Elias G. Carayannis

High-technology spin-offs from government R&D laboratories and research universities

Abstract The present paper examines the high-tech spin-off process through which a new company is formed from a parent organization. Here we investigate spin-offs from three U.S. Federal R&D laboratories in New Mexico, and from Japanese government laboratories and universities. The spin-off process is one important means of transferring and commercializing technological innovations. Our study of seven spin-off companies leads us to suggest a more complex definition than the conventional definition, which centers on (1) the technological innovation, and (2) the entrepreneurs who found the spin-off.

Architecting gloCal (global–local), real-virtual incubator networks (G-RVINs) as catalysts and accelerators of entrepreneurship in transitioning and developing economies: lessons learned and best practices from current development and business incubation practices

Entrepreneurship is at the heart of sustainable, organic growth for most developed, as well as transitioning and developing economies and incubators have often served as catalysts and even accelerators of entrepreneurial clusters formation and growth. Our premise is that this may be more so in less developed economies where incubators can help bridge knowledge, digital, socio-political and even cultural divides and help increase the availability, awareness, accessibility and affordability of financial, human, intellectual, and even social capital, the key ingredients of entrepreneurial success. Incubation has recently experienced increased attention as a model of start-up facilitation. Venture capitalists see incubators as a means to diversify risky investment portfolios, while would-be entrepreneurs approach incubators for start-up support. Incubators are faced with the challenge and the opportunity of managing both investment risks, as well as entrepreneurial risks. As an indication of their usefulness, more than a thousand incubators have been established in the last few years based on a number of different incubation business models (not-for-profit, for-profit, public/private entity, etc.), which we categorize in five incubator archetypes: the university incubator, the independent commercial incubator, the regional business incubator, the company-internal incubator, and the virtual incubator. In this paper, we propose an overarching incubator model that synthesizes elements and best practices emanating from the five archetypes empirically identified and also incorporates substantially higher economies of scale and scope, as well as global and local (gloCal) knowledge arbitrage potential. This paper presents an architectural blueprint for designing a gloCal, real and virtual network of incubators (G-RVIN) as a knowledge and innovation infra-structure and infra-technology which would link entrepreneurs and micro-entrepreneurs with local, regional, and global networks of customers, suppliers and complementors and thus help not only bridge, but also leverage, the diverse divides (digital, knowledge, cultural, socio-political, etc.). The implications of this archetype of new ventures incubation for facilitating both venture business activity and broad-based economic development are discussed and early findings from pilot projects in central and eastern Europe are discussed.

The Quintuple Helix innovation model: global warming as a challenge and driver for innovation

The Triple Helix innovation model focuses on university-industry-government relations. The Quadruple Helix embeds the Triple Helix by adding as a fourth helix the ‘media-based and culture-based public’ and ‘civil society’. The Quintuple Helix innovation model is even broader and more comprehensive by contextualizing the Quadruple Helix and by additionally adding the helix (and perspective) of the ‘natural environments of society’. The Triple Helix acknowledges explicitly the importance of higher education for innovation. However, in one line of interpretation it could be argued that the Triple Helix places the emphasis on knowledge production and innovation in the economy so it is compatible with the knowledge economy. The Quadruple Helix already encourages the perspective of the knowledge society, and of knowledge democracy for knowledge production and innovation. In a Quadruple Helix understanding, the sustainable development of a knowledge economy requires a coevolution with the knowledge society. The Quintuple Helix stresses the necessary socioecological transition of society and economy in the twenty-first century; therefore, the Quintuple Helix is ecologically sensitive. Within the framework of the Quintuple Helix innovation model, the natural environments of society and the economy also should be seen as drivers for knowledge production and innovation, therefore defining opportunities for the knowledge economy. The European Commission in 2009 identified the socioecological transition as a major challenge for the future roadmap of development. The Quintuple Helix supports here the formation of a win-win situation between ecology, knowledge and innovation, creating synergies between economy, society, and democracy. Global warming represents an area of ecological concern, to which the Quintuple Helix innovation model can be applied with greater potential.

FOSTERING SYNERGIES BETWEEN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGERIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COGNITION: THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Abstract In this paper, we try to understand the role of knowledge management in fostering a synergistic symbiosis between information technology and managerial and organizational cognition. Both information technology and knowledge management can be perceived as strategic enablers of managerial and organizational cognition. We synthesize classical cognition concepts and recent empirical experience with knowledge management applications to develop an organizational knowledge management model (the Organizational Cognition Spiral or OCS) and tool (the organizational knowledge network or OK net) for understanding and supporting managerial and organizational cognition.

Leveraging knowledge, learning, and innovation in forming strategic government–university–industry (GUI) R&D partnerships in the US, Germany, and France

The linkage between theory on knowledge management and strategic management provides a framework for understanding the imperative for collaborative research partnerships, particularly those involving government, university and industry actors. The emergence of collaboration is facilitated by the sharing of knowledge across organizational boundaries, which promotes the formation of trusted relationships and builds social capital for further cooperation. Furthermore, these partnerships are a vehicle for accelerating organizational learning and for coordinating trans-organizational “communities of innovation”. Understanding the nature, process, and content of such collaborative research and technological development ventures can endow with strategic insights both the government policy making and the corporate strategy crafting that informs, shapes, and evolves such partnerships. In particular, government and industry can learn from past experience on how to design intelligent trans-organizational knowledge interfaces to ensure that knowledge sharing occurs across organizational boundaries. A cross-sectional analysis of representative cases of GUIs from the US, Germany, and France, yields a preliminary list of key considerations and corresponding strategic management skills which firms must develop to participate in win–win–win GUI alliances.

