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Our understanding of the strategies that lead to the success of start-ups when they scale-up is limited when it occurs at the regional periphery. The main purpose of this study is to explore the specific strategies that start-ups employ to scale-up, specifically in contexts with high resource constraints at the regional periphery.

Analyzing the data from personal in-depth interviews with engineering and science start-up founders in peripheral regions of upstate New York USA bordering the Canadian Ontario, we explored a combination of internal and external strategies that start-ups employed to scale-up.

The study found that start-ups prioritize building internal scaling capacity in their human capital, organizational structure, scalable business model, finance and business ownership. To foster the scaling process further, start-ups develop new effective external strategies that target the business environment.

Policymakers and regional governments can use our research to develop more effective industrial policies for supporting start-ups’ growth and subsiding strategic industry clusters for rebooting new competition policy, which is a current debate in many industrialized economies including the US. This targeted regional industrial policy is specially needed when scaling-up at the regional periphery.

Our study is specially need it when scaling-up at the regional periphery and with limited resources.

This study enriches our understanding of the growth of start-ups and small ventures by providing context-based insights into how firms build the capacity to scale-up in highly challenging and uncertain business environments in a peripheral bordering region between the USA and Canada. It also offers useful managerial and policy implications.

To augment sales revenue, B2B digital start-ups aim to create and sustain commercial relationships with industry incumbents. However, since these incumbents have traditionally struggled with implementing disruptive digital artifacts, most studies have almost exclusively concentrated on their challenges, leaving the digital start-ups' side underexplored. Therefore, this study seeks to understand how digital start-ups navigate digital implementation (DI) hardships to ultimately achieve digital entrepreneurship success.

An abductive explanatory multi-case study of four industries that pose a variety of implementation challenges for B2B digital start-ups (agriculture, insurance, real estate and construction, and healthcare) was conducted using data collected from 40 interviews with Israeli experts and relevant digital data observations.

This study articulates two main observations. (1) Throughout their journeys, digital start-ups have utilized newly created and/or refined dynamic capabilities (DC) to successfully implement their digital artifacts. Simultaneously, successful DI has enabled digital start-ups to create new DC or sustain and evolve current DC. (2) We provide empirical evidence outlining how digital start-ups using continuous learning have combined causation and effectuation logic throughout their DI journeys.

This study answers a call to explore more explicit digital-related drivers (i.e. DI) for digital entrepreneurship success by studying a highly-ranked country on the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) to achieve this. Moreover, it illustrates how digital start-ups evolve throughout their commercial relationships with industry incumbents, thereby enabling an effective approach for successful DI. Such an approach can be considered very valuable for both practitioners and policymakers. Consequently, it advances digital entrepreneurship as an independent research topic.

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.

This study aims to investigate the noise-inducing characteristics during the start-up process of a mixed-flow pump and the impact of different start-up schemes on pump noise.

This study conducted numerical simulations on the mixed-flow pump under different start-up schemes and investigated the flow characteristics and noise distribution under these schemes.

The results reveal that the dipole noise is mainly caused by pressure fluctuations, while the quadrupole noise is mainly generated by the generation, development and breakdown of vortices. Additionally, the noise evolution characteristics during the start-up process of the mixed-flow pump can be divided into the initial stage, stable growth stage, impulse stage and stable operation stage.

The findings of this study can provide a theoretical basis for the selection of start-up schemes for mixed-flow pumps, reducing flow noise and improving the operational stability of mixed-flow pumps.

The case study is designed to help students understand how the “growth at all costs” attitude can lead to compromised corporate governance in a start-up leading to disastrous implications for all the stakeholders. This case study aims to make students understand the components of the fraud triangle, the impact of financial fraud on various stakeholders, the role of venture capitalist (VC) investors and the importance of good corporate governance in start-ups. The case study presents an excellent opportunity for students to discuss the consequences of ignoring good governance in the pursuit of growth in a start-up. After analyzing the case study, the students shall be able to explain the concept of the fraud triangle and to be able to identify the motivation, opportunity and rationalization of financial irregularities in a start-up; analyze the impact of financial irregularities on various stakeholders; comprehend the business model of VCs and evaluate its influence on VC-funded start-ups; and appraise the importance of good corporate governance in start-ups.

