The process of developing innovative capabilities in biotechnology: the case of UK firms

The advent of born-global bio-tech firms signal the genesis of a new business model that is emerging in the biotechnology sector. Born globals are small firms whose knowledge supply-chain includes global resources from multiple countries. Their innovation ‘ecosystems’ consists of experienced scientists, science parks, academics, well-established bio-pharmaceutical firms and government institutions. The firms plan their business based on global strategic perspectives and this significantly increases their productivity and innovativeness. But surprisingly, little is known about their capability development processes in the specialised networks of the biotechnology sector. As a result, this study explores the connectivity of various elements, within their knowledge supply-chain, and how they influence their capacity to generate new scientific knowledge and technical know-how. The study employs a multi-case approach. It examines five cases of bio-tech firms from the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom which have an entrepreneurial flair synonymous with born-global firms. The findings from within and across cases, secondary data analysis and results from a ‘pilot study’ led to the construction of a new conceptual framework of knowledge and innovative capability development. The model is created from the ideas of Freeman and others and it contributes to an understanding of the concepts of dynamic capabilities and network theories

Management of Technological Innovation in Developing and Developed Countries

It is widely accepted that technology is one of the forces driving economic growth. Although more and more new technologies have emerged, various evidence shows that their performances were not as high as expected. In both academia and practice, there are still many questions about what technologies to adopt and how to manage these technologies. The 15 articles in this book aim to look into these questions. There are quite many features in this book. Firstly, the articles are from both developed countries and developing countries in Asia, Africa and South and Middle America. Secondly, the articles cover a wide range of industries including telecommunication, sanitation, healthcare, entertainment, education, manufacturing, and financial. Thirdly, the analytical approaches are multi-disciplinary, ranging from mathematical, economic, analytical, empirical and strategic. Finally, the articles study both public and private organizations, including the service industry, manufacturing industry, and governmental organizations. Given its wide coverage and multi-disciplines, the book may be useful for both academic research and practical management

Latecomers’ science-based catch-up in transition: the case of the Korean pharmaceutical industry

This thesis investigates the 25-year transitional process of the Korean pharmaceutical industry from its initial focus on the imitative production of generic drugs to the development of new drugs. The catch-up dynamics of latecomer countries in science-intensive industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, is an overlooked research topic in existing literature on innovation studies. This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of Korea’s science-intensive catch-up and applies an ‘exploration and exploitation’ framework to a latecomer setting and in a novel institutional and market context of the transitional phase. This thesis argues that the rate of change in the transition from imitating drugs to developing new drugs depends on the institutional and organisational mechanisms that enable a new form of technological learning, termed ‘exploratory learning’. This form of learning is often unfamiliar to firms in latecomer countries, whereas it is necessary for producing innovative drugs. That is, latecomers’ institutional and organisational promotion of exploratory learning is related to a ‘pattern change’ in the previously established institutional and organisational routines associated with imitative learning. The findings show that the rate of industrial transition in this sector was constrained by the problematic operation of S&T policies promoting key characteristics of exploratory learning, such as high-risk long-term learning as well as dense interactions between a diverse number of innovation actors. The findings also illuminate some latecomer firms’ initial difficulties in managing the new mode of technological learning, and in strategically applying that mode of learning to overcome the barriers to moving through the transitional phase towards producing competitive innovation. The thesis also suggests that the nature of drugs as integral products, deeply grounded in science, makes it difficult to effectively promote institutional and organisational transformations in favour of exploratory learning

International Vertical Alliances within the International Business Field : A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Networks and the Development of the Irish Biotechnology Sector

Biotechnology, an umbrella term describing combinations of engineering and scientific knowledge from an array of disciplines used to produce products and processes from living organisms, has been identified as a key sector for future economic developments among industrialised and industrialising nations as it blurs traditional boundaries between various industries. The Irish Government has introduced a series of initiatives to facilitate the development of an internationally competitive indigenous biotechnology sector since the late 1990s, yet no in-depth analysis of the sector relative to international sectoral characteristics, structures, or policy themes have informed their design or implementation. This thesis analyses the Irish sector in the context of global sectoral developments by studying the Post-Fordist organisational structure of the international sector, where biotechnology firms interact with various actors at different stages of the sectoral value chain in a variety of innovative networks determined by place specific actor and institution endowments that form local knowledge communities. Through qualitatively investigating the Irish sector's actors and collaborative network structure, the thesis analyses the implications of the nature and character of these elements for the sector's future sustainability and development, and appraises existing Government policies relating to sectoral developments. The thesis found that the on-going initiatives have facilitated significant advances, yet have not addressed the legacy of pre-initiative resource and skill capacity weaknesses, while the sectoral value chain is fragmented as actors have developed poor networking arrangements due to their conservative natures, and the relative absence of key sector actors, skills and resources. These issues demonstrate that a complex overarching policy framework is required so as to engender the long-term development of a regionally tailored, systems-based support ecosystem which addresses existing structural weaknesses, and which facilitates and drives entrepreneurial and innovative activities throughout the sector's value chain

