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Alrebdi, Suad

University of British Columbia

CEOs play a major role in startups’ operations and development processes and are sometimes instrumental for startup survival. Accordingly, the strategic management literature proposes human capability as a source of competitive advantage. This dissertation explores the startup CEOs’ integration collaborative competencies (CEOs’ ICCs). Newly developed measures for the internal and external competencies were developed and resulted in findings of differential CEOs’ perceptions of firm performance and ability to survive. Based on the dynamic capabilities framework, the research link individual CEO social dynamic capability with the ICCs to explore startup-specific capabilities. Three modes of startup dynamic capabilities emerged from analyses of seven startup cases. Specifically, the traditional collaborative CEOs’ ICCs mode was shown to build business relations with external partners, reduce cost, and improve value. The competitive integration mode was associated with integrative processes that improved the effectiveness of internal capabilities. Finally, the ambidexterity mode was associated with the effectiveness of external collaboration and the integration of internal competencies. The findings indicate the three ICCs modes develop dynamic capabilities differently in startups based on the diversity of CEOs’ ICCs and organizational processes, while providing a greater balance among these CEOs’ ICCs both internally and externally. In other words, what CEOs do is just as important as who they are (personality traits and personal values) when it comes to performance and startup survival.

Text

2022-04-29

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/81427

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/