An empty shell? Relocation of central and eastern European startups, virtual headquarters and beyond
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8946492 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrea Szalavetz (0000-0001-7655-6994, Institute of World Economics, corresponding author), Agnieszka Skala (0000-0003-1988-6342, Warsaw University of Technology) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 154 |
| Pages | 104074-104074 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-11 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geoforum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104074 |
| OpenAlex | W4400525700 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 70 |
Some of the best technology startups born in CEE moved their headquarters to a foreign jurisdiction before scaling. These ventures became ‘foreign’ companies but kept the principal business functions in the countries of origin. We theorize about this phenomenon, referred to as virtual relocation, and consider what it conveys for the asserted reduced relevance of location-bound advantages and constraints in the digital era. We take a process approach and investigate the cases of 34 technology startups from Poland, Hungary, and Romania. We find that CEE startups’ choice of a ‘virtual’ type of relocation can be traced back to the tension between the retention factors and the push/pull factors influencing their locational decision. We show that the factors that push CEE startups away from their home countries, pull them to the destination country, and make them retain specific business functions in their home countries are equally location bound. If virtually relocated startups manage to seize the assumed opportunities in the destination country and scale, the virtualness of the HQ office will gradually fade: employment starts growing also at the HQ location
Business · Economic geography · Economics · Entrepreneurship · Jurisdiction · New Ventures · Political science · Relevance (law · Relocation · Computer Science · Finance · Innovation and Knowledge Management · International Business and FDI · Law · Regional Development and Policy
Digital Business Strategy
Digital affordances, spatial affordances, and the genesis of entrepreneurial ecosystems
Qualitative evaluation and research methods
Digital Entrepreneurship
Advancing Firm Growth Research
Subsidiary‐specific advantages in multinational enterprises
The firm relocation decision
Retrospective reports of strategic‐level managers
The embedded entrepreneur
Process Studies of Change in Organization and Management
National Systems of Entrepreneurship
The effects of embeddedness on the entrepreneurial process
Strategies for Theorizing from Process Data
Digital gravity? Firm birth and relocation patterns of young digital firms in Germany
Social networks and the geography of entrepreneurship
The city and high-tech startups
Cross-national Comparisons of the Variation in New Firm Formation Rates
The Geographic Sources of Innovation
Qualitative Data Analysis
Digital Economics
Why Butterflies Don't Leave
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |