What and how do SMEs gain by going international? A longitudinal investigation of financial and intellectual resource growth

This study examines the accumulation of financial and intellectual resources of U.S.-based biopharmaceutical SMEs. We find that internationalized SMEs experience better financial resource growth than domestic market-focused SMEs only in the long run. While international expansion per se does not enable SMEs to accumulate more intellectual resources than via domestic expansion, it exerts a positive impact over time for SMEs with strong alliance capabilities. Moreover, we show that alliance capabilities are more important than in-house technological capabilities for key resource accumulation of internationalized SMEs over time. Our results infer that SMEs gain the benefits of resource exploration via international expansion.     

基于战略联盟的生物制药企业技术合作创新模式研究

随着生物技术发展、经济全球化和市场需求的风云变幻,市场的不确定性风险越来越大,技术创新正在成为生物制药企业未来增长的主要源泉。在激烈的市场竞争当中,单个企业间的竞争正在逐渐演变成联盟之间的技术竞争。本文分析并建立横向联盟技术创新模式、纵向联盟技术创新模式和补缺联盟技术创新模式,以此推进生物制药企业技术合作创新的研究。     

Divergent and convergent logic of firms: Barriers and enablers for development and commercialization of innovations

This paper describes and discusses similarities and differences in the priorities, interests, and interactional goals of companies involved in the development and commercialization of innovation. We refer to such priorities, interests, and interactional goals as the logic of firms, and point to how differences among companies in these regards may enable or inhibit the development and commercialization of innovation. A case study in drug development, from a Taiwanese biopharmaceutical, illustrates two types of innovations: generic and novel drug development. Findings suggest how logic places focus on how certain actors may be more motivated toward innovation, but also on how the logic portrayed by actors can promote certain types of innovations (in this case generic ones), while inhibiting others (novel innovations). The paper concludes that companies need to have convergent logic (i.e. have the same priorities and similar or complementary interests and interaction goals) if an innovation process is to be successful. The focus on priorities, interests, and interactional goals of companies in innovation processes complements previous research that has primarily focused on the actual interaction, not what motivates it. The construct of shared logic nets as a means of analyzing convergent logic and gaps between different types of logic help to understand enablers and barriers to innovation.     

Antecedents and relative performance of sourcing choices for new product development projects

Given the complexity of sourcing choices in R&D, driven by conflicting points of difference, scholars have struggled to formulate clear theoretical predictions about which sourcing choices lead to superior performance. Our study contributes to the elucidation of this question by studying both the antecedents and performance consequences (project cost and duration) of alternative sourcing choices in the context of new product development, thus bridging two rarely intersecting streams of research to discover unique insights. We draw from the transaction cost economics (TCE) and organizational learning theory to account for the interdependence of cost- and non-cost related factors in firms’ sourcing choices. Results from our empirical analysis, using data on clinical trials in the global biopharmaceutical industry, show that greater project complexity, project stage uncertainty, and prior sourcing experience determine the sourcing choices a firm makes. We also establish that alternative sourcing choices vary in their ability to minimize project cost versus project duration, and show that prior experience with a sourcing choice is an important moderator of project performance, in addition to being one of the determinants of sourcing choice.     

Knowledge-flows and firm performance

This study advances the understanding of how knowledge-flows impact on firm performance. Incorporating recent research on the knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper tests and extends the knowledge flow model by using more fine-grained measures and by proposing a nonlinear effect. This study tests the predicted effects in a longitudinal research design with data on a global sample of public biopharmaceutical firms. The results largely support the expectation that knowledge-flows largely have a nonlinear impact on firm performance. However, one traditional measure of knowledge-flows, geographical location, turns out to have no significant influence in the extended model. The paper explains the implications of these findings for practice and research.     

