Commercialization of Government Funded R&D : Follow-up Research Survey on NEDO Research Projects

Drawing on data obtained from the questionnaire survey for the 242 private R&D projects supported by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), Japan’s public management organization promoting R&D, this paper explores how the private R&D projects’ dependence on public supports affects their R&D processes and, in turn, projects’ performance and the commercialization of developed technologies. Our analyses show that dependence on government resources gives rise to some —isolation. of the projects from the other parts of companies that they belong to. Such isolation, mainly derived from projects’ unique positions in —double dependence. structures, negatively affects R&D performance especially related to commercialization. First, high dependence on public resources prevents project members from interacting with people outside the projects within the company. This precludes the projects to effectively leverage internal resources in overcoming technological problems. Secondly, high dependence weakens governance or control on project’s activities by internal management. This deters development of commercialization technologies and makes it difficult for the projects to acquire legitimacy for further investment towards commercialization. Our findings suggest that both companies and public funding agencies should promote projects to keep intimate relationships with the other parts of their organization for successful R&D leading to commercialization.

Cooperative R&D: Federal Efforts to Promote Industrial Competitiveness

[Excerpt] In response to the foreign challenge in the global marketplace, the United States Congress has explored ways to stimulate technological advancement in the private sector. The government has supported various efforts to promote cooperative research and development activities among industry, universities, and the federal R&D establishment designed to increase the competitiveness of American industry and to encourage the generation of new products, processes, and services. Collaborative ventures are intended to accommodate the strengths and responsibilities of all sectors involved in innovation and technology development. Academia, industry, and government often have complementary functions. Joint projects allow for the sharing of costs, risks, facilities, and expertise. Cooperative activity covers various institutional and legal arrangements including industry-industry, industry-university, and industry-government efforts. Proponents of joint ventures argue that they permit work to be done that is too expensive for one company to support and allow for R&D that crosses traditional boundaries of expertise and experience. Such arrangements make use of existing, and support the development of new, resources, facilities, knowledge, and skills. Opponents argue that these endeavors dampen competition necessary for innovation. Federal efforts to encourage cooperative activities include the National Cooperative Research Act; the National Cooperative Production Act; tax changes permitting credits for industry payments to universities for R&D and deductions for contributions of equipment used in academic research; and amendments to the patent laws vesting title to inventions made under federal funding in universities. Technology transfer from the government to the private sector is facilitated by several laws. In addition, there are various ongoing cooperative programs supported by multiple federal departments and agencies. Given the increased popularity of cooperative programs, questions might be raised as to whether they are meeting expectations. Among the issues before Congress are whether joint ventures contribute to industrial competitiveness and what role, if any, the government has in facilitating such arrangements

Organizational paths of commercializing patented inventions: The effects of transaction costs, firm capabilities, and collaborative ties

This study examines the factors affecting modes of commercializing patented inventions using a novel dataset based on a survey of U.S. inventors. We find that technological uncertainty and possessing complementary assets raise the propensity for internal commercialization. We find that R&D collaboration with firms in a horizontal relationship is likely to increase the propensity to license the invention. In addition, the paper shows that macro-level environment conditions that affect exchange conditions, such as technology familiarity, influence the effects of capabilities on governance choice.transaction cost economics; knowledge-based view; collaboration ties; commercialization; innovation; patent

Changing Times at Cuban Universities: Looking into the Transition towards a Social, Entrepreneurial and Innovative Organization

Since the 1990s, the socialist higher education system has faced several reforms oriented to satisfy the social, economic, and technological demands. However, little is known about the transformation process of the socialist university system over the past two decades. This study provides a better understanding of the entrepreneurial and innovative transition of universities located in socialist economies. By adopting mixed theoretical approaches, we proposed a conceptual model to understand the social, the innovative and the entrepreneurial transformation of socialist universities. We revised/tested this model in the context of the Cuban University by implementing a prospective case study approach. Our findings show insights about the transition towards a business model innovation within the Cuban university. The determinants have been the state regulations, the closing of the complete cycle from teaching to the commercialization of results and the creation of hybrid structures to manage knowledge. Consequently, the university is facing managerial challenges related to its ability to explore/exploit its activities to generate social, innovative and economic outcomes. Our results provide practical implications for the university managers and actors involved in the transformation process of the Cuban Universit

Research of different methods of innovative products commercialization

One of the main places in the innovation process takes the commercialization of innovations. Innovation must enter the market and should be profitable. Precisely this point is problematic. Commercialization of innovations is uniquely linked to innovation activities and defines it as a process in which the scientific result or technological development is implemented to produce a commercial effect. There are various forms of commercialization innovations, but there is no universal method of commercialization that's why it should be chosen carefully on the basis of internal enterprise factors, specificity of activity, industry

