Context. With the rapid development of the software industry, innovative software products become the mainstream of the software market. Because software startups can use a few resources to quickly produce and publish innovative software products, more and more software startups are launched. Software testing is important to ensure the quality of product in software companies. Software testing is costly in software development, but if software testing is avoided, it could be costlier. Many different regular software companies spend up to 40-50% of development efforts on software testing [1] [2]. Compared with other regular software companies, time and money are finite and need to be allocated reasonably in software startups. Unreasonable allocation of time and money could lead to the failure of software startups. We don’t know how much software startups spend for testing, and few research studies have investigated the testing practices in software startups. Therefore, we decided to conduct an exploratory study to know about the testing practices in software startups. Objectives. The aim of the research is to investigate testing practices in software startups. In this study, we investigate software startups’ structure and how to manage their test team. The test processes and test techniques used in software startups have been researched. And the main testing challenges in software startups have been investigated as well. Methods. We mainly conducted a qualitative research for the study. We selected literature review and survey as the research method. The literature review method is used to get in-depth understanding of software testing practices in software companies. Survey is used to answer our research questions. We used interview as our data collection method. And in order to analyze data from interviews, we selected descriptive statistics method. Results. A total of 13 responses were obtained through interviews from 9 software startups. We got results from 9 investigated software startups to structure and manage their test teams. We analyzed the common steps of test processes and classified the techniques they used in the 9 software startups. At last, we analyzed and listed the main testing challenges that are occurred in the 9 software startups. Conclusions. The research objectives are fulfilled. The research questions have been answered. We got the conclusion based on 9 software startups. The 9 companies cannot represent all software startups, but we can know about test practices in software startups initially through the 13 interviews. We also found some differences about testing practice between 9 software startups and regular software companies. Our study is a primary research to explore testing practices in 9 software startups, we provided some data and analysis results of the 9 companies to the researchers who want to research some related area. In addition, our research could help someone who plans to set up a software company. They can use the data we collected to think about the testing practice in their own company. Then find out the best way to prevent and resolve the problem in testing.

L’innovation et le contrôle de gestion sont tous deux considérés comme des déterminants de la performance des entreprises. Pourtant, ces deux concepts apparaissent à première vue comme antinomiques, et certains chercheurs les ont présentés comme difficilement conciliables, préconisant aux organisations innovantes d’avoir recours à d’autres modes de contrôle. La question du rôle et de l’influence du contrôle de gestion en contexte innovant se pose alors et motive ce travail doctoral. Au-delà de la littérature s’intéressant à l’influence du contrôle de gestion sur l’innovation, nous empruntons les cadres théoriques et conceptuels portant sur l’innovation managériale et l’ambidextrie organisationnelle afin de traiter de cette question du lien entre contrôle de gestion et innovation produit. La méthodologie retenue est de nature exploratoire, qualitative et adductive correspondant ainsi à un positionnement épistémologique de type interprétativiste. Elle consiste en une démarche en deux temps : une étude exploratoire auprès de dix-neuf start-ups et PME innovantes, puis deux études de cas de PME récemment inscrites dans une stratégie d’innovation. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent que, innovation et contrôle de gestion sont loin d’être antagonistes. D’abord, le contrôle de gestion, qu’il soit de type interactif ou cybernétique, apparaît comme favorable à l’innovation, mais l’innovation semble également impacter les systèmes de contrôle de gestion, en poussant les entreprises à mettre en place des outils de contrôle d’une part, des outils refaçonnés et adaptés d’autre part. Au final, on observe que l’innovation produit et l’innovation managériale se soutiennent mutuellement, mais également que le contrôle de gestion apparaît comme support d’ambidextrie contextuelle. Par ailleurs, cette étude souligne le rôle clé du dirigeant, en tant qu’acteur hybride ou ambidextre. / Innovation and management control are both considered as determinants of business performance. Yet, these two concepts appear at first sight contradictory, and some researchers have presented them as difficult to reconcile, advocating innovative organizations to have recourse to other modes of control. The issue of the role and influence of management control in innovative context arises and motivates this doctoral work.Beyond the literature concerned with the influence of management control on innovation, we use the theoretical and conceptual frameworks bearing on managerial innovation and organizational ambidexterity in order to deal with this issue of the link between management control and product innovation. The methodology is exploratory, qualitative and adductive corresponding thus to an interpretativist epistemological positioning. It consists of a two-stage approach : an exploratory study with nineteen start-ups and SMEs innovative and two case studies of SME which are both recently entered into an innovation strategy.The results of this research show that innovation and management control are far from being antagonistic. First, management control whether interactive or cybernetic type appears as favorable to innovation, but innovation also appears to impact the management control systems, pushing companies to develop tools of control on the one hand, tools which are reshaped and adapted on the other hand. Finally, we observe that product innovation and managerial innovation support each other, but also that management control appears as contextual ambidexterity support. Moreover, this study highlights the key role of the leader as hybrid or ambidextrous actor.

