Financial control and business strategy in start-up companies: An empirical analysis

This article focuses on the relationship between financial control (FC) techniques and business strategies (BSs). The context of the study is start-up companies in Italy, and the main motivation to consider this context is the very limited extant literature. The authors performed a survey to collect quantitative data from start-up companies, and they also complemented the survey with a series of interviews to collect quali-tative data. Results show that the use of different FC techniques does not depend on BSs. As a strategic risk factor, the authors also show that reputation risk differs signifi-cantly between the two strategy-based groups, differentiation strategy group and fo-cus strategy group. The interviews conducted with expert entrepreneurs aimed at determining the im-portance of specific FC techniques and the benefits of adopting them in start-up companies. Overall, the article provides new evidence for the debate about the role of FC tech-niques in the BSs of the firm.