is evident, we still know little about the value they produce for startups across different contexts. This study investigates the organizational setup and program design of 15 CAs in Germany using a unique and hand-collected dataset of 223 alumni startups. Our findings reveal a tradeoff: Specialized and integrated programs positively impact startups’ speed to market and growth, while specialization and rising corporate control may hinder follow-up venture capital financing. This research contributes to our understanding of CAs and the startup acceleration process and provides insights for corporate and accelerator managers and startups alike. Startups can use these findings to identify the most suitable CA for their needs. Program managers and designers gain insights into the strategic orientation and organizational setup that positively impact startup acceleration.Plain English SummaryWhile corporate accelerators (CAs) have become a major trend, we still know little about their effectiveness, how they work, and what outcomes they produce for the involved parties. This research examines how CA program designs relate to the performance of accelerated startups after their graduation. Based on an analysis of 223 graduated startups from 15 CAs based in Germany, we observe that their specialization matters, but there is a trade-off. Therefore, while CA programs selecting startups with a strong “strategical fit” to the operations of the sponsoring corporate mother produce high growth rates for the accelerated startups, they have downsides for startups when searching for future investors. Moreover, we find support that organizational integration and linkages are important. The accelerators’ management plays an especially essential role. Therefore, we observe that CAs managed by former entrepreneurs are better at accelerating both the financial and strategic outcomes for graduated startups than programs managed by professionals with strong corporate backgrounds. Our study contributes to the emerging literature on CAs by addressing a gap in the research. By employing a data-driven approach, our findings highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of the value of CAs for startup performance. Consequently, our study provides important insights for corporations in designing their accelerator programs and also assists startup teams in making informed decisions about joining CAs.

Given the legitimacy challenges faced by entrepreneurs, gaining access to the resources necessary to create viable new ventures is often difficult. Accordingly, scholars advocate that entrepreneurs align with high-status partners to convey that they are an accepted part of the sociocultural and organizational landscape. Although startup accelerators have been argued to play this supportive role for high-tech, high-growth ventures, it remains unclear whether they are effective at serving the needs of ventures pursuing social missions alongside business structures, or for-profit social ventures (FPSVs). To explore this issue, we examine whether social impact accelerators (SIAs), accelerators specifically designed to support FPSVs, help such ventures make the transition from mere ideas to viable organizations, a process known as emergence. To determine a causal relationship, we employ a quasi-experimental design and adopt propensity score matching with the nearest neighbor matching algorithm to study 7185 startups that applied to 383 accelerators worldwide from 2013 to 2019. By matching accepted startups to a control group of rejected startups, we find that SIAs, on average, facilitate new venture emergence, with accelerated FPSVs raising more external financing, earning more revenues, and hiring more full-time employees than their unaccelerated counterparts. These results hold when controlling for selection bias, thereby providing robust evidence for a causal relationship between acceleration and startup emergence. However, a subsequent subgroup analysis reveals that this causal effect is contingent across a breadth of “who,” “when,” and “where” contexts, highlighting the idiosyncratic differences that different startups face in the acceleration process.Plain English SummaryRecent empirical research on the benefits provided by startup accelerators suggests that accelerators help early-stage, commercial, growth-oriented ventures access external financing. While useful in demonstrating the value accelerators provide, we see an opportunity to expand this focus to explore the acceleration effect in a broader context. Given the important role social innovations play in the global economy, we explore how social impact accelerators (SIAs), entities designed to help startups simultaneously scale economic and social impact, help nascent for-profit social ventures (FPSVs) transform into viable, self-sustaining organizations, a process known as emergence. We find that SIAs do indeed facilitate emergence, with accelerated FPSVs raising more external financing, earning more revenues, and hiring more full-time employees than unaccelerated FPSVs. However, the SIA effect varies depending on how old the startup is, the gender composition of the founding team, and where the startup is located. By validating the causal impact of SIAs on FPSV emergence, our findings can inform not only theory and practice, but also public policy focused on bolstering the social innovation ecosystem.

The role of a relatively small cadre of high-tech startup firms in driving innovation and economic growth has been well known and amply celebrated in recent history. At the same time, it is well recognized that, while the overall contribution of startups is crucial, the high-risk and high-reward strategy followed by these startups leads to significant failure rates and a low ratio of successful startups. So, it is curious to notice that literature tends to focus on successful startups and on quantitative studies looking for determinants of success while neglecting the numerous lessons that can be drawn by examining the stories of startups that failed. This paper aims to fill this gap and to contribute to the literature by providing a repeatable and scalable methodology that can be applied to databases of unstructured post-mortem documents deriving startup failure patterns. A further and related contribution is the analysis carried out with this methodology to a large database of 214 startup post-mortem reports. Descriptive statistics show how the lack of a structured Business Development strategy emerges as a key determinant of startup failure in the majority of cases.

This study explores the determinants of startup intention within the context of e-commerce platform-based startups in South Korea. We employ an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) that integrates individual, social, and entrepreneurial characteristics. A two-step analytical approach is applied, combining variable extraction through data mining and hypothesis testing using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that personal and social factors—such as entrepreneurial mindset and social influence—positively affect perceived usefulness, while job relevance and exposure to successful startup models enhance perceived ease of use. In contrast, security concerns and technological barriers negatively impact these relationships, posing critical obstacles to platform-based startups. This study extends the TAM framework to the platform-based startup context, offering theoretical contributions and proposing policy implications, including promoting digital literacy, developing entrepreneurial networks, and addressing security and regulatory issues. These insights offer a deeper understanding of how platform environments shape entrepreneurial behavior, providing practical guidance for startup founders, developers, and policymakers.

