Abstract

In the recent years, exogenous shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic, global and political crises, as well as financial instabilities have increasingly played a crucial role in affecting start-ups’ behaviors. To overcome the challenges posed by such disruptive events, start-ups have resorted to a strategic response known as pivoting, that is a process of business model innovation, to both manage uncertainty and ensure the sustainability of the competitive advantage. Although research has extensively analysed the pivoting process and its impact on business re-organisation, only few studies have focused on understanding how exogenous crises may drive changes in such a process. By adopting the Lean Start-up Approach (LSA) as a theoretical framework, this study fills this gap by exploring how start-ups can handle disruptive situations through pivot strategies, with a focus on the analysis of their nature and characteristics. From a methodological standpoint, we analyzed Italian startups that have adapted their activities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and conducted twenty semi-structured interviews with their founders. Our results show that the processes underlying business model changes occur as an adaptation to the external context. In particular, our conceptual framework highlights the different evaluation and response strategies to crises across the different phases of the pivoting process. This study provides a more comprehensive understanding of pivoting strategies by showing the potential strategic responses enacted by start-ups to address the challenges posed by exogenous crises