Entrepreneurs develop new technology ventures in uncertain conditions with unproven technologies and limited resources. The majority of such ventures fail, yet entrepreneurship is regarded as a national (and regional) engine for economic growth. This thesis aims to examine entrepreneurs’ attitudes to failure in order to reveal insight on how entrepreneurs learn and how they identify subsequent opportunities, and investigate possible regional differences in such attitudes and entrepreneurial responses. There is much literature on entrepreneurial failure but relatively little that is focused on attitudes to failure, the high-technology industry, or international comparisons. This thesis examines how entrepreneurs’ attitudes to failure in early-stage technology companies differ in the USA (Silicon Valley), UK (Cambridge) and Germany (Munich), and implications for entrepreneurial learning and opportunity identification in these regions. Interviews with habitual entrepreneurs explore their experiences of failed ventures, using a methodology from qualitative psychology - Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) - for the gathering and analysis of data to reveal emergent trends. This analysis is then used to compare attitudes to failure within and between each region, and a preliminary conceptual framework is proposed for analyzing future experiences of entrepreneurial failure. Findings from this idiographic study suggest that although each entrepreneur’s experience of and attitudes to failure is unique, there are more commonalities than differences between regions. Furthermore, these findings reveal the importance of the use of language and narrative in the analysis of such accounts. In addition, the results allow reflection on the appropriateness and limitations of methodologies such as IPA for this subject. This thesis contributes to theory by examining ‘effectuation’ as a way to understand these experiences, and discussing the impact of findings in relation to attribution theory, prospect theory and real-options theory. This thesis contributes to practice by augmenting existing knowledge of entrepreneurial failure through the comparative (regional) approach and the industry-specific (high-technology) focus. It may also improve the preparedness of new practitioners and entrepreneurs, with positive implications for future entrepreneurial success.

Branding strategies in the context of startup companies has been vaguely investigated. This is surprising since companies in the early startup phase recognize a need to quickly create brand equity in order to differentiate themselves from competitors to rise above the clutter in the market space. The objective of this study is therefore to investigate what branding strategies Swedish technology startup companies employ to create brand equity. Founders of four Swedish startup companies within the technology industry has been interviewed in order to gain insight in the context of startup companies and what branding strategies they employ. The authors present some common denominators between the branding strategies that are used. It is concluded that it is crucial for startups to create brand awareness. It is also recognized that startups rarely communicate company values. Instead, functional benefits and product characteristics are often communicated. Lastly, it appears that the overarching branding strategy of the studied startup companies is their emphasis on the importance of being perceived as different compared to competitors.

This study explores the relationship between the use of framing within crowdfundingcampaigns of technology startup companies and the funding outcomes of these campaigns.We examine how the presence of cognitive framing categories of opportunity, threat, noveltyand commonality within crowdfunding pitches of technology startups affect the chance ofsuccessfully receiving funding. In order to examine the effect of framing on the funding outcomes of crowdfundingcampaigns, a qualitative, explorative research approach is employed. With the use of anexisting framing framework, we identify, categorize and analyze the content of crowdfundingcampaigns. The data sample we analyze is comprised of publicly available technologycompany crowdfunding campaigns collected from Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. The results suggest that the presence of novelty and opportunity framing withincrowdfunding campaigns is most closely associated with successful funding. We alsodiscover that several other campaign components, both prose and non-prose, which did notconform into the framing cognitive categories outlined, may also be important for thesuccessful funding of campaigns.

