Business mating: when start-ups get it right

Abstract

The importance of forming business relationships is critical for the prosperity of start-ups; still, few studies have examined how conditions inside and around the start-up together lead to business mating – occurrence of a new business relationship. To clarify the importance of proper fit among management style and invention features for high mating chances, this paper tackles this need by taking a configurational approach. We use qualitative comparison analysis (QCA) to analyze case studies from 16 invention-based start-ups seeking marketing partners. Findings indicate different solutions leading to high chances of forming business relationships. This study contributes with a typology to the business relationship and start-up literature, as well as discusses future directions to the emerging sub-domain of business mating research.

Résumé

La formation de relations d’affaires est d’une importance critique pour la prospérité des startups; néanmoins peu d’études ont examiné la façon dont les conditions existant tant à l’intérieur qu’autour de la startup conduisent à l’appariement d’entreprises – l’apparition de nouvelles relations d’affaires. Afin de clarifier l’importance d’une bonne adéquation en termes de style de gestion et de caractéristiques d’invention pour de fortes chances d’appariement, le présent article aborde ce besoin en adoptant une approche configurationnelle. Nous utilisons l’Analyse comparative qualitative (QCA) pour analyser les études de cas de 16 startups basées sur des inventions, recherchant des partenaires de commercialisation. Les résultats obtenus indiquent différentes solutions débouchant sur de fortes chances de formation de relations d’affaires. Cette étude contribue par une typologie à la littérature consacrée aux relations d’affaires et aux startups, et discute également des orientations futures concernant le sous-domaine émergeant de la recherche sur l’appariement d’entreprises.

Keywords:

• business mating
• business relationships
• start-ups
• configurations
• QCA
• invention
• entrepreneurship
• markets
• entrepreneurial orientation
• relationship formation

Mots clés:

• appariement d’entreprises
• relations d’affaires
• startups
• configurations
• QCA
• invention
• entrepreneuriat
• marchés
• orientation entrepreneuriale
• formation des relations

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the colleagues at Örebro University School of Business and three anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. For a comprehensive review of the small business relationship literature, see Street and Cameron (2007).

2. See Appendix A for an illustration of the typology development.

3. An anonymous reviewer pointed out that this is not the traditional way to operationalize the measurement of EO. We are aware of this and therefore we also conduct a robustness test in the analysis section using EO as a traditional reflective measurement.

4. For a comprehensive introduction to QCA and business-related studies, see two prime examples; Fiss (2007) and Greckhamer et al. (2008). Furthermore, as of August 26, 2013, the COMPASSS network listed 39 peer-reviewed studies on their website (http://www.compasss.org) employing QCA within business and economics.

5. Solution #2 without EO remains unaffected.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support was obtained from Örebro University and the Swedish Research School of Managementand Information Technology.

Notes on contributors

Johan Kask

Johan Kask (PhD) is an assistant professor and faculty fellow at Örebro University School of Business.His research interests are directed towards the nature and evolution of business relationships, as well as change in market channel systems.

Gabriel Linton

Gabriel Linton (MBA) is a researcher and faculty fellow at Örebro University School of Business. His research interests are found within the entrepreneurship field, with a special interest in innovative start-ups as well as configuration theory.