Tim Minshall

Making “Asymmetric” Partnerships Work

OVERVIEW: “Asymmetric” partnerships between technology-based start-ups and large firms represent one route by which an open innovation strategy can be implemented. Asymmetric partnerships can provide benefits to both resource-constrained startups and capability-rich larger firms. However, there are numerous management challenges to the successful setup and management of such partnerships. Valuable management lessons can be learned from the experience of entrepreneurs, managers, investors, and lawyers involved in successful and failed asymmetric partnerships.

Open Innovation: A New Classification and Its Impact on Firm Performance in Innovative SMEs

This paper attempts to deepen understanding of the relationship between open innovation (OI) and firm performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on survey data from 306 Korean innovative SMEs, the results of this study show that: (1) broad and intensive engagement in OI and cooperation with external partners are positively associated with firm performance; (2) technology and market-oriented OI modes (Joint RD and (3) innovative SMEs benefit from working with non-competing partners, such as customers, consultancy/intermediaries and public research institutes. This work has broadened the evidence available on SMEs’ OI adoption and has proposed a new way to study OI adoption and implementation.

COMMERCIALIZING A DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY BASED UPON UNIVERSITY IP THROUGH OPEN INNOVATION: A CASE STUDY OF CAMBRIDGE DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY

This paper discusses the use of a university spin-out firm to bring a potentially disruptive technology to market. The focus for discussion is how a spin-out can build a technology ecosystem of providers of complementary resources to enable partner organizations to build competence in a novel and potentially disruptive technology. The paper uses the illustrative case of Cambridge Display Technology Ltd (CDT) to consider these issues from the perspective of the literature on open innovation (with particular emphasis on the role of partnerships between start-ups and established firms), the commercialization of university IP, and the commercialization of disruptive technologies.

Market‐pull and technology‐push in manufacturing start‐ups in emerging industries

Purpose – As traditional manufacturing, previously vital to the UK economy, is increasingly outsourced to lower‐cost locations, policy makers seek leadership in emerging industries by encouraging innovative start‐up firms to pursue competitive opportunities. Emerging industries can either be those where a technology exists but the corresponding downstream value chain is unclear, or a new technology may subvert the existing value chain to satisfy existing customer needs. Hence, this area shows evidence of both technology‐push and market‐pull forces. The purpose of this paper is to focus on market‐pull and technology‐push orientations in manufacturing ventures, specifically examining how and why this orientation shifts during the firms formative years.Design/methodology/approach – A multiple case study approach of 25 UK start‐ups in emerging industries is used to examine this seldom explored area. The authors offer two models of dynamic business‐orientation in start‐ups and explain the common reasons for s...

A policy dimension required for technology roadmapping: learning from the emergence of Chinese wind turbine industry

Innovation policies play an important role throughout the development process of emerging industries in China. Existing policy and industry studies view the emergence process as a black-box, and fail to understand the impacts of policy to the process along which it varies. This paper aims to develop a multi-dimensional roadmapping tool to better analyse the dynamics between policy and industrial growth for new industries in China. Through reviewing the emergence process of Chinese wind turbine industry, this paper elaborates how policy and other factors influence the emergence of this industry along this path. Further, this paper generalises some Chinese specifics for the policy-industry dynamics. As a practical output, this study proposes a roadmapping framework that generalises some patterns of policy-industry interactions for the emergence process of new industries in China. This paper will be of interest to policy makers, strategists, investors and industrial experts.

Developing Infrastructure To Support Open Innovation: Case Studies From The East Of England

This paper investigates the role that publicly funded infrastructure can play in supporting the implementation of open innovation at particular locations. Three case studies of open innovation infrastructure projects in the East of England illustrate contrasting approaches to delivering an infrastructure to support open innovation. The paper analyzes the cases using concepts from the literature on open innovation, regional innovation systems and business incubation. The cases reveal insights on how emerging management theories can have direct influence on regional innovation policies, and reveal the complexities of managing changing multi-stakeholder interests in relation to an approach to supporting innovation whose success is inherently hard to measure.

Barriers to entrepreneurial growth: an empirical study on university spin‐offs in China

Purpose – Literature shows that university spin‐offs (USOs) have idiosyncratic strengths in comparison to other new firms; however, evidence also shows that Chinese USOs have a low survival rate, and only a small percent of them can grow into sustainable businesses. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an empirical study to inquire about the variable growth barriers to Chinese USOs, in order to address two major research questions of this paper: what are the major growth barriers, and how significant they are; and what supports should university and government provide to eliminate those barriers?Design/methodology/approach – In the first place, this paper attempts to explore the research questions through literature review and pilot interviews, based on which, a questionnaire for a survey was developed. Then, this study then attempts to address the research questions through a nation‐wide survey in 2009 across 69 national university science parks.Findings – This paper finds that corporate governance is...

Strategy and communication for innovation

Part I - Strategic Perspectives on Innovation.- Part II - Communicative Perspectives on Innovation.- Part III - Integrated Perspectives on Innovation.- Part IV - Best Practices and Case Examples.

Defining the Research Agenda for 3D Printing-Enabled Re-distributed Manufacturing

Advanced manufacturing technologies are changing how and where goods are produced, with established organisational practices and value chains being disrupted by the adoption of these technologies. The 3DP-RDM network has been created to explore the changes caused by such technologies, focusing on the emergence of 3D printing and the effects it is having on the re-distribution of manufacturing. This paper reports on the first activities of this network, describing the process used in a multi-disciplinary scoping workshop and the selection criteria for the feasibility study competition, and how these help to achieve the network achieve its objective of defining the research agenda for 3D printing-enabled re-distributed manufacturing.

Exploring an effective model of new product development in medical devices: a knowledge cluster approach

This study proposes a new product development (NPD) model that aims to improve the effectiveness of innovative NPD in the medical devices. By adopting open innovation theory and applying an in-depth investigation methodology, this paper proposes a knowledge cluster that improves the integration of interdisciplinary human resources and enhances the acquirement of innovative technologies. A knowledge cluster approach helps gather, organise, synthesise, and accumulate knowledge in order to become the impetus for innovation. Although enterprises are no longer the principals of research and development, they should still be capable of integrating professional physicians, external groups, and individuals through the knowledge cluster platform. However, in order to support an effective NPD model, enterprises should provide adequate incentives and trust to external individuals or groups willing to contribute their expertise and knowledge to this knowledge cluster platform.