How Innovative are Virtual Enterprises?

The virtual enterprise is usually cited as an innovative inter-organizational configuration. Is it possible to justify and to assert the innovativeness of virtual enterprises just by claiming that they are made up of innovative “elements”? Is a sum of innovative features making the resulting system innovative too? This contribution will investigate the conditions and the situations in which a virtual enterprise can be regarded as innovative from an organizational point of view. In addition, a comparison with other inter-firm cooperation configurations (e.g. extended enterprise, digital districts, inter-organizational projects) will point out the most innovative features characterizing the virtual enterprise

NINGBO: A REGIONAL CITY LEAPFROG INTO HI-TECH DEVELOPMENT

The dynamic development in Ningbo illustrates local changes that have their basis in government support and resources from all levels of government. The rapid development arises from a combination of excellent infrastructure, a strong private entrepreneurship and strong foreign direct Investment (FDI) to exploit the geographical location which will be further enhanced when the bridge, across Hangzhou Bay to Shanghai, is completed by 2008.Ningbo, a famous port city in China, reached in 2000 a population of six million. It is situated 100 kilometres from Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, and 150 kilometres across the water from Shanghai. In terms of geo-economics Ningbo is an integral part of the dynamic Yangtze Delta region; but Ningbo is also trying to develop its own niche based on its comparative advantage. This is an important feature of China’s regional development model. Ningbo is the native place of Ningbo Bird, the forerunner in China’s, as well as a strong contender in the global, mobile handset industry. Ningbo has traditionally been a location for car component industries with early development of spark plugs and car wheels. The Geely car company has used Ningbo for its national expansion The Ningbo car components industry is expanding fuelled by support from the mould industry and a number of private supplier entrepreneurs. There are three major moulding industry centres in China. The moulding industry in Ningbo now employs about 100,000 workers. Ningbo does not want to remain only in knowledge application but in knowledge creation too. To this end Ningbo has four national-scale development zones, one hi-tech zone and 10 provincial and municipal level development zones which cater to both shipping and trade sectors; it is widely using incubators to stimulate new technologies. The Ningbo Hi-Tech Park is an important hi-tech zone in the region. jointly developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ningbo Municipal Government, it was opened in July 1999. In March 2004, the Chinese Ministry of Education approved the establishment of Ningbo-Nottingham China's first Sino-foreign university. The new university will be founded jointly by the University of Nottingham of Britain and the Zhejiang Wanli University in Ningbo with an investment of RMB600 million.Regional innovation system; local universities; industrial parks; incubators; clusters; industrial zones

Comparison of awarded university business incubators: Italy and Turkey.

Based on the diffusion and the effects of university business incubators this thesis work examining university business incubators based on their networking activities in respect to different geographical scopes and intentions of the networking. A large and growing body of literature has investigated on networking activities of university business incubators and outputs of networked incubators. Networking is one of the main competitive advantages of all models of business incubators and also it has a huge impact on the development of the entrepreneurial environment. However, to the author ́s best knowledge, very few publications can be found available in the literature that addresses the issue of the geographical scope of networking how it differentiates its’ development structure. Due to this reason, the objective of this thesis is aiming to analysis the networking activities in different geographical scopes; local, national and international and how do they structure in two different countries. Sample university business incubators are from two different countries, one from ‘developed country’ and one from ‘developing country’ to illustrate the main partners of both incubators according to their geographical scopes, how do they create those partnerships, what are the main activities that they realize together, is there any intermediate third parties and government policies behind of it. What kind of activities are conducting in both university business incubators in order to become more international and finally in respect to their networking activities what kind of industrial partners both UBIs have and how do they create those relationships. This study has determined the relationship between all the partners of a university business incubator and incubator itself. In consideration of previous academic studies about the topic and contributions of this thesis work, now we can gain a better understanding of cause-effect relation of partnership choices and activities in diversified geographical scopes of a university business incubator.ope

Startups and internationalization: orientation, characterization and team profile

