A dilemma that has plagued the rental housing market (RHM) in Sweden is the lack of innovation and companies’ ability to disrupt the market. For start-ups with scarce resources, this becomes further problematic as they become limited in how they can approach disruption. In this study, the possibilities of reaching disruption, or further improving innovation within the Business Model (BM), is studied through the BM Canvas framework. Furthermore, action research was utilized, together with a case study, to create a realistic BM. A qualitative research approach was used with 17 interviews conducted amongst users of already existing platforms in the Rental Housing Swap Market (RHSM), namely the, landlords, politicians and academics within the field. This resulted in two subsequent themes being identified: building incentives for key partners to scale quicker and that a low resource approach requires a highly creative solution. These two themes indicate that if resources are available, innovating the BM through all the BM blocks creates better opportunities for an improved platform. Additionally, while both start-ups and incumbent firms can turn to BM innovation for disruption, the success rate is vastly different for the two. The stage of where a start-up is will determine the difficulty of BM innovation. However, if resources are unavailable, which is the case for some start-ups, it is seemingly better to turn to radical innovation through the use of key infrastructure partnerships – allowing new paradigms to emerge as a result. The results from this study implicate that there are possible gaps within BM innovation that should be studied further. More specifically, how the BM blocks should be prioritized and the differences between the prioritization among different industries. / Ett dilemma som har besvärat den svenska hyresmarknaden är bristen på innovation och förmågan för företag att inträda den redan etablerade marknaden, vilket blir en förhöjd svårighet för nystartade bolag vid ett tidigt skede där det finns väldigt sköra resurser. Denna studie undersöker möjligheterna för en lansering som kan störa marknaden med hjälp av innovation av affärsmodellen där ramverket BM Canvas har använts. Forskningen har bedrivits med hjälp av aktionsforskning och ett tillvägagångssätt av en kvalitativ studie där 17 intervjuer utförts med användare på existerande plattformar i bytesmarknaden, hyresvärdar, politiker och akademiker. Resultatet indikerade framställningen av två teman: att bygga incitament för partnerskap med nyckelaktörer för att skala upp snabbt samt att ett kreativt tillvägagångssätt är nödvändigt om det finns låga resurser i bolaget. Studien illustrerar att en ömsesidig anpassning av alla bropelare i affärsmodellen är nödvändiga för att uppnå bästa möjligheter för en förbättrad plattform. Trots att både nystartade bolag och etablerade företag kan vända sig till BM innovation för disruption så varierar deras framgång mellan de två olika typerna av företag. Om det däremot inte finns tillräckligt med resurser, vilket är en sannolik position för ett nystartat bolag, skapar man bättre möjligheter för radikala innovationer genom användningen av innovation inom infrastrukturen av affärsmodellen som skapar nya paradigm att uppstå som resultat. Resultaten av denna studie visar på att det finns potentiella förbättringsområden inom ämnet av BM innovation som bör studeras vidare i framtiden. Mer specifikt, om hur de olika BM blocken bör prioriteras och hur denna prioritering varierar mellan olika industrier.

