Startup accelerators as an open environment: The impact on startups’ innovative performance

Accelerator programs are emerging in recent years as a new model of startup assistance. However, despite the rapid proliferation of such programs, academic literature on the topic is surprisingly scarce. In particular, previous literature has neglected to investigate how the open environment provided by startup accelerators can enhance the innovation performance of accelerated startups despite Open Innovation practices are commonly adopted in acceleration programs. To address this gap, we investigate how startups participating in accelerator programs can enhance innovation performance through sources of external knowledge provided by startup accelerators. In doing so, we draw data from 113 startups accelerated by Italian accelerators since 2013. Our results reveal that different sources of external knowledge provided by accelerators are beneficial for different innovation outcomes contributing to the literature on accelerators. Moreover, our findings contribute to the literature on startups and open innovation highlighting that different external sources of knowledge increase innovation performance of startups.