High Technology Small Firms Research Articles

The entrepreneurial journey of a global start-up: the case of the open innovation platform GrabCAD

Understanding the entrepreneurial journey has become essential for both start-up entrepreneurs and policymakers within the ecosystem of technology start-ups, functioning as engines of growth in new economies and exports. Often, they are born global (BG) high technology small firms (HTSFs). The entrepreneurial journey, often used as a metaphor in the literature on entrepreneurship, has been subject to attempts to define it theoretically as a research concept, even though there are practically no empirical approaches. This paper aims to overcome the gap in disclosing the entrepreneurial journey and seeks to shape the features of a hi-tech start-up reaching global open innovation (OI) platform, based on the example of GrabCAD. This entails, based on this particular case study of finding proof of theoretical journey patterns, as well as analysing aspects that have not yet been addressed. An analysis of the GrabCAD case demonstrates the importance of the combination of different actors and features shaping the entrepreneurial journey.

NPD TOOLS, THOROUGHNESS AND PERFORMANCE IN SMALL FIRMS

This paper draws on survey data to clarify whether small high-technology firms benefit most from adopting greater numbers of new product development (NPD) tools to support NPD projects, or from using tools more thoroughly. This is an important issue given that small firms adopt NPD tools despite facing acute resource limitations and using informal processes. Prior studies of the performance impact of NPD tools have focused on large firms, and very few have assessed the performance impact of using NPD tools to higher levels of thoroughness.The paper covers tools across functional/technical and management/marketing aspects of NPD, and measures performance in process, product and market. We found that increasing the number of tools adopted did not measurably improve performance, in contrast to prior findings in larger firms. Instead, we found that firms obtained meaningfully improved NPD performance from using tools at higher average levels of thoroughness. Higher average thoroughness produced statistically significant performance benefits across seven of our nine performance measures. Our findings imply that small firms should emphasize selective but thorough and well-designed implementation of NPD tools.

Patterns and Drivers of NPD Tool Adoption in Small High-Technology Firms

In this paper, we set out the drivers and patterns of adoption of new product development (NPD) tools in small high-technology firms. Despite previous findings that using NPD tools can improve NPD performance outcomes, surveys of large firms show reluctance to make full use of such tools. Our study is the first to look at NPD tool adoption in small high-technology firms. We draw on survey data from 99 firms in New Zealand, covering 76 NPD tools, including both functional and support tools, and tools from nontechnical aspects of NPD, such as the market perspective. The firms in our sample adopted fewer tools overall than studies report for larger firms, and fewer complex tools, but adopted just as many simple tools such as brainstorming, competitor analysis, project management, and alpha prototype. The firms typically did not have formalized NPD processes, but those that did also adopted more NPD tools. We found no significant differences in tool adoption by the level of project novelty to the firm or between industrial and consumer products. We conclude by discussing the case for small firms to formalize their NPD processes and to adopt a greater number and range of NPD tools.

Towards a better understanding of the dynamics of value creation in R&D intensive small firms

Standard financial and economic theories suggest that the stock value of R&D intensive High Technology Small Firms (HTSF) undergo a geometric random walk. Such a model neglects to account for observed periods where firms experience large fluctuations due to uncertainty related to its R&D activities, external competitive or regulatory environments. Empirical evidence also shows that the behavior of these firms is difficult to describe – let alone predict – using this Gaussian process. With ambidexterity as a theoretical basis, we show that the value of HTSF can be statistically described as the result of a combination of two distinct random walks: an exploitative steady state component characterized by Neo‐Marshallian equilibrium and low volatility; and a more dynamic component with high volatility reflecting bursts of large and rapid changes associated with Schumpeterian outcomes of explorative processes. A mixture of two normal distributions provides an overall function that is more reflective of the empirical evidence and provides a quantitative measure for the theory that firms engage in concurrent exploration/exploitation activities. A linear relationship between the two components of the mixture distribution that describe the stock value of these firms also emerges. By understanding this dual nature and its impact on stock value, firms can better manage resources and prepare for the increase in variability that are associated with exploration activities. A more accurate financial description of HTSF that reduces or that anticipates uncertainty may lead to financial tools and option pricing methods that put a premium on the value of HTSF markets, incentivizing investors to invest more in such firms.