Generally, it is accepted that small businesses are becoming increasingly important in terms of employment, wealth creation, and the development of innovation in the global economy. Unfortunately, many small businesses fail before reaching maturity, mainly due to inadequate entrepreneurial skills to establish and grow their businesses. It is, therefore, vital to understand the management abilities that are required to enable start-up businesses to survive. This study's main aim is to propose a risk management training tool to assist business start-ups to mitigate their risks. This is expected to allow for increased business start-up success rates. The aim of the proposed risk mitigation tool will be to provide training to allow small business owners to deal with challenges they face. The tool should assist with minimising the risk of failure and therefore support increased growth and survival of small businesses. The research questions aimed at achieving the primary objective deal with: *The typical risks per start-up phase for small businesses *How to mitigate the risk per business start-up phase *How best to teach entrepreneurs to identify and manage business start-up risk per phase. The research was conducted by means of a literature and empirical study. The literature study reviewed business start-up phases, challenges facing start-up businesses, project life cycle phases, critical factors leading to project failure, project risk management, and principles of serious games design. The challenges facing start-up businesses were tested empirically in practice by means of a measurement instrument, and subsequently evaluated. The size of the sample used was 58 entrepreneurs from start-up businesses. The results from this study show a need for improvements in the following skills for start-up owners/managers: risk management skills, entrepreneurial skills, people management skill, business management skill, and financial management skill. This study proposed a tool to teach entrepreneurs to identify and manage start-up risks per phase. The tool is proposed to be a blended model tool. Thus, the tool consists of the workshop part; whereby, the facilitator is face-to-face with the trainee, and post-training application-based support. / MSc (Computer Science), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Generally, it is accepted that small businesses are becoming increasingly important in terms of employment, wealth creation, and the development of innovation in the global economy. Unfortunately, many small businesses fail before reaching maturity, mainly due to inadequate entrepreneurial skills to establish and grow their businesses. It is, therefore, vital to understand the management abilities that are required to enable start-up businesses to survive. This study's main aim is to propose a risk management training tool to assist business start-ups to mitigate their risks. This is expected to allow for increased business start-up success rates. The aim of the proposed risk mitigation tool will be to provide training to allow small business owners to deal with challenges they face. The tool should assist with minimising the risk of failure and therefore support increased growth and survival of small businesses. The research questions aimed at achieving the primary objective deal with: *The typical risks per start-up phase for small businesses *How to mitigate the risk per business start-up phase *How best to teach entrepreneurs to identify and manage business start-up risk per phase. The research was conducted by means of a literature and empirical study. The literature study reviewed business start-up phases, challenges facing start-up businesses, project life cycle phases, critical factors leading to project failure, project risk management, and principles of serious games design. The challenges facing start-up businesses were tested empirically in practice by means of a measurement instrument, and subsequently evaluated. The size of the sample used was 58 entrepreneurs from start-up businesses. The results from this study show a need for improvements in the following skills for start-up owners/managers: risk management skills, entrepreneurial skills, people management skill, business management skill, and financial management skill. This study proposed a tool to teach entrepreneurs to identify and manage start-up risks per phase. The tool is proposed to be a blended model tool. Thus, the tool consists of the workshop part; whereby, the facilitator is face-to-face with the trainee, and post-training application-based support. / MSc (Computer Science), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Entrepreneurship and start-ups are important factors for economic growth and development. As the surrounding innovation ecosystem is becoming increasingly complex, it gets more difficult for entrepreneurs to find the right path. Incubators are important when it comes to facilitating and supporting new ventures. In this research, we conducted 19 semi-structured interviews of which five were held with public incubators, four with private incubators, nine with incubatees and one with Vinnova (a government authority that plays a huge part within the existence of public incubators) in order to gain an understanding of the interplay of the incubation process and the entrepreneurial process. As for analyzing the collected data we used a thematic analysis with an inductive approach. Throughout the coding process, we extracted the following three main topics: role of an incubator, incubation process and interplay. However, a distinction between public and private incubators was approved as applicable that determines the incubators’ purpose, objectives and operations. Our findings suggest that incubators play an important role in supporting and guiding the start-ups by transferring knowledge and asking the right questions as a fundament for the further entrepreneurial process. Continuous communication and expectation management are shown as crucial throughout the interplay of the two processes. Lastly, the disconnection from the incubatees should be done carefully, e.g. through a non-proactive aftercare.

