What drives the design of startup competitions? A conceptual framework and future directions

Startup competitions serve as essential platforms where innovative solutions to grand challenges can emerge and evolve. Owing to their substantial implications, startup competitions are gaining attention in both academia and practice, but knowledge about them remains limited. This study aims to synthesize previous unconnected streams of literature on startup competitions, by exploring the key components and mechanisms characterizing the functioning of these events endorsed by entrepreneurial support organizations. Due to the conceptual fragmentation around startup competitions, we conducted a systematic literature review of 104 articles. The study proposes five startup competition dimensions: characteristics and specifics, involved actors, aims, evaluation, and nature of startup competitions. Such dimensions are integrated into a conceptual framework that explains what key components and mechanisms characterize the functioning of startup competitions. This study is the first review that synthesizes startup competition literature. It offers significant contributions by presenting a unique definition of startup competitions as integral events in entrepreneurial support organizations, establishing a conceptual framework linking the startup competitions’ dimensions, and offering future insights for theoretical development. Overall, the framework offers a tool for future research to analyze the interconnections between startup competition dimensions, guiding competition designers in crafting initiatives.