Building Business Resilience During Startup Scaling: Mitigating the Liability of Newness

The startup landscape has changed significantly due to pandemics, technological advancements, polarization, and economic downturns, necessitating a reinvention process for resilience (Picken, 2017; Zahra, 2021). Processes such as scaling introduce uncertainties, demanding strategic decision-making and financial acumen (Zahra, 2021). A key challenge is the uncertainty of resourcefulness, crucial for navigating demands during rapid expansion (Michaelis et al., 2022; Shepherd & Patzelt; 2022; Williams et al., 2021). The “liability of newness” poses challenges during scaling, encompassing inexperience, limited resources, and market uncertainties (Giustiziero et al., 2022). To address this, the manuscript explores building business resilience during scaling, proposing that resilience is a strategic response to the liability of newness. Resource availability plays a critical role in business resilience during scaling, and entrepreneurial judgments are key in decision-making (Foss & Klein, 2012). Two dimensions of entrepreneurial judgments—original and derived—are distinguished, with delegation crucial in realizing learning capabilities (Klein et al., 2006). Despite benefits, delegation has challenges, leading to proposed frameworks for business resilience-building and optimum delegation during scaling.