The role of entrepreneurial alertness, digital platform capability, organisational agility and business model innovation on young innovative companies’ performance

Studies on entrepreneurship trajectories of young innovative companies (YICs) are rare and discussion of the specific dynamics taking place within them has remained lacking. This research aims to explore these dynamics by focusing on the relationships between a set of factors and ultimately YIC’s performance. Specifically, first we examined the effects of entrepreneurial alertness (EA) on three factors, namely digital platform capability (DPC), organisational agility (OA) and business model innovation (BMI); second, we focused on the effects of DPC on OA and then on those of OA on BMI; lastly, we explored the effects of DPC and BMI on YICs’ performance, in terms of market performance (MP), product innovation (PROD) and process innovation (PROC). We adopted the PLS-SEM approach to test our hypotheses and the results support them, in fact, all with significant and positive effects. Our findings highlighted a set of capabilities and factors helping YICs to deal with uncertain and changing environments and to achieve a higher level of competitiveness and performance. YICs should develop crucial capabilities and create/nurture a culture focused on innovation and digital transformation. Main stakeholders (e.g. policymakers/governments) should at the same time stimulate cultural changes and introduce specific incentives and programmes to support YICs.