Relational capital to revamp the pink side of agri-food

The current economic scenario has increasingly challenged Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), threatened their competitiveness, and endorsed the gap with larger companies. To reduce this gap and foster the innovation process in SMEs, the Italian legislator regulated the “innovative start-up” (IS). He recognised some benefits in terms of tax advantages. The substantial requirements defining ISs confirm the critical role literature has attributed to Intellectual Capital (IC) in elaborating innovative elements. In particular, the research focuses on Relational Capital (RC), the IC’s component that encourages a precious knowledge-sharing process enriching collaborative innovation and reactive resilience. Its relevance is maximum in female enterprises, where all SMEs’ typical structural limits are amplified, especially the difficult access to credit, significantly affecting the firm’s innovative capability. Given this, the present research aims at investigating the RCs contribute to a reality that is innovative by definition, namely women-led innovative start-ups (WIS). In particular, the authors focus on the agri-food industry, a milestone of the Italian economy strictly anchored to the tradition and still recording a low research level. In particular, the paper aims to answer the following Research Question (RQ). RQ1: How does RC affect innovation and resilience in WIS operating in agri-food? The present work uses an exploratory, descriptive qualitative approach, analysing a single case study. The research is performed during the pandemic emergency and applies the CAOS (an Italian acronym for “Caratteristiche personali, Ambiente, Organizzazione, Start-up”) model (Paoloni 2021). Data are acquired through a semi-structured interview (Yin, 1984) directly placed by the company’s owner. The present work contributes to expanding literature on intangible resources and gender studies and confirms that RC can help female entrepreneurs overcome crises. Moreover, it offers a specific analysis of innovative female agro-startups. Findings could be helpful to female agro-food start-ups to recognise the importance of investing in RC to overcome a challenging scenario and help WIS reduce the gender gap and, in general, the agro-startups entrepreneurial gap with larger companies