Creation Of Start-ups Research Articles

FORMATION OF THE INNOVATIVE PROJECT FINANCING MODEL IN MODERN CONDITIONS

The state of development of the leading countries of the world proves that its main factors are innovative high technologies, new equipment, a new organization of labour and production, a new motivation for entrepreneurship. They ensure the economic stability of micro and macro systems, their competitiveness both in the domestic and foreign markets. Given the limited nature of state financial resources, the problem of finding additional sources of financing for the purpose of activating the development of innovation activity in Ukraine is becoming increasingly urgent. Today, many countries are actively implementing modern models of financing of innovative projects. In many countries, hybrid financial instruments are transformed in the modern environment into hybrid investment models such as crowdfunding and crowdinvesting. Research of existing models of innovative economic development is always relevant, development tendencies are constantly changing under the influence of global conditions. In Ukraine, it is possible to predict the development of such innovative models as: a resource model without high-tech production (natural resources – production – money); innovative model (transformation of money for research into knowledge – transformation of knowledge into skills of workers and innovations – transformation of innovations into goods – money); intellectual-donor model. An analysis of the world experience of using such forms of activation of innovation activity in the USA, Japan, Western Europe, the CIS, and other countries proves their relevance and prospects for Ukraine. At the same time, the efficiency of the functioning of innovation centres is largely determined by the proper level of financing of their activities, especially at an early stage. The model “university – innovation centres” aims to overcome the gap between education and the implementation of the knowledge gained in creating innovation. Within the framework of this model, two blocks are key: a block of joint research centres “university – industry” and a block of the creation of innovation centres and startup. The advantages of such a mechanism are: firstly, for business – direct state support for innovations, the possibility of investing under the state guarantees; and secondly, for the state – reduction of budgetary expenditures at the expense of funds attracted in the sphere of innovation activity, increase of innovation activity of priority sectors of the economy, distribution of innovative risks. The model of joint research centres “university – business structure” provides two variants of financing of such centres. The first option is based on the formation of a research centre in the form of corporation, which may include universities, private investors, local authorities, other sponsors and stakeholders. Traditionally, Ukraine has significant potential in some important fields of science, such as medicine, physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, materials science, space science, and Earth science. Participation in Horizon 2020 allows creating additional opportunities for the successful development of these branches of science.

SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT OF THE INNOVATIVE POTENTIAL OF A RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

The purpose of the paper. This paper outlines a comprehensive study of the essence and the essential synthesis elements of a Research University’s innovation capacity. The following tasks were set as the article’s objectives: 1) to analyse the development of scientific thought in the field of innovation potential; 2) to provide the author’s definition of the innovative potential of such a university; 3) to structure the system of evaluation of the university’s innovation potential. This study examines the new realities of needs for universities of the 21st Century to improve their development management through a focus on the concept of “open” innovations. Methodology. This research is based on a careful analysis of the innovation capacity by the evolution of scientific thought. Scientific literature has expressed varying and opposing views as to the nature of the innovation capacity. However, very little has been identified to empirically judge the university’s innovation capacity. Results. The present work suggested definitions of “Research University’s innovation capacity” through the main component based on a novel integration approach. That approach includes the unity of the three types of economic activity. Those three are the provision of educational services, the provision of high-tech business services (carrying out R&D on a commercial basis), and innovative activities through commercialization of intellectual property. That also encompasses the creation of start-ups or spin-off companies, producing high technology products. The paper provides an opportunity to focus on a systemic approach to assessing the university. Proposed systematic evaluation of the university’s innovation potential through its internal and external components: organizational and managerial component; information and methodical component; the intellectual component; the research component; production and technological component; financial component; marketing component; global networks; research laboratories of TNCs; scientific unions and organizations; international consortia. This approach to the assessment provides with a more extensive comprehension of the main fields of activities of the Research University. The interaction of these components gives an opportunity to obtain a synergistic effect that will lead to their mutual reinforcement in the strategic perspective. Practical implications. It can be used by experts to comprehensively assess the potential of a world-class university by training human resources, solving complicated scientific and technological issues in order to obtain the economic outputs. Value. This research highlights the necessity to review the approaches to assessment of the innovative potential in the Research University. The authors presented their own vision of the internal and external components of the innovative potential of the Research University.

