Open Access

Purpose – Many start-ups are in search of cooperation partners to develop their innovative business models. In response, incumbent firms are introducing increasingly more cooperation systems to engage with startups. However, many of these cooperations end in failure. Although qualitative studies on cooperation models have tried to improve the effectiveness of incumbent start-up strategies, only a few have empirically examined start-up cooperation behavior. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from a series of qualitative and quantitative studies. The scale dimensions are identified on an interview based qualitative study. Following workshops and questionnaire-based studies identify factors and rank them. These ranked factors are then used to build a measurement scale that is integrated in a standardized online questionnaire addressing start-ups. The gathered data are then analyzed using PLS-SEM. Findings – The research was able to build a multi-item scale for start-ups cooperation behavior. This scale can be used in future research. The paper also provides a causal analysis on the impact of cooperation behavior on start-up performance. The research finds, that the found dimensions are suitable for measuring cooperation behavior. It also shows a minor positive effect on start-up’s performance. Originality/value – The research fills the gap of lacking empirical research on the cooperation between start-ups and established firms. Also, most past studies focus on organizational structures and their performance when addressing these cooperations. Although past studies identified the start-ups behavior as a relevant factor, no empirical research has been conducted on the topic yet.

Many start-ups are in search of cooperation partners to develop their innovative business models. In response, incumbent firms are introducing increasingly more cooperation systems to engage with start-ups. However, many of these cooperations end in failure. Although qualitative studies on cooperation models have tried to improve the effectiveness of incumbent start-up strategies, only a few have empirically examined start-up cooperation behavior. Considering the lack of adequate measurement models in current research, this paper focuses on developing a multi-item scale on cooperation behavior of start-ups, drawing from a series of qualitative and quantitative studies. The resultant scale contributes to recent research on start-up cooperation and provides a framework to add an empirical perspective to current research.

Digital transformation has changed corporate reality and, with that, firms’ IT environments and IT governance (ITG). As such, the perspective of ITG has shifted from the design of a relatively stable, closed and controllable System of a self-sufficient Enterprise to a relatively fluid, open, agile and transformational system of networked co-adaptive entities. Related to this paradigm shift in ITG, this paper aims to clarify how the concept of an effective ITG framework has changed in terms of the demand for agility in organizations. Thus, this study conducted 33 qualitative interviews with executives and senior managers from the banking industry in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Analysis of the interviews focused on the formation of categories and the assignment of individual text parts (codings) to these categories to allow for a quantitative evaluation of the codings per category. Regarding traditional and agile ITG dimensions, 22 traditional and 25 agile dimensions in terms of structures, processes and relational mechanisms were identified. Moreover, agile strategies within the agile ITG construct and ten ITG patterns were identified from the interview data. The data show relevant perspectives on the implementation of traditional and new ITG dimensions and highlight ambidextrous aspects in ITG in the German-speaking banking industry.

Die für Deutschland verfügbaren Studien zur Digitalen Transformation in klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen (KMU) sind sich weitgehend einig. KMU tun sich mit dem Thema Digitalisierung schwer. Der vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert, weshalb KMU an der Digitalen Transformation scheitern und was dagegen getan werden kann.

This research addresses the question of why employees use enterprise social networks (ESN). Against the background of technology acceptance research, we propose an extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, adapt it to an ESN context, and test our model against data from ESN users of large and medium-sized enterprises. We use partial least squares structural equation modeling to gain insights into the determinants of ESN use. This paper contributes to ESN acceptance research by evaluating a model containing determinants of ESN use. It also examines the effects of determinants on five different usage dimensions of ESN. The results reveal that facilitating conditions are the main driver of ESN use while the impact of intention to use is comparably small. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.