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Role of
Role of strategic management for strategic
employee engagement and skill management

development for start-ups

Praveen Kulkarni 79
Department of MBA, KLS, Gogte Institute of Technology, Udyambag, Belagavi, India
Received 19 July 2020
Rohit Mutkekar Revised 24 August 2020
27 August 2020
Goa Institute of Management, Poriem, Sattari, India, and Accepted 28 August 2020

Sanjeev Ingalagi
Department of MBA, KLS, Gogte Institute of Technology,
Udyambag, Belagavi, India

Abstract
Purpose – Start-ups are the new avenues for innovation and employment. Strategic management is critical
for employee engagement and skill development of start-ups. This study aims to understand the impact of
strategic management on employee engagement and skill development.
Design/methodology/approach – The study attempts to identify principal factors of strategic
management influencing employee engagement and skill development. Structural equation modeling has
been used to understand effects of the study.
Findings – The study results have shown the challenges concerning employee skill development and reflected on
importance of the employee engagement programmes for the growth of the human resource in the start-ups.
Research limitations/implications – The study has confined to strategic management for employee
engagement and skill development. However, studies related to challenges encountered by start-ups in the
specific areas of marketing, operations and finance, etc. would provide more detailed impact on the growth of
start-ups.
Practical implications – This study provides an insight into strategic management for employee
engagement and skill development. The results would provide directions for improving strategy management
from the perspective of employee engagement and skill development.
Social implications – The study on start-ups provides a direction to the owners of start-ups to
understand the importance of strategic management and human resource management for building strong
enterprising which can provide employment opportunity for the youth of the nation and improve the society
at large.
Originality/value – This paper is an attempt to provide directions for managing challenges from the
perspective of employees’ engagement and skill development, which is essential for growth and sustainability
in the future.
Keywords Start-ups, Strategic management, Skill development, Employee engagement, Start-ups
Paper type Research paper

© Praveen Kulkarni, Rohit Mutkekar and Sanjeev Ingalagi. Published in Vilakshan - XIMB Journal of
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p-ISSN: 0973-1954
creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode DOI 10.1108/XJM-07-2020-0036
XJM Introduction
17,1/2 Ever since the inception of start-ups, youth has received a platform for innovation and
employment opportunity (Salamzadeh and Kawamorita Kesim, 2017). Therefore, start-ups
have created a niche for themselves in the industry for innovation and product development
(Giardino et al., 2015).
Start-up India flagship programme floated by the Government of India has also provided
80 an opportunity for Indian youth to establish start-ups.
The impact of Start-up India has observed substantial growth in the establishment of
start-ups in India. A similar trend in the establishment of start-ups is also witnessed across
the world (Berger, 2016; Frederiksen et al., 2017; Georgallis, 2017).
Growth and development of start-ups are influenced by the experience of founders and
their managerial skill sets. (Zaheer et al., 2019). Hence, the application of management
theories related to process, people and proposition is essential for start-ups (Kohler, 2016).
The success of a start-up depends upon the experience of founders and holistic
dimensions of the product, finance, market and human resource (Klotins et al., 2016). The
initial stage for any start-up is usually influenced by the founder’s experience. However, for
long-term sustainability, strategic management and human resource management are
critical for any start-up (Newbery, 2018).
Strategic management and human resource management provide support to start-ups to
sustain growth during an unpredictable business environment. (Bratianu, 2017). Therefore,
developing an effective strategy is essential for creating a sustainable work environment
which would further boost growth of start-ups (Bendickson et al., 2017).
Practices of human resource management would provide directions to employees to
operate in a high-risk business environment and provide a platform to learn and manage
risk while achieving organizational goals (Hasan et al., 2017).
One of the key human resource practices for growth of the start-ups is skill set of
employees (Rabideau et al., 2016). Skill sets of employees are developed through effective
employee engagement programmes (Kaur and Sharma, 2019). Therefore, it is important to
understand the role of strategic management in developing skill sets through effective
employee engagement programmes (Beynon,2016).
Hence, this study has been undertaken to understand the role of strategic management
for effective employee engagement and skill development of employees.

