Pivoting: A Literature Review
Abstract
The concept of pivoting is receiving attention in several blog posts of well-known institutions and is a topic of interest in start-up accelerators, in education, and for software engineering scholars. However, in the field of Management Science, pivoting attracts less attention and remains little understood. As a result, this study aimed to establish the state of art for pivoting and shed light on the similarities and differences between pivoting and business model innovation, as well as between pivoting and strategic changes. This study also addresses the importance of ontology and research paradigms in entrepreneurship research, particularly regarding research on pivoting. Studies on pivoting are mainly concerned with the antecedents and consequences of a pivot, the reasons a startup should pivot, and the typology of pivots. Consequently, future research could tackle the concept of pivoting from a constructivist research paradigm and consider the entrepreneur, their artifacts, and their ecosystem as a triptych that cannot be broken down into sub-elements. By considering this triptych and the relationship between its elements as the smallest unit of analysis, researchers could understand pivoting more holistically.