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The maturity assessment of business models is not standardized. Start-ups and innovating incumbents with non-proven business models often have to rely on the subjective assessment by the actors to evaluate their status quo and identify areas for improvement as no generic maturity assessment for new business models exists. Based on a literature review an overview of the research on the maturity assessment of business models is given, and the prevalent models are classified. Following the design science approach, a new method for assessing the general maturity of business models is developed, described and evaluated with seven start-ups and incumbents. This research encourages further validation and serves to deepen the knowledge of business models´ maturity. The maturity assessment supports entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs enhancing their business models and subsequently succeeding on the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to study the types of challenges B2B companies face when trying to create new business through big data utilization. The paper combines literature on new business creation and big data. The study includes 19 qualitative interviews from six different case companies, representing companies at different stages in the big data utilization. As a result, challenges are categorized as data, data process, operational management and business development & strategy challenges. Our research findings highlight the importance of understanding the data utilization level of a company and customers now and in the future, forming a data strategy for creating new business through data utilization, solving data ownership and privacy issues and achieving the data-related know-how combined with business and customer understanding. The paper presents practical examples from case company interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays entrepreneurship is a theme on the agenda of governments. Entrepreneurship is a dynamic process of vision, change and creation. Entrepreneurship is a process of fundamental transformation, from an innovative idea, to the value proposal to the creation a new venture. It requires an application of energy and passion towards the creation and implementation of new ideas and creative solutions. The essential ingredients include: the willingness to assume risks, the ability to join a venture team, the creative skill to get necessary resources, ability to develop a solid business plan and the vision to recognize an opportunity. As entrepreneurship is about devising and implementing new ideas and practices, a strong educational foundation helps ensure that new ideas will be effective and substantive. This paper starting from the theoretical framework of entrepreneurship based on different lines of thought and with different approaches, will try to describe the dimensions of the Entrepreneurial education process and how this process promotes students' attitudes and intentions favorable to create business start-ups. In a practical way, will be presented the successful case of an course of entrepreneurship of technological base, that has been going on for some years in a partnership between several universities. Examples of successful startups, resulting from the course will be mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This explorative study investigates the early stages of a health-technology startup in the Slovenian context. Although numerous stage models have attempted to clarify management priorities during the early stages of business growth, more focused, context-specific studies are needed. This study bridges this gap by synthesising these studies and answering the following research questions: (1) How do the most recent empirical stages of growth describe the earlystage management priorities in technology-based firms? (2) How do the experiences of managers in a technology-based health startup relate to the assumptions of stages of growth theory in the Slovenian business context? First, a revised synthesis of earlier published stages of growth literature is provided to clarify the central management priorities of earlystage technology-based firms. Second, though a single exploratory case study in a Slovenian context, we test a new research protocol based on a revised four-stage grid-type framework. Meta-analytical methodology is used to revise the framework, and a sequential incident technique and semi-structured interviews are used for case study data collection. For triangulation purposes, multiple managerial perspectives (e.g. company, operations and marketing management) are analysed for each company studied. In this study, the applicability of the revised framework are explored and contextspecific viewpoints in Slovenia are analysed. Based on the results, the next steps for data collection and analysis in Slovenia are suggested. This study is limited by the context, the number of cases examined and the study's focus on the first phase of the framework. The applicability of the results to other contexts is, therefore, limited. Context-specific viewpoints and their effects on the early stages of companies have not been widely investigated. This work considers and provides new insights into the growth and management of technology-based health startups in the Slovenian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will throw light on Entrepreneurship as a new and upcoming career and its role in the economic development of the country .In this paper we will understand, Who are Entrepreneurs, their characteristics and their scope and significance in economic development of the country. We will also study role of entrepreneurs in the economic activities in Industry development through its effective decision making. Entrepreneurship and economic development are interrelated and interlinked. Entrepreneurship is an upcoming career and has a huge potential in the development of the nation. Entrepreneurship can be applied in start-up new venture management and in established businesses. The contribution of entrepreneurs especially in growth and development of SME is playing great role in economic development of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open innovation is key to the success of any company. It is based on the intelligent use of all possible resources, including collaborations with parties outside the firm. It is well known that large companies foster and use startups as experiments in their innovation process, little is known instead about small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) doing the same. The aim of this article is to report the results of research done in Switzerland on startups and SMEs. It reveals that most startups know that they must co-operate with other companies from the very beginning of their existence, and that both sides have difficulties in performing a systematic search for possible partners. Hence, we propose building bridges between them, making the identification of possible users of new technologies (SMEs) more accessible to startups, as well as making startups more identifiable by SMEs, providing SMEs with very innovative solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous stage models have attempted to clarify management priorities during the early stages of companies. However, a need for more focused and context-specific studies exists. Context-specific viewpoints and their effect on the early stages of companies have not been widely studied. This study takes context into account and provides new insights into the early growth and management issues of technology-intensive start-ups in the studied contexts. This study explores the early stages of technology-intensive start-ups from conception and development to the edge of commercialisation in Californian and Finnish contexts. To summarise the research questions, the authors ask: How do the experiences of managers in early-stage technology-intensive start-ups relate to assumptions of stage of growth literature? What viewpoints should be considered when using stage framework in Californian and Finnish contexts? To answer these questions, this study devises a framework describing early stages of technology-intensive firms and reflects it through 19 case studies in the two contexts. This is a retrospective multiple case study. Sequential incident technique (SIT) and semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The first stage of the framework was found to be applicable in both contexts. Moreover, an analysis of context-specific viewpoints was provided. These viewpoints were deeply rooted in the characteristics of the Finnish and Californian business ecosystem. It is necessary to recognise the context when using the stages of growth frame in different contexts. The research focus of this study is limited by the context studied, the 19 cases and it is focused on the conception and development stage of business development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous stage models have attempted to clarify management priorities during the early stages of business growth. However, more focused and context-specific studies are needed. This study seeks to clarify the early stages of technology-intensive companies in Australia. It bridges the aforementioned gap by answering the following research questions: (1) How do the experiences of managers in technology-based start-ups relate to the assumptions of stages of growth theory in the Australian context? (2) What context-specific viewpoints should be considered when using stage frameworks in the Australian context? In this retrospective multiple case study, we devise a four-stage framework describing the early stages of technology-intensive companies through three in-depth case studies. We use the sequential incident technique and semi-structured interviews for data collection. For triangulation purposes, three perspectives were analysed in each company studied: one from company management, one from operations management and one from marketing management. This study makes a preliminary test of the applicability of the framework and analyses context-specific viewpoints. Recognising these viewpoints is necessary when using this framework in Australia. The research focus of this study is limited by the context involved, the three cases examined and the study's focus on the first phase of the framework. The applicability of the results to other contexts is therefore limited. The findings of the study may be effectively used in intermediary organisations as a framework for predicting the early stages of technology-intensive companies. Contextspecific viewpoints and their effect on the early stages of companies have not been widely investigated. This work considers and provides new insights into the growth and management of technology-intensive companies in Australian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]