Role of strategic management and its impact on employee engagement and

skill development of start-ups
In this section, the study provides definitions and concepts related to strategic management
and its impact on employee engagement and skill development.
Start-ups: They are the institutions designed to create new products and services under
the situation of uncertainty. According to Edison (2015), start-ups are the organization that
creates high-tech innovative products without having past operational experiences having
done so.
Strategic management: Strategic management concept was first introduced in the early
1960s. Strategic management includes planning an approach for implementation of strategic
plans for the corporates. According to Mintzberg (1994), strategic management involves
strategic thinking, which is based on intuition and creates open space for new ideas. This
definition elaborates that strategic management is a befitting concept for the growth of
start-ups.
Strategic management and employee engagement and skill development Role of
Strategic management is the formulation of strategies by top-level management. They strategic
develop these strategies based on vision and mission of the organization. Strategy
formulation in start-ups has a potent influence on the founder’s vision on the start-up
management
(Kohtamäki, 2012). Hence, strategic management is essential for the success of start-ups in
respective business domain. Start-ups operate in a dynamic business environment;
therefore, strategic management acts as an effective tool for start-ups for decision-making,
monitoring, planning pragmatic policies, procedures and managing technology (Talaulicar,
81
2005; Rey and Bastons, 2018; Afolayan et al.,2015; White et al.,2015).
Start-ups need to develop a strategy of collaboration. That is essential for developing an
innovative mindset of employees. This is imperative for the success of start-ups (Zahra and
Nambisan, 2012).
Strategic management is long-term planning tool to create strength and competitive
advantage for the organization (Allio, 2006). Thus, provides the right direction for managing
competition for organization and builds self-efficacy amongst the founders of start-ups
(Tunstall, 2009). These studies conclude that startup’s strategic management is influenced
by the role of top management, vision, and mission, strategic objectives, policies and
technology.

Employee engagement and skill development for employee of start-ups

Start-ups operate in a dynamic business environment (Forster et al., 2013; Baptista et al.,
2014). Managing human resources with an employee engagement programme would be
useful, as it involves employee’s physical, cognitive and emotional involvement. Therefore,
employee engagement is essential for attracting and retaining a talented workforce (Moser
et al., 2017; Girotra and Kaushik, 2018).
Employee engagement programmes include training and development, compensation
and creating organization brand value (Anitha, 2014; Coad et al., 2016; Bicho et al., 2019).
Start-ups training programmes on employee engagement need to be focused on developing
skill sets related to flexibility, innovation capacity building and communication (Forster
et al., 2013; YuBo, 2014).
The aim of employee engagement and skill development is to create a high-performance
work system and to manage talented workforce of start-ups (Bendickson et al., 2017).
Therefore, training employees is a necessary aspect for start-ups (Bendickson et al., 2017).
Hence, from the above studies, it can be emphasized that employee engagement is an
essential factor for the motivation of employees and developing skill sets for the growth of
the start-ups.
The above literature review shows that strategic management direction, employee
engagement and skill development influence the growth of start-ups. The review was
focused upon strategic management, employee engagement or skill development separately.
However, there is a need to have holistic amalgamation of strategic management, employee
engagement and skill development from the perspective of start-ups. In the next section,
conceptualization of the theoretical foundation for the research model is conducted.

