Innovative start-ups and policy initiatives

Innovative start-ups can create and shape new industries and generate considerable economic and societal impacts. Accordingly, a variety of policy initiatives are aimed at promoting the establishment, growth and impact of innovative start-ups. Designing such policies is a challenging task, because most start-ups fail. In addition, only a small share of those start-ups will ultimately prove to be innovative, and very few of those will eventually become high impact firms. Hence, effective policies require a better understanding of the processes by which innovative start-ups are formed, developed and create impact, as well as of the heterogeneous nature inherent to innovative start-ups along with their development trajectory. This article reviews 39 policy initiatives from around the world and classifies their approaches to the phenomenon of innovative start-ups. By relying on insights from the papers mentioned in this special issue, we develop a process framework by elaborating on (i) the antecedents of the creation of innovative start-ups, (ii) their founding characteristics, (iii) their behavior, and finally (iv) the outputs and impacts generated by them. Our framework highlights how policy initiatives, managerial issues and research approaches are conceptually different, depending on the specific stage of firm development. We conclude with implications for policy initiatives and further research.