Business in the digital age: Digital innovation outcome, exit and the founder’s start-up experience role

Figures & data

Figure 1. Hypothesized theoretical model.

Table 1. Developed hypothesis.

	Hypothesis
H1	There is a direct positive relationship between digital innovation outcome and entrepreneurial exit
H2a	Digital innovation outcome is positively associated with founder’s start-up experience
H2b	Founder’s start-up experience is positively related to entrepreneurial exit
H3a	Founder’s start-up experience mediates the relationship between digital innovation outcome and entrepreneurial exit
H3b	The relationship between founder’s start-up experience and entrepreneurial exit is strengthened by the acquisition price of the venture

Table 2. Variable measures.

Measures	Description of variable
Dependent variable	Entrepreneurial exit. We captured exit as the number of firms that have gone public through IPOs and the firms that have been acquired by other ventures between January 1st, 2018 to January 1st, 2022 to capture to most recent acquisition for the previous four years (DeTienne & Wennberg, 2016; DeTienne, 2010; DeTienne & Cardon, 2012; Wennberg & DeTienne, 2014).
Independent variable	Digital innovation outcome: This variable was captured as the kind of digital product or service offered by the venture. CrunchBase gives information on company specifications that illustrates if the product or service offered by a firm has digital components to them or not. This information was extracted based on if it was a final product or pre-lunched product. We defined digital innovation outcome as the output from an innovation through digital technology and has unique digital components (Nambisan et al., 2017; Nambisan, 2017).
Mediating variable	Founder(s) start-up experience: This was captured by the accumulated experience founding new ventures (Zhang, 2011). This variable captured how many start-ups the founders have had in the past. We did this by accumulating the number of job roles the founders have had to indicate start-up experience.
Moderating variable	Acquisition price of the venture: We captured acquisition price of the venture by considering the amount paid out to the entrepreneur (founder) during firm acquisition, which led to the entrepreneur’s exit. Since CrunchBase is an online platform where investors also seek out entrepreneurial ventures and vice versa, it served as our primary source.
Control variables	We controlled for age, company size, and gender.

Table 3. Results.

	Hypothesis	Results
H1	There is a direct positive relationship between digital innovation outcome and entrepreneurial exit	Not supported (β = 0,022; p – value >0,1): digital innovation outcome does not determine or lead to entrepreneurial exit.
H2a	Digital innovation outcome is positively associated with founder’s start-up experience	Not supported (β = 0,031; p – value >0,1): the result indicates that digital innovation outcome is not associated with the levels of founder’s start-up experience.
H2b	Founder’s start-up experience is positively related to entrepreneurial exit	Supported (β = 0,441; p – value <0,01): the result predicts that digital innovation outcome is positively related to the level of founder’s start-up experience.
H3a	Founder’s start-up experience mediates the relationship between digital innovation outcome and entrepreneurial exit	Supported: result show the founder’s start-up experience mediated the relationship between digital innovation outcome and entrepreneurial exit.
H3b	The relationship between founder’s start-up experience and entrepreneurial exit is strengthened by the acquisition price of the venture	Supported (β = 0.0429, p < .1): the result shows full support for our hypothesis and indicates that entrepreneurs with higher start-up experience are more likely to exit with higher acquisition price as compared to entrepreneurs with lower start-up experience.

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