Antecedents of strategic management and its interrelationship with employee

engagement and skill development
The literature review lays a strong foundation for important variables of strategic
management, employee engagement and skill development in start-ups. The variables
accepted for the study is based on the literature review and are listed as follows: vision and
XJM mission statement, strategic objectives, accountability and responsibility, employee
17,1/2 engagement and skill development.
Importance of vision and mission statement for star-ups: Vision and mission statement
for the organization is critical in strategic management (Alegre et al., 2018). A mission
statement is vital for maintaining a competitive advantage (Rey and Bastons, 2018; Mas-
Machuca, 2017). Therefore, developing a vision and mission statement has a positive impact
82 on the growth of an organization (Stewart et al., 2017).
The above studies mention that vision and mission statements are critical for the growth
of an organization. Hence, it is imperative to understand the impact of vision and mission
statements on the growth of the start-ups.
Strategic objectives and goals of the organization: According to Biga Diambeidou and
Gailly (2011), the role of investors and key decision-makers of a startup is to pay attention to
strategy and strategic objectives. Strategic management is influenced by factors such as
experience in managing business and market analysis. In a study conducted by Watson
et al. (1998) shows that start-ups founders experience has a direct impact on the framing
business objectives and matching employee expectation.
Responsibility and accountability: The role of responsibility involves doing the work,
whereas accountability involves reporting (Cornock, 2011). The concept of total
responsibility management depicts a link between visions, mission with objectives of the
organization. Hence, a measurement of responsibility and accountability is critical for
success of the organization. (Waddock et al., 2002). The analysis for responsibility and
accountability is crucial from perspective of the founders of the organization, as founders
responsibility and accountability influence growth of the organization (Ferrell et al., 2011).
Employee engagement: Large organization have been applying the concept of employee
engagement to enhance workforce productivity (Weiblen and Chesbrough, 2015). Employee
engagements benefits in creating a sense of recognition, trained workforce etc. Employee
engagement programmes have to be implemented with caution, as the eco-system of start-
ups differs significantly from large corporate (Weiblen and Chesbrough, 2015; Manning,
2016; Gulyani and Sharma, 2018).
Skill development: The most critical challenge encountered by the start-ups is skill sets of
the workforce (Picken, 2017). Indian start-ups are implementing measures to improve the
skill sets of the workforces through collaboration with foreign institutes, yet there is an
enormous gaps in skill-set development of the workforce (Majumdar et al., 2020). There is a
need for creating the right eco-system for start-ups to develop skill sets in changing the
economy of business (Agrawal et al., 2017). Therefore, the success of an organization
depends on skill sets of the workforce (Kuschel et al., 2018).
The above studies shown in Table 1 summarizes the of summary on strategic thinking
and its interrelationship with employee engagement and skill development in start-ups.

Research methodology
This section of the paper presents the formulation of a hypothesis based on the literature
review of model development and research on strategic management, employee engagement
and skill development of start-ups. Details of participants for the study, instrument
development for the study, data collection methods and measurement methods of data are
presented in this section.

Formulation of hypothesis
The hypotheses are developed based on the literature review on strategic management,
employee engagement and skill development in the context of start-ups. The hypotheses
Author, Year Study variables Details
Role of
strategic
Stewart et al. (2017) Vision and Mission It is important to understand the impact of vision and mission management
Statement statement on future growth of startups
Alegre et al. (2018) Mission statement of Mission statement of the organization provides directions for
the organization developing competitive advantage startups
Watson et al. (1998) Strategic objectives Startup founder’s experience of business has an impact on
for startups framing of strategic objectives 83
Biga Diambeidou Strategic Objectives Startups strategic formulation has an impact on strategic
and Gailly (2011) objectives
Ferrell et al. (2011) Responsibility and Responsibility and accountability not only confined to
Accountability employees but in the scenario of startups even the founders are
equally accountable and responsible for the growth of startups Table 1.
Weiblen and Employee Startups have to be careful in applying the concept of employee Summary on
Chesbrough (2015) Engagement engagement as the eco-system of startups is significantly
strategic thinking
different from large corporates
Picken (2017); Skill development The most critical factor for success of a startup depends on the and interrelationship
Kuschel et al. (2018) skill sets of the workforce with employee
Majumdar et al. Skill development The study identified that there is a huge gap in skill sets engagement and skill
(2020 required by startups and available with the workforce development

cover following areas, namely, vision and mission statement and its relationship between
strategic objectives of start-ups; role of strategic objectives on accountability and
responsibility of employees; influence of accountability and responsibility on employee
engagement; relationship between employee engagement on skill development and role of
skill development in achievement of start-ups vision and mission statement.
Vision and mission of an organization is the crucial factor for the growth and
development of the industry (Yadav and Sehgal, 2019). This factor also holds good for start-
ups. Authors note a dearth in research on the relationship between growth of start-ups with
vision and mission statement (Watson et al., 1998; Barringer et al., 2005; Patel and Mehta,
2016). Vision and mission statement of the organization is strongly related to strategic
objectives of the firm. Hence, start-up’s vision and mission statement needs to be understood
by the perspective of strategic objectives (Sasaki et al., 2020). Hence, the following
hypothesis is formulated as below:

