Narrow Results

This study note explores the major causes that stimulate Radical Strategic Change (RSC) in Israeli high technology new ventures. It explores the factors that make RSC successful in these ventures, based on the Resource-Based-View (RBV).

A multiple case study methodology was applied on four Israeli-based start-up companies that experienced both an un-favorable and a favorable RSC, sequentially.

Our findings suggest that the level of resources was the major impetus for these RSCs, and that the alignment of resources to the environment yielded the desired performance goals for these venture.

Further research is needed to validate the findings of this study.

We live in an era when a remarkable number of new information and other technologies are successfully bypassing the main obstacle to technological advance: technology support network (TSN). Technology support net, when fully established and fixed, erects significant barriers to innovation. Innovation is not free and autonomous process of applied creativity, but is technically, economically and politically subservient to the "holders and owners" of the support net. We present operational definitions of technology and high technology which explain past and current barriers to innovation shifts from one technological paradigm to another. The TSN-bypass technologies are causing the process of globalization to slow down and revert itself into a process of relocalization, bringing forth the economy of autonomous, self-reliant and self-sustainable individuals, communities, localities and regions.

We studied the optimal funding of the public sector for the Hi-Tech industry in the presence of short-term, cyclical, venture capital (VC) funding by constructing a decision-making model that results in the optimal governmental support and a model that accounts for the dynamics of the VC industry. We found that the VC industry is highly correlated with the NASDAQ stock index and that the optimal public policy for funding the Hi-Tech sector should be anti-cyclical, dynamic, and conditioned on the VC investments. The models and their validation are discussed as well as the practical implications for policy and decision makers.

Researchers have examined innovation by small and medium enterprises (SMEs), identified factors that contribute to innovation, and concluded that SMEs tend to be innovative and innovation improves performance. Do these findings hold for high-technology SMEs that are located in a newly industrialized economy? Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, and literature from entrepreneurship and innovation studies, we develop and test hypotheses using quantitative data collected from a survey. While the results of the study generally support prior research conclusions, there is a surprising finding: top management experience negatively moderates the effect of innovation on performance. Qualitative data from follow-up interviews with CEOs of SMEs helped us understand this finding.

In the past decade, the innovation literature has mainly targeted high-tech (HT) sectors due to their higher return on investment and important role in building new societies and economies. While the HT sector is still of a leading importance, whether medium and low tech (LMT) sectors should be equivalently considered when analyzing long term economic growth, in both leading and catching up economies, is a fundamental question. This paper is our second milestone comparing HT and LMT sectors from an innovation perspective, using a National System of Innovation (NSI) approach. The general aim of this paper is to find the main principles that govern the difference between the two industrial segments (HT and LMT) while controlling for supranational boundaries. In order to measure the effect of NSI, countries are divided into two groups: leading and catching up economies. Our results suggest that, with respect to HT, leading economies can be considered as innovators, while catching up economies are the imitators. Furthermore, HT in leading economies relies on product modularity to outsource various components probably to firms in catching up economies. Catching ups are putting greater emphasis on universities to produce knowledge. In addition, firms in catching up economies benefit from high accessibility to funds in order to grow various industrial sectors, especially LMT. The role of institutions and governments with respect to regulatory policies, intellectual property protections are of high importance for firms in catching up economies, especially in LMT. As a result of those important steps, the various agents in catching up economies have achieved sustainable growth, notably in LMT. In contrast, the same growth is observed for HT for firms in leading economies. Our results suggest that catching up countries are strategizing for this sectoral evolution, renewal, and transformation process for both sectors, but with a stronger emphasis on LMT.

This study offers continued insight into R&D-marketing integration with particular attention to the Chinese context. Examining the responses of 200 Chinese R&D and marketing managers, an exploratory investigation of marketing and R&D integration in Chinese high technology firms was undertaken. Study results find that Chinese high technology firms with higher levels of achieved integration perform better. It was also found that R&D involvement in screening new product ideas, designing communication strategies for the customers of new products, training users of new products and analysing customer needs appear to be top priorities for R&D integration in Chinese companies. These and other results are compared to prior findings in US and Japanese samples to support general propositions for R&D-marketing integration. We offer explanations for the results and discuss theoretical development of the R&D-marketing integration construct. Future research considerations are presented to spur continued focus in this area.

This study investigates whether organisational innovation has positive impacts on small and medium enterprises, using three waves of the South Korean innovation survey. While correcting for endogeneity, we find that the probability of achieving a process or product innovation conditional on organisational innovation increases in a linear fashion from small to large firms. Moreover, the effects of organisational innovation are more pronounced for process innovation relative to product innovation. We show that R&D performers who implement an organisational innovation have a greater probability of introducing a new product or process. We also show that larger R&D performing firms benefit more from organisational innovation than smaller firms. Finally, we find evidence that high-tech industries benefit more from organisational innovation, in accordance with one of our hypotheses.

There is a widespread feeling that the Japanese government is unfairly acquiring for its economy the few really good tickets to prosperity in the twenty-first century. Foreign reactions to Japanese targeting have ranged from concern that such practices are unfair and inconsistent with the international economic system and that Japan should be forced to eliminate them, to intense admiration and a hope the other countries can somehow emulate Japan. Understanding Japanese practices, particularly as they relate to high technology industries, requires an analysis not only of the relationships between government and business in Japan, but also of the relationships between government and education and between education and business. From the perspective of an analysis of the inter-relationships between these institutions, it is possible to understand the character of the market distortions and market failures with which Japanese policy has sought to cope. It should also then be possible to assess whether other countries face a similar set of problems requiring similar interventions. These analyses will proceed with particular focus on the development of the biotechnology industry in Japan and the United States.