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Does Start-Up Founding Strategy Increase or Decrease the Effects of Strategic Capabilities on New Venture Performance?

  • Haili Zhang , Shengbin Hao EMAIL logo and Michael Song
Published/Copyright: July 15, 2021

Abstract

Many studies have provided evidence of a positive relationship between strategic capabilities and new venture performance. This study applies the resource-based view and strategic fit theory to develop a model that investigates how startup founding strategy affects the strength of the strategic capabilities–performance relationship in new ventures. We conduct an empirical study of 146 U.S. new ventures and 425 Chinese new ventures to test the proposed model. The results show that, for U.S. ventures, technology-driven strategy increases the effect of technology capabilities on new venture performance but decreases the effects of marketing and market-linking capabilities on new venture performance. By contrast, Chinese ventures' technology-driven strategy has a significantly negative moderating effect on the relationship between market-linking capabilities and performance. We discuss the implications of the empirical findings for ventures pursuing technology-driven and market-driven strategies.


Corresponding author: Shengbin Hao, School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, E-mail:

Funding source: China Natural Science Foundation

Award Identifier / Grant number: 71772054; 72002162

Funding source: the Ministry of Education, Humanities and Social Science Project of China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 20YJCZH224

  1. Research funding: This work was supported by the China Natural Science Foundation under Grant 71772054 and Grant 72002162; and by the Ministry of Education, Humanities and Social Science Project of China under Grant 20YJCZH224.

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Received: 2018-11-09
Accepted: 2021-07-04
Published Online: 2021-07-15

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Competitive Research Articles
  3. Examining the Creative Self-Efficacy, Goal Interdependence, and Satisfaction of New Venture Teams in the Board Game Industry
  4. The Startup Selection Process in Accelerators: Qualitative Evidence from Turkey
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  6. Reassessing Passion and Perseverance as Dimensions of Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Conceptual and Empirical Investigation into Theory and Measurement
  7. Entrepreneurial Team Conflict and Cohesion: Meta-structural Equation Modeling
  8. Corporate Entrepreneurship as a Learning Process: Development of New Capabilities
  9. Constructing an Entrepreneurial Identity: How Enterprise Intentions Among Young People are Motivationally Formed
  10. Does Start-Up Founding Strategy Increase or Decrease the Effects of Strategic Capabilities on New Venture Performance?
  11. Capturing Transnational Entrepreneurial Opportunities through Dual Identification: Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Transnational Activities
  12. A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of Entrepreneurial Personality
  13. The Curvilinear Relationship Between Collective Team Identification and New Venture Performance: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Uncertainty
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