Do entrepreneurship ecosystem and managerial skills contribute to startup development?

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting startup development and the entrepreneurship ecosystem's contribution to it.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative methodology is used for data collection from different startup owners working across Pakistan. It is a cross-sectional descriptive study, which investigates the causal effect of variables at a definite point in time. Non-probability convenient sampling was used for selecting available startups from the incubation centers. The sampling framework consists of the founders of the startups that have been previously incubated at any of the selected incubation centers.

Findings

Regression analysis results from 165 responses of entrepreneurs and incubation centers demonstrate that the most important factors affecting startup development were financial access, government support, marketing challenges, education, technology and managerial skills in order of occurrence. Entrepreneurship ecosystem also proved to have a very positive impact on the relationship of these factors with startup development.

Practical implications

In this paper, the factors that affect the development of startup are analyzed and recommendations are provided.

Originality/value

This research is comprehensive, as we have collected data from actual entrepreneurs and incubation centers to explain how entrepreneurs initiate their startup business by considering their managerial skills. As such, this study is unique in that the data comes from newly developed incubations centers in one of South Asia's fastest-growing economies.

Citation

Zaidi, R.A., Khan, M.M., Khan, R.A. and Mujtaba, B.G. (2023), "Do entrepreneurship ecosystem and managerial skills contribute to startup development?", South Asian Journal of Business Studies, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 25-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAJBS-07-2020-0233