This paper examines how small high-tech start-ups in Sweden source their funding and aims to understand the underlying factors affecting these firms financing behaviour, contributing to the relatively limited field of research conducted in Europe. To fulfil the purpose of the study, a multiple case study method was implemented as the study’s research design. A literature review generated in a theoretical framework consisting of capital structure and specifically the pecking order theory. Together with our empirics, consisting of data from interviews with six different companies, the theoretical framework composed the basis for our analysis. The data from our sample displays that these firms initially source their funding through internal funds, suggesting that small high-tech start-up firms in Sweden rely heavily on their own saved funds or other personal resources available to them at the start-up face. Our findings suggests that these firms are limited in their financial options but also that independency and control is to be seen as factors to initially be funded through internal funds. Inconsistent with the pecking order theory, evidence in this paper finds that when looking for external funds, equity is the funding source rather than debt. Two conclusions can be drawn from this. First, the high-tech start-up firms seem to value the advisory of equity investor. Second, capital imperfections makes it hard to access debt. Furthermore, we find that majority of the case companies does not implement a capital structure policy since it seems to limited their financial options.

Dialogical communication is considered to be the most ethical way of practicing public relations. Especially social medias’ potential for engaging in dialogue is mostly not exploited to its full potential. This study aims to shed light on new technology-based firms’ use of dialogical communication on Twitter. The focus hereby is on the formal side of dialogue and not on its content. Moreover possible explanations for the presence or absence of dialogue are taken into consideration. To be able to classify the results they are discussed in the context of the Fortune 500 companies’ use of Twitter. In order to do so a content analysis of both the Twitter profiles and tweets of 89 new technology-based firms was undertaken. The results showed that the Fortune 500 companies were communicating more dialogically than the new technology-based firms did. Bigger companies engaged in dialogue more often. The performance was furthermore improved by listening rather than posting. An implication is that a profound knowledge of communication is necessary in order to use the social medium successfully. A pure knowledge of technology was not found to be beneficial for this public relations practice.

This thesis aspires to advance understanding of how start-up firms’ and small and medium sized firms’(SMEs) network relationships affect acquisition of financing and information necessary to achieve firmbusiness development through the exchange in business relationships. It contributes to research on socialstructure by clarifying how network relationships that facilitate exchange have a positive effect on firmbusiness development, defined as subjective and objective enhancement of firm performance. The empirical setting consists of case studies in entrepreneurial start-up firms and of quantitative researchin SMEs. The findings show that in the start-up phase of firm development, network relationships that areembedded in social attachment and shared cognitive schemes constitute means to acquire informationcontaining referrals to new business partners, thus affecting the structural development of start-ups firms’business network. Findings further show that relationships to banks are important in order to fund thisstructural development. The thesis also shows the effects of banks, as institutional actors, on SMEs’investments in international business relationships and the effects of such investments on SMEs’ businessdevelopment. It is shown that relationships to domestic and local banks in different ways affect SMEs’specific investments in international business relationships. A local bank relationship decreases the SME’srelationship specific investments, while a domestic bank relationship increases relationship specificinvestments. There is however an indirect positive effect of a local bank relationship on the SME’srelationship specific investments, mediated by a positive effect of the SME’s relationships to other localinstitutional actors. The results further show that increases in relationship specific investments promoteSMEs’ business development. Findings made in this thesis also show that institutions, experiencedthrough interaction in the international business relationship, positively affect relationship specificinvestments and the performance enhancement of such investments. A general conclusion drawn fromthe findings presented in this thesis is the relevance of a type of actor - actors that facilitate exchangesamong firms and their business partners who are, or wish to be, independent - to the businessdevelopment of start-ups and SMEs. This thesis challenges banks to increase cognitive alignment with customers of start-up firms and toconsider corporate customers in view of their business relationships and network structure. Theseapproaches are suggested to facilitate bank’s assessment of firm creditworthiness. / <p>QC 20100722</p>

