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Business plan writing seems the panacea to gain stakeholder legitimacy and financial backing. Our chapter explores the contributions and disconnections between business plan writing and the start-up process for incubated technology entrepreneurs. The study is set in the South East Enterprise Platform Programme (SEEPP), an incubator programme for technology graduate entrepreneurs in the South East of Ireland. Using a purposive sample of technology entrepreneurs in start-up mode, we took a qualitative approach consisting of content analysis of 40 business plans and in-depth interviews with 25 technology entrepreneurs. Our research found that writing a detailed business plan constrains the technology entrepreneur’s natural penchant for action, compelling them to focus on business plan writing rather than enactment. Technology entrepreneurs favour a market-led rather than funding-led operational level document to plan, and learn from, near-term activities using milestones.

Start-ups can change the direction of a country's economy when they manage to remain in the market, as they are companies that generate innovation, income and employment. However, these are companies that need both favorable external conditions that guarantee their survival, and internal capacities for the development of a management that is able to consider the needs for change in the product or service and consolidate the business as a whole. Therefore, start-ups need to develop dynamic capabilities (DCs), which are achieved through the processes that direct, coordinate and formulate the strategies of the other processes. Therefore, adopting a management approach that enables the development of DCs is essential for the survival of start-ups. The business process management (BPM) approach becomes an appropriate option, since it identifies business processes to adapt organizational management to new market demands. It can be used to interpret the environment, to understand the organization internally and to transform; it is flexible to the needs and characteristics of each organization. Based on this, the objective of the study is to develop a BPM framework that operationalizes the development of DCs in start-ups.

The method used consisted of two case studies and analysis of documents and seven interviews. Two start-ups that underwent BPM promotion in 2018 and 2020 were selected. The start-ups are Brazilian and from the biotechnology sector. Interviews were conducted with the team that promoted BPM at start-ups and with members of the start-ups that participated in the promotion. The interviews followed a semi-structured script elaborated according to the authors of the literature review. Discourse analysis was used to identify excerpts from the statements that expressed the content of the questions. All interviews were recorded with the prior consent of the participants and later validated with them.

The BPM promotion framework for start-ups is divided into four steps: “frame BPM,” “understand BPM,” “enable BPM” and “continue BPM”. Nine principles constitute the promotion of BPM: (1) context consideration principle, (2) holistic, (3) simplicity, (4) involvement, (5) empowerment, (6) shared understanding, (7) purpose, (8) technological appropriation and (9) continuity. Promoting BPM in start-ups has developed dynamic entrepreneurial and networking capabilities.

As for the contribution to society, scientific studies make it possible to structure tacit knowledge and give direction to human action based on assertive methods; thus, the scientific contribution on DCs and start-ups brings assertiveness to start-up managers and the entire chain they impact with their actions, which makes their performance more beneficial to society.

As for the contribution to the state-of-the-art, visualizing the principles in a practical way, through the application of the BPM promotion project in start-ups, made it possible to understand the BPM cycle in a less rigid and more fluid way. This format proved to be suitable for the start-ups in the case study, as it ensured that they learned both about how the approach works and about the advantages of using it in the management of start-ups, thus contributing to the development of these important organizations for the economy of different countries.

High-tech start-up creation is associated with complex challenges originating from quick transformations in technologies and markets. To raise start-up survival and success chances, founders need to ensure a rapid conversion of a venture idea into a working business. This paper aims to explore how identity-related characteristics of founders influence the speed of the start-up creation process.

For this study, a longitudinal multiple-case-study design was selected to identify a vivid flow of decisions and actions taken by high-tech start-ups for analysis in depth. Over 20 months, a series of interviews were organized with founders of six start-ups located in the same business incubator in Russia. Also, a set of additional data sources was engaged, including publicly available data and internal documents provided by businesses.

The findings reveal contrasting dynamics of start-up creation processes among founders with differing role identities. Identity fit and identity misfit are suggested to be serious pull and push factors in the process of organizational becoming through the impact they have on the situational regulatory focus of founders.

The current research contributes to the entrepreneurship stream of research by extending the knowledge of how cognition affects the process of new venture creation.

This paper aims to study the transient flow characteristics in a mixed-flow pump during the start-up period.