Valorization of Research and Scientific Innovation Results as Factor of Sustainable Development of African Agriculture: the Example of Burkina Faso

During the 1980s, many development partners in Africa were preoccupied by the application of research results to agricultural development. In Burkina Faso, this awareness led to set structures and mechanisms for the promotion of research results. From the synthesis of critical analyses of the valorization system, it appears that the valorization concept is polysemous. In addition, there has been strong evolution in the mechanisms for promoting research results, development has also been hampered by certain shortcomings. Thus we propose, as a main track for a successful valorization policy, the creation of start-ups constituted of young professionals who possess skills that are specific and complementary. Young university-educated professionals are equipped to understand the new technologies of production and agricultural transformation. With an effective management plan the start-ups they represent could foster an effective application of research results, to improve food security and enhance the competitiveness of Burkina’s agricultural products on international markets.

Detecting Indicators for Startup Business Success: Sentiment Analysis Using Text Data Mining

The main aim of this study is to identify the key factors in User Generated Content (UGC) on the Twitter social network for the creation of successful startups, as well as to identify factors for sustainable startups and business models. New technologies were used in the proposed research methodology to identify the key factors for the success of startup projects. First, a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model was used, which is a state-of-the-art thematic modeling tool that works in Python and determines the database topic by analyzing tweets for the #Startups hashtag on Twitter (n = 35.401 tweets). Secondly, a Sentiment Analysis was performed with a Supervised Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm that works with Machine Learning in Python. This was applied to the LDA results to divide the identified startup topics into negative, positive, and neutral sentiments. Thirdly, a Textual Analysis was carried out on the topics in each sentiment with Text Data Mining techniques using Nvivo software. This research has detected that the topics with positive feelings for the identification of key factors for the startup business success are startup tools, technology-based startup, the attitude of the founders, and the startup methodology development. The negative topics are the frameworks and programming languages, type of job offers, and the business angels’ requirements. The identified neutral topics are the development of the business plan, the type of startup project, and the incubator’s and startup’s geolocation. The limitations of the investigation are the number of tweets in the analyzed sample and the limited time horizon. Future lines of research could improve the methodology used to determine key factors for the creation of successful startups and could also study sustainable issues.

What ecosystem model to support the creation of social innovation technopoles?

Many innovative initiatives driven by young entrepreneurs engaged in the creation of high societal impact start-ups emerge. Benefiting from the exponential development of new technologies for social and environmental purposes leads to a reinvention of existing practices and working methods on several levels such as governance, management and entrepreneurship. Indeed, improving the life quality of citizens through efficient services that revolve around innovative digital devices would not happen without the development of a favorable environment to social innovation that would promote the creation of innovative startups and group them thereafter in technological clusters.Providing innovative solutions to the fundamental needs of the populations is the common goal between the social innovation technopoles. They represent an engine of growth for their economies as their business performance is based on social, environmental and economic development. The establishment of such ambitious projects would not success without a proper support on several levels as a qualified human resources, the investment funds, powerful universities, consulting firms, training organizations, management and regulation as well as a legal framework. The orderly conduct of the rise of social innovation technopoles implies the emergence of a social entrepreneurship ecosystem that combines knowledge and skills in order to face the institutional, financial and technical obstacles they may experience.Success factors of the social innovation technopoles are based on the level of the stakeholders’ involvement on the ecosystem, the effectiveness of the implemented governance, the alignment with national vision and goals as well as the level of the international attractiveness of the technopoles. Taking into account that social innovation should be integrated at all social entrepreneurship ecosystem levels, how can we define the structure of the ecosystem and the possible relations between its stakeholders for the promotion, governance and support of the social innovation technopoles?

Entrepreneurs' perceptions of business incubator services in Brazil and Portugal

Business incubators (BINC) play an important role in entrepreneurial ecosystems, providing relevant services to support the creation and growth of start-ups. The goal of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a literature review focused on the particularities of BINC and second, to present an empirical study of Brazilian and Portuguese BINC, Brazil and Portugal being the two places where we designed profiles for entrepreneurs. The results suggest that entrepreneurs' perceptions are connected with the requirements of each incubation phase for each firm and register some differences not only between traditional and technological BINC but also between the countries studied, mainly based on the type of services used by entrepreneurs in the different incubation phases.