Profiling a methodology for economic growth and convergence: learning from the EU e-procurement experience for central and eastern European countries

Abstract Recent improvements in Internet technology connectivity provide an opportunity to make procurement for goods and services more transparent and efficient. When used for public procurement, information technology can be utilized as a mean to achieve the main principles of perfect competition, namely, access to information, no barriers to entry (transparency), and a large number of participants in market exchange. In this paper, we argue that the electronic procurement, particularly in the public domain, is an effective policy tool to establish the fundamentals of market economy and hence increase country’s productivity, remove domestic barriers to international trade, and improve efficiency. The main focus of this paper is to examine the efforts of European Union to transform the procurement process to a more cost-effective and innovative process. Moreover, our goal is to demonstrate that ICT is a power tool that can induce the structural changes within and between countries, and will enable procurement-sensitive goods and services to move freely, fostering the competitiveness of European suppliers in domestic and world markets. An effective public procurement policy is fundamental to the success of the single market in achieving its objectives: to generate sustainable, long-term growth and create jobs, to foster the development of businesses capable of exploiting the opportunities generated by the single market and competitive in global markets, and to provide tax-payers and users of public services with best value for money. This paper will analyze and evaluate the electronic procurement projects carried out by European Commission to better understand how the use of new information technology supports the delivery of an effective public procurement policy. In the context of market opening and integration, the study will identify a number of key learning lessons based upon the experience of the European Union. The analysis of the data will provide a number of important results in relation to further actions to be undertaken by CEE countries, an action plan for follow-up and use of this research along with proposed recommendations for addressing the major issues for electronic public procurement development and use in the CEE region.

A cross-cultural learning strategy for entrepreneurship education: outline of key concepts and lessons learned from a comparative study of entrepreneurship students in France and the US

Abstract This paper attempts to analyze the first findings of a survey-driven study of entrepreneurship students at the undergraduate, graduate, and continuing (professional) education levels in France and in the US. Our findings, albeit derived from an early stage of our ongoing field research and more exploratory than normative at this point, indicate that at least on the French side, there are attitudes and perceptions that are less positive towards entrepreneurship and its impact, as well as more cynical towards situational and institutional factors that could provide a supportive environment for entrepreneurial ventures or act as impediments to its growth. Our results could provide insights for both entrepreneurship educators as well as economic development policy makers in identifying the maximum leverage and critical success and failure factors influencing educational programs as well as economic incentives targeted on the development of sustainable entrepreneurial culture and ventures in France and possibly other countries as well.

Winning by Co-Opeting in Strategic Government-University-Industry R&D Partnerships: The Power of Complex, Dynamic Knowledge Networks

There is increasing consensus among academic scholars, policy makers, and industry practitioners alike that the present and future secret of business survival and prosperity lies in strategic partnering and co-opeting successfully rather than outright competition. This is particularly so in knowledge-intensive, highly complex, and dynamic environments such as all high technology industries (semiconductors, aerospace, software, telecommunications, etc.), where collaborating to compete in knowledge generation and exchange has become so pervasive it is often hard to notice having become the standard modus operandi (from cross-licensing agreements to strategic complementarity in products and services). For example, witness the case of the Microsoft/Intel collaboration or “Wintel” alliance.We propose a dynamic, learning-driven framework which uses the game theoretic perspective, drawing principally from the notion of “co-opetition” (coined by Ray Noorda, former CEO of Novell, and developed by Brandenburger and Nalebuff [1996]), to examine how a knowledge generating and leveraging value-maximizing organization (not just a for-profit firm), should position itself in relation to the range of players with whom the organization interacts (in terms of market relationships, generating and pooling of strategic knowledge assets including intellectual property rights and human capital, and other dimensions) to maximize shareholder value in the long term.Select case studies focusing on government-university-industry strategic partnerships for research and technological development (GUISP RTDs), such as the NSF Engineering Research Centers, provide empirical validation of our concepts and especially on how to architect intelligent organizational interfaces across the spectrum of strategic R&D collaborations.

Is technological learning a firm core competence, when, how and why? A longitudinal, multi-industry study of firm technological learning and market performance

Abstract This paper proposes the conceptual outline for a general theory of higher order technological learning within and across firms and attempts to empirically test the power of correlation between technological learning and market performance in select multi-industry firm clusters over multi-year periods. After reviewing relevant extant literature, this paper constructs an integrated, multi-dimensional framework for the analysis of technological learning activities and their associated impact on firm market performance. Using a subset of the concepts in this framework, a pilot study was conducted to test the relationship between technological learning effort and firm market performance. The analysis combines traditional quantitative indicators of learning with a qualitative index constructed through inductive examination of corporate annual reports. The empirical analysis shows some strength in the relationship between technological learning and market performance, but this relationship is dependent upon temporal, non-linear, firm-specific factors. The results of the study are discussed in the context of expanding research to integrate all aspects and levels of technological learning, especially differentiating between higher order (strategic and tactical) and basic (operational) learning.

The Nature and Dynamics of Discontinuous and Disruptive Innovations from a Learning and Knowledge Management Perspective

Abstract: In this chapter we will discuss and profile the evolutionary and revolutionary dimensions of the nature and dynamics of innovation as a socio-technical phenomenon. We will focus in particular on the process, content, context, and impact of both discontinuous and disruptive innovations. We postulate that at the heart of the competence to generate and perhaps more significantly to leverage discontinuous and in particular disruptive innovations, lies the individual and organizational capacity for higher-order learning and for managing the stock and flow of specialized and domain-specific knowledge. We will provide both concepts and cases to illustrate our ideas and supply thematic anchors for academic and practitioner contexts.