O objetivo principal deste estudo é, por um lado, contribuir para a avaliação das tendências da literatura no que concerne aos fatores que influenciam o sucesso das startups nos mercados internacionais. Por outro lado, o estudo visa aprimorar o conhecimento e o estado da arte no que diz respeito às estratégias que podem ser executadas para permitir que as startups penetrem no mercado externo com sucesso e de forma consolidada. Este trabalho foi estruturado com base em três tópicos de estudo distintos: orientação para o mercado externo das startups incubadas - preditores de internacionalização; fatores que influenciam o volume de negócios não doméstico de startups incubadas em Portugal; e os perfis das equipas que contribuem para o sucesso das startups portuguesas incubadas nos mercados internacionais. Relativamente à orientação para o mercado externo, o inquérito elaborado para este estudo inspirou-se nos estudos de Engelman e Fracasso (2013) e foi respondido por empreendedores de startups instaladas em incubadoras em Portugal. O modelo de regressão logística indica que o género dos CEOs, o número de trabalhadores e o número de membros da equipa de nacionalidade estrangeira influenciam as probabilidades de entrada no mercado externo, sugerindo que CEOs homens, equipas maiores e equipas com mais membros estrangeiros têm maior propensão para a internacionalização. Relativamente aos factores que influenciam o volume de negócios não doméstico das startups incubadas em Portugal, o modelo de regressão linear múltipla mostra que as incubadoras permitem avaliar os meios mais eficazes que os empreendedores podem adoptar para ajudar a aumentar o volume de negócios das startups incubadas no mercado externo. Quanto às equipas ideais que contribuem para o sucesso das startups incubadas portuguesas nos mercados internacionais, o método da Conjoint Analysis sugere o perfil ideal das equipas empreendedoras - e não apenas características isoladas - em processos de internacionalização. Os resultados sugerem que o perfil de uma equipa pode ser dividido em três grupos distintos: Perfil Académico, Perfil Internacional e Perfil de Língua. Também verifica quais fatores influenciam a receita nos mercados comunitários e extracomunitários. Com a plataforma SABI selecionou-se informação sobre todas as startups nacionais incubadas nos últimos três anos e uma das principais conclusões é que os fatores que influenciam a receita no mercado comunitário são diferentes daqueles que influenciam a receita no mercado extracomunitário.The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the assessment of the trends in literature regarding the factors that influence the success of the startups in international markets. Moreover, the study aims to improve the knowledge and the state of the art regarding strategies that can be carried out to allow startups to penetrate external markets, in a successful way. This work was structured according to three different topics: external market orientation of incubated startups; factors that influence the nondomestic turnover in Portugal; and the profiles of the teams that contribute to the success of Portuguese incubated startups in international markets. Regarding the external market orientation, the estimated logistic regression model indicates that the CEOs gender, the number of workers and of foreign team members influence the chances of entering the external market, suggesting that male CEOs, bigger teams, and teams with more foreign team members have greater willingness to internationalization. Concerning the factors that influence the nondomestic turnover of startups incubated in Portugal, the estimated multiple linear regression model shows that incubators allow us to assess the most effective means entrepreneurs can adopt to help increase the business volume of incubated startups in the foreign market. As for the ideal teams that contribute to the success of Portuguese incubated startups in international markets, the Conjoint Analysis method suggests the ideal profile of entrepreneurial teams – and not just isolated characteristics – in internationalisation processes. Results suggest that a team profile can be divided into three distinct clusters: Academic Profile, International Profile and Language Profile. It also verifies which factors influence revenue in the community and extra-community markets. The SABI platform was used and one of the main conclusions is that the factors that influence revenue in the community market differ from those that influence revenue in the extra-community market

