Investigation of startups’ sustainability: empirical evidence from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Despite many government attempts, it is still unclear how individual startups grow and promote their sustainability-oriented market innovations and alter markets toward sustainable growth in Saudi Arabia. This research aims to uncover the factors that contribute to a startup's long-term viability and establish interrelationships among them. A two-phased method was used in this study. Empirical research on startups' sustainability was undertaken in the first phase to identify the most critical enablers from a list of factors found after a thorough literature review. A hierarchy-based model is built among the most critical enablers in the second phase, utilizing interpretative structural modeling (ISM). The study discovers that: (1) there are ten factors influencing entrepreneurial startups' sustainability that play different hierarchical roles; (2) the startup product/service & market position, as a key influencing factor of entrepreneurial startups' sustainability, can be cultivated and improved by enriched startup partnerships & resources, industrial and market; and (3) regulatory & political may indirectly affect startups' sustainability by affecting the entrepreneurial environment. Policymakers in Saudi Arabia might utilize the methodology described in this paper to design appropriate policies for enhancing startup sustainability.