New technology-based firms and their survival: The importance of business networks, and entrepreneurial business behaviour and competition

This longitudinal study identifies two core business dimensions important for New Technology-Based Firm (NTBF) survival. These business dimensions are business networks, and entrepreneurial business behaviour and competition. Data was collected from 131 small high-technology firms located in incubators initially in 2005, when most were almost three years old, and again in 2014. A factor analysis was conducted using 17 variables, and a correlation analysis was then performed. Four control variables were also included in the analysis to separate the performance that was due to the firm and the performance that was due to the incubators. Further, three latent variables were developed from the two business dimensions. The findings from this study confirm the importance of business networks and explain how the behaviour and competition of NTBFs during their initial three years may impact firm survival. The latent variables of business and patent advice also had a significant relationship with firm survival.

Reinventing Supplier Innovation Relationships

OVERVIEW:IRI firms constantly strive to improve their innovative capacity. Accessing external innovation is a central theme of this activity. While much has been made of accessing technology from universities, small high technology firms, and other non-affiliated entities, IRI executives are looking to a historical source of support: the supplier community. The purpose of this article is to describe nine better practices that help IRI customer and supplier firms bring more and more effective innovation to market. The nine practices were identified by interviewing both the R&D manager and procurement manager in eight customer firms and both the R&D manager and sales manager in eight supplier firms through workshops and individual interviews.

Fostering business growth and commercialisation processes in small high technology firms

Considerable policy and research efforts have been directed at fostering the growth of small high technology firms to encourage growth. Part of that growth is commercialisation, particularly in the high–technology sector. This study illuminates the relationship between the commercialisation process and business growth in that sector. Case studies of small, knowledge–intensive business services firms show that firm–related growth follows a phased route associated with particular activities in the commercialisation process, and furthermore, that for small firms the challenges of commercialisation may jeopardise their growth. However, the study also reveals that successful commercialisation may beget relatively high levels of firm growth.

Perspectives on SMEs and the entrepreneurial marketing of intellectual property

Of all the challenges which face business, the discovery, exploitation, retention and protection of intellectual property have been identified as the most serious within the context of small high technology firms and restricting our scope to technology-related intellectual property (IP), the marketing competencies necessary for successful IP marketing are examined. Following a review of the relevant literature, the question that arises is whether mainstream marketing principles are sufficient to service the needs of technology enabled but resource limited SMEs or whether the adoption of entrepreneurial marketing is more appropriate?

The Evolution of Social Space and Boundaries: The Case of Small High Technology Firms

This paper reports the research findings for understanding social space and boundaries in small high technology firms within the context of creative leadership phenomena. Inspired by space and boundary theories, this study explored the concepts of entrepreneurship through small high technology ventures and the meaning given to space and boundaries by the leaders and followers as an inter-subjective phenomenon. By examining the ways the leaders and followers interact and the different forms of conversations and discourses that are being used by the leaders and followers, it is expected that the reality behind entrepreneurship, and the social space and boundaries could be uncovered. This study utilised a qualitative approach that adopts a phenomenological symbolic interactionism theoretical background. Specifically, this study employs a narrative inquiry method to capture the language and meaning in order to understand how social space and boundaries are constructed in small high technology firms. This study found that the social space of small high technology firms are constructed through trust, support, respect, recognition, and a democratic power relation. The findings indicate that the social boundaries of small high technology firms have a sense of companionship. This study contributes to a new knowledge that explains the space and boundaries of the social environment in the field of entrepreneurship.

BUSINESS MODELS IN THE COMMERCIALIZATION PROCESSES OF INNOVATION AMONG SMALL HIGH-TECHNOLOGY FIRMS

Small technology firms are currently facing increasingly severe competition in a dynamic business environment where an effective commercialization process may secure the survival of a venture and provide key benefits such as increases in turnover, profits and market share. However, technology firms have to be able to create the suitable business model for a new product commercialization in order to realize the economical potential and value. Therefore, it is important to increase our knowledge about the utilized business models in high technology sectors and their role as a part of new product commercialization and innovation management. Using data from 12 small technology firms, this study shows that business model creates an operational level of commercialization process and it can help managers to plan the value delivery through the process phases. Despite the trend toward opening up research and development and commercialization processes in the high technology fields, small high technology firms in this study seems to pursue more closed approaches to R&D than in other business functions such as marketing and sales.

