Intellectual capital and enabling factors for startups in a business ecosystem perspective

Startups have been the focus of scientific contributions aimed to explore and to identify the key success factors having a significant impact on their creation, survival and performance. Some of these factors are related to the capability of the entrepreneur to attract, combine and develop Intellectual Capital (IC) and are linked to external conditions, which can influence (positively or not) the environment chosen to root and start a new business. Exploring IC in the business ecosystem perspective, the paper intends to examine the roles and the contributions of several “enabling” factors, which can differently influence the creation and development of innovative startups. The most significant of these are the commitment of institutions and organizations that are able to sharpen the skills relevant for new entrepreneurship; simplification of rules and granting incentives; enhancing the intellectual capital of entrepreneurship and accessible financing methods. By providing a conceptual model, the paper aims to derive some implications for management, to strengthen and improve the main enabling factors, and for policy-makers, to encourage and sustain new entrepreneurship. Based on the adopted conceptual model, it proposes some testable research propositions and it concludes with a discussion of the future research direction.