Title: Human capital and the performance of Iranian digital startups: the moderating role of knowledge sharing behaviour

Authors: Aidin Salamzadeh; Mehdi Tajpour; Elahe Hosseini; Mohsen Salem Brahmi

Addresses: Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, North Kargar Avenue, Tehran 1411713114, Iran ' Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, 16th Street, North Kargar Avenue, Tehran 1439813141, Iran ' Faculty of Management, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran ' Faculty of Sciences, And Sfax-FEM, C14 Street Airport Sfax, Tunisia

Abstract: Human capital is considered as the most critical issue in the success or failure of digital startups, as these firms highly rely on their team members as well as their behaviours. Among these, knowledge sharing behaviour plays a vital role. Therefore, this paper focused on how human capital could affect the performance of selected Iranian digital startups, considering the moderating role of knowledge sharing behaviour. To do so, 160 digital startups - which were registered in the science part of the University of Tehran - were studied as the research population. Based on Morgan's table, 113 startups were selected using a random sampling technique. SmartPLS 3 was used to analyse the research hypotheses. According to the findings, human capital had positively affected the performance of the studied digital startups. Besides, their knowledge sharing behaviour had a mediating role in this relationship, other than the relationship between communications and performance. Thus, we suggest digital startups to improve their human capital and also pay more attention to enriching the knowledge sharing behaviour among their members.

Keywords: human capital; performance; digital startups; knowledge sharing behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPSPM.2023.132248

International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management, 2023 Vol.12 No.1/2, pp.171 - 186

Received: 01 Dec 2020
Accepted: 10 Dec 2020
Published online: 14 Jul 2023 *

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