Analysis on the evolution and governance of the biotechnology industry of China

The past twenty years have witnessed the high-speed growth of China’s biotechnology industry, and this presents an excellent opportunity to examine the changes that have taken place, especially, to carry out overall evaluation and governance analysis from the perspective of technology policies. Although China’s biotechnology industry has achieved tremendous extension both in scale and structure, the strengths it gained from basic research have been significantly weakened by commercialization. This has resulted in the comparatively limited scale of the whole industry, innovation-lacking products, poor output from research and development and scarcity of industrial resources. A large range of literature regarding China’s biotechnology industry attributes these outcomes to vague and even inappropriate governance, findings supported mainly by analyses based on the linear model of impact of government policies on industrial development. In these analyses, government, enterprises and companies as well as R&D organizations are either put on the opposite poles or in a straight line. After examining the nature of China’s biotechnology industry, and in particular the dynamic procedures in research and development, the authors of this paper argue that besides government, enterprises and R&D organizations, a diverse array of factors should be taken into account as we tackle issues emerging in understanding the development of China’s biotechnology industry. Furthermore, these factors, human or nonhuman, should not be arranged as opposing poles or linearly connected points on a straight line. They are in fact all knitted in networks and act as both knitters and knots. China’s biotechnology industry gains its strength to develop and evolve from these networks, thus its governance must be aimed at improving their stability and quality. Although the main disciplinary perspectives of this research are historical and sociological (including identification of the three development stages of biotechnology in China since 1978 to present days), a large number of concepts and ideas from management studies as well as an interdisciplinary approach are also incorporated into the analysis. The main model used in this research is Actor Network Theory, which is employed as a basic theoretical frame. From this starting point the authors attempt to make a closer examination of China’s biotechnology industry both at the level of technology research and development and at the level of commercialization. The modeling process in this research can be regarded as an attempt to explore the social construction of China’s biotechnology industry. The paper reveals how China’s biotechnology industry develops in the form of networks within the country’s social context and what kinds of relationships exist among the relevant factors; therefore, providing guiding insights for improving the governance of China’s biotechnology industry both in policy and management

Reasons for Innovation: Legitimizing Resource Mobilization for Innovation in the Case of Okochi Memorial Prize Winners

This paper addresses reasons for innovation. Innovation requires resources to transform new ideas into products/services to be sold in the market and diffused in society. Yet in the earlier stage of innovation process uncertainty always prevails both technologically and economically. There is no objective consensus that the new idea will succeed in the end. It is thus necessary for those people who want to realize the innovation to show others both inside and outside the firm legitimate reasons for mobilizing their precious resources, including people, materials, facilities, and money, throughout the process toward commercialization. How do firms legitimize the resource mobilization for innovation? Drawing on 18 case studies on Okochi Memorial Prize winners, which our joint research project has carried out over last five years, and building upon the existing literature on internal corporate venturing, new ventures, and other related issues, this paper examines the innovation process of established Japanese firms from idea generation to commercialization with a primary focus on the process by which resource mobilization was legitimized.

Micro and nanotechnology commercialization: balance between exploration and exploitation

Innovative materials, components, and systems based on micro and nanotechnologies are recognized as promising growth innovators. The coming years the commercialization of micro and nanotechnology will be extended, but in order to commercialize micro and nanotechnology successfully, besides exploration a parallel focus should be aimed at exploitation. This paper presents in a brief and non-exhaustive manor a theoretical introduction and two company introductions related to exploitation and exploration focus embedded in the innovation development process to commercialize customer-oriented applications. A balanced approach between exploration and exploitation within organizations business, technological, and scientific domain could sharpen micro and nanotechnology companies into sustainable competitive market-driven enterprises.

A Good Idea is Not Enough: Understanding the Challenges of Entrepreneurship Communication

This paper addresses a less-investigated issue of innovations: entrepreneurship communication. Business and marketing studies demonstrate that new product development processes do not succeed on good technical invention alone. To succeed, the invention must be appropriately communicated to a market and iterated through dialogue with potential stakeholders. We explore this issue by examining communication-related challenges, abilities and barriers from the perspectives of innovators trying to enter an unfamiliar, foreign market. Specifically, we summarize results of a set of studies conducted in the Gyeonggi Innovation Program (GIP), an entrepreneurship program formed by a partnership between the University of Texas at Austin and Gyeonggi-Do Province in South Korea. Through the GIP, Korean entrepreneurs attempt to expand domestically successful product ideas to the American market. The study results demonstrate that these innovators must deal with a broad range of challenges, particularly (1) developing deeper understanding of market needs, values, and cultural expectations, and (2) producing pitches with the structure, claims and evidence, and engagement strategies expected by American stakeholders. These studies confirm that a deeper understanding of successful new product development (NPD) projects requires not only a culturally authentic NPD process model, but also communication-oriented research. The GIP approach offers insights into good programmatic concept and effective methods for training engineers to become entrepreneurs. Yet we also identify potential improvements for such programs. Finally, we draw implications for studying entrepreneurship communication.IC2 Institut