The relationship between origin and performance of innovative start-ups: the role of technological knowledge at founding

According to the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship (KSTE), the majority of innovative start-ups take advantage of the knowledge originated in incumbent firms or universities. However, little is known on how innovative start-ups’ heterogeneous originating contexts affect their performanc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small business economics 2021-02, Vol.56 (2), p.553-569
Main Authors: Minola, Tommaso, Hahn, Davide, Cassia, Lucio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business and Management
Employees
Entrepreneurship
Founding
Industrial Organization
Innovations
Knowledge
Management
Microeconomics
Special Issue: Knowledge Frontiers and Boundaries in Entrepreneurship Research
Startups
Strategic management
Technology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:According to the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship (KSTE), the majority of innovative start-ups take advantage of the knowledge originated in incumbent firms or universities. However, little is known on how innovative start-ups’ heterogeneous originating contexts affect their performance differences at founding. To address this gap, we complement the KSTE with the resource-based view of the firm to hypothesize how the origin of innovative start-ups affects their initial technological knowledge and, in turn, performance at founding. We test the model using a sample of 338 innovative start-ups. Our results show that innovative start-ups that originated from university report a performance advantage since, right from their origin, their technological knowledge displays a broad scope and higher levels of newness.
ISSN:0921-898X
1573-0913
DOI:10.1007/s11187-019-00189-y