H1. There exists a relationship between vision and mission statement of start-ups with
strategic objectives of start-up.
Start-ups enter the market with innovative products and services. Strategic objectives guide
in developing job descriptions (Cascio and Graham, 2016), which support development of
accountability and responsibility toward each employee working in the start-up (Talaulicar,
2005). Therefore, it is essential to understand the role of accountability and responsibility
achieved through strategic objectives of startup. Hence, the following hypothesis is
formulated as below:

H2. There exists a relationship between strategic objectives with accountability and
responsibility of employees in a start-up.
Accountability and responsibility are the most critical factors in achieving organizational
goals. Accountability and responsibility support the employee with role clarity for effective
engagement of employees on the job (Grossman and Burke-Smalley, 2018; Davila et al., 2010;
XJM Kohtamäki, 2012). Hence, the role of accountability and responsibility is critical for
17,1/2 developing effective employee engagement programmes in the start-ups (Jiang and Luo,
2018). Therefore, a detail study on the role of accountability and responsibility on employee
engagement programs needs direction of evaluation for the growth of start-ups. Hence, the
following hypothesis is formulated as below:

H3. There exists a relationship between accountability and responsibility with

84 employee engagement in a start-up.
Employee engagement is important for enhancing the efficiency of the employees.
Organizations are applying various methods and tools to improve employee engagement.
However, the impact of employee engagement programs needs to be evaluated in the
perspective of start-ups (Oliveira et al., 2019; Moquin et al., 2019). Employee engagement
programs are related to skill development in which right skill sets enhances employee
efficiency (Lee et al., 2019). Therefore, a study on employee engagement programs on skill
development of employees in start-ups will provide a direction in understanding the
effectiveness of employee engagement programmes. Hence, the following hypothesis is
formulated as below:

H4. There exists a relationship between employee engagement and skill development of
employees in a start-up.
Skill sets of employees are essential for the effective performance of employees. Training
and development are interventions for skill development of employees to achieve
organization goals. Training programs on skill development needs to match with the vision
and mission of start-ups. Hence, a study is required to understand the influence of skill set
training on vision and mission achievement of start-ups (Jones et al., 2013; Felce et al., 2016;
Dixit, 2018). Hence, the following hypothesis is formulated as below:

H5. There exists a relationship between skill development with achievement of vision
and mission of start-up
Participants: In total, 121 start-ups registered with the Government of Karnataka, India, took
part in the study. The respondents were from four different cities, namely, Bangalore,
Belagavi, Hubli and Dharwad. Researchers contacted 251 start-ups with frequent follow-ups
through emails and telecommunication. The survey’s respondents included in the study
were start-ups with over five years of registration. The final sample size for the study was
121 start-ups. The profile of the respondents is presented in Table 2.
Instrument development: The construct was sufficiently covered in the scale to address
research study (Churchill,1979). The study developed the survey instrument based on
previous literature. Therefore, the items and scale for vision and mission, strategic objectives,
responsibility and accountability, employee engagement and skill development were different.
Yet, they were interrelated to the study. Participants of the study were the founders of start-
ups in Karnataka, India. The responses were measured on the five-point Likert scales with
an interval ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” The questionnaire was
presented to respondents in English and Kannada language. The scale was subjected to
content validity to enhance the accuracy of data collection. Expert suggestion was collected
for clarity concerning strategic management, employee engagement and skill development.
The pre-testing process on content validity includes academicians, first-generation
entrepreneurs, start-ups founders and university incubators. In all, eight experts guided the
researchers in the selection of relevant variables of the construct. The researchers received
 Male Female
Role of
N (%) N (%) strategic
Gender 106 88 15 12 management
Age
21–25 Years 35 33 5 33
25–30 Years 29 27 3 20
30–35 Years 16 15 1 7 85
35–40 Years 11 10 3 20
40–45 Years 4 4 1 7
45–50 Years 8 8 1 7
50 Years and Above 3 3 1 7
Educational qualification
Engineering 35 33 4 27
Commerce 47 44 7 47
Science 9 8 2 13
Arts 8 8 1 7
Management 7 7 1 7
Year of establishment
2000–2005 16 13
2005–2010 22 18 Table 2.
2010–2015 44 36 Profile of the
2015–2018 39 32 respondents

