Startups and Country of Origin Positioning Strategy: An Abstract

Abstract

Israel is a tiny country founded in 1948 that usually sparks news and emotions regarding its history, tourism, political environment and more recently the innovation center that has become. A famous book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, themed the country “The Startup Nation”. This book explains the miracle economic upturn the country and Israeli society has overcome. Indeed, the country has had a very impressive economic performance lately, as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a distinguish institution of 35 wealthy nations, has accepted Israel as a full associate since 2010. Such prominence has been so important that foreign people now makes business trips to learn and try to refabricate back home the innovation environment. Among those visitors there are also investors and traders looking for new businesses. Some explanations for that success was the focus in the Research & Development (R&D) powerhouse that Israel has become, mostly funded coming from the Venture Capital (VC) Industry. Since the VC was the main driver to boost the creation of the innovation cluster, the connection was mainly naturally made from the biggest center of investment, the USA. After the first successes, many followed by and the VC industry soared. This has sparked the creation of many Startups. There are therefore a lot of studies into the VC industry, the Israeli culture, the innovation cluster and its contribution for the economic rise, the emigrant societal impacts (also a key pillar for the economic boom), but there are also studies regarding the counter forces against anything the country produces and exports like the conflict with the Arab countries and the boycott movement (called BDS). Most of the High-Tec services and products provided by Israeli startups are sold abroad. Has this selling or promotion been marketed as a clearly Israeli made service or product? Has this changed over time? Does the BDS, Arab Boycott inflicts any damage? The investigation was produced based on a partially integrated mixed methods research, where data from a sample of Israeli companies were gathered and classified quantitatively, in terms of acknowledging its Israeli roots. Qualitative interviews followed to understand reasons for acknowledging difficulties on an interpretivist aspect. Results were consistent with a specific situation that happens to the country of investigation. Companies using its origin may have beneficial outcomes to some publics and not to others. The need of comprehensive checking the expected results and target audiences is a must to avoid what was called “Liability of Israeliness”. Albert Einstein once said, “you have to learn the rules of the game and then you have to play better than anyone else”. It seems Israeli companies are following that quote whether they use or hide their country-of-origin.