Walden University College of Management and Technology This is to certify that the doctoral dissertation by Anthony Okafor has been found to be complete and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the review committee have been made. Review Committee Dr. Mohammad Sharifzadeh, Committee Chairperson, Management Faculty Dr. Javier Fadul, Committee Member, Management Faculty Dr. Craig Barton, University Reviewer, Management Faculty Chief Academic Officer Eric Riedel, Ph.D. Walden University 2018 Valuing high-tech startups using traditional valuation models has continued to pose valuation challenges to entrepreneurs, investors as well as financial analysts. The complications in valuing startups are heightened by the variations in valuation methodologies and the absence of operational data. Identifying the appropriate methodology for valuing startups is crucial to establishing value and a prerequisite for accessing funding through mergers or acquisitions. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of valuation methods on the likelihood of mergers and acquisitions of high-tech startup organizations in the Nigerian capital market. The theoretical underpinning of this study is rooted in valuation theory and mergers and acquisitions theories. The extent to which valuation methods impact the likelihood of securing funds through mergers and acquisitions was the overarching research question. Random sampling was used to obtain records of valuation methods and mergers and acquisitions that occurred between 2006 and 2016 from companies in the high-tech sector. A binary logistic regression model was used to test the impact of valuation methods on the likelihood of mergers and acquisitions of high-tech startups. The impact of valuation methods on the likelihood of mergers and acquisitions was found to be not statistically significant. The participants indicated a preference for specific valuation methods during negotiations for mergers and acquisitions. The findings have implications for positive social change via a reduction in the unemployment rate by encouraging startups with their innovation and entrepreneurship. This should help to facilitate the emergence of sound valuation methods for valuing high-tech startups in the Nigerian capital market.

Purpose - This study provides an updated understanding of effectuation in the new tech start up era of social commerce; specifically, it answered two questions: (1) How does a social commerce startup entrepreneur make decisions? (2) Why is it successful so far? Importance - It aims to contribute to the academic research on social commerce startup education. Methodology - Using a single case in-depth study, followed closely by the theory of effectuation in comparison with causation, to determine the behaviors of the observed. Limitation - The analysis provides detailed insight into these perspectives and suggestions for future research. Further studies on startup companies backed up with different sources and examinations on several startups together over a longer period of time are recommended to draw comparisons. Keywords - Effectuation in Entrepreneurship, tech startups, social media, social commerce, Berlin

Swedish micro-businesses are encouraged by the government to internationalise and participate in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Yet research on how they should be supported while doing so is thin. Current research on entrepreneurial ecosystems shows that value co-creation breads sustainability, and increased attention is given to intermediary organisations. While scholars stress aligned expectations as key to value co-creation, intermediaries today are basing their actions on what they think businesses need and expect. This study challenges that logic. This study focused on the entrepreneurial ecosystem of New York, specifically looking at Swedish technology startups, intermediaries and investors. Trough semi-structured interviews the study sought to understand how congruent startups’ and intermediaries’ perceptions of challenges during business establishment in NYC are, and also, how they could be aligned. The study employed the framework of Gioia et al. (2012) when distilling challenges from the interviews. The results show congruence in some identified challenges, with a key difference in their temporal approaches. The intermediaries primarily focused on instrumental challenges and initial barriers-to-entry, while the startups (and investors) in higher regard focused on open-ended challenges related to relationships and legitimacy. This was considered proof of intermediaries employing an outdated theoretical perspective on their role as an instrumental broker. The study thus concluded by suggesting an alternative perspective, emphasizing dynamic and situation-based support. / Svenska mikro-företag uppmanas av regeringen att internationalisera tidigt och delta i entreprenöriella ekosystem. Mängden forskning på hur de bäst bör stödjas i detta är dock blygsam. Samtida studier på entrepreöriella ekosystem visar hur kollektivt värdeskapande (eng: value co-creation) föder långsiktig hållbarhet, och uppmärksamhet riktas allt mer åt intermediära organisationer. Även om forskare menar att kongruenta förväntningar är en nyckel till kollektivt värdeskapande baserar intermediärer idag ofta sina handlingar och stöd på vad de tror att företag behöver och förväntar sig. Denna studie utmanar den logiken. Studien fokuserade på New Yorks entreprenöriella ekosystem och undersökte svenska högteknologiska startupbolag, intermediärer och investerare. Genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer sökte studien lära hur kongruenta startups och intermediärer är i sina uppfattningar av utmaningar vid företagsetablering i New York, samt hur dessa kan göras mer samstämmiga för att föda långsiktigt hållbara stödfunktioner Studien nyttjade ett ramverk av Gioia et al. (2012) i destillationen av utmaningar från intervjuerna. Resultaten visar kongruens i vissa identifierade utmaningar, med en tongivande skillnad i dess tidsmässiga förhållningssätt. Intermedärerna fokuserade primärt på instrumentella utmaningar och initiala inträdesbarriärer, medan startups (och investerare) i högre utsträckning fokuserade på mindre tidsbegränsade utmaningar som t.ex. relationer och legitimitet. Detta ansågs vara bevis på hur intermediärer brukar ett daterat teoretiskt perspektiv på sin egen roll som instrumentella mäklare. Studien sammanfattade därför slutligen att ett nytt, mer dynamiskt och situationsbaserat perspektiv på intermediärer och stöd bör välkomnas.

