All Things Considered? – Technology Design Decision-making Characteristics in Digital Startups

Digital startups offer innovative products, for which they require a suitable technology solution. Choosing an appropriate technology design among the range of available designs is crucial, as the wrong design decision could have disastrous consequences for product development and quality, and waste valuable resources. While the literature has highlighted the role played by the decision context, little is known about ‘how’ technology design decisions are reached in digital startups. Using an exploratory research design, we investigate how technology design decisions are made in digital startups, and identify decision-making characteristics, consisting of three decision paradigms and seven decision attributes. Our empirical evidence suggests that in addition to the decision context, these decision-making characteristics play an important role in enabling digital startups to reach satisfactory technology design decisions. Our study thus lays the basis for more research on the topic, contributing to knowledge and practice of digital startups