The case study revolves around the confession of financial irregularities made by one of the cofounders of GoMechanic, a start-up headquartered in Gurugram, India. On January 18, 2023, Amit Bhasin confessed to financial irregularities in the company’s financial statements, leading to laying off 70% of the workforce of the company. GoMechanic had earlier raised close to US$62m [1] from maverick global investors including Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Orios Venture Partners and Chiratae Ventures, and was negotiating to raise Series D financing from the Japanese multinational SoftBank with aspirations to be a unicorn (start-up with a valuation of over $1bn). The confession led to a debate about the consequences of the “growth at all cost” culture being followed by start-ups as well as VCs. GoMechanic was not an isolated instance of a lack of governance in the start-ups. The confession had consequences not only for the GoMechanic but for the entire start-up ecosystem of India, which was the third largest in the world. Bhasin stated that the founders take full responsibility for the situation, and they were working on a plan which was most viable under the circumstances. However, it was not going to be easy to regain the confidence of the investors.

The case study is best suited for senior undergraduate- and graduate-level business school students and in executive education programs in courses such as corporate governance and ethics, private equity and entrepreneurial finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance

Research has examined how new ventures strengthen local economic outcomes; however, limited research examines health-oriented ventures and their impact on social outcomes, including health outcomes. Increased VC investment in healthcare service start-ups signals more activity toward this end, and the need for further academic inquiry. We examine the relationship between these start-ups and county-level health outcomes, health factors, and hospital utilization.

Data on start-ups funded via institutional venture capital from PitchBook were merged with US county-level outcomes from the County Health Rankings and Area Health Resources Files for 2010 to 2019. We investigated how the number of VC-funded healthcare service start-ups, as well as a subset defined as innovative, were associated with county-level health measures. We used panel models with two-way fixed effects and Propensity Score Matched (PSM), controlling for demographics and socioeconomic factors.

Each additional VC-funded healthcare service start-up was related to a significant 0.01 percentage point decrease in diabetes prevalence (p < 0.01), a decrease of 1.54 HIV cases per 100,000 population (p < 0.1), a 0.02 percentage point decrease in obesity rates (p < 0.01), and a 0.03 percentage point decrease in binge drinking (p < 0.01). VC-funded healthcare service start-ups were not related to hospital utilization.

This work expands our understanding of how industry-specific start-ups, in this case healthcare start-ups, relate to positive social outcomes. The results underscore the importance of evidence-based evaluation, the need for expanded outcome measures for VC investment, and the possibilities for integration of healthcare services and entrepreneurship ecosystems.

The sport system is currently changing to take advantage of more entrepreneurial forms of business ventures. Sport start-ups have emerged as a new type of sport venture that can quickly enter the marketplace based on demand. The reason for this growth is due to innovation and knowledge capabilities being needed in sport organizations. This chapter examines the role of sport start-ups in the knowledge economy by focusing on the role of sport technology. This enables a better understanding about how sport entrepreneurship is leading to the formation of different types of businesses that can utilize entrepreneurial finance.

Student entrepreneurs account for a considerable number of start-up ventures derived from university settings. Nevertheless, there is little research that demonstrates how university entrepreneurship education (EE) directly influences students’ start-up activities. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of various types of university entrepreneurship activities (incorporate entrepreneurial courses, extra-curricular initiatives, and start-up support) on student start-up behavior. This quantitative research utilized questionnaire data collected from university students (n = 1,820) in southeast China and was analyzed with hierarchical Poisson regression in STATA procedures. Research results indicate that engaging in any type of university entrepreneurship activities positively predicts students’ start-up activities, yet this positive effect is contingent on students’ prior start-up experience and the overall university entrepreneurial climate. These findings advance our understanding of crucial elements within university entrepreneurial ecosystems and how various entrepreneurship activities within these ecosystems potentially impact students’ venture creation.

