The growth of small high-tech firms: destinies and destinations of Innovation Centre 'graduates'

Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to the activity of innovation or technology centres and to their role in nurturing small firms. There is relatively little systematic evidence on the survival and performance of such firms, either during or after their tenancy of these centres. This article reports the preliminary findings of a survey of over fifty companies which 'graduated' from St John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge over the first eight years of its existence.     

A comparison of marketing approaches used by high-tech firms: 1985 versus 2001

The authors present a follow-up to a study conducted in 1985 that investigates the use of marketing approaches used by high-tech firms. The firms were surveyed to determine if their use of marketing approaches has changed. The 2001 study confirms the emergence of Web-based marketing approaches as of particular importance to high-tech firms. The findings should serve as a reference for practitioners to assess their marketing efforts and to evaluate the change in tactics used to market high-tech firms.     

Intellectual capital drivers of product and managerial innovation in high-tech and low-tech firms

There is widespread understanding that intellectual capital (IC), consisting of the valuable knowledge resources of an organization, is a key enabler of innovation activities; however, little is known about the more specific contingencies impacting the relationship between IC and innovation. Thus, this article examines firm technology level and innovation type as contingency variables. It was argued that because high-tech and low-tech firms differ in terms of several knowledge characteristics (complexity, tacitness and pace of renovation), it is likely that their innovation performance is supported by different combinations of IC components. Furthermore, differences between product/service and managerial innovation could also lead to changes in the degree of relevance of various IC components. To test these contingency hypotheses, a survey dataset collected from 180 Spanish companies is analysed using structural equation modelling. The results demonstrate that both firm's technology level and type of innovation affect how IC influences innovation performance. The findings contribute to a knowledge-based perspective on innovation and pave the way for a more context-sensitive and contingency-mindful approach to understanding innovation and knowledge-based value creation.     

Best new product development and management practices in the Korean high-tech industry

This paper investigates critical factors affecting the likelihood of new product success and effective new product development (NPD) models for Korean high-tech firms. Empirical results suggest that successful projects differ from unsuccessful projects in project environment, skills and resources, project leadership, strategic fit, efficient NPD process, and effective product-positioning strategies.This study confirmed that efficient and effective new product development and management were important determinants of high-tech firms' competitive advantage. Furthermore, the findings of this study raised questions about some commonly held beliefs when compared with Western studies focusing on high-tech industries.     

Technological communities and the diffusion of knowledge

The external acquisition of technological knowledge is a central theme in research on technology management. In this paper it is argued that technological communities may provide a useful unit of analysis to study information and knowledge exchange among scientists and engineers working on a particular research agenda. Based on a worldwide survey of more than 700 individuals engaged in the research and development of neural network technology, the dynamics within that particular community are explored. The primary focus is to compare the characteristics of academic and industrial researchers, with special attention given to the timing of their entry into the field.     

Antecedents of open innovation at the project level: empirical analysis of Korean firms

The concept of open innovation has recently gained wide academic attention, as it seems to have significant impact for company performance. Most empirical investigations about this emerging concept have been case studies of successful early adopters of open innovation, and their analyses have largely been at the company level. Although case studies at that level provide meaningful implications, the new phenomena merit a more in‐depth examination: that is, we need to collect and analyze data on multiple companies to explore more systematic findings about open innovations across companies. Moreover, analyses may need to go down to the individual project rather than the whole company level because innovation activities are often conducted as part of research and development (R&D) projects. To meet these needs, this study examines companies' open innovation efforts at the level of the individual R&D project. Specifically, the present study focuses on project‐level openness to better understand the mechanisms of open innovation. It explores systematic relationships between various antecedent factors and the degree of openness. Project‐level openness could be affected by team and task characteristics, such as team size, learning distance, strategic importance, technology and market uncertainty, and relevance to the main business. Relevant data collected from 303 companies in Korea were used to identify the antecedents that affect inbound and outbound openness. The research findings are expected to help provide a concrete theoretical framework suited for more generalized application and further practical development of open innovation strategy.     