feedback on the amending two constructs, namely, Organization Development in Skill

Development and Realistic Targets in Strategic Objectives. The experts mentioned that
strategic management is a vital component for start-up’s development and for the growth of
workforce in start-ups. Hence, this research would give new directions to develop effective
strategies by involving human resource practices in the study of start-ups. The details with
regard to scale development in presented in Table 3.
Data collection: Researchers collected the data from 121 founders of the start-ups in
Karnataka, India, through an online survey. We conducted a pilot study on 30 randomly
selected start-ups to test reliability of the scale. Cronbach’s alpha was used to understand
the reliability of the scale. The reliability score of over 0.65 (Henseler et al., 2009) is
considered as benchmark for acceptability of the item. Hence, scale items with score over
0.65 were accepted in the study. The data was collected from January 9, 10 and 11, 2018
followed by January 20 and 21, 2020. The total response was 48.0% with 12 incomplete data
responses. We considered finally 121 respondents for the study. Reliability analysis is
presented in Table 4.
Measurement model: The reliability analysis of scale measurement proved accuracy of
the data collection scale. The preliminary analysis was conducted to check data normality,
missing values and multi-collinearity of data. Further, regression analysis was conducted by
using SPSS 23. Regression analysis was applied to understand the relationship between the
vision and mission statements on strategic objectives; strategic objectives relationship on
accountability and responsibility of employees in a startup; accountability and
responsibility and its relationship on employee engagement programs in start-ups; role of
employee engagement on skill development of employees in start-ups and relationship
between skill development of startup employees in achieving vision and mission of startup.
Structural equation modeling was administered to understand the relationship among the
XJM Construct Measurement items Source
17,1/2
Vision and Mission VM – 1-Vision and mission statement are Rey and Bastons (2018)
vital for gaining competitive advantage for
start-ups
VM – 2 Startups future growth is reflected Mas-Machuca et al. (2017)
in vision and mission statement of the
86 startups
VM – 3 Vision and mission statement have Stewart et al. (2017);
a strong impact on employees and
motivates the employees of startups
Strategic objectives SO – Performance measurement of startups Baird (2017)
need to be aligned with strategic objectives
of startups.
Accountability and AR – Acceptance of accountability and Brees and Martinko (2015)
responsibility responsibility towards work task in a
startups
Employee EE – Employee engagement is critical for Anitha (2014)
engagement enhancing the performance of startups
Table 3. employees
Measurement items Skill development SD – Skill development and its impact on Boxall et al. (2014)
for the study employee performance

Construct Items Acceptable Score Cronbach’s alpha Outcome

Vision and Mission statement VM – 1 > = 0.65 0.803 Supported

VM – 2 > = 0.65 0.775 Supported
VM – 3 > = 0.65 0.814 Supported
Strategic objectives SO > = 0.65 0.793 Supported
Accountability and responsibility AR > = 0.65 0.783 Supported
Table 4. Employee engagement EE > = 0.65 0.795 Supported
Reliability analysis Skill development SD > = 0.65 0.831 Supported

variables of the study. AMOS 23 software was applied to the study. Further, structural
equation modeling was applied to test the model and understand the relationship between
the variables of the construct. and understand model fit, researchers included following
estimates in the analysis x 2 statistic, the goodness of fit index (GFI), root mean square error
of approximation (RMSEA), comparative fit index (CFI) and normed fit index (NFI). The
summary of an acceptable range of results for the structural equation model is given in
Table 5.

