Slack resources,exploratory and exploitative innovation and the performance of small technology-based firms at incubators

This paper aims to contribute (1) to the understanding about how small technology-based firms in spite of being constrained by limited resources, can still perform exploratory and exploitative innovation and (2) to extend knowledge about the role of slack resources in the context of small technology-based firms in facilitating those innovation activities. Herein, we focus on two types of slack resources: internal slack, resources that are available within the firms and external slack, additional resources that are gathered through the facilitation of external sources such as business incubators. Using a sample of 141 small technology-based firms located at incubators, this study combined two streams of research on incubator studies and innovation to construct some hypotheses examining the role of slack resources and innovation activities in enhancing the performance of small technology-based firms operating in incubator setting. Our findings demonstrate that neither slack resources nor innovation activities alone explain firm performance. Instead, small technology-based firms fit their innovation activities to their slack resources. While the relationship between internal slack and performance is mediated by exploitative innovation, exploratory innovation plays a role as a mediator for the relationship between external slack and performance.     

Social web knowledge sharing and innovation performance in knowledge-intensive manufacturing SMEs

This paper develops an integrative research model to assess the effect of different factors on social web knowledge sharing and its effect on innovation performance in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, this study analyzes whether social web knowledge sharing may be a mediator in the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and innovation performance. The proposed research model and its associated hypotheses were tested by using partial least squares structural equation modeling on a dataset of manufacturing SMEs. This study contributes to research seeking to understand the factors affecting social web knowledge sharing by demonstrating that technological and organizational factors have greater impact than environmental factors on social web knowledge sharing. It also contributes to research by exploring the indirect effects of the social influence of HR practices on organizational innovation performance by offering evidence on the mediating effect of social web knowledge sharing in the relationship between HR practices and organizational innovation performance in manufacturing SMEs.     

University-industry collaborations and product innovation performance: the moderating effects of absorptive capacity and innovation competencies

While the performance implications of university-industry collaboration (UIC) have been the subject of extensive research, no study thus far has investigated the potential influence of absorptive capacity and innovation competencies on the relationship between UIC and product innovation performance. Based on a sample of 2061 German companies from two waves of the German Community Innovation Survey and using moderated multiple regression, this study examines these moderating effects and provides the following findings: (1) absorptive capacity in terms of internal R&D negatively moderates the relationship between UIC and incremental innovation performance and has no effect on the relationship between UIC and radical innovation performance; (2) absorptive capacity related to employee know-how has no moderating effect on the relationship between UIC and incremental innovation performance but positively moderates the relationship between UIC and radical innovation performance; and (3) innovation competencies exert no moderating effect on the relationship between UIC and incremental innovation performance but have a predominantly positive moderating effect on the relationship between UIC and radical innovation performance. In summary, our study provides relevant insights on the dynamics governing UIC relationships and provides evidence for potential negative effects of absorptive capacity in the context of collaborative R&D (substitution effect). Providing an in-depth analysis of UIC, this study offers insights for research in this field by explaining the variance in the outcomes of UIC. Moreover, our findings have the potential to aid practitioners (e.g., innovation managers, researchers, and governing and funding bodies) in their decisions concerning their involvement in UIC.     

University knowledge and firm innovation: evidence from European countries

In recent decades, firms have intensified the exploration of external sources of knowledge to enhance their innovation capabilities. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors that affect the importance of academic knowledge for firms’ innovation activities. An integrated approach that simultaneously considers country- and firm-level factors is adopted. Regarding the former factors, the analysis shows that the entrepreneurial orientation of university and the quality of academic research increase the importance of knowledge transfers from universities to firms. This suggests that the environmental and institutional context contributes to cross-national disparities in university-industry interactions and the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. In regard to the latter factors, the results indicate that firms oriented toward open search strategies and radical innovations are more likely to draw knowledge from universities. Furthermore, firms belonging to high technology sectors and firms with high absorptive capacity place greater value on the various links with universities. With respect to firm size, the estimates show an inverted U-shaped relation with the importance of universities as a source of knowledge.     

