Choosing Startups as Suppliers: A Supplier Selection Archetypes Typology

Recent research demonstrates the value of examining collaborations between established organizations and startups via the lens of the buyer–supplier relationship. However, enterprises must first find, analyze, and select potential startups as suppliers before they can exploit startups' resources and talents in a buyer–supplier relationship. Due to the fact that earlier research has focused exclusively on how purchasing firms select established firms as suppliers, it is unknown which processes, tools, or organizational approaches purchasing organizations employ when selecting startup firms as suppliers. These suppliers are qualitatively distinct in that they lack organizational structure, financial resources, and operational competencies, offering a substantial risk to purchasing organizations. This inductive, qualitative case study research elicits data from twenty established purchasing firms and examines how they choose startup suppliers. We begin by identifying five design motifs that differentiate purchasing firms' selection procedures. We create a typology of three supplier selection paradigms based on these themes. The findings suggest that enterprises who are ready and able to adjust their selection technique to startups should exhibit a higher level of selection performance, implying a greater likelihood of selecting acceptable startups as suppliers. The findings contribute to the literature on supplier selection and shed light on the burgeoning sector of new venture suppliers.

Do Venture Capital Investors Learn from Public Markets?

We examine whether venture capital (VC) investors learn information contained in public market stock prices. VCs are less likely to stage finance startups and syndicate with other VCs when stock prices are more informative. An instrumental variable approach suggests that the relation is likely causal. The startup’s initial public offering (IPO) prospect is the plausible information contained in stock prices learned by VCs. The effect of VC learning on staging and syndication is more pronounced when collecting information is more costly and the information learned is more reliable. Evidence from a survey of VC investors confirms that they actively learn information from the public market. VCs’ learning from the public market significantly affects their investments across startup firms. Our paper sheds new light on the real effects of financial markets and suggests that the informational role of security prices is much broader than what we have thought. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

Does social capital provide marketing benefits for startup business? An emerging economy perspective

PurposeThis study explores the relevance of social capital resources generated through networks to address the marketing challenges of startups. It looks into the marketing issues faced by startup firms in emerging markets and examines how they leverage their social capital to reach out to their customers and other stakeholders for marketing their products and services.Design/methodology/approachThe case study analysis using the abduction method, semi-structured interview and content analysis were used for answering the research questions.FindingsThis study finds the importance of developing social capital by startups for marketing activities. Social capital also acts as a strategic advantage that the competitors cannot easily emulate. Findings show that the development of social capital happens through the network of startup entrepreneurs and social connections involving customers, dealers and suppliers, among others.Originality/valueThis study is a novel attempt to emphasize the potential of social capital for marketing activities in a startup firm. This study expands the literature on social capital with a marketing perspective in an emerging economy context. The academic and managerial implications have also been highlighted in the study.

Packages of management control systems, entrepreneurial orientation, and performance in Brazilian startups

Purpose This study aims to understand the relationship between the elements of a startup firms’ management control system (MCS) package, its entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected survey data from a sample of 100 Brazilian startups who had exited technology-based parks and incubators. The authors used two data analysis techniques, namely, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Findings The findings show that cultural and planning controls were the only two MCS elements that were included in all high-performing startup firms’ MCS packages. The authors also found that EO has a positive influence on firm performance through the MCS package. Research limitations/implications The mixed-method approach allowed for a holistic view of the analyzed phenomenon. PLS-SEM analysis was applied to the symmetric relationships between the proposed relationships while fsQCA was used to analyze the asymmetric combinations between EO dimensions and MCS package elements, which promoted high firm performance. Practical implications The authors show how different combinations of MCS elements form a package, mediating EO, which can enable high performance. Originality/value Using fsQCA and PLS-SEM, the authors were able to better understand the important role that MCS package adoption has on a startups’ performance and provide new evidence regarding the interface between MCS and EO. This extends the understanding of the importance that cultural and planning controls have in an MCS package to support startup performance.

The Resource-Based View, Resourcefulness, and Resource Management in Startup Firms: A Proposed Research Agenda

The resource-based view (RBV) provides a rich framework for analyzing the role of a firm’s tangible and intangible resources in creating and sustaining competitive advantage. As a result, it has been widely used to explain entrepreneurial firms’ strategic choices that generate such an advantage. While researchers have established the usefulness of the RBV, they have overlooked the fundamental question of how entrepreneurial firms manage their resources to gain competitive advantage. This paper examines this issue in the context of independently owned startups, which typically lack resources, are constrained in their access to key resource providers, and have limited experience in assembling and managing resources. Adopting a broader conceptualization of startups’ resource management process, the paper identifies several questionable assumptions in related RBV-based research. Further, recognizing the limits of RBV to determine ex ante the nature and magnitude of entrepreneurs’ resourcefulness when managing their resources, the paper suggests linkages between the RBV and several entrepreneurship frameworks and outlines promising research questions.

Entry Dynamics of Startup Companies and the Drivers of Their Growth in the Nascent Blockchain Industry

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the characteristics of the blockchain (hereinafter “BT”) industry and factors that affect the success of BT-based startup companies. Due to the novelty of BT technology, the current period of its development is associated with a high number of newly emerging firms that are predominant in the BT industry. The study seeks to address the two main research questions: What are the key characteristics of the BT industry? What are the factors that determine the success of BT-based companies? To answer these questions, the method of the systematic literature review was applied. The discussion of the reviewed 43 publications led to the classification of literature sources into six categories, including research streams on BT in the contexts of entrepreneurial finance, institutional theory, digital and social entrepreneurship, business models, and international business. The results suggested that the early success of the BT-based startups’ entry and growth related to the supportive entrepreneurial environments, a greater degree of regulatory clarity, the formation of strategic associations, entrepreneur’s active engagement in sharing expertise and shaping the regulations and standards, a profound business model, and experienced management. It is recommended that policymakers should support the creation of new ventures and the transfer of knowledge about BT. Managers of established companies should cooperate with startups to adopt BT applications into their business models. Future research should be based on empirical research studies, namely cluster analysis, to identify the determinants of success/failure of BT-enabled startup firms. This paper contributes to BT research and the literature on the emergence of new industrial fields and ventures.

Drug Discovery Firms and Business Alliances for Sustainable Innovation

Biotech startup firms developing pharmaceutical seeds from scientific and technological innovation are burdened by significant Research & Development (R&D) expenses, long-term R&D operations, and low probability of R&D success. To address these challenges while sustainably creating innovations and new drugs, business alliances with existing pharmaceutical companies are one of the most important issues on the management agenda. The present study explores the necessity and significance of business alliances with pharmaceutical companies for the development of drug-discovery by Japanese biotech startup firms under high uncertainty. This study investigates the types of alliances to understand the origins of sustainability of these creative activities. First, we investigate and analyze the details of the partnership and its impact on the products under development based on the publicly available information of 16 drug discovery biotech startup firms in Japan that had become public since 2010. As a result, all firms continued their operations with the funds obtained from the business alliances with pharmaceutical firms at the time of their initial public offering (IPO). In addition, 56% of these firms’ alliance projects (n = 73) were seeded-out, and 32% seeded-in, indicating that they had adopted flexible alliance strategies not limited to seed-out ones. For sustainable going concern of the biotech startup business, it is valuable to consider multiple strategic options: “in-licensing and value up”, “best-in-class”, “platform leadership” and “first-in-class” depending on the characteristics of seeds and environmental restrictions.