The importance of entrepreneurship for economic growth and development is a well-known factor in the world. In which high technology startup firms are playing an important role in introducing innovative and advanced technologies. However, due to inherent difficulties in nature, they face major challenges such as acquiring sufficient investments. Especially for high-tech startups founded and located in non-main cities facing the issue compared to main cities. As a result, the firms tend to move out from the non-main city or region to main cities or abroad seeking investments.  Such trends directly affect negatively in the regional economic development goals and plans. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address such tendencies by focusing on the Luleå city in Northern Sweden, investigating the ways of attracting local and global investors through social networks, for high technology startup firms in non-main cities, and identify the possibility of use digitalization to support to overcome the geographical distances to retain them within the region.  This empirical study is exploratory in nature and used qualitative methodology with an inductive research approach. In order to collect the data, the research performed expert interviews by interviewing top management in high-tech startups, incubators, and science parks in two cities (i.e. Luleå and Stockholm) from two regions in Sweden. To perform in-depth semi-structured interviews, an interview guide was used and analyzed the gathered data using the pattern matching method.  As the findings of this study, selected social networks for this study; multilevel and multiplex networks are modified, and presented in the context of high-tech startup ecosystems to attract and expand the investor networks out of geographical boundaries. The use of such networks is based on the amount of investment required, purpose, and aim of the high-tech startup firm. A six steps model has been introduced to Incubators to assist their high-tech startups through investor attractions. Further, the study has identified, to a certain level digital tools are useful to minimize geographical distances but physical meetings are to move forward and continue with strong relationships as physical meetings are non-replaceable with any other modes.  Suggestions and recommendations were provided mainly to high-tech startups, incubators, and science parks in Luleå as well as some recommendations for the Luleå kommun or Norrbotten region. These recommendations were provided focusing on Luleå but could also be used by the same high-tech startup business ecosystem players in other non-main cities in the world where necessary to expand their networks to assist high-tech startup companies to achieve regional development. Finally, managerial implications and theoretical implications have been presented at the end of the study.

This study investigates the source of financing in Austrian tech startups and aims to identify the main factors that affect the decision making of these firms. In doing so, we aim to contribute to the relatively limited field of research conducted in Europe. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, we implemented a multiple case study method as the research design. For the purpose of this study, a literature review was used that generated a theoretical framework. This framework focuses on capital structure with the main emphasis being on the pecking order theory. Additionally, government financial support is included as a  secondary priority. Together with the theoretical framework, our empirical findings i.e. data from the interviews with six companies, one email response, and two additional secondary data from an Austrian startup publication comprised the basis for our analysis.   Our findings from the sample companies used in this study show that Austrian tech startups use internal funding as an initial source of financing their new venture. When it comes to the order of funding, our findings show that most of the startups used in this study utilized equity as a second source of financing after internal funding and before debt. However, when it comes to the preference of the founders, half preferred a financing order that is inline with the pecking order theory while the remaining half preferred otherwise choosing equity to debt.   From this, three conclusions can be drawn. First, the limited funding options available affect the decision making and preference of the tech startups. Second, founders value the nonfinancial added value they can get from investors both when implementing and preferring a financing option. Third, the future growth potential and the long term strategy of the startups and their founders play a crucial role in the funding option they prefer to finance their venture.   Additionally, when it comes to capital structure, we see that most Austrian tech startups used in this study do not have a set policy. When it comes to Government financial support (GFS), we see that financial support from the government plays a significant role in Austrian tech startup financing.

