When Difference Hurts: Technology Space Activity and Failure

This paper investigates failure of startups due to their accumulation of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the context of the wireless telecommunication industry, here framed as their technology space - a space that we constructed through shared technology. Obtaining intellectual property rights forms an important signal for startup viability but only to a limited degree, compelling us to posit a U shape relationship between failure rate and IPR flow. The location of startups in the technology space, and the associated signals that come with that location presents powerful information regarding their failure rates. Disclosing intellectual properties erodes the benefits of secrecy and innovative lead time as deference (as proxied by patent citations) by peer to new firms increases their hazard of failure due potential competition and harmful spillover effects - particularly if the sector manifests a weak appropriability regime. Technology concentration of the deference is also found to be harmful; however the interaction of the two is positive. This leads us to infer that startups with specific and focused technology acknowledged many other firms or those with general but deferred to by few others have better possibility of stemming the rot

Anchor entrepreneurship and industry catalysis: The rise of the Italian Biomedical Valley

Accounting for the rise of the medical device industry in the Emilia-Romagna town of Mirandola from a once depressed agricultural area in 1962 to a world-manufacturing center for dialysis equipment and disposable plastic medical devices, requires in large measure mapping the methods of the local entrepreneur who spearheaded its development. Reworking Agrawal and Cockburn's anchor-tenant hypothesis highlighting the role of large organizations in fostering agglomerations, this paper privileges the Schumpeterian entrepreneur as the dynamic force driving new industrial formations. This anchor-entrepreneur with no prior experience in manufacturing medical devices and without any public financing or large private backers founded six firms. Each of these would be sold off fairly quickly to a different large multinational corporation. Placing the anchor-entrepreneur at the center stage advances understanding of early industry evolution, spelling out how first-mover pioneers shape the environment to establish the first markets needed to attract new resources and capabilities. Underpinning our argument are 61 fine-grain interviews with key medical device industry informants in addition to extensive secondary sources and historical records. We draw on this material to induce a stylized model of anchor-entrepreneurship and industry catalysis that rests on three generative processes: bricolage, second-hand imprinting and beaconing

Application of relationship marketing to construction

Relationship Marketing is relatively unknown in construction, but is widely researched in non project disciplines and applied similarly. Relationship marketing as a sub-component of marketing provides valuable and reliable tools that a manager can use to enhance a service that is being provided to a range of clients. It provides a better solution to client interaction than traditional marketing due to its focus on mutual attainment of common goals. The purpose of relationship marketing is to attract new clients and ensure that existing clients are looked after in a collaborative engagement where objectives are identified and mutual goals set. Overall collective aims of venture participants are identified and achieved. The aim of the research is to identify key relationship factors that should be considered when selecting a construction service. This is achieved through a number of steps that include: examining the principles of marketing and its association with RM; examining alliance principles and construction RM principles, supply chain and service selection issues and relationship development constructs; interviewing a number of construction actors to theorise issues that are important to construction, its connections and relationships. Other activities include interviewing a substantial body of construction actors that have experience of Alliance projects and are able to comment on the relationship development process and observe activities undertaken at a number of alliance development and alliance lessons learned (outcome) workshops. The research identifies methods that enable relationships to be developed and a model that gives buyers the ability to pre-qualify and select contractors that are committed to providing value is provided. The main findings from the research show that RM has many attributes that should be applied to construction; indeed several aspects of RM are currently being applied in alliance projects. The particular form that RM takes in alliance projects is in the relationship development of the stakeholders. These stakeholders eventually become the virtual team who manage the project. In particular the development of trust, commitment and mutual goals in alliance projects form a close parallel with similar constructs in RM. Four themes were discovered to make a difference in relationship development in construction. They were the process of the relationship development workshop; the underlying attributes associated with the development process, in particular trust, trust building, commitment and communication; the outcome for the team; and organisational issues associated with individuals in the relationship development workshops. The particular contribution that the research identifies is in the various models of relationship development that have been constructed throughout the research period. The first, an interim model, identifies a marketing continuum that forms a framework and provides an insight into the ways in which RM may reduce stress and reasons for conflict in a construction project team. At the same time the model shows how increased trust, commitment and satisfaction for the stakeholders, together with value adding potential in the supply chain, may be attained with the use and application of RM principles. The second interim model builds on the first model and applies an organisational focus to the original project based model described earlier. Ongoing relationships based on project success are identified. A third and final interim model identifies the association between process (project) and product success with transactional and relationship marketing. The model identifies how a RM approach provides a long term project success that may be translated to marketing success in a particular industry sector through ongoing relationships. Finally, building on the aforementioned interim models a construction relationship development model is proposed. It is suggested that these models develop and contribute to emerging theory on RM in a project environment and its application to construction. The models also contribute to relationship development theory applied to project driven and temporary organisations. These temporary organisations are particular to the construction industry and they stand to benefit greatly from this research

The emergence of social innovation within the social economy: the case of social enterprises in England

Social enterprises (SEs), such as development trusts (DTs) in England, are contributing to solve some of the world´s most entrenched problems, recurring to innovative ideas and proposals that tend to outperform traditional forms of social intervention. This research seeks to unveil the ways in which such innovative ideas emerge, and to do so, it has borrowed theories from the mainstream innovation literature, from the emerging body of work on social innovation and from existing approaches to understand inter-organisational relationships and networks. An analysis of the perceived meaning of the innovation concept among SE practitioners is provided in first place, to then move onto exploring the starting points, the drivers and the processes that lead to the generation and the subsequent implementation of innovative ideas or solutions. Closer examination of 12 cases of innovative social enterprises allows the identification of five non-exclusive sources from where innovative ideas and solutions emerge within the social economy, namely: an accurate understanding of needs, frustration, inspiration leading to replication, networks of different types and openness or serendipity. The findings included here can help others in the process of developing and implementing new solutions to social problems and they contribute to theory building efforts in the fields of social entrepreneurship and social innovation