Start-up owners have emerged in recent years as thought leaders in a variety of encouraging ways throughout the business world, changing the game that organisations function worldwide in fascinating ways. They have transformed office culture by embracing flex-time, innovative work spaces, informal networks and work structures among many things. Building a great organisational culture at the early stages of forming a business as in a start-up is about creating an identity. The World Economic Forum community observes that start-ups are social systems which are very attractive for their enhancing of personal creativity and social inclusion. Thus, members of creative start-ups seem to exhibit strong group affiliation and passion for their profession. Based on the assumptions above, the study of start-up workplaces as unique social systems with distinct characteristics is proposed. Drawing on social identity theory as a collective construct was derived by Henri Tajfel and John Turner (Tajfel, 1972; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, 1982).

This chapter aims to investigate the idiosyncratic bundle of resources, capabilities and personal attributes resulting from the system interactions in the unique organisational context of start-ups (Habbershon, Williams, & McMillan, 2003, p. 452). This chapter considers the need for nurturing of start-up business owners/managers’ entrepreneurial learning capabilities, and highlights the fact that entrepreneurial learning and behaviour is different from other forms of learning and behaving.

Although multiple factors influence how people work, social identity theory could possible serve as a unifying theory of organisational behaviour elements, because it views the organisation as a social system where individual behaviours and attitudes are to a large degree influenced by psychological, behavioural, economic and sociological processes of group formation and membership. Social identity perspectives can shed light on

what and how people think in the early, but very critical stages of organisation formation.

Research in entrepreneurship points out that a heightened sense of self-realisation in individual starting/participating in new ventures is a strong motivator (Triandis, 1989). Engaged and inspired employees perceive their entrepreneurial identity to be central to their self-concept and experience greater levels of passion at their work (Murnieks, Mosakowski, & Cardon, 2014). The result is that the staff is committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. For start-up culture is the reflection of everyone’s actions and values in the office – the interactions of everyone in the start-up with suppliers, customers and other stakeholders set the tone for the company’s relations with its external environment and its culture.

Developing a business with like-minded individuals to advance a collective business vision is at the heart of entrepreneurial activity of small and emerging enterprises. Small but highly flexible work groups provide a united voice and a common sense of purpose for individual members (Alpkan & All, 2007). They have the ability to take action to reconfigure or move entrepreneurial resources and activities in company routines quickly and effectively. This is particularly important in times of high uncertainty and volatility as the one we are currently going through in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although it is acknowledged that entrepreneurial networks play a crucial role in fostering business model innovation (BMI) for start-ups, it is unclear how and when these networks affect BMI. This research developed a moderated mediation model to explore the impact of entrepreneurial networks on BMI in start-ups and examined the dual mediating effects of causation and effectuation, as well as the moderation of environmental dynamism.

The proposed framework was tested by hierarchical regression analyses and bootstrapping using samples of 248 start-ups in China.

The results showed that entrepreneurial networks significantly positively impacted start-up BMI. Causation and effectuation played dual mediating roles between entrepreneurial networks and BMI. Furthermore, the entrepreneurial networks-effectuation-BMI association was more substantial in highly dynamic environments, whereas the entrepreneurial networks-causation-BMI relationship was unaffected.

There are several theoretical contributions resulting from this research. The findings offer new insights for understanding the antecedents of start-up BMI from the network perspective. This research adds to the growing literature on resource orchestration (RO) by exploring the dual mediating influences of causation and effectuation in resource management. This investigation revealed the boundary condition between entrepreneurial networks and BMI by testing the moderating influence of environmental dynamism.

Start-ups must effectively use external resources embedded within networks to advance BMI. Start-up entrepreneurs should apply causation and effectuation to transform entrepreneurial network resources into BMI. Start-up entrepreneurs must dynamically manage resources in response to ever-changing environmental conditions. Resource acquisition and management of entrepreneurial networks can vary significantly in their influence on start-up BMI under different environmental contexts.

Unlike previous BMI research focused on internal organizational factors, this study highlighted the critical importance of entrepreneurial networks as a prerequisite for achieving start-up BMI, contributing to the literature on open innovation and resource-based view. Examining the dual mediating roles of causation and effectuation illustrated the bridging role of strategic decision-making logic in connecting resources to value creation, contributing to the developing RO literature. The moderating influence of environmental dynamism was explored, clarifying how start-up BMI benefits from entrepreneurial networks in differing situations. A framework for reconciling contradictory findings concerning the association between entrepreneurial networks and innovation is provided.