Results
The study tested the model to investigate the proposed relationship between strategic
management for employee engagement and skill development in start-ups at Karnataka,
India. The psychometric test results of the study presented in Table 6 shows factor loadings
between 0.739 to 0.896 (fulfilling factor loadings acceptance range of 0.60 and above). The
results on Cronbach’s alpha are in an acceptable range of 0.60 and above (study outcomes
have shown a result from 0.775 to 0.831). They indicate the composite reliability at 0.919
which satisfies the acceptance value of 0.70 and above. Result on average variance extracted
(AVE) is indicated at 0.874 which satisfies the acceptance value of 0.50 and above. Table 7 Role of
shows model summary, Table 8 shows ANOVA analysis and Table 9 shows coefficients strategic
analysis of regression analysis used in the study.
The study result shows that “Vision and Mission” statement of start-ups has relationship
management
with “Strategic Objectives” [Regression analysis shows significance level of (0.000 < 0.05)
with Beta coefficient = 0.607 (indicating positive relationship) and R2 = 0.393]. The study
result shows that “Strategic Objectives” has relationship with “Responsibility and
Accountability” [Regression analysis shows significance level of (0.000 < 0.05) with Beta 87
coefficient =0.153 (indicating positive relationship) and R2 = 0.378]. The study result shows
that the relationship of “Responsibility and Accountability” with “Employee Engagement”
is insignificant [Regression analysis shows significance level of (0.067 > 0.05)]. The study
result shows that “Employee Engagement” has relationship with “Skills-development” of
employees [Regression analysis shows significance level of (0.000 < 0.05) with Beta
coefficient = 0.328(indicating positive relationship) and R2 = 0.394]. Finally, the study result
shows that the relationship of “Skills-development” with “Vision and Mission” statement is
insignificant [Regression analysis shows significance level of (0.075 > 0.05)]. All the above
results were tested at 5% (0.05) level of significance.
The proposed model of the study was subjected to structural equation modeling, and
results of model fit are presented in Table 10. The model fit analysis showed x 2of 4.211,
P <= 0.05. df = 5, x 2/df = 0.8422, RMSEA = 0.910 (>=0.9), CFI = 0.935 (>=0.9), NFI = 0.935
(>=0.9) and GFI = 0.973 (>=0.9). The results on model fit showed superior fit, as the study
results have matched above the standard results for model fitment.

Sr. No Parameters Acceptable range Source

1 Factor loadings >= 0.50 Bagozzi and Yi (1988)

2 Composite reliability (C.R) >= 0.70 Fornell and Larcker (1981)
3 Average variance extracted (AVE) >=0.50 Chin and Todd (1995)
4 Comparative fit index (CFI) >=0.9 Chin and Todd (1995) Table 5.
5 Normed fit index (NFI). >=0.9 Chin and Todd (1995) Acceptable range for
6 Goodness of fit index >=0.9 Chin and Todd (1995) results on structural
7 Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) <=0.05 Browne et al. (1992) equation modelling

Construct Items Factor loadings Cronbach’s a Composite reliability AVE

Vision and Mission statement VM – 1 0.858 0.803 0.919 0.874

VM – 2 0.784 0.775
VM – 3 0.806 0.814
Strategic objectives SO 0.896 0.793
Accountability and responsibility AR 0.839 0.783
Employee engagement EE 0.566 0.795
Skill development SD 0.739 0.831
Table 6.
Notes: VM = Vison and Mission, SO= Strategic objectives, AR= Accountability and responsibility, EE = Psychometric results
Employee engagement, SD = Skill development of the study
XJM Model Summary
17,1/2 Model R2 R2 Adjusted R2 Std. error of the estimate

