An Intellectual Capital-based framework enabling Business Model Innovation for technological start-ups: management model and operational guidelines

This paper aims at identifying common patterns that technological startups follow during their Business Model Innovation (BMI) process, trying to understand which are the enabling conditions at strategic and operational level, as well as at individual, organizational level and environmental, which can be associated to the Intellectual Capital (IC) dimensions and that may activate, support and sustain the overall process. The research is carried out by using a semi-structured questionnaire submitted through a web survey to a sample of technological startups located in Italy. The main insights of the research lie in a framework presenting a set of possible trajectories that technological startups can follow to innovate their business model by leveraging the components of their IC. Besides, the analysis has also revealed a set of enabling conditions associated to each trajectory in order to support technological startups in the identification of the most promising trajectory according to their internal conditions.