Factors affecting performance of collaborations between start-ups and established companies in Turkey

Start-ups and established companies build collaborations to create mutual benefits as they have complementary resources. Even though the most common and traditional way of such interactions is based on financial investments, collaborations between start-ups and established companies have taken various forms in time. Co-creation model, which can be described as an attempt to gather various stakeholders together in order to create a fruitful outcome satisfying each stakeholder of the collaboration (Normann & Ramirez, 1993), is the focus of this study. This study aims to identify the factors affecting performance of collaborations based on co-creation concept between start-ups and established companies in Turkey from the start-up perspective. Challenges of collaboration with an established company, non-financial resource contributions and financial investment by the established company, past experience of the start-up, and size of the established company are the independent variables of the study. The performance measurement framework suggested by Steiber, Alänge and Corvello (2021) establishes the theoretical framework of this study. Data was collected from 30 start-ups in Turkey via a questionnaire. The hypotheses have been tested through regression analysis. Findings demonstrate that financial investment by and size of the established company have an impact on the performance of collaborations.