Dion Manten recently graduated from the University of Twente as a Master of Science in Business Administration, specializing in International Management & Consultancy. He conducted his research in collaboration with consultancy firm Summiteers and was about the role of investors and leadership in the transition of organizations from start-up to scale-up.

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The research was about a founder's strategic decision space and leadership style and how this influences the growth of the organization towards a scale-up. Manten explains his motive for choosing this topic: “I wanted to do research that would benefit both the organizations that participated in my research, and to gain new knowledge that not only increases my knowledge, but could also be added to the Summiteers knowledge library.”

The start time of the study was very unfavorable. The week before the Covid-19 measures came into effect in the Netherlands, he presented his idea to Summaries. “At the time, I still thought: it will work out, but by the time I had to approach companies, the impact of the measures turned out to be greater than expected.”

Fortunately, says Manten, Summiteers maintains a warm relationship with its clients, so it managed to find four motivated organizations that were willing to participate in Manten's research.

After two months of reviewing the literature, Manten was able to start collecting data. “Choosing the right approach is extra important with a personal topic like this,” explains the young researcher. To do this, he used a new approach developed by Desirée van Dun, together with Julia Wijnmaalen and Celeste Wilderom from the University of Twente.

His thesis supervisor Van Dun adds: “During my PhD research, I looked for 'lean' ways of researching teams, which do not take too much time and, above all, add value for participants. So not too many time-consuming and often subjective individual interviews, but rather a combination of methods that form a shared and factually correct picture. This approach was also a good fit for Dion's research.”

Manten: “This was ideal for my research. A graduation process is relatively short to conduct research, but with this method, I was able to achieve enough depth at four different organizations in this short period of time, while the participating scale-ups also learned from it themselves.”

The combination of methods is what makes this approach so strong. “By first having a one-on-one interview with a key informant, you are introduced to the case,” Manten explains. “Then you send out a survey to all employees who have something to do with that team. From this survey and the interview with the key informant, you decide who will be invited to the group interview.”

“In the group interview, most of the data is collected. Here, participants create a timeline with events that affected the topic to be investigated. During this process, there is plenty of room for discussion, which is also what makes this approach so strong. Finally, you discuss the created timeline with the team as a verification for the collected data.”

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The most important conclusion of his research, says Manten, is the importance of a good connection between the start-up founder and the investor. “Not every start-up has an investor, but if it was present and not only offered financial support, but also shared its network and knowledge, this created added value for the organizations. For organizations in the transition from start-up to scale-up, this is very important for the development and growth of the organization.”

All founders who participated in Manten's research also turned out to be so-called “transformational leaders”. “This leadership style is characterized by the fact that the leader motivates his employees by going up a notch himself to help the organization move forward. Transformational leaders also inspire their employees by outlining an ideal vision for the future, challenging them intellectually, and giving them personal attention. These types of leaders often elicit performance from their employees that they themselves considered impossible. So transformational leadership is a great fit for startup founders who want to grow to scale-up.”

However, Manten says that the conclusions of his research should be noted: “My research was exploratory; the conclusions need to be further tested among a larger number of organizations.”

Looking back, this was a dive in the deep end for Manten. “This was my first study, in which I learned to use many different forms of data collection. This was a very educational process, applying the knowledge I gained in college and a lesson in verbal and non-verbal communication and counseling skills.”

Finally, Manten is now in the process of providing feedback on his results to the organizations. “Very nice and a nice end to this phase. This way, I can give back to the founders and organizations that participated in my research.”