Start-ups Innovative Performance: Empirical Analysis of the main influencing factors

The literature on start-ups has mainly focused on performance characteristics and the way they influence innovation and growth path. Start-ups constitute a remarkable instrument through which new ideas are brought to life, especially those ideas that require an alternative response to that from the already-established companies in the industry. In this context, political, economic, social, technological, (external level) influencing factors, as well as the main factors within the organizational (internal level) boundaries, are to be considered as crucial for start-up innovation and growth. Starting from these approaches, the present dissertation aims at studying the main factors affecting start-up innovative performances. Specifically, this work focused on some relevant drivers of the innovative performance of start-up, namely the role of grants received, the presence of a highly qualified team, the geographical distance, and the relationship intensity among actors involved in innovation processes. In fact, innovations enable start-ups to challenge the existing technological order, shape new trajectories and allow them to engage in corporate reinvention, business growth, and new business development. The work is structured in three distinct parts. In the first part of the work there will be the presentation of the original results of a systematic literature review through the identification, classification and analysis of the current knowledge concerning the main factors influencing start-ups’ innovative performance and organize them into areas of influence. The aims was to systematize the available knowledge on the factors affecting start-up innovative performance by: - identifying articles about innovative performances and their main influencing factors; - classifying and codifying the characteristics of these articles; - discussing the results of the literature review; - providing a framework for addressing the gaps in the current knowledge, contributing to a future research agenda. In the second part of this work there will be an investigation about the coexistence of multiple phenomena and their influence on the innovative performance, and in particular on the R&D activities. Specifically, the focus will be on some relevant drivers of the R&D activities of start-up, namely the number of grants received, the total amount of grants received and the presence of a highly qualified team. The crucial aspect that characterizes this study is the choice of the sample, based on innovative start-ups in accordance with the Decree-Law 179/2012 on “Further urgent measures for Italy’s economic growth”, converted into Law 221/2012. Ultimately, in the last section, I deal with the Start-ups – Incubators joint innovation, focusing on the factors making some collaborations better than others. Specifically, differently from previous works that have mainly focused on identifying start-ups characteristics and relations that promote this kind of collaboration, I analysed how these characteristics interact each other, investigating the role that both geographical distance and grants received compared to the innovative value of start-up. In an attempt to fill the above gaps, I focused on industrial property, measuring the innovative value of start-up as the number of patents, licenses, property rights owned by the start-up for the achievement of innovative products/services and processes.