This study aims to explore the usage of the digital marketing to acquire and maintain business relationships, or more specifically, digital marketing in B2B start-ups within the Swedish market. Digital marketing is essential for businesses nowadays and has become a significant factor for business companies for improving and implementing their marketing strategies. Furthermore, business relationships have always taken an essential role among companies especially today due to the heightened level of digitalization. This case study attempts to answer two main research questions which this paper investigates on. To provide an exhaustive answer to the research questions: “How digital marketing contributes to acquiring business customers in B2B start-up context?” and “How digital marketing contributes to maintaining business customers in B2B start-up context?”, digital marketing approaches of eight respondents, theoretical implications and additional information will be examined in the upcoming chapters. The study concludes, that it was found that digital marketing is understood as an innovative and effective method for attracting, maintaining and building business relationships. However, the lack of resources is one fundamental reason why start-ups have difficulties in acquiring and maintaining business customers in practicing through digital marketing. Additionally, it was found that digital platforms and tools such as websites, industry specific platforms, and blogs provide the highest advantage for start-ups. Moreover, social media platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook were in most use for presenting content that is informative, educational and honest. Digital marketing strategies in acquiring and maintaining business relationships are indicated in the analyses which give sufficient details in answering the research questions. The paper will provide suggestions for doing further research in improving the current topic in digital marketing.

Micro, Small and Medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) represent 99.9% of businesses in the UK and they face significant challenges with regards to start-up, survival and growth. Their ability to deal with these challenges is assisted, in some cases, by the provision of business support funded by the public sector. Unfortunately, despite the volume of such businesses, there remains a significant lack of qualitative data into the MSME sector, and their use of university led business support. This thesis examined the business support agenda, the support needs of MSMEs, the role of universities in the provision of business support, and the needs of public funding bodies, with regards to economic sustainability and growth in the West Midlands. The choice to focus on the West Midlands region was largely pragmatic; the researcher has existing relationships with the small business community and University networks within the region allowing for a comparable study of stakeholders with similar environmental, political and economical challenges. Whilst the findings are therefore in relation to the West Midlands region, they have been compared to secondary data and theoretical frameworks in order to propose a contribution, which is applicable to a wider audience. The thesis adopted an exploratory, interpretivist methodology with an emphasis on the practical importance of the research results. Through an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach, surveys were used to collect data from MSME business owners, followed by in-depth interviews with university staff in order to produce institutional case studies. The surveys with MSME owners identified a need for support that was free, local, face-to-face and delivered by an organisation with a good reputation for delivering business support. The survey data also indicated confusion amongst MSME owners about the availability of support from universities, as well as questions around the quality of support provided by universities and its impact. The interviews, and case studies, revealed a significant level of interest, and a feeling of responsibility, from universities towards supporting the MSME community. However there were consistent challenges around funding, sustainability, resources, flexibility of delivery, and the longevity of any enterprise strategy. The research makes a useful contribution to knowledge through the development of multiple case studies and the development of a conceptual framework for a sustainable system of university led, MSME business support. The model, and analysis, considers the detailed experiences, challenges and opportunities from the stakeholders and proposed a sustainable support system. This contribution to literature provides a unique perspective for both practical application and for the research community to utilise further.

Small, new or foreign firms inherently have a lower likelihood of surviving in the market. Frequently, this is due to the existence of resource constraints, such as the liabilities of smallness, newness or foreignness. Consequently, to survive in the market, small, new or foreign firms need to find efficient ways to use their resources. Multiple ways to alleviate these problems have been discussed in the literature, which include digitalization, internationalization, or outsourcing relationships. The usage of digital technologies, entering foreign markets or partnering with established organizations have been found to have compelling advantages and, thus, are promising practices for small, new and foreign firms in overcoming those constraints. It is, however, surprising that little is known about relevant aspects of these practices. For instance, research has just begun to investigate the influence of digital technologies on small and new firms, misses to investigate the success factors in the internationalization of small, new and foreign e-commerce firms, or has not fully investigated methods to improve performance of small firms in outsourcing relationships. Drawing on extant research on digitalization, internationalization, and outsourcing this cumulative dissertation presents four research papers. Each paper contributes to fill existing research gaps in the respective literature. All papers investigate a particular type of small firm and examine potential ways to handle scare resources. Beyond the theoretical and practical contributions of each research paper, this dissertation in its entirety presents several implications for practitioners in small, new and foreign firms that will help them to overcome resource constraints. Furthermore, the thesis discusses implications for theory, limitations, and avenues for further research.