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This study aims to emphasize the integration of lean start-up and design thinking approaches and investigate how they may be used together.

The report uses a systematic literature review methodology to analyze and summarize previous research on combining lean start-up and design thinking. Inferences were discovered and analyzed after relevant publications were chosen based on predetermined inclusion criteria.

The research shows that combining lean start-up and design thinking significantly impacts entrepreneurship. Start-ups can efficiently uncover consumer needs, reduce risks and improve their product or service offerings by combining the client-centricity of design thinking with the iterative and data-driven concepts of lean start-up. This integration promotes an innovative culture, gives teams the freedom to try new things and learn from mistakes and raises the possibility of start-up success.

The dependence on pre-existing literature, which might cover only some potential uses and circumstances, is a weakness of this research. It is advised that more empirical research be conducted to determine the precise circumstances in which the integrated strategy performs best. Future studies should also explore the difficulties and drawbacks of using these approaches to offer suggestions for overcoming them and maximizing their advantages.

The findings have significant ramifications for business owners and other professionals working in the start-up environment. The combination of lean start-up and design thinking emphasizes the relevance of early customer interaction and empathy-driven design. To foster creativity and hasten the expansion of start-ups, practitioners are urged to create a comprehensive strategy that integrates the advantages of both techniques. Through this integration, business owners may develop solutions that appeal to their target market, increasing adoption rates and market competitiveness.

This study is interesting in comparing lean start-up and design thinking, emphasizing the overlaps and benefits of their application to entrepreneurship. This study discusses successful start-up methods by offering suggestions for future research and practice. It also provides a basis for further developing and adopting the integrated approach.

The purpose of this article is to develop an integrative framework of accelerator design to answer the question of what activities accelerators perform and how they function within a structured framework. Research on the functioning of accelerators as a mechanism for startup engagement produced multiple empirical results. However, the comparability of relevant research is strongly limited, currently hindering theoretical developments. Existing accelerator design models often differ and only partially overlap, which leaves extant literature with a fragmented and discordant conceptual understanding.

Based on a meta-synthesis method using qualitative analysis of 36 accelerator design articles, an integrative framework is developed. After identification of relevant literature, a renowned method for extracting, coding and synthesizing data on individual and cross-study level is applied to identify accelerator design constructs. Eventually, identified accelerator design constructs are integrated into a framework resting on the activity system lens of business model design.

The article reconciles fragmented knowledge on accelerator design and shows how accelerator design can be holistically conceptualized by 32 key activities clustered in eight design dimensions. The framework is complemented by an initial guideline for measurement. The findings further highlight formerly disregarded aspects of governance and community formation from a processual and structural perspective.

This article is the first to present a comprehensive picture of accelerator design integrating multiple empirical findings of prior research into a single coherent framework. This framework offers a shared foundation for future research exploring the delineations, functioning and impact of accelerators. From a practical perspective, the article provides managers of accelerators a guide to design, review and improve programs according to their value creation goals.

This paper aims to measure the adoption of big data analytics (BDA) to achieve sustainability in services being offered in university libraries in Pakistan.

The study applied a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as a framework and used quantitative data collection and analysis method. In total, 246 university library professionals were surveyed using a questionnaire consisting of UTAUT factors. The gathered data were analyzed using partial least structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results showed that performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE) and social influence (SI) significantly impacted the behavioral intention (BI) to adopt BDA. Facilitating conditions (FCs) have a statistically significant influence on the adoption of big data in libraries, while BDA has a statistical influence on the sustainability of library services (SLS).

BDA assists libraries in making better decisions about demand-driven collection creation, library space management, usage tracking, and quality maintenance in routine and repetitive library tasks such as cataloging, indexing, archiving, administration, preservation and representation. BDA supports libraries in making more cost-effective, innovative, user-oriented services, resource transferring, social identity, resource utilization, healthier user experience, strategic planning, informed decision-making and state-of-the-art infrastructure.

The foundation of this study is based on information gathered from various sources and university libraries in Punjab to better understand the challenges associated with using BDA for the SLS in Pakistan.

The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the selection criteria used in preincubation programs. Particular focus has been placed on examining the exclusive and inclusive nature of these criteria, and how they relate to both egalitarian and utilitarian considerations.