Strategic objectives are dependent on vision and

mission statement
a. Predictors: (strategic objective) b. Dependent
Variable: (Vision and Mission Statement) 0.627 0.393 0.364 0.61785
88
Accountability and Responsibility are
dependent on strategic objectives
a. Predictors: (Accountability and
Responsibility) b. Dependent Variable: (Strategic
objectives) 0.615 0.378 0.015 0.82735
Accountability and Responsibility are
dependent on employee engagement
a. Predictors: (Accountability and
Responsibility) b. Dependent Variable:
(Employee Engagement) 0.627 0.393 0.733 0.53217
Employee engagement are dependent on skill
development
a. Predictors: (Employee Engagement) b.
Dependent Variable: (Skill Development) 0.628 0.394 0.100 0.96422
Skill development is dependent on vision and
Table 7.
mission statement
Model summary – a. Predictors: (Skill Development) b. Dependent
Regression analysis Variable: (Vision and Mission Statement) 0.629 0.396 0.018 0.87545

Discussions
The literature on strategic management for employee engagement and skill development
emphasizes on the key role of strategic management on employee engagement and skill
development for enhancing growth of start-ups. The primary aim of study was to examine
the impact of strategic management on employee engagement and skill development of
employees in start-ups. The study developed a model to understand this relationship. This
study provides evidence that vision and mission statement of start-ups have a significant
relationship with strategic aims. The study findings support earlier studies (Kohtamäki,
2012; Stewart et al., 2017; Alegre et al., 2018) which show that vision and mission statement
are critical for the growth of startup and give directions to achieve strategic aims to reach
market growth and financial stability. Further, strategic aims have shown significant
relationship with development of responsibility and accountability among the employees of
startup, these study findings are well supported by the previous studies (Grossman and
Burke-Smalley, 2018; Davila et al., 2010; Kohtamäki, 2012). This indicates well defined
responsibility and accountability based on strategic objectives of the firm, providing
directions to employees on job role clarity and enhancing productivity of employees on the
job (Picken, 2017; Carraro et al., 2020). Earlier studies have indicated that accountability and
responsibility support in developing effective employee engagement programs in the
organizations (Oliveira et al., 2019; Weiblen and Chesbrough, 2015). However, the findings in
the study have shown non-congruence with these findings, reason being that start-ups work
in a dynamic work environment, wherein challenges are significantly different from
traditional organizations; hence, these factors influence in creating effective employee
engagement programs for employees. Employee skill development are essential for effective
 ANOVA
Role of
Model Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig. strategic
management
Strategic objectives are dependent on vision and
mission statement
Regression 26.554 1 26.554 69.559 0.000b
Residual 45.427 119 0.382
Total 71.981 120 89
a. Predictors: (strategic objective) b. Dependent
Variable: (Vision and Mission Statement)
Accountability and Responsibility are dependent
on strategic objectives
Regression 1.948 1 1.948 2.846 0.000b
Residual 81.456 119 0.685
Total 83.404 120
a. Predictors: (Accountability and Responsibility)
b. Dependent Variable: (strategic objectives)
Accountability and Responsibility are dependent
on employee engagement
Regression 93.588 1 93.588 330.455 0.012b
Residual 33.702 119 0.283
Total 127.290 120
a. Predictors: (Accountability and Responsibility)
b. Dependent Variable: (Employee Engagement)
Employee engagement are dependent on skill
development
Regression 13.381 1 13.381 14.392 0.000b
Residual 110.637 119 0.930
Total 124.017 120
a. Predictors: (Employee Engagement) b.
Dependent Variable: (Skill Development)
Skill development is dependent on vision and
mission statement
Regression 2.478 1 2.478 3.234 0.075b
Residual 91.202 119 0.766
Total 93.681 120 Table 8.
a. Predictors: (Skill Development) b. Dependent ANOVA –
Variable: (Vision and Mission Statement) Regression analysis

