The impacts of customer involvement and knowledge absorptive capacity on the performance of startups

Abstract

ABSTRACT The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of customer involvement in different stages of the new product development process and absorptive capacity on the growth performance of startups. In this paper, the linear regression was utilised to analyse the empirical data collected from 152 startups in Vietnam. Results showed that customer involvement has a positive impact on startup growth. Particularly, startups who involve customers more intensively in the ideation stage will yield better growth than those involving customers in the development and commercialisation. The next finding is about knowledge absorptive capacity whose four processes affect startup growth differently. The analysed data revealed that only knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation have a significant positive impact on the performance of startups. Other processes of absorptive capacity, which are knowledge assimilation and transformation, have no contribution to performance. Based on results, some recommendations to enhance the startups’ performance are proposed.