The study used two data sources: archival available online data and semi-structured interviews. Forty-nine preincubation programs were examined, with 19 representatives interviewed. The data was analyzed using content analysis to understand the access and selection criteria applied at the preincubation stage.

The goals of preincubation programs vary, including developing students’ competencies, creating new companies or achieving the goals of the corporation that sponsored the program. preincubation programs use three levels of selection criteria, including entry criteria, the potential of the submitted idea and team and the personal characteristics and competencies of the applicants. The entry criteria varied across programs, with some programs being open only to university employees and students, while others were open to the public. The study found that the majority of preincubation programs used a combination of both egalitarian and utilitarian motivations in their selection criteria.

The criteria used to evaluate applications flowing into preincubation should be strongly related to the goals that preincubation is supposed to achieve. It is essential to consider that, contrary to previous knowledge, this process is not only aimed at supporting the creation of new businesses.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the approach to selection criteria in preincubation programs with such diverse goals and in different countries as well as expanding the understanding of the criteria used at different stages of the incubation process and relating to the inclusiveness in entrepreneurship.

This study aims to examine Big Data and the management of libraries in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its implications for policymakers in Nigeria.

A qualitative methodology was used, involving the administration of open-ended questionnaires to librarians from six selected federal universities located in Southwest Nigeria.

The findings of this research highlight that a significant proportion of librarians are well-acquainted with the relevance of big data and its potential to positively revolutionize library services. Librarians generally express favorable opinions concerning the relevance of big data, acknowledging its capacity to enhance decision-making, optimize services and deliver personalized user experiences.

This study exclusively focuses on the Nigerian context, overlooking insights from other African countries. As a result, it may not be possible to generalize the study’s findings to the broader African library community.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is unique because the paper reported that librarians generally express favorable opinions concerning the relevance of big data, acknowledging its capacity to enhance decision-making, optimize services and deliver personalized user experiences.

The aim of this study is to systematise the entrepreneurial coaching (EC) literature by understanding how the phenomenon has been investigated along four dimensions inspired by Gartner’s (1985) conceptualisation of entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial process, context, target and outcomes. In so doing, this study will provide a frame of its multifunctional role and identify relevant gaps and suggestions for future research.

We conducted a systematic literature review to collect existing works on EC. We analysed 85 selected papers with a qualitative content analysis that allowed us to highlight relevant research themes for the entrepreneurial process, context, outcomes and target.

Our results demonstrate that EC has a multifunctional role in entrepreneurship that can be summarised in five different typologies, depending on the stage of the entrepreneurial process in which it is applied, the context, the target and the outcomes.

As one of the first attempts to systematise studies on EC, this work extends previous conceptualisation of EC by detailing different typologies of this intervention, thereby contributing to reduced fragmentation and conceptual ambiguity.

This study aims to validate a model to assess the level of lean maturity of Brazilian hospitals based on the adaptation of the SAE J4000/2021 standard.

The methodology was divided: (1) adaptation of the standard to the health context, (2) application of the questionnaire through a survey, and (3) comparison of the results of the level of maturity in the standard and by the clustering technique, using Minitab.

The research presents two contributions: (1) validation of a model to assess the level of lean maturity based on the SAE J4000/2021; (2) insights into the level of maturity of Brazilian hospitals. It was observed that only 10% of the sample was classified at maturity level 3 and 75% at level 2. Private and large hospitals showed greater maturity compared to the others.

This includes the limited number of hospitals that participated in the survey, given the difficulty of adherence to due constraints of time and staffing from hospitals, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article presents a lean maturity assessment proposal, adapting a consolidated standard in the automobile industry to the health context. Insights on the lean maturity of Brazilian hospitals can contribute to the development of policies to encourage the implementation of the lean philosophy directed to each specific environment.

This study serves as a guide for public agents interested in monitoring the quality of hospital indicators through the SAE J4000/2021 standard. From this lean maturity analysis, hospital managers can understand their opportunities for improvement in both human and organizational aspects. This favors the improvement of service delivery to society that depends on health services.

Due to the lack of research that validates lean maturity level assessment models in Brazilian hospitals, this study can be considered a pioneer in this Brazilian research by validating the SAE J4000/2021 standard in its updated version in the health context.

