Aard Groen

Strong Ties as Sources of New Knowledge: How Small Firms Innovate through Bridging Capabilities

While extant literature assumes an inverted U‐shaped relationship between tie‐strength and new knowledge acquisition, our study suggests a positive, curvilinear relationship. Our multiple case study shows that firms use specific relational capabilities—which we define “bridging capabilities”—to acquire new knowledge. These bridging capabilities mitigate the risk of overembeddedness in strong ties through increasing multiplexity, that is, through establishing and leveraging multiple relations within a single tie. Our findings suggest that small firms should invest more in the exploration of strong ties instead of increasing their weak tie network. Doing so helps them to reduce alliance complexity, thereby increasing alliance management efficiency and alliance ambidexterity.

Managing and organising collaborative improvement: a system integrator perspective

More than ever, companies are challenged to improve their performance and respond quickly and accurately to changes within the market. Because of external dynamics, competition is moving towards the level of networks of organisations, and thus the individual firm is an inadequate entity for identifying improvements. The concept of continuous improvement must be applied and used in inter-organisational settings, leading to the concept of collaborative improvement. In order to gain an insight and develop knowledge of the process of collaborative improvement from a system integrator perspective, we use the network model of actors. This paper will discuss some empirical findings on the scope, scale, skill and value, and social networking of collaborative improvement as part of the network model.

SME network characteristics vs. product innovativeness: how to achieve high innovation performance

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must on the one hand innovate for company survival with the appropriate degree of product innovativeness, and on the other they need to collaborate and focus on core competences for efficiency matters. This research examines the relation of network characteristics and product innovativeness on innovation performance in SMEs. We tested hypotheses on the relationship between these three variables via data gathered from 60 SMEs, active in the medical devices sector. In this context we aim to offer consensus on the theoretical and empirical question of whether or not network characteristics and product innovativeness have a direct effect on innovation performance of SMEs. Results show no significant direct effect of product innovativeness on innovation performance. A positive interaction effect of multiple network characteristics on innovation performance was found, which confirms the significant importance of network configuration on innovation performance for SMEs. It indicates that, for SMEs in a highly regulated sector like the medical devices sector, the interaction of network characteristics is of crucial importance for high innovation performance. It is the combination of network characteristics that counts

Managing Tensions in a High-tech Start-up

Answering the question of how enabling technology-based firms manage tensions in their development process, we focus on tensions related to balancing the need to explore new developments for future performance, with the need to exploit existing capabilities to generate sufficient value in the short term. Based on social system theory, we suggest that entrepreneurs use four types of functions to develop their business: goal attainment, pattern maintenance, social networking and economic optimization. Building sustainable firms requires the development of all four functions and the related types of capital (strategic, cultural, economic and social) up to a certain minimum; they must then be balanced in such a way that the exploration-exploitation tension can be dealt with adequately.Through a case study of the development of a sound measuring sensor, we illustrate the four types of functions and the accumulation of capitals by exploring a set of three propositions.

Social, cultural and human capital in European SMEs : an introduction

This paper provides an overview of this special issue on human, social and cultural capital effects on the SME. After providing initial definitions for these three concepts, it provides an overview of the other seven papers in the special issue, including research questions, methods used and key findings. As concluded in the other papers, each of these aspects can have an influence on SME performance.

Knowledge Integration by SMEs - Practice

Chaps. 1 and 2 outlined the relevance and difference of KM for SMEs and discussed the concept of knowledge integration (KI). These chapters were based on theory in diverse settings. The crucial question that was dropped there was how high-tech SMEs conduct KI in their NPD practice. Existing studies are of limited use for answering this question for several reasons. Firstly, while concentrating on knowledge identification and acquisition, they disregard the way knowledge is used within the company. Secondly, they pay little attention to the different types of knowledge that are needed during NPD. Thirdly, they do not accord the Internet the prominent position it deserves. This chapter addresses these deficiencies of existing research by reporting the findings of a systematic empirical investigation of KI for NPD in high-tech SMEs. The chapter is organized as follows. Sect. 3.2 discusses the research framework, followed by an explanation of method in Sect. 3.3. Sects. 3.4 and 3.5 present the results of our study, and in Sect. 3.6 we conclude and discuss its implications.