Configurations of Inter-firm Relations in Management Innovation: A Study in China’s Biopharmaceutical Industry

This dissertation proposes a configurational approach to the study of inter-firm relations facilitating management innovation. Previous research conceptualizes management innovation as either the outcome of determinants of individual firms or a complex process of conjunctural factors between firms. In contrast, this thesis attempts to reconcile the two camps by examining the conditions under which the management innovation process within inter-firm relations takes place. The empirical analysis employs data from 56 firm partnerships in China’s biopharmaceutical industry collected during field research in 2008. The population of firms in China’s biopharmaceutical industry is young, highly diverse and strongly relies on ties to other organizations. Operating under volatile conditions requires constant development of new managerial instruments. Methodologically, this dissertation employs a technique new in the study of management innovation. Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis has been chosen for its ability to properly translate complex theories into models and its suitability for configurational analyses. The results identify four configurations of inter-firm relations differing in their combinations of relational, structural and environmental conditions. Each is equally effective in facilitating management innovation yet employs internal and external knowledge differently to develop and implement new management instruments. The results provide a simple and well arranged decision-making tool for drafting intelligible managerial strategies and indicate that firms in China’s biopharmaceutical industry swiftly develop and introduce management instruments which soon may serve as templates for the global biopharmaceutical industry as a whole

Re-developing knowledge creation capability: Innovating in Indian pharmaceutical industry under the TRIPS regime

The transition to a new technology, market or regulatory regime can be difficult for any organisation to manage. Technological and institutional change has proven to be a big cause for the failure of established firms and many examples exist of such failures. The Trade Related intellectual property rights agreement (TRIPs), as part of The World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement, represents such an institutional change for knowledge based industries from developing countries. As a result of the TRIPs agreement all of the WTO member countries will move from no or partial patent protection to fully fledged patent protection. This represents a radical break with the past in which developing countries typically had only weak levels of patent protection. Against this backdrop, the research examines the learning processes involved in the development of innovative R&D capabilities within the context of the Indian pharmaceutical industry, in response to the strengthening of patent law. In the last decade much research has addressed the process of dynamic learning within firms, however this has predominantly focused on firms from advanced countries. Previous research on developing countries mainly focused on building the minimum knowledge base essential for production and innovation activity. In recent years limited research has begun to explore dynamic learning in firms from developing countries. However, there still remains a scarcity of research which examines firm-level learning processes central to the development of advanced level capabilities. This research addresses this deficiency by applying the conceptual understanding developed within advanced countries to a developing countries context. This is operationalised through a set of research activities which investigate firm-level learning, knowledge creation and innovative capability within the context of the Indian pharmaceutical industry. The substantive conclusions are that the development of new capabilities involves the removal of redundant capabilities, coupled with the acquisition of new knowledge. The findings also indicate that Indian firms are hiring Indian scientists educated or working overseas in multinational pharmaceutical R&D and collaborating with Indian and overseas research institutes and universities to acquire capabilities in innovative R&D. Furthermore, inter-firm differences in learning processes suggest that at a firm level, learning is neither linear nor automatic and requires a deliberate strategy. The thesis also provides important insights into knowledge creation capabilities that have significant implications with respect to innovative activity for firms from other developing countries

Global and regional sourcing of ICT-enabled business services: upgrading of China, Hong Kong and Singapore along the global value chain

Offshoring, as part of globalisation, first started decades ago with manufacturing processes disintegrated along the global value chain and dramatically redistributed to low-cost regions. The next global shift of work involving ICT-enabled business services has arisen since the 1990s, especially featuring the success of India’s supplier role. The possibilities for the Global South to move up the value ladder are well demonstrated by the achievements of the newly industrialised economies in East Asia in the first shift and of India in the second. In the services sector, however, potential for upgrading is conditioned by quality-based elements, such as trust, culture and language, which vary both between producing and market areas. Flows are increasingly multi-directional, requiring attention to the neglected issue of demands from fast-growing Southern economies. So how do locations and firms in the Global South attempt to upgrade in the regime of rising services offshoring? The Indian experience especially in serving Anglophone markets in the Global North has been widely documented – but not that of East Asian economies, with their distinct characteristics and strong historic, ethnic and cultural ties with each other. This study examines the upgrading possibilities and constraints of China, Hong Kong and Singapore along the global services chain. For cross-case analysis, it focuses on three specific sets of services, including information technology, finance and accounting, and customer contact services. The concepts of global value chain, competitive advantage and capabilities are applied to reconstruct the phenomenon of services offshoring from both the demand and supply perspectives in the selected locations, and synthesise the dynamics between locational characteristics and firm strategies. A series of distinct upgrading strategies are identified, involving mixes of manufacturisation, knowledge-intensification and deepening relational capabilities to exploit both regional advantages of language/cultural proximity and established global links