Edinburgh: Data Capital of Europe

The banner on a quadripartite package to boost the economy of Edinburgh and adjacent parts of Scotland is that it will become the 'Data capital of Europe', through coordinated efforts by the United Kingdom government, Scottish Ministers, several local authorities, universities and colleges. The deal stands outside conventional administrative and constitutional arrangements, being struck between the various bodies, committing themselves to spend some £1.3 billion in order to create 24,000 jobs through raising the competitiveness of the region in artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. Edinburgh was already forecast to achieve significant economic and population growth, with commercial developments underway to transform parts of its city centre. The deal aims to boost research, principally at the University of Edinburgh, and support the creation of technological start-ups. However, the 'data capital' aspiration is undefined and immeasurable, thus unhelpful. Whereas there are many more conventional city rankings for artificial intelligence, innovation and smart cities, in which Edinburgh scores moderately well for a city of its size.

Innovative family startups: an emerging research field

Purpose of the paper: The paper aims to study the value creation of Innovative Pure Family Startups (IPFS), which are innovative startups characterized by simple family governance, as compared to the Total population of Innovative Startups (TIS). Methodology: Adopting the T-test analysis, the contribution detects whether significant differences exist between IPFS and TIS in terms of financial structure and profitability performance. Findings: Results show that IPFS perform the best in terms of profitability. Moreover, they highlight IPFS’ preference for debt rather than opening up firm equity to external investors. Research limits: Our results are limited to IPFS and not generalizable to all Innovative Family Startups, including Innovative Professional Family Startups. Moreover, no distinction between Innovative Family Spin-off and Innovative Family Newco is made. Practical implications: Implications are related to business governance structure and organizational governance to support the managerial decision-making process. Originality of the paper: The paper tries to fill a gap in both the literature on family business and on entrepreneurship. On the one hand, it analyzes the start-up phase of family businesses that is generally neglected in family business studies. On the other hand, it detects the contribution of family governance to the innovative startup phenomenon, while focusing on the role of family firms in innovative high tech industries that traditionally under-participate compared to their non-family counterparts.

How Simple Funny Video Games and Short Comedy Movies Impact Creative Idea Generation

Video games and movie industry are and have always been billion-dollar businesses. In the last decades, they have had a major impact on how people spend their leisure time, and it is widely recognized that they are changing people’s behaviors and activities. On the other hand, one of the key characteristics of today’s societies is creative idea generation. This study intends to investigate the relation between simple funny video games and short comedy movies and creative idea generation. The contribution of this paper is to suggest that certain short, simple funny/comedy digital audiovisual technologies are important to drive creativity. In particular, it is shown that both simple funny video games and short comedy movies have a positive and meaningful correlation with computer users’ creative idea generation. The results of this research may have positive impact on organizational resources management, especially, human resources management and it can justify the creation of new start-ups in the multimedia industry targeting the production of special video games and movies addressing organizational objectives.

University technology transfer office business models: One size does not fit all

Technology transfer processes enable universities to increase their positive impact on society by pursuing their entrepreneurial mission in several ways. By analyzing quantitative and qualitative data collected in a longitudinal dataset of 60 U.S. universities during the period 2002–2012, this article identifies four types of technology transfer business models that may generate economic and non-economic linkages that need to be evaluated. Findings reveal that business models that leverage high-quality research (i.e., catalyst) and startup creation (i.e., orchestrator of local buzz) are associated with higher economic performance. This study contributes to the emergent literature on university business models and provides suggestions to policymakers to incorporate a business model typology in university evaluation programs.

Open data hackathons: an innovative strategy to enhance entrepreneurial intention

PurposeIn terms of entrepreneurship, open data benefits include economic growth, innovation, empowerment and new or improved products and services. Hackathons encourage the development of new applications using open data and the creation of startups based on these applications. Researchers focus on factors that affect nascent entrepreneurs’ decision to create a startup but researches in the field of open data hackathons have not been fully investigated yet. This paper aims to suggest a model that incorporates factors that affect the decision of establishing a startup by developers who have participated in open data hackathons.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 70 papers were examined and analyzed using a three-phased literature review methodology, which was suggested by Webster and Watson (2002). These surveys investigated several factors that affect a nascent entrepreneur to create a startup.FindingsEventually, by identifying the motivations for developers to participate in a hackathon, and understanding the benefits of the use of open data, researchers will be able to elaborate the proposed model and evaluate if the contest has contributed to the decision of establish a startup and what factors affect the decision to establish a startup apply to open data developers, and if the participants of the contest agree with these factors.Originality/valueThe paper expands the scope of open data research on entrepreneurship field, stating the need for more research to be conducted regarding the open data in entrepreneurship through hackathons.