Startups and new businesses are important for the development of technology, the economy, and the society as a whole. To be able to contribute towards this cause, startups need to be able to survive and grow. It is therefore important for startups to understand how they can scale up their business. This led to the purpose of this study: to determine success factors for technological startup companies to increase their scalability. Five areas were identified to have an impact on the scalability of a business, namely; partnerships, cloud computing, modularity, process automation and business model scalability. Within these areas, several subareas were found, which were certain areas of interest within the theory. Together, these subareas helped answer how companies can work with scalability in each area. These areas, and their subareas, went into an analytical model that formed the structure of the empirical and analytical parts of the study. The study is a multicase study, consisting of 15 B2B companies, of varying size and maturity, whom all offered software as a part of their solutions. The study concludes that there are six important factors for succeeding with scalability. An important factor to succeed with scalability is to adopt partnerships, since this will allow for outsourcing, and give access to resources, markets and customers. It is also concluded that cloud computing is a very scalable delivery method, but that it requires certain success factors, such as working with partners, having a customer focus, having the right knowledge internally, and having a standardized product. Further, modularity can enable companies to meet differing customer needs since it increases flexibility, can expand the offer, and make sales easier. The study concludes that process automation increases the efficiency in the company, and can be done through automating a number of processes. Focusing both internally and externally is another important factor for success, by allowing companies to develop a scalable product that is demanded by customers. Lastly, a scalable business model is found to be the final objective, and that it is important to work with the other areas to get there, something that includes trial and error to find what works best for each individual company. The six important factors formed the basis for the recommendations. The study recommend that startups should utilize partnerships and process automation. Startups should also be aware of, and work with, the success factors of cloud computing, use modularity when selling to markets with different customer needs, automate other processes before automating sales, keep customer focus when developing the product, and work actively to become more scalable.

The purpose of the thesis was to identify the tech startups main organizational resources and capabilities received from the Stockholm cluster. Correspondently, how those encourage to sustained competitive advantage internationally. The aim was to ensure a deeper understanding with a qualitative research method with a multiple case study and an abductive approach. The empirical findings were based on seven case companies that were committing within the tech sector and were internationalized. Further, the literature review takes off with the definition of the segment, namely the tech startups followed by industrial cluster, the network - and social network theory, the Resource-based view with concertation on the different firms’ resources, the VRIO framework, and capabilities, and thereby internationalization including international competitiveness. The conceptual framework has illustrated the correlation between investigated variables, mentioned above. Moreover, the empirical findings chapter was constituted of primary data presented by the seven companies. The analysis was established on the basis of the three voices, which are theoretical, empirical and authors to examine contrast and correlation with each other. The analysis part was followed by a conclusion chapter that presented the main findings/conclusions, thus answered the research question. In addition, the chapter provided with implications, , limitation and recommendations for future research.   The findings displayed that the main organizational resources and capabilities obtained from Stockholm consist of human and financial capital, alliances and relationships, innovation/technology and reputation. However, they are only three of them that bring sustained competitive advantage, which are the human capital, alliance and relationships, and reputation capability.