In this study, numerical calculation of the internal flow field in a mixed-flow pump using the sliding mesh method was carried out. The regulation of the pressure, streamline and the relative speed during the start-up period was analyzed.

The trend of the simulated head is consistent with the experimental results, and the calculated head is around 0.3 m higher than the experimental head when the rotation speed reached the stable stage, indicating that the numerical method for the start-up process simulation of the mixed-flow pump has a high accuracy. At the beginning, the velocity inside the impeller changes little along the radius direction and the flow rate increases slowly during the start-up process. As the rotation speed reached the stable stage, the flow inside the impeller became steady, the vortex reduced and transient effects disappeared gradually.

The study results have significant value for revealing the internal unsteady flow characteristics of the mixed-flow pump and providing the reference for the design optimization of the mixed-flow pump.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of how start-ups initiate business relationships and to identify the subprocesses that characterise business-relationship initiations in a start-up context.

The paper builds on business-relationship initiation models, develops a theoretical framework of relationship initiation and its subprocesses and, in a multiple-case study, applies this framework to seven relationship initiations by start-ups.

The key findings of this study describe the process of business-relationship initiation by start-ups, which comprise six subprocesses. The authors’ detailed and structured initiation-process analyses show how the initiation process occurs in a start-up context and how start-ups develop their relationships. The authors’ analyses also reveal typical patterns and critical issues, such as asymmetry, that characterise start-ups’ business-relationship initiations, particularly with bigger players.

This paper develops a model of the relationship-initiation process, uses it in a start-up context and identifies the critical characteristics, including asymmetry, of start-up initiations; these contributions address both the literature on start-ups and the literature on relationship initiation and development.

This paper is the first to focus on how start-ups initiate business relationships; previous studies of business-relationship initiation have focussed on mature firms. Using the industrial marketing and purchasing approach, the paper contributes to shifting the focus from interactions between resource entities to relationship-initiation processes in the context of start-ups.

How general can a “general” theory of entrepreneurship be? Abstraction is a necessity but is it possible to include venture opportunity variation in a general theory of entrepreneurship building on two contrasting perspectives such as equilibrium economics and disequilibrium economics. Two important boundaries need to be explicated. First, defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new economic activity includes both the creation of new means – ends (cf. Schumpeter, 1934) – as well as optimizing within known means – ends frameworks (cf. Kirzner, 1997). Second, such a theory includes an opportunity – actor nexus because it is the first tangible or intangible evidence of existing venture opportunities. Formal models of entrepreneurship often start with a person and at some point in time an exchange of persons with firms take place which is confusing because both levels of analysis and outcome are mixed with each other. Apparently, there is no such thing as entrepreneurship without actors, but if we want to create knowledge about the creation of economic activity, we need to frame our boundary around the nascent initiative instead of single actors and/or teams of actors because value can only be assessed in relation to the costs of services withdrawn. Analogous to this is, for example, the theory of firm and the theory of organizations with boundaries well beyond single actors or groups of actors. Another factor behind a venture-based theory of entrepreneurship comes from empirical evidence from the Swedish PSED, which suggests that approximately 16% (n=97) nascent entrepreneurs are exchanged during the start-up process. Formal models of entrepreneurship could therefore start with the nexus of venture opportunities and enterprising actors as suggested by Shane (2003) or with resources as suggested by Davidsson (2000) and progress forward in the entrepreneurial process. Entrepreneurship models built around the economic activity itself needs to be dynamic allowing different outcomes and feedback loops because resource combinations alter our perception of value and diffuses information, which may lead to additional resource combinations (Hayek, 1945).

This paper aims to investigate the lubrication performance of cam/tappet contact during start up. Especially, the thermal insulation effects of coating on the lubrication performance during cold start up process and warm start up process are studied.

A numerical model for the analysis of thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication of coated cam/tappet contact is presented. In this model, the Reynolds equation and the energy equations are discretized by the finite difference method and solved jointly.

During start up, the contact force at cam nose-to-tappet contact decreases with increasing time, while the absolute entrainment velocity has the upward trend. The minimum film thickness, maximum average temperature and friction power loss increase with increasing time, while the coefficient of friction decreases during start up. Because of the thermal insulation effect, the coating can significantly increase the degree of temperature rise. Compared with the uncoated case, the coated cam/tappet results in a lower friction power loss. Generally, the friction power loss in the cold start up process is much higher than that in the warm start up process.