Case study of R&D efficiency in an ATP joint venture

This paper summarizes the technical accomplishments and presents selected measures of research efficiencies and early stage economic impacts of the Printed Wiring Board (PWB) Research Joint Venture Project. The project was cost-shared by the Advanced Technology Program and carried out by a group of seven companies, with participation by Sandia National Laboratories. The period considerred in this case study is from mid-1991 through mid-1996, the time during which the research was conducted. ATP’s funding of the PWB Research Joint Venture has thus far had a number of direct and indirect economic impacts. Of the direct impacts, the largest to date has been the increase in R&D efficiency. The project achieved at least a 53 percent reduction in overall research costs. The increase in research efficiency has in turn led to reduced cycle times for both new project development and new process development. Collectively, the result has meant productivity improvements for member companies and improved competitive positions in the world market.     

Social capital and knowledge acquisition in professional-client relationships

This paper examines the role of social capital in professional-client relationships. We consider exploring the effects of social capital on the creation of human capital, a subject which is worthwhile investigating within all professions. In this paper, we concentrate on what are known as the structural and attributive dimensions of social capital and aim to understand their effects on the knowledge acquisition of professional practitioners. We analyse the association between social capital and human capital (i.e., knowledge acquisition) in the context of the lawyer-client relationship. Through the application of social capital theory, this paper seeks to advance our knowledge of the relations between professionals and clients. More importantly, the study contributes to improving our understanding of the role of social capital in influencing a lawyer's ability to retain and win new clients.     

Between market forces and knowledge based motives: the governance of defence innovation in the UK

The purpose of this contribution is to examine the evolutionary transformations that have characterised the UK defence innovation system since the mid 1980s. It focuses on the central and challenging issue faced by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in implementing effective governance mechanisms emerging from the continuous trade-off between short-term market driven measures motivated by efficiency arguments, and more long term and relational considerations in terms of knowledge economics. Furthermore, in terms of technology transfer, this evolution has been accompanied by a gradual shift from an initial logic of spin-off to society expected from government driven military projects, to a logic of spin-in where the main concern of the military sector is to broaden its industrial and R&D base.

The performance of university spin-offs: an exploratory analysis using venture capital data

University spin-offs are defined as firms founded by university employees. Using a large database on venture-backed start-up companies, I describe the characteristics of university spin-offs and investigate whether they perform differently than other firms. I find that venture-backed university spin-offs are concentrated in the biotechnology and information technology industries. Moreover, a spin-off tends to stay close to the university, suggesting that technology transfer through spin-offs is largely a local phenomenon. Multivariate regression analyses show that university spin-offs have a higher survival rate but are not significantly different from other start-ups in terms of the amount of venture capital raised, the probability of completing an initial public offering (IPO), the probability of making a profit, or the size of employment.

Complementarity effect in the innovation strategy: internal R&D and acquisition of capital with embodied technology

The Journal of Technology Transfer - For scale-intensive industries and science-based industries in Germany, we investigate the question whether firms combining internal R&D and acquisition...     

University-SME collaboration and innovation performance: the role of informal relationships and absorptive capacity

The Journal of Technology Transfer - This work analyzes the impact of university–industry collaborations (UICs) on the innovation performance of a sample of small and medium enterprises...     

Public research and the innovation performance of new technology based firms

Assessing the role of publicly funded scientific research in entrepreneurial ecosystems is of great interest for science and entrepreneurship policy. Knowledge from academic research flows into the private sector through publications, patents, and researcher mobility as well as through direct interactions between founders and researchers at public research institutions (PRIs). New technology-based firms (NTBFs) are generally praised for high innovativeness despite their resource constraints and liability of newness. This study therefore investigates the impact of direct interactions with PRIs on NTBFs’ innovation success. In a large sample of NTBFs in Germany, we find that those firms engaging in such knowledge interactions are more likely to introduce new products and services to the market. The strength of this association, however, depends on interaction persistency, internal R&D and the founders’ academic backgrounds. Non-academic start-ups benefit more from continuous informal interactions if they pursue own R&D, which suggests that absorptive capacity matters. In academic start-ups, higher intensities of both formal and informal interactions are associated with greater innovation likelihood. Moreover, continuous informal interactions complement formal ones in the absence of own R&D activity.