The Metropolitan Region of Campinas, Brazil: applying the technopolis framework

This paper examines the potential of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas (MRC) for becoming a technopolis. Located an hour from São Paulo, in Southeastern Brazil, the MRC has been internationally recognized as an important world technological center. This paper maps the economic and technological environment of the region and develops an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the MRC with respect to entrepreneurship and becoming a technopolis. We begin by looking at selected high-technology industry and service sectors as well as the infrastructure supporting technological innovation and entrepreneurship in the form of research institutes, a research university (Unicamp), support groups, and three incubators. We then discuss the results of two surveys of companies associated with Unicamp or one of the incubators to determine the reliance of these companies on the MRC infrastructure for financing and marketing to networking and legal assistance, as well as their policy recommendations for improving entrepreneurship in the region. We conclude that the region is attractive to many companies and has great potential for future success as a technopolis due to its high levels of both hard and smart infrastructure, the strength of support available from a variety of local institutions, and the high level of economic activity in potentially innovative industrial and service sectors. However, there are several ways that the university, incubators, and public policies could better support entrepreneurship in the MRC. Specifically, an increase in public and private partnerships as well as greater capitalization options for start-ups are key areas the region could change to provide support for greater diversification of the start-ups in the area and further development of the MRC as a technopolis.technology-based start-ups; entrepreneurship; innovation; incubation; economic development; Campinas

Synergetic value-driven innovation in business model of organic agriculture in China: a case study of IGARDEN

The innovation of business model is an important way for enterprises to gain competitive advantages and achieve sustainable development. With the rapid development of organic agriculture, an increasing number of scholars started to pay more attention to the research on the business model innovation of organic agriculture in recent years. However, most of the studies took the western developed countries as research objects, while research on cases of China’s local entrepreneurs are not often to be found. In order to develop Chinese organic agriculture’s business model innovation theory and to guide the practice, this thesis selects IGARDEN as the research object, and with a value-created perspective we explore the innovation process, path and essential characteristics of its business model by a case study method. Through the case study of IGARDEN, the result shows that: (1) The business model of IGARDEN follows the evolution from product-based to platform-based; (2) IGARDEN’s business model innovation follows the logic of value creation, and the core of value creation is the expression of product value, the increase of platform value and the accumulation of sustainable value; (3) The emergence of synergistic value expands the border of value creation activities, promoting the innovation process of business model. Driven by Synergetic Value, the value creation carrier of IGARDEN has thus facilitated the emergence of new business models; (4) The process of business model innovation in IGARDEN is essentially an iterative process based on value creation, value synergy and value upgrading. The research result has contributed to the potential enrichment of theories related to business model innovation through a specific scope of the business model innovation within the organic agriculture industry of China, and it can be a guide of forming business model innovation strategy for entrepreneurs facing similar business environment as described in the case.A inovação do modelo de negócios é um método importante para as empresas obterem vantagens competitivas e alcançarem o desenvolvimento sustentável. Com o rápido desenvolvimento da agricultura orgânica, um número crescente de estudiosos começou a prestar mais atenção à pesquisa sobre o modelo de negócios da agricultura orgânica nos últimos anos. No entanto, a maioria dos estudos levaram esses países ocidentais desenvolvidos como objetos de pesquisa, enquanto a pesquisa sobre casos de empreendedores locais chineses não costuma ser encontrada. Para desenvolver a teoria da inovação do modelo de negócio da agricultura orgânica chinesa e orientar a prática, esta tese seleciona o IGARDEN como objeto de pesquisa e, com uma perspectiva de valor, exploramos o processo, caminho de inovação e as características essenciais de seu modelo de negócio. Através do estudo de caso do IGARDEN, o resultado mostra que: (1) O modelo de negócio do IGARDEN segue a evolução de baseada em produto para baseada em plataforma; (2) A inovação do modelo de negócios do IGARDEN segue a lógica da criação de valor, e o núcleo da criação de valor é a expressão do valor do produto， o aumento do valor da plataforma e o acúmulo de valor sustentável; (3) O surgimento de valor sinérgico expande a fronteira das atividades de criação de valor, promovendo o processo de inovação do modelo de negócio. Impulsionado pelo Valor Sinérgico, o portador de criação de valor do IGARDEN facilitou o surgimento de novos modelos de negócios; (4) O processo de inovação do modelo de negócios no IGARDEN é essencialmente um processo iterativo baseado na criação de valor, na sinergia de valor e na atualização de valor. O resultado da pesquisa contribuiu para o potencial enriquecimento de teorias relacionadas à inovação do modelo de negócios através de um escopo específico da inovação do modelo de negócios dentro da agricultura orgânica da China, e pode ser um guia de formação de estratégia de inovação de modelo de negócios para empreendedores que enfrentam negócios semelhantes ambiente descrito neste caso