<p>With the increased use of social media as a marketing tool, marketing strategies and the way brands communicate with customers is changing. Due to its low cost and characteristic short length of messages, Twitter is an especially beneficial marketing tool. Twitter is free and consists of making posts that are easy to compose and easy to consume, which makes it an ideal way for companies, such as startups, to reach customers without having to use many resources. However, companies should be strategic in their use of Twitter and no data exists on the best practices for startup companies as they develop Twitter marketing plans. This study sought to address this issue and explored different methods for engaging followers and which of these methods were the most effective for technology-oriented startups to use. A content analysis revealed that engagement tools, such as media, hashtags, URLs, and mentions serve their intended purpose for tech startups and were related to engagement. However, using conversational, two-way communication, as suggested by marketing companies and literature, proved to not be positively related to engagement rates. One-way, promotional language that is typically advised against was more related to higher engagement. Thus, startup tech companies should continue to prioritize engaging followers with engagement tools but should focus on non-conversational topics, such as their products, events, news, and updates.</p>

As new markets continuously emerge, increasing academic attention has been devoted to identifying what factors predominantly foster this process. Notably, scholars have coupled market creation with value-creating innovations; new markets emerge due to generation of novel customer value. Blue Ocean Strategy is a prominent approach to such market creation incentives, centring around the implementation of value innovation. However, exploration of this approach has been relatively overlooked in previous research. Extant literature has, instead, primarily acknowledged marketing incentives as the major facilitating factor of new markets, referring to how solutions need to be aptly communicated to gain stakeholders. In addition, technology development is considered by scholars to have a great impact on the creation of new markets, on accounts of breakthrough inventions having disrupted and dismantled preceding industries. The purpose of this study is thus to fill the apparent research gap by investigating how value innovation enables entrepreneurs to create new markets. Although startups are pertinent to the notion of innovative solutions that lead to new markets, entrepreneurs’ approach to market creation has not been extensively investigated. Hence, becoming an applicable context for the research purpose. In order to collect empirical data, a qualitative research approach was undertaken, where seven interviews were conducted with respondents from different Swedish startup companies. Participating companies originate from a variety of industries and shared experiences from their respective innovation processes, which subsequently facilitated insightful data, applicable to the purpose. Findings revealed that value innovation enables entrepreneurs to create new markets as its implementation removes the challenge of competing with incumbents, allowing the startup to go beyond the boundaries of the traditional industry. Ultimately, the collected data could not support the notion of value innovation as an exclusive approach to market creation. Nevertheless, the role of value innovation as a significant factor in the process cannot be entirely undermined as findings indicated that its implementation prominently alleviates market creation.

Intellectual Property (IP) is considered a valuable asset for a company and the relevance of effective IP management has been intensely discussed in the literature. However, research gets scarce when the focus is on SMEs and startups. Scholars and experts appoint the lack of knowledge on IP as one of the main reasons for the underperformance of small firms in the matter. Several initiatives attempted to solve the lack of knoweldge on IP unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, Brazil is seeking improvement in competitiveness and increasing its efforts on innovation. The number of startups sontrongly increased in the last years. This work uses Design Science Research to develop an innovative artifact to improve IP literacy among Brazilian startups. Using the design process stated in the methodology, we analyzed existing IP literacy systems and concluded with design recommendation for future systems. Additionally, we surveyed Brazilian startups to understand how these companies manage their IP and how they access knowledge. Consequently, we developed the system based on the recommendation from initial studies and evaluated it with potential users and IP experts in Brazil. Finally, Brazilian startups used the learning system and improved their knowledge on IP by increasing their capabilities of designing strategies to improve the IP value.

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In the current digital era, social media has become an important element in the business world. Several theoretical studies have addressed the use of social media platforms in business operations. In this study, we tried to understand LinkedIn’s role in entrepreneurs’ effectuation processes by conducting 11 semi-structured interviews with (co-) founders in early stage startups across different industries in Sweden. Our research found that entrepreneurs utilized LinkedIn as one of their available means and used it extensively in their day-to-day business activities. LinkedIn helps entrepreneurs expand their networks and start partnership with people across border. LinkedIn also acts as an important source of information for early stage startups’ founders to be aware of what is happening in the industry and to be in control towards the shifting market. This thesis opens the door for future research to address the connection between social media platforms and entrepreneurs’ effectuation processes. This study can also trigger more entrepreneurs to adopt LinkedIn in their business operations.