     

Entrepreneurship research centers around the world: research orientation,knowledge transfer and performance

This work investigates entrepreneurship research centers, and analyzes their research performance. Studies on the determinants of performance of research centers have mainly focused on science and technology, while entrepreneurship has been so far neglected. Through an analysis of 46 centers worldwide, we focus on entrepreneurship research and the role of centers, by discussing how knowledge transfer mechanisms and research orientation affect research performance. Our findings contribute to shed light on the divergence of methodologies and approaches characterizing entrepreneurship research; they also corroborate the view that centers enable a “compound Matthew-effect”, according to which knowledge transfer to external stakeholders, after controlling for research orientation of the center, does foster and enrich research performance.     

Linking technological and educational level diversities to innovation performance

In this study, we explore the extent to which diversity of educational levels among research scientists and engineers (RSEs) in the context of a firm’s level of technological diversity influences innovation performance. We used data from the 2004–2008 National R&D Survey in Singapore. The results from 366 firms across different industries indicate that when a firm’s technological domains are heterogeneous, those firms with an RSE workforce comprising similar educational levels have positive innovation performance, measured as the number of patent applications, while those comprising diverse educational levels have negative innovation performance. Our further exploration of the positive interaction between technological domain heterogeneity and similarity of educational levels suggests that firms that had a high ratio of RSEs with lower educational levels had more positive patent outcomes compared to those that had a high ratio of RSEs with higher educational levels. The results show that there are limits to the strength of technological diversity in a firm’s absorptive capacity as explained by organizational demography.     

Ambidexterity,external knowledge and performance in knowledge-intensive firms

The paper investigates the relationship between organizational ambidexterity and firm performance in knowledge-intensive firms. In particular, using a quantitative methodology involving a structural equation model, the research investigates whether external knowledge sourcing enhances the impact of ambidexterity on firm performance. The results show that organizational ambidexterity in knowledge-intensive firms does not, in fact, have a significant impact on firm performance, but it does have a positive and significant mediating effect considering external knowledge sourcing. The findings are presented along with interesting and significant implications for both theory and practice, largely stemming from the still much neglected relationship between organizational ambidexterity and external knowledge sourcing in the open innovation context.     

University-industry interaction and product innovation performance of Guangdong manufacturing firms: the roles of regional proximity and research quality of universities

The Journal of Technology Transfer - This study aims to investigate the direct relationships of university proximity and research quality with the product innovation performance of Chinese firms...     

The impact of licensed-knowledge attributes on the innovation performance of licensee firms: evidence from the Chinese electronic industry

In this article, we provide a compelling case for demonstrating “learning-by-licensing,” and we further investigate the moderating effect of specific licensed-knowledge attributes on the innovation performance of licensee firms. This case is based on a unique dataset from the China State of Intellectual Property Office regarding technology-licensing activities and spanning the years 2000–2010. Using this dataset we make a longitudinal analysis of the lagging learning effect that transferee firms experience when they in-license technology. The empirical results from 71 Chinese electronic-industry firms reconfirm the concept of “learning-by-licensing.” Moreover, the results also indicate that both technology complexity and technology generality, which are attributes of licensed knowledge, have positive moderating effects on the relationship between technology in-licensing and the subsequent innovation performance of licensee firms. However, such a positive moderating effect was not found for the newness of technology.     

Product innovation and process innovation in SOEs: evidence from the Chinese transition

This paper offers an analysis of the influence of management behavior on the relationship between factors such as market, governance and resources of a firm, and the choice of the type of technological innovation in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The authors develop a structural equation model and 12 hypotheses and test the model and hypotheses using a sample of 274 SOEs in China. This study discovers that the choice of innovation types among Chinese SOEs depends on the turbulence in the environment, and on the organizational resources. The key contributions of the study include: testing existing theories of innovation in the context of Chinese SOEs; studying the factors that affect product innovation and process innovation in that context; and demonstrating that market forces and internal governance simultaneously influence SOE innovation.