The ability of a business to outperform its rivals is known as its competitive edge, and it presents special difficulties in the context of the “digital revolution,” or the fourth industrial revolution. To obtain a competitive edge in the startup operations 4.0 era, this study aims to examine the organizational, technological and competence-related challenges presented by Industry 4.0. It does this by concentrating on the tools, competencies, methods, approaches, tools and strategies that are crucial. Using the Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) technique, the goal is to find, analyze and classify enablers for startup operations 4.0.

A closed-ended questionnaire and planned interviews were used in the data collection process. In startup operations 4.0, the cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification method is used to rank and categorize competitive advantage factors, whereas the TISM technique is used to analyze how components interact.

The study highlights the critical significance of the “Internet of Things (IoT),” “information technologies,” “technological platforms,” “employee empowerment,” “augmented reality (AR)” and “operational technologies” in its identification of 12 enablers for startup operations 4.0.

The main focus of the study is on the variables that affect startup operations 4.0’s competitive advantage.

Academics and important stakeholders can better understand the factors influencing competitive advantage in startup operations 4.0 with the help of this research.

Large businesses have been profoundly impacted by Industry 4.0 principles; however, startup operations 4.0’s competitive advantage has not received as much attention. This paper offers a fresh take on the concept of competitive advantage in startup operations 4.0 research.

The lean startup approach (LSA) is extensively utilized by early-stage entrepreneurs, with “pivot” serving as a key pillar. However, there is a research gap concerning the boundary conditions impacting LSA and pivot decisions, especially when addressing societal challenges, as in the context of transformational entrepreneurship. In this regard, the healthcare sector, further compounded by a lack of research on startups and scale-ups, presents an embraced opportunity to provide multiple contributions for both theory and practice.

The present investigation employs a grounded approach to explore the experiences of the co-founders of a fast-growing Italian e-health startup. A narrative strategy was employed to organize conditions and evolving strategic action/interactions into three different pivoting phases of the startup – before the pivot, its enactment and aftermath – with primary and secondary data collected over a period of one year.

Pivoting in digital healthcare unfolded as a liminal experience marked by factors such as high regulation, multiple stakeholders, technological and symbolic ambivalence, resource-intensive demands and institutional actors acting as pathway pioneers, leading to an information overload and unforeseeable uncertainty to manage. These factors challenge entrepreneurs' ability to attain optimal distinctiveness, presenting the paradoxical need for vertical flexibility for scaling up.

By uniquely illuminating the sector’s constraints on entrepreneurial phenomena, this study provides a valuable guide for entrepreneurs and institutional actors in addressing societal challenges.

This study introduces a process model of transformational information crafting when pivoting, highlighting the role of entrepreneurs' transformational stance and platform-mediated solutions as engines behind strategies involving information breaking and transition, preceding knowledge-driven integration strategies.

Many individuals start a new firm each year, mainly intending to become independent or improve their financial situation. For most of them, the first years of operations mean a substantial investment of time, effort and money with highly insecure outcomes. This study aims to explore how entrepreneurs running new firms perform financially compared with the established ones and how this situation influences their well-being.

A questionnaire survey was completed in 2021 and 2022 by a representative sample of N = 1136 solo self-employed and microentrepreneurs in the Czech Republic, with dependent self-employed excluded. This study used multiple regressions for data analysis.

Early-stage entrepreneurs are less satisfied with their financial situation, have lower disposable income and report more significant financial problems than their established counterparts. The situation is even worse for the subsample of startups. However, this study also finds they do not have lower well-being than established entrepreneurs. While a worse financial situation is generally negatively related to well-being, being a startup founder moderates this link. Startup founders can maintain a good level of well-being even in financial struggles.

The results suggest that policies should focus on reducing the costs related to start-up activities. Further, policy support should not be restricted to new technological firms. Startups from all fields should be eligible to receive support, provided that they meet the milestones of their development. For entrepreneurship education, this study‘s results support action-oriented approaches that help build entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy while making them aware of cognitive biases common in entrepreneurship. This study also underscores that effectuation or lean startup approaches help entrepreneurs develop their startups efficiently and not deprive themselves of resources because of their unjustified overconfidence.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the financial situation and well-being of founders of new firms and, specifically, startups. The personal financial situation of startup founders has been a largely underexplored issue. Compared with other entrepreneurs, this study finds that startup founders are, as individuals, in the worst financial situation. Their well-being remains, however, on a comparable level with that of other entrepreneurs.