Successful leadership strategy for startups to overcome challenges created by the COVID- 19 global pandemic: evidence from information technology and services industry in Finland

Abstract

The discovery of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and the spread of COVID-19 have had drastic consequences on startup businesses. The lockdown measures of governments have come as an exogenous shock to various economic actors, not least to vulnerable startups already operating with limited resources. On the other hand, most developing economies rely heavily on startups, and it is argued that countries with more startups have higher economic stability in comparison to countries with fewer startups.

This thesis aims to present a successful leadership strategy for startups to overcome adverse effects and challenges generated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. This research is based on a case study with a Finnish startup Folcan. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect empirical knowledge about the topic from a startup’s perspective. With extensive literature review, from startup leadership during an exogenous shock to challenges explicitly created by the COVID-19, an overall view of the research topic is attained. This is done to support the findings from empirical research.

The findings indicate that due to the delicacy of a current situation, instead of managing operations, startup leaders are recommended to focus on managing people during ongoing COVID-19 crisis. This should be done with high emotional intelligence and delicacy. This thesis can potentially be used as a base for more in-depth research regarding the relationship between COVID-19 and startups, or to create an even more accurate model for examining startup leadership in extreme contexts.