This  research  emphasizes  the role  of  social  media  in  customer  acquisition  retention.Furthermore, it investigates insights that have the potential to benefit tech startups inshaping  their  strategies  and  effectively  allocating  resources  to  achieve  consistentcommunication with their customer base. The field of research is particularly relevant dueto the research gap present in the literature that does not investigate how technologystartups should approach the initial acquisition and retention of the user base, consideringthe limited resources available to these newborn organizations. The research providesinsights into customers' perceptions of brands and companies on social media platforms.It offers intuitions on how to enhance customer trust through these platforms and whichare the preferred way of interaction between customers and companies both on and offsocial media.The study was performed using qualitative and quantitative primary data with the purposeof gaining a deep understanding of the research topic. However, the focus has been puton the quantitative data aiming to create objective and generalizable  results, seekingunbiased findings.The  results  of  the research  showed  how important it  is  to  have  an  effective CRM(Customer Relationship  Management) system as well as  being able to identify  theaudience, understanding, therefore, the communication method that best fit the chosentarget, with the aim of interacting with them in the expected and preferred way, beingthus one step closer on achieving customer retention and acquisition.

Human capital assessment is an integral part of the in-depth evaluation conducted by Venture Capitalists (VCs) before an investment decision. Furthermore, an effective collaboration between external investors and the founding team can be vital for the success of a startup venture. This thesis aims to improve this assessment and collaboration by providing an empirical account of historically successful Swedish tech startups and their founding teams (FT). We employ semi-structured interviews with 13 entrepreneurs who in total have founded over 50 ventures in order to deduce patterns to the characteristics, compositions and views of successful founding management teams. We compile and discuss their views concerning aspects such as organizational culture, team performance and their relationships with external financiers. The focus of this thesis was in part guided by our commissioner, Almi Invest. Based on our interviews and literature review, we present several findings which may be of interest to both investors and entrepreneurs. Some of our key findings are that successful Swedish tech startups are generally composed of diverse teams where the founders share some previous association and complement each other with regards to both competencies and personalities. They view culture and vision as important aspects, with values acting as the uniting factor that drives cohesion and performance. We also find that their views are largely influenced by previous experiences. Finally, we highlight some perceived inefficiencies in the collaboration between investors and entrepreneurs, mainly with regards to post-investment activities and the process of raising capital. Our findings suggest a lack of transparency between entrepreneurs and financiers regarding the investor activity levels, where entrepreneurs generally feel that VCs fall short on their promises. We suggest some areas of improvement where VCs might tune their practices to better suit the needs of their portfolio companies and improve overall performance.

Of late, technology entrepreneurship has been receiving growing importance as a means of contribution to national economic growth, both from Empirical Researchers and Policy Makers. According to NASSCOM, India has emerged as the third largest base for high-tech start-ups in the world. Although there is a surge in start-up creation rates in India, very little is known about the vital factors that are required for these star-ups to survive, sustain and grow into large enterprises. This study reviews the entrepreneurial, firm-specific and external environment specific aspects that influence the key lifecycle stages of high-tech star -ups and identifies the key factors that influence each of the milestones. There are very few studies in this domain that have examined the unique features and influential factors of different lifecycle stages of start-ups in the context of emerging economies like India. This limited exploration on the structure, process and strategies adapted by high-tech start-ups has resulted in insufficient understanding about the high-tech start-up lifecycle. This study therefore, attempts to fill these gaps. Accordingly, the objectives of this study are to determine the factors that influence the creation, survival and growth of the high-tech start-ups operating out of India. Further, an examination of what factors influence and impact the entire lifecycle of high-tech start-ups is also carried out – to obtain an integrated perspective on the lifecycle of high-tech start-ups. Primary data gathered from 275 high-tech start-ups, operating at different stages of the lifecycle formed the basis of the present study. To obtain additional insights on the factors influencing the milestones of the high-tech start-up lifecycle, the available data are analyzed against three segments – based on the target market segment that these start-ups focused on (B2B or B2C), based on the region of operations of the start-ups and based on whether the founding team had transnational work or start-up exposure or not. Our findings indicate that age and technical education of the entrepreneurs (from entrepreneur-specific perspective), the R&D and financial capitalization capabilities of the start-ups (from firm-specific perspective) and the external ecosystem parameters such as a robust SDP growth rate, presence and occurrence of VC funded deals in the region of start-ups operations have an influence on the high-tech start-up lifecycle in India. The findings of the study formed the basis to derive implications for entrepreneurs, other ecosystem stakeholders and policy makers.