Identifying the antecedents of lean innovation in service start-ups

This research was conducted with the aim of identifying the antecedents of lean innovation in service start-ups and it is a qualitative research based on the principles of interpretivism.The statistical population of the research included all service start-up entrepreneurs and faculty members of entrepreneurship faculties of first-level universities and 19 of them were selected by using the purposeful sampling method.The data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with the members of the statistical sample, and in order to ensure the validity and reliability of the data, the evaluation method of Lincoln and Guba (1985) was used, which is based on four criteria of reliability and validity. Data transferability, reliability and verifiability were confirmed. The collected qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis method and Atlas.ti software, as a result of which 133 basic codes, 17 constructive categories and 5 overarching categories were identified. Based on the findings of the research, five main categories of innovative orientation, organizational capabilities and infrastructure, culture of innovation and learning, pure collective vision, drivers and incentives were identified as precursors of pure innovation.