Agglomeration dynamics of innovative start-ups in Italy beyond the industrial district era

Building on the literature on agglomeration economies, this study examines how urbanization, industry-diversification, district economics and incubating initiatives are associated to the creation of innovative start-ups in Italy. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 6018 innovative start-ups distributed across 104 Italian NUTS 3 regions. Our findings show that incubating initiative and industrial districts play a major role for new venture creation and provide support to the positive role of urbanization economies and industry specialization over diversification. Finally, we discuss future research directions grounded on the empirical evidence provided by our study.

Innovative start-ups: challenges and development opportunities in Latvia

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify the problems and possibilities for development of innovative start-ups in Latvia.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the aim of this study, a survey of Latvia’s high school students in 2015 (n= 5,910) was undertaken by an online questionnaire within a financial skill built-up contest “New Financial Expert 2016” held by the Financial Institute of Swedbank (Swedbank survey, 2016). Further, Latvia University of Agriculture master students (n= 97) were interviewed in the year 2016 to identify master students opinion about necessary support for entrepreneurship, future services or goods with potentially high added value and find out their readiness for innovative action.FindingsA comparative analysis of data of the master student interviews and the survey of Latvia’s high school students showed that most of the youth associated their entrepreneurship prospects with innovative ideas, new technologies and new skills. The results of the research indicated that the foundation of start-up enterprises in Latvia led to positive results and gave an impulse to increasing economic activities as there were the necessary preconditions for their development.Originality/valueThe studies are mostly dedicated to start-ups that are less likely to innovate and have linked the concept of the start-up with business incubation. Unlike other studies, this is a specific research that provides insights into the situation in Latvia and is directed toward building innovative start-up enterprises that should be linked with the growth-oriented new technology, globalization and global market with a focus on innovation. Thus, research findings contribute to extant research on the possibilities of development of innovative start-up enterprises in Latvia and advance the present understanding of the main problems in the creation of new innovative start-ups.

Źródła finansowania startupów w Polsce

The aim of the research is to identify startup characteristics and to determine the relationship between the development phase of these entities and the sources of their financing and the empirical verification of the identified dependencies in the conditions of creation and development of startups in Poland. Source of empirical data were the following publications and reports: Startup Poland Foundation, Diagnosis of the start-up ecosystem in Poland, Small and Medium Enterprises (PeKaO SA) Reports, European Startup Monitor 2015. The research was based on the assumption that startups in Poland, regardless of the development phase, are mainly funded by the founders’ capital. Studies have shown that there is no uniform approach to defining a startup. Most often, the term refers to such features as innovation, high growth potential and a period of market activity less than 10 years. The startup life cycle includes various phases of development. They influence the selection of funding sources that can be divided into classical and alternative. The first of these include the founding capital, bootstrapping and so-called FFF. Alternative sources of funding include crowdfunding, business angels, and venture capital. In Poland, the startups are financed mainly by the founders’ capital. They make little use of alternative sources of financing.

The role of industry variety in the creation of innovative start-ups in Italy

This paper aims to ascertain whether related and unrelated industry variety affects the creation of innovative as opposed to other start-ups in Italian local labor market areas. The analysis combines elements from the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship, the recombinant growth approach, and evolutionary economic geography. Using data on Italian innovative start-ups created between 2012 and 2015, and on firms newly registered with the Italian Chambers of Commerce, and applying appropriate count data models, our estimates show that innovative start-ups are more frequently created in areas where unrelated variety is higher. This is because innovative start-ups find more opportunities to recombine different pieces of knowledge or maximize their portfolio of demand opportunities, in such a setting, whereas a higher related variety stimulates the creation of other types of new start-up, for which it is easier to combine similar, complementary knowledge sources. We also find that half of the effect of related and unrelated variety comes from the localization of (innovative) start-ups in large urban areas.