A study of how ICT capabilities can influence dynamic capabilities

Purpose– Prior studies have argued that small firms with dynamic capabilities can revise and reconfigure their internal resources to meet the uncertainties of their business environment. However, there is a lack of understanding of how they can develop such critical capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to propose that small firms can employ information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities as a facilitator for developing dynamic capabilities. Thus, the study builds on resource-based view (RBV) literature and information systems (IS) literature by examining the influence of ICT capabilities on the dynamic capabilities of small firms.Design/methodology/approach– Several hypotheses were tested by analysing the survey data from 291 small high-technology firms in Sweden.Findings– The results reveal that ICT capabilities influence dynamic capabilities of small firms. More specifically, the ICT use for internal efficiency positively influences adoptive capabilities, collaborative use of ICT positively influences networking capabilities, and ICT use for communications positively influences both adaptive and innovation capabilities. Consequently, the results suggest that the different components of ICT capabilities facilitate the development of the different organizational capabilities that together represent dynamic capabilities and thus, can contribute to a small firm’s competitive advantage.Practical implications– This study has few implications for the managers and CEO’s of small high-technology firms. First, by prioritizing ICT capabilities, small firms can benefit from the development of dynamic capabilities that will support them to meet the challenges of turbulent business environment. Second, because small firms usually lack internal resources (i.e. financial resources and competence), the study provides more specific direction on how they can strategically invest and build different components of ICT that will positively influence their adaptive, absorptive, innovative, and network capabilities.Originality/value– The study provides an alternative view of how ICT capabilities influence the performance of small firms, and outlines how such capabilities influence the development of dynamic capabilities. Therefore, the study in hand contributes to the RBV and IS literature by specifically linking the components of ICT capabilities to dynamic capabilities and its related sub-capabilities.

Country of origin and network effects on internationalization: A comparative study of SMEs from an emerging and developed economy

This study examines the internationalization of high technology small and medium enterprises (HTSMEs). It explores how they develop and use networks to penetrate their first foreign market relying on information collected via direct interviews with the CEOs or founders of 58 high technology small firms that operate internationally. It uses mixed methods to discuss the network building mechanisms identified — client–supplier relationships, existing personal contacts, contacts acquired by chance, and contacts acquired through specific strategies. The findings provide the basis for developing propositions for further comparative analyses of the internationalization of HTSMEs based in emerging and developed markets. The study contributes to the literature on networks, internationalization and international entrepreneurship.

Open innovation and its relevance to industrial research and development: The case of high-technology small firms

Recently, there has been increasing interest in the principle of open innovation and its relevance to our understanding of innovation in modern industry. This article relates these ideas to the specific, yet important, case of innovation in high-technology small firms (HTSFs). HTSFs are of interest since they have produced a significant number of the most important innovations in the high-technology sectors over the past 30 years. Certainly as far as HTSFs are concerned, it is argued that the ideas behind greater openness during innovation are not well suited to the way in which this type of firm innovates. Moreover, it is argued more generally that the work of Chesbrough can be criticised for overstating the potential for greater openness in terms of industrial research and development, since a degree of openness has always existed, while simultaneously understating the merits of closed innovation systems.

Initiatives in benchmarking innovation management in small high-technology firms: a case study in the Brazilian digital communications manufacturing sector

Résumé Ces dernières années, le gouvernement brésilien a fait la promotion des initiatives d’innovation pour les PME et grandes entreprises. Parmi ces initiatives, un programme de benchmarking – développé par l’Institut Euvaldo Lodi de Santa Catarina, État de Santa Catarina, Brésil - a été lancé, visant à évaluer la performance actuelle et les niveaux pratiqués concernant l’innovation dans les PME Brésiliennes pour ensuite les comparer à une base de données internationale rassemblant des informations provenant de plus d’un millier d’entreprises de 32 pays différents. Dans cet article, nous présentons une étude de cas basée sur une PME dans le secteur manufacturier de la communication numérique au Brésil qui a fait face aux défis imposés par ce programme de performance. L’entreprise étudiée (à l’instar de quatre autres entreprises) a été sélectionnée pour ce projet pilote de l’état de Santa Catarina, en raison de sa technologie et de ses stratégies de développement de produits ainsi que pour avoir été récompensée pour sa R&D et ses pratiques innovantes à plusieurs reprises au niveau étatique et national. Grâce à des enquêtes bibliographiques et des études sur place dans l’entreprise pendant la période 2006-2010, nous présentons comment l’entreprise a pu relever les défis imposés par le programme de performance, nous expliquons comment cette dernière a évolué et les perspectives qui s’offrent à elle. Nous concluons par l’évaluation des bénéfices de l’entreprise par rapport à son programme de gestion de l’innovation.

