4 research outputs found
Financial bootstrapping and social capital: how technology-based start-ups fund innovation
Innovation requires more than technological expertise. It is a time consuming activity requiring access to a range of resources including finance. Yet, innovators involved in start-ups rarely have direct access to significant financial resources. Instead, they turn to a variety of forms of financial bootstrapping. Defined as access to resources not owned or controlled by the individual innovator, bootstrapping involves imaginative and parsimonious strategies for marshalling and gaining control of resources. This paper reports on research into bootstrapping using case studies, drawn from biographies of well-known innovators. The study found that bootstrapping was widespread and innovators showed great ingenuity in obtaining finance without recourse to conventional financial institutions. Not only were ranges of bootstrapping techniques employed, the study also provided valuable insights into the importance of social capital, in the form of networks of friends, colleagues and other contacts, in providing innovators with access to bootstrapping finance
Financial bootstrapping and social capital: how technology-based start-ups fund innovation
Technological Discontinuities and Competitive Advantage: A Historical Perspective on Formula 1 Motor Racing 1950-2006
This paper considers the interplay between technological discontinuities and
competitive performance. Much of the work on technological discontinuities has
focused on macro levels of analysis such as industries and technologies rather
than specific firms. This study uses a historical perspective on Formula 1 motor
racing to explore the dynamics between firm level performance and technological
discontinuities over a 57 year period. The study supports the findings of
previous research that incumbent firms are often unable to adapt to the impact
of exogenous shocks. However the study also reveals situations where a
relatively small number of firms are able to sustain their competitive
superiority through a number of successive discontinuities. I suggest that, in
addition to dynamic capabilities, these firms possess sustaining capabilities –
munificent resource configurations which extend the time available for firms to
adapt to technological changes – thereby allowing them to remain competitive
across discontinuities