Local industrial structure, agglomeration economies and the creation of innovative start-ups: evidence from the Italian case

We explore the local factors associated with the emergence of innovative start-ups fostered by a targeted industrial policy intervention in Italy. We focus on the local industrial fabric and the agglomeration mechanisms, namely localization (specialization) economies, diversification economies and the proximity to large firms. Results show that both localization economies and diversification economies are at play. Notably, a greater presence of large firms at local level seems to support the creation of innovative start-ups. Other factors, such us the presence of technical and scientific universities and the urbanization, are found to encourage their formation. The contribution of local factors to the innovative start-up creation is found to be different depending on the regional development conditions. Our analysis outlines the features of a local ecosystem favourable to the emergence of these firms, providing policy makers with suggestions for moulding industrial policies to regional specific needs and to better exploit the local opportunities.

Stock option taxation: a missing piece in European innovation policy?

Europe continues to lag behind the USA in venture capital (VC) activity and in the creation of successful startups, and has recently been surpassed by China. This is despite the fact that many European countries have deep financial markets, strong legal institutions, and high R&D spending. We point to the tax treatment of employee stock options as an explanation for the stronger growth of the US VC sector. As a response to high uncertainty and transaction costs, VC financiers have developed a model in which founders and key recruitments are compensated with stock options under complex contracts. Low tax rates on employee stock options further raise the relative returns of working and investing in innovative entrepreneurial firms, and shift financial capital and talent to that sector. We measure the effective tax on stock options in VC-backed entrepreneurial firms in a number of developed economies. Countries with lower stock option taxation have higher VC activity and more high-growth expectation entrepreneurial activity. Based on these associations and the theoretical and empirical literature, we argue that more lenient taxation of gains on employee stock options can be a strategy for European countries to catch up in entrepreneurial finance. This tax policy would narrowly target entrepreneurial startups without requiring broad tax cuts. The favorable tax treatment of stock options allows the state to promote firms that rely on entrepreneurial finance and make use of these types of contracts without lowering taxes for other sectors of the economy.

Gender Equalities in Entrepreneurship: How Close, Or Far, Have We Come in Italy?

Female entrepreneurship is a relevant phenomenon all around the world. In reference to Italy, there has been a growing involvement of women in the creation of start-ups only over the last decades. However, from an extensive literature review, it results that there are no relevant studies aiming to test the main differences between male and female Italian entrepreneurs, especially in reference to the levers affecting their propensity to launch new start-ups. The present paper tries to reduce this gap by testing whether male and female Italian entrepreneurs differ in terms of intellectual capital affecting their propensity to launch new start-ups. The sample used for the present research derives from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – GEM website, refers to 2013 and comprehends 1,055 female and 997 male entrepreneurs. Results show that male and female Italian entrepreneurs are more similar than expected. Some reflections about the state-of-the-art of female entrepreneurship in Italy and some hints for future research are included in the last section of the paper.

Academic FabLabs for industry 4.0: Experience at University of Naples Federico II

From FabLabs new and important business opportunities can emerge in the world of Adaptive Manufacturing and the Internet of Things (IoT), by leveraging the services provided by large information technology (IT) companies, such as cloud computing. FabLabs aim to foster the creation of small start-ups, able to survive in a global market with rising fierce competition. Therefore, governance action is needed to facilitate this migration to the market through regulatory measures (economic support for youth start-ups, business accelerators, co-working spaces, incubators, and so on). What is most important, and scarcely realized, is the specific training of young IT engineers intended to grow into makers. The experience gained at the University of Naples Federico II in Naples, Italy in this area is described in this paper. A new model of teaching for students pursuing the Master of Science Degrees in Electrical and Information Engineering was proposed, aimed at reproducing the aspects, the problems, and the interactions unique to small IT business, and later giving rise to a FabLAB.

Human capital management at incubators successful in new firm creation: evidence from Japan

This study quantitatively examined characteristics of incubators which were successful in new firm creation, with a focus on human capital management according to technologies and life cycle stages of startups to which incubators gave support. The results of panel estimation reveal that the breadth of professional experiences of incubation managers is positively associated with new firm creation in electronics, while specialisation matters for the creation of biotechnology startups. Incubation managers' professional experience in technological development is positively associated with the creation of biotechnology startups. These effects are observed in incubators which give support to nascent entrepreneurs, and not in those supporting startups in the early growth stage. Alliance with and proximity to universities are positively associated with success of incubators assisting nascent entrepreneurs, of which effect is limited to the creation of biotechnology startups.