A longitudinal micro-foundational investigation into ambidextrous practices in an international alliance context–A case of a biopharma EMNE

This paper explores the development of an ambidextrous context in a rapidly growing emerging market multinational (EMNE), thus unbundling cultural and structural complexities. We use the micro-foundational lens of ambidexterity to explore and identify different processes, structures and mechanisms that underpin the development of ambidextrous practices in the EMNE. We adopt a longitudinal case study design to trace the evolution of the EMNE, which during the initial phases of its existence focused on supplying industrial enzymes and refined its technical base. In subsequent years, it exploited its technical base to emerge as a full-fledged biopharmaceutical EMNE and adopted strategic partnerships with international companies to explore new knowledge. Our novel and rich research context also provides us with insights on how this EMNE exploited its technological knowledge, whilst utilizing strategic alliances to simultaneously engage in exploratory activities. Through the micro-foundational lens of ambidexterity, we uncover the critical role played by its leadership in addressing paradoxical tensions for simultaneously managing exploitation and exploration in an international strategic alliance context.     

Configuring absorptive capacity as a key process for research intensive firms

Absorptive capacity is a dynamic capability which creates new firm resources by searching, acquiring, assimilating, transforming and exploiting external knowledge with internal resources and act as a process framework for innovation. Despite being one of the most frequently cited strategic management concepts, absorptive capacity as a dynamic capability has limited empirical evidence with unverified assumptions. The concept is at risk of reification. With this study we contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence for absorptive capacity which challenge the assumptions of how the construct is configured. We follow the strategic factor of intellectual property rights (IPR) in European biopharmaceutical firms using a qualitative process study with temporal bracketing. By tracking IPR, we found evidence for absorptive capacity in all firms we studied, but the process framework in use is different to Zahra and George’s (2002. Acad. Manage. Rev. 27, 185–203) and Todorova and Durisin’s (2007. Acad. Manage. Rev. 32, 774–786) theoretical models. Based on our evidence and literature review we develop some theoretical insights and propose a modified absorptive capacity model. This new model puts a greater emphasis on assimilating knowledge from outside the firm and provides more clarity on how research intensive firms might use absorptive capacity.     

高职公共英语教学引入ESP理念的改革与实践——以《药品商贸英语》为例

介绍了辽宁科技学院《药品商贸英语》课程建设的若干实践经验，如模块化的教学内容、项目化的教学过程、立体化的教学评估等。实现了高职公共英语教学由基础到行业的华丽转身，为高职公共英语教学引入ESP理念做了有益探索和初步尝试。     

Institutionalizing technoscience: Post-genomic technologies and the case of systems biology

Somewhat counter-intuitively, new drug development productivity has fallen at major pharmaceutical companies during the period of swift growth in scientific know-how during the last two decades. After substantial hype, genomics has been complemented by post-genomic technologies serving as the new hope for the future in terms of producing new therapies. Such post-genomic technologies, including systems biology and other biocomputational and bioinformatics approaches, are embedded in institutional logics both drawing on shared or idiosyncratic enactments of historical conditions and expectations for the future. This paper reports on a study based on interviews with scientists at a major pharmaceutical company, three biotechnology firms, and two academic research universities, suggesting that technoscientific approaches and frameworks are embedded in rhetoric advancing institutional logics constituting the organizing principles that shape the behavior of the actors in a field. Such rhetoric consists of narratives combining accounts of practices and their merits and shortcomings, beliefs, professional ideologies, and historical accomplishments.     

Middle-ground players in dynamic imitative markets: global entry strategies of Korean firms in the biosimilars market

ABSTRACT

This study examines the strategies used to enter the biosimilars market – the emerging biogeneric market – by five Korean biopharmaceutical firms. The analysis is based on a conceptual framework that characterises the use of imitative innovation by middle-ground firms. These middle-ground firms are positioned between globally innovative firms from major developed economies and latecomer firms from large emerging economies. The study finds that the five Korean firms used three entry modes that resemble the typology of strategies commonly used in the previous catch-up stage: exploiting scale economies and specialisation. The study also reveals the risk and potential of each entry mode.