85 research outputs found
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Realizing the Potential of Advance Material Innovations
Advanced material technologies have received considerable attention from the media as
potential engines of economic growth in an increasingly knowledge based economy. However,
the extensive contributions of novel materials are not yet fully appreciated. Advanced materials
have potential to enable other technologies and hence make a substantial and transformative
impact on other industries and markets, including green technologies, healthcare, sustainable
energy, construction, communications and defense. Like IT and biotech before them, advanced
materials face many of the commercialization challenges of radical, generic technologies.
Unlike their predecessor technologies, the value creation to which they could give rise is not
readily demonstrated to their co-producers, customers or end consumers because of the
complexity of their value chains and entrenched competition from incumbent products. This
study investigates the market-oriented challenges facing AM University Spin-Outs (USO) and
in particular, the evolution of their business models firm in response to other players. The
choice of market and business model affects what value needs to be demonstrated to partners
and can ultimately determine how much of a material’s potential value to society is realized. We
build on the concept of innovation ecosystems to address these upstream innovations. A case
study approach is used to elucidate the challenges that these ventures face.
The findings highlight the way relationships between organizations can unlock the potential of
entrepreneurial AM innovations. Partners are shown to be critical to a venture’s market
selection and value chain positioning, determining not only what resources the venture can
access but also the resource-base it needs to build to attract such partners. While current wisdom
is that innovative ventures with radical technologies centre their activity on market niches, our
cases show that potential partners, often large incumbent firms, may not be drawn by niche
markets. Where substitute products already exist, ventures must adapt their business models to
secure partner cooperation and clearly demonstrate the value they can offe
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Commercializing Generic Technology: The Case of Advanced Materials Ventures
Generic, radical technology is of interest because of its potential for value creation across a
broad range of industries and applications. Advanced materials ventures are attracted by this
opportunity yet face intensified challenges in commercializing technology of this kind as
upstream entrants into distinct established value chains. In this paper, we build on Freeman’s
concept of technological innovation as a technological and market matching process to
develop a new model of the variables influencing value creation by advanced materials
ventures. We then demonstrate the model using evidence from a sample of 10 US advanced
materials ventures, including an in-depth case study exemplar. From the literature, our
model, and our case study observation, we construct four propositions concerning the success
of advanced materials ventures in commercializing radical technology
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From obstacle to opportunity: Problem-solving and competence creation in new firms
This paper aims to identify how entrepreneurial responses to ‘barriers’ can give rise to
opportunities for new firms. The poor predictive record of studies analysing success attributes
and favourable initial factors as determinants of new firm growth reflects the diversity of
entrepreneurial responses to problems of growth, as illustrated by three case studies of new
companies which were able to overcome adverse initial conditions despite the lack of early
‘success attributes’. They did so by finding alternative opportunities and by achieving resource
economy, resource leverage and resource creation, aided by strategic relationships formed with
other players. Spurred by the problems they encounter, entrepreneurial firms revise their
business conjecture and engage in innovative activities, their business model evolving through
trial and error. Creative responses to unexpected developments by entrepreneurial decision
makers have implications for research methodology and business support
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Wielding scissors skilfully: The matching process of advanced materials ventures
This paper examines the industrial incentives for commercialising advanced materials
and, in particular, nanomaterials with reference to issues raised in the technology strategy and
technology entrepreneurship literature. We draw on longitudinal empirical data to show that
smaller and newer firms are playing an increasing role in the commercialisation of advanced
materials innovations. However, new technology based firms face substantial barriers to
commercialisation, including access to the complementary assets of large firms and
institutions. To illustrate these challenges, we examine a case study of a start-up firm
commercialising carbon nanotubes. Through use of an open systems model, we characterize
their alliances and interactions in attempting to commercialise their products in several markets.