By this study, the lubrication performance and the kinematics and the dynamics of the cam/tappet during start up process are investigated. Meanwhile, the thermal insulation effect of coating is also illustrated. The difference of lubrication performance between cold start up process and warm start up process is analyzed. The results and thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication method presented in this study can be a guidance in the design of the coated cam/tappet.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the entrepreneur in the knowledge transfer (KT) process of a start-up enterprise and the ways that role should change during the development phase to ensure mid-term business survival and growth.

An in-depth, qualitative case study of Birra Flea, an Italian Craft Brewery, is presented and analysed using Liyanage et al.’s (2009) framework to identify the key components of the KT process, including relevant knowledge, key actors, transfer steps and the criteria for assessing its effectiveness and success.

The entrepreneur played a fundamental and crucial role in the start-up process, acting as a selective and passionate broker for the KT process. As Birra Flea matures and moves into the development phase, the role of the entrepreneur as KT’s champion needs to be integrated and distributed throughout the organisation, with the entrepreneur serving as a performance controller.

This study enriches the knowledge management literature by applying a framework designed to provide a general description of KT, with some modifications, to a single case study to demonstrate its effectiveness in differentiating types of knowledge and outlining how KT can be configured to support essential business functions in an SME.

The analysis systematises the KT mechanisms that govern the start-up phase of an award-winning SME, with suggestions for how to manage KT during the development phase. Seldom are practitioners given insight into the mechanics of a successful SME start-up; this analysis serves as a practical guide for those wishing to implement effective KT strategies to emulate Birra Flea’s success.

The world’s economy thrives on SMEs, yet many fail as start-ups before they even have a chance to reach the development phase, presenting a motivation to study the early stages of SMEs. This study addresses that gap with an in-depth theoretical analysis of successful, effective KT processes in an SME, along with practical implications to enhance the knowledge, experience and skills of the actors that sustain these vital economic enterprises.

Even though the crowdfunding (CF) literature is rapidly reaching its maturity phase, the topic of serial CF (i.e. the participation in more than one CF campaign) is as much promising as still largely under explored. This study thus aims to offer a thorough view of the dynamic and complex processes characterizing the participation of the start-ups to more than one campaign adopting a business network perspective.

In line with an explorative research aim, a multiple case study analysis is performed by taking into consideration four start-ups engaged in more than one CF campaigns with different combinations of equity and non-equity CF, adopting the actor–resource–activity (ARA) model as theoretical framework.

Multiple CF campaigns are embedded in the overall changing startup’s network and are affected by the concurrent and overlapping startup’s development processes. From this standpoint, the adoption of the ARA model suggests to reconsider the “serial” dimension of multiple CF campaigns. These processes can be more or less “linear” as they could be affected by the combination of CF schemes and by the degree of alignment of actors, activities and resources, whose “assembly” can be facilitated by learning processes and impaired by unexpected circumstances.

This paper explores in depth the startup’s serial CF journey, building on recent studies calling for stronger analyses of the directions and outcomes of innovative funding trajectories pursued and implemented by new business ventures. From this standpoint, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to consider a complete spectrum of combinations between CF schemes within serial CF, thus allowing for a better understanding of the role of such a factor within a dynamic and contextual view, that is, that offered by the business network perspective. This paper also contributes to the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing research on start-ups.

The literature has shown great interest in open innovation (OI), and also discussed its degree of openness based on, for example, the number of parties involved. Less is known, however, about what makes OI processes work. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the importance of trust in OI, and the paper specifically focusses on a start-up company’s OI processes with collaboration parties. The paper points out how a lack of trust antecedents may disable such OI processes.

The empirical part of the paper consists of a case study on a medicine technology start-up. Interviews and analyses of secondary sources made up the main data capturing methods. Each collaboration between the start-up and another party is analysed through three trust antecedents: contractual, competence based, and goodwill.

The paper shows how either party may have chosen to discontinue the collaboration, based on the lack of competence or goodwill antecedents to trust. Specifically, the case indicates how the start-up discontinues the collaboration based on a perceived lack of goodwill, while the collaboration party bases its decision on competence deficits by the start-up.

The paper contributes to previous research through describing OI related to start-ups, and introducing trust antecedents as prerequisites for OI. To the literature on trust, trust mutuality makes a research contribution.