Journal of African Development

Purpose: In today’s complex environment, pivoting becomes common amongst start-ups as many a times their idea may not work and make them to try entirely new idea by changing their product strategy, market strategy, business plan etc., to survive and achieve their desired goal. Employees working in such organisations are often expected to adapt quickly, learn continuously and contribute beyond a narrow job description. Through the selection and analysis of relevant literature, this paper aims to provide our understanding on how extensive pivoting in start-ups affect employee motivation & commitment and providing directions for future research. 

Design/methodology/approach : By using an explicit method for the review (Pittaway, et al, 2004), the authors selected a set of papers, which covers the knowledge domain object of the study. In total 54 articles about start-ups, pivots in start-ups, and employees motivation theory in starts-ups  have been selected and the full papers have been analysed

Findings: The comprehensive literature review & analysis revealed that pivoting is good up to a certain point, but pivoting extensively can be the reason that employees get demotivated that results in inferior start-up performance which ultimately lead to start-up failure.

Originality/Value: Despite the substantial scientific & practical discussion on factors affecting the start-up failure, pivot is relatively a new world and its literature is still under researched. The research area of pivoting literature is relatively young area that too in Indian context. Considering the huge number of start-ups being set-up in the country, research on pivoting and its effect on employees’ motivation for start-up success is most relevant, as start-up is basically team of highly motivated employees with new/innovative knowledge. To fill this knowledge gap, the review of literature represents the first attempt to organise the scientific knowledge   on pivoting that might affect the motivation & commitments.