Guanxi and organizational dynamics: organizational networking in Chinese firms

This paper focuses on the utilization of guanxi, which is an important cultural and social element in China, and the impact of guanxi on firm performance. Although guanxi is embedded in every aspect of Chinese social life, companies demonstrate different needs and capacity for guanxi cultivation. Chinese firms develop guanxi as a strategic mechanism to overcome competitive and resource disadvantages by cooperating and exchanging favors with competitive forces and government authorities. We develop an integrative framework theorizing guanxi utilization according to institutional, strategic, and organizational factors, and we explore the impact of guanxi on firm performance, primarily sales growth and net profit growth. Our findings, based on a survey of 128 firms in central China, provide strong support that institutional, strategic, and organizational factors are critical determinants of guanxi with competitive forces. However, only institutional and strategic factors are significant for guanxi utilization with government authorities. In general, guanxi leads to higher firm performance, but is limited to increased sales growth, and has little impact on profit growth. Guanxi benefits market expansion and competitive positioning of firms, but does not enhance internal operations. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Appropriability mechanisms for manufacturing and service firms: the contingencies of openness and knowledge intensity

Conventional wisdom argues that appropriating returns from innovation requires protection mechanisms. However, there will be limits to the effectiveness of formal and informal appropriability mechanisms for innovation performance. Their effectiveness will be contingent on the nature of the knowledge that firms are trying to protect and the openness of their innovation strategy (sharing knowledge while attempting to protect knowledge is known as the ‘paradox of openness’). Do these boundary conditions apply to both manufacturing and service firms equally though? Analyzing data from the UK Community Innovation Survey, this study provides evidence for a continuum – from discrete product manufacturing firms, whose products rely heavily on codified, explicit knowledge and for which formal methods are strongly associated with innovation performance, to knowledge-intensive service firms, which tend to rely more on complex tacit knowledge and for which innovation is linked to informal, not formal, appropriability. The findings show that the paradox of openness is a limited problem for service firms. The benefits of collaboration for innovation performance outweigh any reduction in the effectiveness of appropriability. For manufacturers, the benefits of collaboration disappear with high formal appropriability, and thus, discrete product manufacturers, contrary to conventional wisdom, may find it beneficial to reduce collaboration breadth and invest in informal appropriability mechanisms. Knowledge-intensive servitized manufacturers find formal methods effective but only with no or minimal collaboration.     

Marketing communication strategies in support of product launch: An empirical study of Taiwanese high-tech firms

To understand the mechanisms that underlie marketing communication support for product launches, the authors conduct an empirical study and propose a conceptual framework that depicts the relationships between informational/transformational or elaborational/relational messages and their effectiveness. The hypothesized message-communication and message-sales effect links are moderated by three communication process characteristics: message clarity, message uniformity, and integration of the communication. On the basis of data collected from an industrial survey of 101 high-tech firms in Taiwan, the authors find that informational and relational messages offer greater support for new products. Whereas message clarity and integration of communication expectedly demonstrate positive moderating effects on message-performance links, message uniformity only affects messages-sales effect relationships. The authors explore research insights and discuss implications for both academia and practitioners from the perspectives of new product management and integrated marketing communications.     

People matter: commitment to employees,strategy and performance in Korean firms

The human element of enterprise is argued to be a vital resource for strategy execution. We show in a study of Korean businesses how an organization’s commitment to its employees’ well‐being (OCE) can aid in the profitable execution of its positioning strategies. We found that OCE, by itself, sometimes has a weakly positive association with return on assets (ROA). But far more important, we found that ROA is strongly and positively influenced by the interaction between OCE and the dedicated pursuit of Porter’s (1980) strategies for achieving competitive advantage: these are cost leadership, marketing differentiation and innovative differentiation. In short, dedicated positioning strategies appear to be executed more effectively where organizations exhibit a high level of commitment to their employees; and conversely, OCE is apt to have a strong impact on ROA only in the context of a dedicated, that is intensive and thorough, positioning strategy. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technological communities and the diffusion of knowledge: a replication and validation

