Title: The influence of IT and knowledge capabilities on the survival of university IT startups

Authors: Divinus Oppong-Tawiah; Yolande E. Chan

Addresses: Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 1G5, Canada ' The Stephen J.R. Smith School of Business, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

Abstract: Despite continuing interest in the role of university incubators in fostering IT entrepreneurship, empirical evidence on the link between incubation and IT startup survival has been mixed. This paper offers a fresh, unifying perspective by examining how university startups' IT-enabled agility relates to their survival. We use the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities and new product development (NPD) literatures to create a conceptual framework of the impact of startup firms' knowledge assets, technology capabilities, agility and innovation on their survival. Our framework suggests that startups' survival rates increase when they use dynamic IT knowledge capabilities to pursue innovations with emerging technology capabilities in rapidly evolving IT markets. Implications for university incubator research, policy and management are discussed.

Keywords: university incubators; business incubators; dynamic capabilities; IT capabilities; knowledge capabilities; IT-enabled innovation; IT entrepreneurship; university startups; startup performance; IT startups; information technology; startup agility; resource-based view; RBV; new product development; NPD; knowledge assets; technology capabilities; startup survival rates.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTE.2016.080265

International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship, 2016 Vol.3 No.2, pp.150 - 172

Received: 12 Mar 2016
Accepted: 06 Aug 2016
Published online: 09 Nov 2016 *

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