employee engagement programme; however, the study showed skill development programs
in start-ups are effective, but owing to dynamic work environment accountability and
responsibility and skill development do not correlate with effective engagement
programmes. These findings are in congruence with earlier studies on employee
engagement, accountability and responsibility and skill development (Manning,2016;
Gulyani and Sharma, 2018). Therefore, skill development program in start-ups needs to be
addressed and matched with vision and mission of startup. This will enhance productivity
of the start-up; these findings of skill gap paucity were addressed in earlier research findings
(Picken, 2017; Kuschel et al., 2018;; Patel and Mehta, 2016; Majumdar et al., 2020).
The above discussions show that, start-ups need to build on effective skill development
programs for employees to achieve vision of the startup and also device effective tools with
clear role clarity to support employees on accountability and responsibility on the job.
 90
XJM
17,1/2

analysis
Table 9.

– Regression
Coefficients analysis
Coefficientsa
Unstandardized coefficients Standardized coefficients
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. Remarks

(Constant) 1.648 0.259 6.370 0.000

Strategic objectives are dependent on vision and
mission statement 0.564 0.068 0.607 8.340 0.000 Significant
(Constant) 3.373 0.226 14.951 0.000
Accountability and Responsibility are
dependent on strategic objectives 0.124 0.073 0.153 1.687 0.000 Significant
(Constant) 0.412 0.145 2.841 0.005
Accountability and Responsibility are
dependent on employee engagement 0.869 0.048 0.857 18.178 0.067 Insignificant
(Constant) 1.818 0.289 6.282 0.000
Employee engagement are dependent on skill
development 0.378 0.100 0.328 3.794 0.000 Significant
(Constant) 3.412 0.367 9.309 0.000
Skill development is dependent on vision and
mission statement 0.172 0.096 0.163 1.798 0.075 Insignificant
Practical implications Role of
The findings of study have significant managerial implications that may support the start- strategic
ups with a better understanding of strategic management from the employee’s perspective.
Study on the impact of skill gap amongst the employee is reflected on vision and mission
management
of start-ups. Therefore, it is important for the startup’s founders to create awareness among
the employees on vision and mission statement and how skill sets are important for
effectively achieving vision of the start-ups. Training programs support in developing skill
sets for employees. Effective methods of training need identification to close skill gap will
91
support in higher level of performance among the employees. This should act in bridging
the gap in skill shortage among the employees.
Another key study area emerged in the study from the perspective of employee
engagement programs in start-ups. Founders and practitioners need to test the right tools
for employee engagement, as these tools give directions to employees to understand the
responsibility and accountability.
However, the study findings indicated that employee engagement programs are effective
but not been effective in developing skill set of the employees and achieving vision and
mission of start-ups, probably because most of the start-ups have focused on market growth
and financial growth; hence, in the vision and mission of start-up, employee’s perspective
needs to be considered. This might support in developing role clarity, better engagement
programs and achievement of the same.

Conclusion
Start-ups provide an opportunity for the growth of an economy. The present study provided
directions on strategic management from the perspective of employees in a startup. The
study results show that start-ups need to develop clarity in vision and mission statement
from the perspective of skill development. Results show that start-ups need to develop
techniques and tools for employee engagement and skill development in line with
employee’s expectations. The overall results of the study showed start-ups strategic
management practices are effective. However, from the perspective of human resource
management, skill development is a critical factor for the growth of start-ups.
The present study was confined to start-ups in Karnataka, India. However, studies on
specific areas of start-ups such as the technology-driven start-ups, health care-related start-
ups can provide further research directions for the study. Additionally, managerial area-
related studies including financial management of start-ups, operational management and
marketing management can provide in-depth information for the growth of a start-up
community in India.

Model Fit
Variables Standard Results

x (chi-square)
2
4.211
df (Degree of Freedom) 5
x 2/df 0.8422
Comparative fit index (CFI) >=0.9 0.966 Table 10.
Normed fit index (NFI). >=0.9 0.935 Results on structural
Goodness of fit index >=0.9 0.973 equation modelling
Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) <=0.5 0.310 and model fit
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Corresponding author
Praveen Kulkarni can be contacted at: pmkulkarni@git.edu

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