Entrepreneurial innovators' growth ambitions: Case of Finnish technology startups

This paper aims to increase understanding on the start-up innovation process from the perspective of entrepreneurial growth ambitions. Our study in the context of Finnish start-up ecosystem provides findings on how start-ups differ in terms of the ambition level, and provides suggestions on what this means from the perspective of supporting the start-up innovation process. Based on the findings we suggest that growth-ambitions should be seen as a more complex socially constructed concept that just an easily observable value defining the level of ambition. Growth-ambitions are influenced at least by the type of the market where start-up is focusing on, the scalability of the business model, personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial and international experience of the founders and their perceptions of the barriers and constraints of the field, and finally the social context to which they are embedded in. We claim that different types of start-up companies have different needs and therefore the support provided to those start-ups should be different.