Design and management of an innovative software enterprise: A case study of a spin-off from University

Nowadays there is a visible shift from product-oriented economy towards service-oriented economy. This shift relates to a huge pressure on innovation in services and new offerings to the market. Concurrently with this shift, capabilities of IT/software tools are increasing rapidly. Such movements are opening new space in the dynamic market and are encouraging new ventures to be founded. A challenge for managers and leaders is to design processes and set/manage an internal environment that inherently supports creativity and cooperation between team members in new ventures. In this paper, we characterize a management model named innovation&cooperation (INCO) suitable for innovative software start-ups. We propose that the management processes and leadership of such enterprises have to have six distinctive qualities to support innovation and cooperation of team members. Proposed qualities are as follows: (1) network-hierarchical organizational structure; (2) assessment function of added value; (3) context awareness; (4) equal opportunities; (5) portfolio project management and uniformity; (6) embedded feedback. We believe that these qualities are essential for setting up a dynamic and flexible enterprise in the long-term perspective. A case study of a spin-off from Masaryk University, Czech Republic, is used to illustrate and validate this proposal in practice. This IT/software SME follows a network-hierarchical organizational structure, project team members are assigned dynamic roles and continuous feedback is provided to control and enhance collaboration and creativity.