Print Email Facebook Twitter The role of improvisation for techno-starters Title The role of improvisation for techno-starters Author Luijt, A.H. Contributor Scholten, V. (mentor) Steenhuisen, B. (mentor) Trott, P. (mentor) Faculty Technology, Policy and Management Department Department of Technology, Strategy and Entrepreneurship Date 2010-04-01 Abstract Techno-starters are seen as value creators of the economy, but they are struggling to survive and 90% quits within 10 years. Due to this high failure rate effort is put towards business planning, but the importance of improvisation is not yet widely acknowledged. This research investigated the role of improvisation in start-ups and how improvisation could contribute to the success of techno-starters by comparing improvisation to business planning in a case-study and literature. Currently limited literature is available for techno-starters on improvisation. This is a critical gap, because improvisation can help techno-starters to maintain flexible and survive when resources are scarce. According to current literature business planning has several positive effects, but it has difficulties dealing with changes that occur in start-ups. As markets become more and more dynamic alternatives for business planning are required. Improvisation merges decision and execution and therefore is opposing business planning where there is a time gap between the decision and execution. Business planning and improvisation are both to be used in a company as for example large goals are planned in advance and daily activities are improvised. The case study investigated four techno-starters from the Yes!Delft incubator by conducting longitudinal interviews (as main collection method), a questionnaire and observations. The reliability and validity was secured by using propositions, multiple collection methods and multiple cases. The results were discussed per case (for sketching the background) and per proposition (for analyzing the results). Business planning should be utilized to set a vision and the goals of the company, while improvisation will help to take advantageous of opportunities with a short reaction time. The balance between the usage of both concepts is dependent on a variety of interrelated factors like investment and market dynamic. The influence of these factors is also different for techno-starters then the factors stated in the literature for large companies. With the findings of this research the framework in Figure 1 was developed. This framework enables to position a techno-starter on the continuum between improvisation and business planning (y-axis). The importance of a decision (vision vs. screw position) has a large influence on whether to plan or improvise (x-axis). The framework helps the techno-starter to understand their improvisational and planning behavior. This will help them to optimize their behavior and adjust their behavior when necessary (e.g. changing environment). Although research of improvisation for techno-starters is in an early stage, it is expected to be valuable. All techno-starters agreed on the importance of improvisation for entrepreneurs. Future research should focus on the influencing factors to improve the value of the provided framework. Subject improvisationtechno-starterbusiness planning To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:05eea0f1-c978-47c5-a11a-3afbf686f2e5 Access restriction Campus only Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights (c) 2010 Luijt, A.H. Files PDF Master_Thesis_-_The_role_ ... eport1.pdf 1.32 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:05eea0f1-c978-47c5-a11a-3afbf686f2e5/datastream/OBJ/view