In a previous paper, we have argued that technological communities provide a useful level of analysis to examine information and knowledge flows among researchers. Based on an international survey of more than 700 scientists and engineers engaged in the development of neural network technology, the information and knowledge exchange patterns of two important subsets of that particular technological community, i.e. academic researchers and industrial researchers, were explored. The analyses demonstrated that industrial researchers, even if they are more commercially oriented than their colleagues in academia, recognise the professional community as a relevant locus of information and knowledge. An obvious methodological need exists, though, to generalize beyond the neural networks community. This is the aim of the present paper. Based on questionnaire surveys of researchers belonging to two other technological communities, the empirical results from the neural network community study are replicated and, to a large extent, validated.     

Influences of cross-functional collaboration and knowledge creation on technology commercialization: Evidence from high-tech industries

Technology commercialization (TC) contributes to maintaining the competitive advantage of high-tech firms, but although researchers have established that product innovation and new product development are enhanced by cross-functional collaboration and organizational knowledge activities, this may not be the case for TC. Drawing on the knowledge-based view and the influence of cross-functional collaboration, the main goal of this study is to unravel the relationships among cross-functional collaboration, knowledge creation and TC performance in the high-tech industry context. Empirical findings from our survey of 203 marketing and R&D managers and employees in Taiwanese high-tech companies indicate that cross-function collaboration reveals fresh opportunities for creating knowledge and commercializing technologies. Our results also suggest that knowledge creation plays an important role in TC performance by partially mediating the relationship between cross-functional collaboration and TC performance. The contributions of this study provide new insights into industrial marketing literature by proposing a cross-functional collaboration-enabled TC model that takes into account the effect of knowledge creation.     

How does slack affect product innovation in high-tech Chinese firms: The contingent value of entrepreneurial orientation

Innovation scholars are interested in how slack affects product innovation in high-tech Chinese firms. We highlight that slack–innovation linkages may differ depending on whether slack is absorbed or unabsorbed, and argue that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) moderates the slack–innovation connection. Our empirical study of 308 high-tech Chinese firms suggests that unabsorbed slack is more strongly positively related with product innovation than is absorbed slack in high-tech settings. Meanwhile, firms with high levels of EO enjoy better effects between unabsorbed slack and innovation, but worse effects between absorbed slack and innovation. We also provide theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research.     

The practice of R&D management: An empirical study of Korean firms

This paper presents an empirical study on the practice of R&D management in a Newly Industrializing Country, Korea. Based on a review of literature, a survey framework has been generated. The data were collected from 73 laboratories of Korean private companies through a structured questionnaire, via mail and additional telephone interviews in some cases. The major findings concerning R&D planning, R&D project management and evaluation, and R&D personnel management are described. In Korea, substantial efforts have been made in order to enhance the efficiency of R&D management, though the practice of R&D management is by now in the unstructured/flexible phase. Beyond this study, more detailed research on the R&D management of Newly Industrializing Countries is needed.     

The diffusion of an organizational innovation: International data telecommunications and multinational industrial firms

The paper analyses the structural and technological determinants of the diffusion of international data network as a major technological and organizational innovation in a sample of 40 U.S. and European multinational firms in the period 1963–1980. According to the results faster adopters appeared to be large U.S. firms, exposed to worldwide competition, with inhouse telecommunication skills. Smaller European firms adopted the technology later, often pushed by the provision of ad hoc technical solutions by service and hardware marketing firms. Smaller latecomers with centralized management structures were, however, quicker in the diffusion process. Both in the interfirm and intrafirm diffusion ‘implicit knowledge’ was a more effective factor than R–D intensity.     

