A Process Model Integrated to Innovation Management Tools to Support Technology Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Technology entrepreneurship (TE) has gaining increasing importance over the last decades. Therefore, a multidisciplinary research field was formed around research on technology-based innovation and entrepreneurship. However, despite the managerial and technological skills required in the challenge of new venture creation and development, little attention has been paid to the product/service and business levels of analysis of this phenomenon. An in-depth longitudinal study was conducted with four startups along 27 months. It was based on technology entrepreneurship, innovation management and new product development literatures. This research proposes a seven-step process model integrated to innovation management tools to support entrepreneurs in the context of startup creation and development. And then some theoretical and practical aspects of the proposed model are discussed. In particular the paper brings concerns on how the process and integrated tools helped TE management, how they were created and adapted to the startup context throughout the research, and which were the real contributions and limitations of well-known approaches, such as Lean Startup and other tools and processes.