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Keywords

start-ups; marginal market orientation; cross-border search; institutional environment; disruptive innovation

Abstract

The sustainable growth of start-ups has become an important driving force for economic development. Disruptive innovation is the key to sustainable growth of start-ups and marginal market is an important path choice for start-ups to achieve disruptive innovation. Therefore, based on the resource-based view, this paper takes crossborder search as an important mechanism to effectively connect the heterogeneous knowledge gap caused by marginal market orientation and disruptive innovation of start-ups, and constructs a mechanism model of ‘marginal market orientation-cross-border search-disruptive innovation’, and following the paradigm of ‘strategy-behavior-outcome’, this paper explores the influence mechanism of marginal market orientation on disruptive innovation of start-ups. Based on empirical data from 219 surveys of Chinese start-ups,the paper uses the method of multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses. the results show that responsive marginal market orientation has a positive impact on the low-end market disruptive innovation of start-ups, while preemptive marginal market orientation has a positive effect on the new market disruptive innovation of start-ups, and the use of preemptive marginal market orientation to develop new market disruptive innovation is more obvious. Breadth cross-border search plays an important mediating role between preemptive marginal market orientation and new market disruptive innovation, while depth crossborder search plays an important mediating role between responsive marginal market orientation and low-end market disruptive innovation. Compared with low-end market disruptive innovation, the institutional environment more positively strengthens the role of preemptive marginal market orientation on the new market disruptive innovation of start-ups, and the institutional environment negatively significantly regulates the relationship between responsive marginal market orientation and new market disruptive innovation of start-ups. The institutional environment negatively moderates the relationship between responsive marginal market orientation and low-end market disruptive innovation of start-ups, but it is not significant. The research shows that when implementing different disruptive innovation, start-ups should adopt different marginal market orientation. Marginal market orientation will encourage start-ups to carry out cross-border search to obtain various heterogeneous knowledge and information, enhance innovation ability through internalization and absorption, and realize disruptive innovation of start-ups. In high institutional environment, it is suitable for start-ups to adopt a preemptive marginal market-oriented strategy to develop new market disruptive innovation, and start-ups can also adopt a responsive marginal market-oriented strategy to develop low-end market disruptive innovation. This paper explores the differential influence mechanism of different marginal market orientations on the low-end market disruptive innovation and the new market disruptive innovation of start-ups, and reveals the action mechanism of different cross-border search, explores how the marginal market orientation influences the disruptive innovation of start-ups through cross-border search, further enriches and expands the theoretical research on disruptive innovation, and provides a new theoretical framework for the research on disruptive innovation of start-ups. At the same time, the research also integrates the institutional theory, deeply examines the moderating mechanism of the institutional environment, and clarifies the boundary conditions for the disruptive innovation of start-ups based on the marginal market orientation, providing a relatively complete theoretical system for the disruptive innovation practice of start-ups, which has important theoretical significance and practical value for start-ups to carry out disruptive innovation effectively.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2024.04.004

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