Serdal Temel

INNOVATION AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE IN SMALL ENTERPRISES: AN ENTERPRISE-LEVEL ANALYSIS

This paper explores links between developed innovations and business performance in small enterprises with fewer than 50 employees. It also examines how performance has changed over time during a period of five years. The empirical evidence is based on two quantitative datasets describing innovation and business performance in 145 small enterprises in 2005–2009. The study makes a contribution to academic literature by providing a detailed view of the differences in performance across innovation types. The results suggest that during the period of five years, non-innovators have been the best performing enterprises in terms of operating earnings and return on investments while radical innovations can be connected with sales growth. During the recession, the less vulnerable enterprises have been non-innovators and innovators characterised by the high diversity of developed innovations. Applying these results helps small business owners to consider what is the nature and timescale for getting return on innovations.

The Impact of Cooperation on Firms’ Innovation Propensity in Emerging Economies

The importance of collaboration has been one of the main issues in innovation studies. Despite many different findings on collaboration and its impact on innovation performance, the impact of different types of collaboration on different types of innovation is still inconclusive. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of openness on the performance of the innovation process in a leading emerging economy. Cooperation with partners and their effects on innovation propensity unveil that process, marketing and organisational innovations are determinants of product and service innovation, thus confirming that the various innovation types are intertwined and mutually supporting each other. From a geographical perspective, cooperating with external parties from the same country plays a dominant role in determining the innovation outcome. Cooperating with consultants and private labs on the other hand seems to negatively affect innovation performance. Surprisingly, the role of foreign cooperation remains ambiguous as results were not statistically significant.

University–Industry Collaboration in Turkish SMEs Investigation of a U-Shaped Relationship

University–industry collaboration and innovation are popular topics in emerging countries. Although the main premise is that such collaboration and innovation increase firm performance, the empirical evidence is inconclusive. Drawing on a sample of 79 Turkish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the authors find negative direct effects of innovation-based strategy and university collaboration on the profit growth of firms. However, where there is fierce market competition, they find that an innovation-based strategy increases profit growth and that collaboration with universities needs to exceed a certain level before the benefits are manifested in profit growth. These results contribute to the debate on the role of innovation and university collaboration in the profit growth of SMEs in emerging countries. For managers, the implications are that an innovation-based strategy is important in competitive markets in emerging countries, and that university collaboration needs to be taken more seriously and must involve higher levels of effort and commitment if benefits are to emerge; otherwise, companies may decide against working with universities.

TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVENESS: COMPARISON OF THE SUCCESSFUL AND UNSUCCESSFUL ECO-INNOVATORS

This paper examines the links between eco-innovations and competitiveness. It explores how superior competitiveness is created and how existing competitiveness is lost. The study utilises multiple case studies following the replication approach. The empirical evidence is based on five case firms that have created superior competitiveness and five case firms that have lost their competitiveness. Competitiveness is monitored having emphasis on market-related, efficiency-related, risk-related and image-related issues. The longitudinal data covers ten years from 2002 to 2011. This study provides two contributions to academic literature. First, it deepens the existing knowledge of how firms have created competitiveness through the development of eco-innovations or how the firms have lost their competitiveness. Second, it illustrates a journey of ten years during which the successful eco-innovators created their superior competitiveness. Also, the journey of the unsuccessful eco-innovators is described.

New Product Introduction in Turkish Firms : Insights Across Sectors

Continued new product introduction (NPI) concerns all companies regardless if they are from advanced economies or emerging ones. Our understanding of NPI in emerging economies is still in the development phase. There is also a lack of studies of variations across sectors relating to determinants of NPI in particular. This study addresses these lacks and, drawing upon a dataset from Turkish companies, it explores whether there are differences regarding influential factors on the introduction of new products or services across sectors. Results reveal major differences with regard to human capital, social capital, and leadership capital.

Open Innovation and Knowledge Management in Small and Medium Enterprises

The book studies the interplay between open innovation and knowledge management issues in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). With the proliferation of the open innovation paradigm and again ...

From a Non-Innovator to a High-Innovation Performer: Networking as a Driver

Forsman H. and Temel S. From a non-innovator to a high-innovation performer: networking as a driver, Regional Studies. This paper explores the patterns of networking benefits gained through collaboration by small firms. The empirical evidence is based on data gathered from 708 Finnish firms with fewer than 50 employees. Separate analyses are conducted for the manufacturing and service businesses. The study demonstrates how the benefits gained through collaboration change along with the journey from a non-innovator to a high-innovation performer. In general, the results suggest that the focus of innovation policies should be shifted from innovations to innovators. In addition, these policies should promote networking activities not only to innovation exploration but also to innovation exploitation.

Measuring the impact of knowledge sourcing and cooperation on innovation success: some empirical evidence from Turkey

Innovation rarely occurs in isolation, and firms increasingly exploit cooperation strategies to increase their innovation propensity and performance. Empirical research concentrating on the breadth of cooperation practices, as well as the variety of objectives pursued in the context of innovation strategies remains scarce, and even more so for emerging economies. This paper aims to contribute to this literature stream by providing empirical evidence on the impact of the breadth of cooperation and innovation goals on innovation performance in Turkey. Results show that having six types of cooperation leads to the highest marginal effects on the innovation success while the probability to innovate is more determined by the objectives pursued rather than by cooperation itself.

The effect of consumers’ innovation perception on internet usage behaviors

Purpose Internet shopping is becoming more prevalent and popular in Turkey, one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in Eastern Europe. The growth of internet usage has focused academic attention on the factors that drive the adoption of internet shopping. The purpose of this study is to investigate how opinion leadership and open processing innovativeness influence internet shopping behavior through the mediating variable of domain-specific innovativeness. Design/methodology/approach The data for this study were collected via face-to-face contact with consumers in Eskisehir. A total of 275 usable responses were obtained. Findings The results reveal that opinion leadership induces positive internet shopping behavior through domain-specific innovativeness, whereas open processing innovativeness has no significant impact. Originality/value The study makes an important contribution by offering theoretical and managerial implications for internet marketers.

The Relationship Between Direct Government Support for R&D and Patents in Emerging Economies: A Turkish Case Study

Emerging economies have been trying to improve economic growth with the help of different policies like R&D, technology development, technology transfer and patents. Despite the large amount of literature on the relationship between technology, direct government R&D support, R&D activities and patents, it has not been clearly defined in emerging economies. With this research based on 191 observations from companies in the Aegean Region of Turkey, we have found significant relationships between technological infrastructures, inward technology transfer and patents. Furthermore, the findings prove that there is a significant relationship between R&D activities, R&D experience and patents. Surprisingly, there is no significant relationship between outward technology transfer, direct government R&D support and patents. These results contribute to the literature on the relationship between direct R&D support, R&D activities, technology and patents in emerging economies.