Entrepreneurship in Innovation Clusters of Franconia: The Case of Variety in Expectations of Participants

Purpose - The purpose of this research was to explore the needs for which new ventures seek support from regional innovation clusters in Franconia.
Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative, embedded case-study approach was implemented to investigate startup company cases within a regional innovation cluster. Semi-structured interviews were used to question ten innovative German startup founders located in Franconia. A nonprobability purposive sampling technique compilation of the surveyed startups resulted from a list of Center for Digital Innovation Franconia clients, classified into five foundation phases.
Findings - The analysis showed a significant dissonance between the resources required by entrepreneurs and the services offered by innovation clusters.
Research limitations/implications - The results of the study provide further insights into the increasingly digital startup culture in Franconia. Results are limited to startups founded by German entrepreneurs and their network within a local innovation cluster. A comparison with other areas and (less digital/service-oriented) industries is the logical continuation of this research.
Practical Implications - The study provides essential indications for private and public stakeholders of innovation centers to optimize the support factors for business startups. Furthermore, the findings may be helpful for decision-makers to understand that digital startups need different and faster support than in the past.
Originality - Unlike many other studies that examined the economic impact, innovativeness of a region, and usability for established companies, or impact on jobs, this study is one of the few focusing directly on young entrepreneurs and their needs. The paper shows that there is a gap in the literature on this topic, and this analysis is intended to fill this gap by comparing the founders’ needs with the actual support provided by innovation clusters.
Paper type - Qualitative embedded case study

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.