Teaching diversity in technology entrepreneurship : some experiences from The Netherlands and France

In a dialogue on teaching technology entrepreneurship key questions, related to a framework of training rigour, based on several pedagogical instruments from textbook to simulation are presented. Means (textbooks and handbooks) cannot be longer exclusively US based, since the entrepreneurship educational needs outside the USA seems to be different in certain aspects. We will start from a problem statement based on the European situation. It addresses the issue of European diversity in culture in an integrated way using experience of three entrepreneurship centres. The conclusions compare the impact of the USA and the special role for Europe from an intercultural perspective. Our results also lead to some implications for a special role of technology entrepreneurship education as a form of interactive knowledge management between stakeholders giving substance to the educational partner model proposals by Mintzberg and Gosling and Ferris.

Selection of a portfolio of R & D projects

While portfolios of research are increasingly discussed, a portfolio perspective is infrequently taken when selecting two or more projects. Consequently, this chapter considers the current state of knowledge in project and portfolio selection, identifies why we can and cannot apply knowledge from the highly developed field of financial portfolio management, and finally consideration is given to what still needs to be done in this field. Perhaps more troubling is the fact that many R&D managers cannot appreciably perceive improved decisions in terms of project selection when using best practices as described in the management literature (Chien, 2002). This is a challenge but also an opportunity to provide managers with tools that lead to better decisions in practice. Decision makers currently have several tools that can be used to rank projects and to assign relative importance weights to individual projects. Projects are typically measured individually based on merit, with little or no consideration of greater strategic goals or their impact on other projects being considered for approval. For example, it is common for decision makers to approve several research projects that make use of a single methodology in a narrow area of science based on merit alone – placing several bets in a specific research methodology

Estimating business value of academic research outcomes: towards a multi-dimensional approach

As academic entrepreneurship develops, questions of business valuation of research become more important. Therefore, there is a need to develop methods for value assessment of academic research. Conventional business valuation models for technology are usually financially oriented and will only disclose its economic value. However, this under specifies the value of university-industry transactions. The value of an invention not only depends on economic value but also on strategic, cultural or social value added to the applicant of the invention: usually a company. We introduce gross business value, being a function over time of these four dimensions of value and propose to position this gross business value of an academic technological invention within a three-dimensional model, with the research value creation process on the X-axis, the type of research on the Y-axis and its contribution to the applicants four types of capitals at the Z-axis.

Antecedents and effects of individual absorptive capacity: a micro-foundational perspective on open innovation

Purpose The paper aims to understand how individuals differ in individual absorptive capacity – their ability to recognize, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge. These individual absorptive capacities are a key knowledge management building block for an organization’s open innovation practices. The study examines individual antecedents – human capital, social capital and cognition – and innovation outcomes of individual absorptive capacity. Design/methodology/approach This is a quantitative study of 147 employees in a single medium-sized Dutch industrial firm. Based on a survey and structural equation modeling, the antecedents’ prior knowledge diversity, network diversity and cognitive style are examined in relation to individual absorptive capacity. Further, the mediating effects of individual absorptive capacity on its antecedents and innovation outcome are investigated. Findings The main findings are that prior knowledge diversity, external network diversity and a bisociative cognitive style explain differences in individual absorptive capacity. A bisociative cognitive style appears to be the most important factor. Also, this study finds that individual absorptive capacity mediates between its antecedents and individual innovation performance and is therefore a relevant factor to capture value from external knowledge sources. Research limitations/implications The study extends open innovation theory by exploring individual-level factors that explain the ability to capture value from external knowledge. It suggests that differences in open innovation practices are explained by heterogeneity at the individual level. Further, it explains how individuals’ potentials for open innovation are mediated by their absorptive capacities. These insights enable future researchers to further examine individual-level factors in knowledge management practices and to explore cross-level individual-organizational interactions for open innovation. Practical implications This paper highlights that individuals’ engagements in open innovation practices are explained not only by individuals’ motivations but also by their abilities to absorb external knowledge. Further, it helps managers to design knowledge management practices to promote employees’ absorptive capacities, to improve open innovation processes. Originality/value This study investigates the neglected individual-level factors of open innovation practices from a micro-foundational and knowledge management perspective. To our best knowledge, this is the first study to examine individual-level antecedents and outcomes of individual absorptive capacity.