Silicon alleys, hills, peaks, beaches, savannahs, islands, lagoons and gulfs have mushroomed across cities of all continents, in the hope of fuelling profitable, innovative startup hubs. These Silicon-Valley replicas deploy economic theories, managerial fads, success stories and best practices that are metonymically linked to Northern California, but they also draw upon local arrangements of heterogeneous constituents: policy experts, entrepreneurs, reports, IT infrastructures, universities, coworking spaces, networking protocols and so forth. The making of one such ecosystem, Cape Town’s so-called ‘silicon cape’, is the topic of this article, which, however, does not try to uncover the specific economic and geographic factors of tech clustering. Rather, it addresses some of the narrative discourses that have framed Cape Town as the entrepreneurial capital of South Africa and Africa at large. It shows how these narrative praxes are both reflexive and ontological: they at once work as metatheories of entrepreneurial innovation in an African city and lay the groundwork for its very possibility. Via an ethnographic engagement of these textual discourses in the making, this article charts the uneasy relationship between technocapitalism and economic development in a city scarred by its colonial past and its racialised inequalities. In doing so, it shows how the discursive making of the silicon cape of Africa mobilised multiple economic sentiments, weaving together the search for profitable technology-based economies and the demand for social justice in a city of the Global South. 硅巷、硅山、硅峰、硅滩、硅原、硅岛、硅湖和硅湾如雨后春笋般遍布各大洲的城市，人们希望这些区域能催生盈利性、创新型的创业中心。这些硅谷复制品部署了暗示与北加州之间的联系的经济理论、管理时尚、成功故事和最佳实践，但它们也倚重本地安排的不同元素：政策专家、企业家、报告、信息技术基础设施、大学、合作空间、网络协议等等。本文的主题就是探讨这样一个生态系统—开普敦的所谓“硅岬”的形成。然而，本文不打算揭示科技集群的具体经济和地理因素。相反，本文探讨一些叙事话语，这些话语将开普敦界定为南非和整个非洲的创业之都。我们证明这些叙事手法既是反思性的又是本体论的：它们既是非洲城市创业创新的元理论，又为其可能性奠定了基础。通过对这些形成中的文本论述的人类学探讨，本文描绘了在一个饱受殖民历史和种族不平等创伤的城市中技术资本主义和经济发展之间不稳定的关系。藉此，本文揭示了非洲硅岬论述的形成如何调动了多种经济情绪，其中，在这个全球南方城市里，对有利可图的技术经济的追求和对社会正义的需求交织在一起。

New firms face challenges regarding pace, time, scalability, and societal changes, requiring increased attention to sustainable work prerequisites. However, this dimension of social sustainability is less studied than economic and ecological sustainability. This paper addresses how sustainable work is considered in an entrepreneurial startup carrying out a greenfield project within a new industrial domain. Data were collected for 30 months in a longitudinal case study. The study shows that (i) working condition challenges were drivers for innovative solution-oriented approaches with potential for rapid decision-making, flexibility, and to attract, recruit, retain, and develop talented people; (ii) a strategic focus on sustainability and collective contribution to a purpose-driven vision were important enablers for taking steps of operationalising sustainable work dimensions during the startup; and (iii) the firm’s early stakeholder collaboration addressing working conditions was an important means for design for sustainable work and their role as agents of sustainable work. Research implications are how sustainable work can be considered during startups and through stakeholder collaboration. Furthermore, the case contributes to increased knowledge of how the three pillars of sustainability—economic, ecological, and social sustainability—are interrelated and are suggested to be continuously considered over time, specifically during rapid major changes.

This study investigates the intersection of digital transformation, business resilience, and marketing capabilities, focusing on small businesses and startups. The digital revolution has significantly transformed business operations, supply chain management, and overall organizational performance. Conducted following PRISMA guidelines, this systematic literature review used the Scopus database, refining an initial 247 documents to 51 relevant studies. Key trends include the vital role of digital transformation in enhancing resilience, the use of emerging technologies for sustainable supply chains, and the importance of digital skills and knowledge management. Research highlights the implications of digital marketing and e-commerce adoption for SMEs, revealing the need for firms to develop dynamic capabilities to thrive in turbulent environments. However, gaps remain, such as understanding the long-term impacts of digital transformation, the interactions between digital maturity, innovation, and sustainability, and the necessity for comparative studies across industries and regions. Additionally, investigating how marketing capabilities contribute to resilience is essential, enabling small businesses and startups to withstand and recover from disruptions. Addressing these trends and gaps will enhance our understanding of digital transformation’s multifaceted implications for SMEs and startups, helping them leverage marketing capabilities to navigate challenges and seize opportunities in the digital era.

PurposeIn a recent quasi-experimental study, the effects of a large German public startup support measure entitled “EXIST – Business Startup Grant” (EGS) on a variety of outcomes were determined, but without examining which factors are responsible for these program effects. The present study investigates the contribution of several factors to the success of the program in promoting product development and business planning.Design/methodology/approachBy means of a two-wave panel design and fixed-effects panel regressions, evidence is generated that provides unique insights into the effect mechanisms of a publicly funded startup grant. The data for the study come from the program monitoring of the startup support measure.FindingsSeveral factors were identified that significantly drive the effects of the program on the product development and business planning stages, namely the program-induced improvement of the skills of the startup team, intensification of cooperation with pilot customers/users, increase in the degree of networking and advice/support from third parties and the effort put into business plan preparation.Originality/valueStartup support programs are a crucial aspect of technology and innovation policies, which are often evaluated in order to find out whether they generate effects. Assessing whether a program is effective or not, however, does not usually allow specific recommendations on how to improve the measure to be developed. Further information on the mechanisms of intervention is needed for this purpose. The present study takes up on this idea and provides this information for a specific type of public startup support measure.