Innovation and export performance: a study of Italian high-tech SMEs

The objective of the paper is to examine the influence of innovation measures on the export intensity of Italian high technology small and medium firms. In fact, despite a growing number of empirical studies attempting to guide the approximation of the value of innovation and its relative impact on the export intensity, a distinction between innovation input and output indicators, both internal and external to the firms has not been clearly established. Drawing on the innovation and export management literature, we used a sample of Italian firms operating in the high tech settings within the manufacturing industry (HTSMEs). Applying a 3 years lag time approach, we ran various Tobit regression models. Our empirical results revealed that: (1) RD (2) the use of ‘Universities’ as external RD (3) ‘Product innovations’ and the ‘Turnover derived from innovative activities’ positively and significantly affect the export intensity of firms in our sample.

Learning for innovation in high-technology small firms

Most literature pertaining to organisational learning and performance remains conceptual. On the basis of theoretical findings reported in the previous strategic and knowledge management literature, the proposed model offers an empirical means to study the links among organisational learning, innovation and company performance. The derived constructs, applied to a sample of 110 high-tech small firms and used to test the model, indicate a positive relationship among the three factors; moreover, company age moderates these results. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding how to capture and share knowledge for small firm managers.

Absorptive capacity and the reach of collaboration in high technology small firms

The current paper is concerned with exploring the role of absorptive capacity in extending the reach of innovation-related collaboration in high technology small firms. Drawing on survey data from a sample of 316 Dutch high-tech small firms, engaged in 1245 collaborations, we explore the relationship between R&D expenditure and distance to collaboration partners. In general terms, we find most partners to be ‘local’. However, controlling for a variety of potential influences, higher R&D expenditure is positively related to collaboration with more distant organizations. The implications of our results for policy, practice and future research are discussed.

Mitigating theoretical and coverage biases in the design of theory-building research: an example from international entrepreneurship

In this paper, we advance a three-stage theory-building framework to assist scholars in addressing theoretical and coverage biases by means of the appropriate design of cross-domain theory-building research. In our discussion, we use an example from research in international entrepreneurship, which has been emerging as a cross-domain area for the entrepreneurship and international business research communities since the mid-1990s. Theoretical bias can stem from the situation where the conceptualisation of a phenomenon whose research is currently emerging and depends upon several of the established disciplines of social science and their sub-domains, is in fact dominated by the theoretical approaches of a single domain. As to the coverage bias, the somewhat novel research domain of international entrepreneurship provides us with a means to illustrate how research in an emerging domain tends to focus on positive growth only and rarely takes appropriately into account companies that fare less well; for instance, accounting for survivor bias would require that scholars carefully acknowledge firms that go out of business for one reason or another. Observations from a longitudinal, multiple-case study research on the de-internationalisation of small high-technology firms is used to exemplify the structure of our framework.

Managing Innovation in Small High-technology Firms: A Case Study in Brazil

Evaluating innovation competence and practices is a significant and complex issue for many contemporary organizations and it presents itself as a challenge for forthcoming initiatives. In this article, we present the case study of a small hightechnology firm. Cianet Networking is a digital communication solutions manufacturer in Brazil that went through the implementation of an innovation management assessment system. This article reports the challenges the firm faced through the diagnosing/benchmarking and action plan proposal phases as well as the challenges facing the implementation phase. This system helped the firm to understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as to establish action plans in order to achieve higher performance. Since the beginning of the implementation, the results have corroborated the

Innovation support services and commercialisation process of innovation in small technology firms

Commercialisation process of innovation is crucial among small technology firms particularly in a dynamic business environment. Particularly, small high technology firms are dependent on the regional system of innovation (RIS) and its ability to support and supplement the commercialisation process through innovation support services (ISS). Therefore, it is essential to respond to their needs in terms of both the type of service and quality of delivery to develop the support mechanisms for the small technology firms. Using the multiple case study methodology, this research attempts to answer what kind of ISS small healthcare technology firms use during the commercialisation process of innovation. In addition, this paper presents how these services should be developed and contributed in order to enhance the commercialisation process of innovation. Results indicate that small technology firms are using different kind of ISS during their commercialisation process of innovation. In addition, utilisation and the content of the ISS varying between the stages of the commercialisation process. More attention should be paid for increase needs orientation of the process of delivering services and adaptation of innovation services to the respective stage of development of each business.