Start-up competitions provide (potential) entrepreneurs with an opportunity to prepare the steps necessary to move to the market. However, are these competitions really preparing entrepreneurs for what is out there in the real world?
As a former start-up competition participant, we tried to answer this question with in our article “Nascent Entrepreneurs during Start-up Competitions: Between Beauty Contests and Co-created Problematization” published in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights. We use the Beauty Contest metaphor to point out that new venture competitions are frequently just focused on appearance and legitimacy.
We argue that start-up competitions are, too often, taken for granted, and problematize the way how competitions for new ventures are set up, and what role researchers may take in this context. Our findings highlight a need to reconsider alternative competition models in which researchers need to problematize their role to contribute.
Start-up competition problems
In this study, we take a critical position toward start-up competitions and open the debate that competitions are often detached from reality and focus too much on competition through individual development. Specifically, start-up competitions need experimentation and co-creation between various actors, including researchers, to think differently about how problems are framed and solved jointly.
We have studied an innovative type of competition that gave entrepreneurs a chance to interact, discuss, and collaborate on a to-be-solved problem. Unlike other competitions, where participants typically focus on convincing a jury or investors, our context encouraged entrepreneurs to create teams and jointly formulate and discuss a problem.
The beauty contest and co-created problematization
We identified two ways entrepreneurs work on a problem and a solution. Our metaphor of the Beauty Contest characterizes the first one. The Beauty Contest represents entrepreneurs in a start-up competition who are mainly mindful of their venture idea appearance. These entrepreneurs prefer to work through competition to search for legitimacy and confirmation of their venture to rush to the market. Researchers, in this context, are passive participants.
The alternative process is represented by co-created problematization. In this collaborative process, entrepreneurs and researchers jointly question to what extent it might be possible to think differently about a problem and a solution. This process is characterized by a confrontation between entrepreneurs and researchers, in which problems and solutions are questioned and reframed into smaller components. In this way, the venture idea develops through a process of what is already known and not known yet between the practitioner and researcher jointly.
Key takeaways
Entrepreneurship scholars should question their familiarity with start-up competitions and which role they may take to reach practitioners that generate new research insights. They may serve as confirmation providers to support credibility and legitimacy or as ‘problematizers’ to consider alternative interpretations of the problem definition and solution jointly.
We argue for an action-based need to transform start-up competitions into a model where problematization is an instrument between researchers and practitioners.
Our dynamic model points to commitment and alignment from researchers not only during start-up competitions but additionally afterward when entrepreneurs commonly face their challenges through market testing.
Read the full paper here to find out more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352673423000203
Author bio
Bob Bastian is Assistant Professor at the University of Trento. His main research interests focus on the role of cognition in economic decision-making in various strategic and uncertain contexts.
Antonella Zucchella is Professor of Marketing and of Circular Entrepreneurship at the University of Pavia in Italy. Her research interests are in international entrepreneurship, small business management, sustainability and circular entrepreneurship.
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