Industrial marketing firms and knowledge transfer: Toward a basic typology of community structures

Industrial firm boundaries are dynamic, changing with every new alliance or acquisition. As boundaries evolve, managers must develop organizational structures that effectively leverage knowledge. This paper presents and explains the analytical foundation of a typology of community structures, featuring the basic structures of Crew, Séance, and Guru. This typology is applied to three examples of knowledge transfer in industrial marketing. A competence exploitation example examines knowledge transfer between a firm and a subsidiary established primarily for increasing existing product sales in a new market. A competence creation example examines the community structures for utilizing the product and market knowledge of a subsidiary to benefit the firm's new product development decisions. The final example examines the “tech vs. touch” tradeoffs in interpersonal communication and knowledge transfer. The back-to-basics typology of community structures helps stimulate strategic thinking, and facilitates future explorations of knowledge management in industrial marketing.     

Outsourcing reverse logistics of high-tech manufacturing firms by using a systematic decision-making approach: TFT-LCD sector in Taiwan

Reverse logistics are increasingly crucial for the supply chain strategy of global high-tech manufacturing firms. As reverse logistics operations are significantly more complex than traditional manufacturing supply chains, many high-tech manufacturers are examining the feasibility of outsourcing reverse logistics activities to third party logistics providers (3PLs) from a strategic planning perspective. Internal resources and capabilities are thus examined from a resource-based perspective to identify which reverse logistics service requirements could be fulfilled in-house or outsourced. Therefore, this work presents a systematic approach using the analytical network process (ANP) not only to investigate the relative importance of reverse logistics service requirements, but also to select an appropriate 3PL. Empirical results based on the case of the TFT-LCD sector in Taiwan indicate that information technology management is of priority concern in reverse logistics services. In addition to providing a valuable reference for manufacturers concerned with service requirements for outsourcing, results of this study significantly contribute to the efforts of 3PLs in evaluating whether they comply with potential customer requirements based on their service capabilities.     

Technology policy for the knowledge economy: Public support to young ICT service firms

Public intervention in high-tech sectors is often advocated to resolve market imperfections that may possibly limit the viability of young high-tech enterprises. Although some European countries have adopted national government support policies that explicitly target this type of firm, in Italy and in other EU countries, there are no national support measures specifically designed for them. The paper focuses on the information and communication technologies (ICT) services sector in Italy. It aims to investigate whether both horizontal general-purpose direct support mechanisms at the national level and financial support measures provided by local administrative entities (which rarely have been specific to the ICT sector) permit an efficient allocation of public funds.     

An econometric approach for evaluating the linkages between broadband and knowledge intensive firms

In addition to highlighting improvements in the availability and speed of broadband as a national priority, the National Broadband Plan also includes several recommendations for improving access and use of broadband by small businesses. The plan also recommends economic development officials include broadband in their local development strategies. While these are certainly import goals, more research is needed to evaluate how broadband impacts the regional business environment, and regional capacity to retain and attract businesses in particular industries. In order to further our understanding about the linkages between broadband and businesses, and the ability of places to retain and attract businesses in particular industries, this study will develop and estimate econometric models to better understand the linkages between broadband and firms in the knowledge intensive sector. Specifically, 54 metropolitan area specific models will be developed to examine regional variations in the linkages between broadband and firms in the knowledge intensive sector in 2004. Model results highlight the importance of broadband to knowledge firms in all but five metropolitan areas across the U.S. They also reveal variations in the impact of broadband on knowledge firm presence related to metropolitan area size and industrial legacy.     

Cluster and performance in foreign firms: The role of resources, knowledge, and trust

Clustering, the grouping of firms in close geographic proximity to one another, can enhance the performance of affiliated firms by providing access to complementary resources. Despite that some studies have produced empirical evidence supporting the positive impact of clustering, other studies have found no such evidence. Consequently, the consideration of clustering alone to explain differences in firm performance may be insufficient. This study seeks to determine whether the enhancement of firm performance comes as a consequence of clustering at the location level, interorganizational trust at the relationship level, or resource and knowledge management (i.e., the mechanisms of system dependence) at the firm level. Examining a sample group of Taiwanese manufacturers investing in China, we find that interorganizational trust, resources, and the mechanisms of system dependence all have a positive impact on performance. Further, we find that resources interact with clustering to positively impact firm performance.