This analysis illustrates the daunting challenges facing start-up firms as they attempt to
commercialise advanced materials innovations. The most difficult challenge appears to be one
of prioritisation of development objectives and, subsequently, of alliance building. Proposed
policy recommendations focus on supporting the entrepreneurial process of matching technology
resources and alliance-building with market opportunities
Stockmarket Listing and Cleantech Business Development; Evidence from AiM
Investors have been showing interest in prospects for new environmental technologies
launched by innovative enterprises. We analyse the experience of young environmental
technology firms going public on London’s alternative stock market, AiM. While firms that
launched in the boom attracted needed funds, shareholder expectations and the controls used
to promote shareholder value were not well aligned with the realities of business development
of these emerging technology firms. These face challenging market and technology risks and
require funding for business development that is more flexible and longer term than that
provided by AiM investors. We suggest that a wider portfolio of investment alternatives is
neede
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Exploring the Constituents of Growth in a Technology Cluster: Evidence from Cambridge, UK
High-growth firms appear to be key drivers of new industries and technologies. Here we
investigate the contribution of these and other types of firm to a technology cluster, in the
context of ‘creative destruction’ shaping the evolution of the cluster. Evidence on the
reallocation of scarce resources through processes of creative destruction is scarce. But in a
cluster the effects of creative destruction can be traced through such developments as (1) firm
exits and entries (2) change in firm size distribution and (3) acquisition of firms. We apply churn
analysis, firm size transition analysis and analysis of acquisition to the technology cluster in
Cambridge UK over twenty years. Firm growth contributed two-thirds of all new job creation,
while entry-exit turbulence accounted for one third of job creation. High-growth firms accounted
for a quarter of jobs created in the Cambridge cluster during this period, without ever making up
more than 3% of all tech firms. There has been an increase in average firm size and profitability.
A fall in entry rates and fewer firms moving up into larger size categories in recent years point to
adverse conditions for innovative new firms even before the financial crash
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Challenges facing new firms commercialising nanomaterials
This paper examines the industrial incentives for commercialising advanced materials
and, in particular, nanomaterials with reference to issues raised in the technology strategy and
technology entrepreneurship literature. We draw on longitudinal empirical data to show that
smaller and newer firms are playing an increasing role in the commercialisation of advanced
materials innovations. However, new technology based firms face substantial barriers to
commercialisation, including access to the complementary assets of large firms and
institutions. To illustrate these challenges, we examine a case study of a start-up firm
commercialising carbon nanotubes. Through use of an open systems model, we characterize
their alliances and interactions in attempting to commercialise their products in several markets.
This analysis illustrates the daunting challenges facing start-up firms as they attempt to
commercialise advanced materials innovations. The most difficult challenge appears to be one
of prioritisation of development objectives and, subsequently, of alliance building. Proposed
policy recommendations focus on supporting the entrepreneurial process of matching technology
resources and alliance-building with market opportunities
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The Cambridge High Tech Cluster on the Eve of the Financial Crisis
Following the financial crisis of 2008, the UK government has set out new economic
priorities which include jobs and returns from investment in science and technologybased activity. In this paper we show that the Cambridge area already provides a
microcosm for such a future economy, one that it reveals both strengths and
weaknesses. Using longitudinal county-wide data on technology firms in Cambs, we
show that these firms have been resilient to recession over the past quarter century (as
compared with Silicon Valley) and achieved high survival rates until the past few
years. Cambridge tech firms are depicted in terms of size and sectoral distribution on
the eve of the credit crisis, using new data on serial spin out from the university as a
check on county-wide data. Larger firms showed a recent recovery in jobs and sales
after delayed impact from the technology slump of the new millennium. However a
fall in the number of start ups and firms in the smaller size groups is a cause for
concern, since it is from just such a pool that the more successful Cambridge firms
have emerged over the past three decades
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Growth Setbacks in New Firms
This paper examines setbacks in the early growth of new firms. Growth interruptions mark the
unfolding, cumulative processes of firm growth overlooked in standard studies that use cross
sectional methods. To probe for possible patterns in growth setbacks, we examined a cohort of
200 high technology firms founded in about 1990 and analysed the growth paths of survivors.
Simple compression techniques yielded seven types of growth turning points. Growth setbacks
are the norm even among firms with better growth records. Growth crises can be represented as
a shift in phase state. To understand what such a shift implies, we focus on the micro-evidence
relevant to processes of firm growth and illustrate growth crises from case studies. Growth crises
represent both limits to knowledge and the means by which knowledge is revised and learning
accelerated in the firm
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Social Ventures as Innovators at the Base of the Pyramid
This paper investigates the unaddressed potential of social ventures to implement social and
technological innovations. The innovative activities of social ventures serving populations at the
base of the pyramid (BOP) provide relevant evidence. Resource based theory and the concept of
business ecosystems provided constructs to be operationalized through case evidence, while case
studies helped integrate and adapt these theories to illuminate social entrepreneurship. The
framework provides a basis for comparing two different social ventures creating value at the
BOP: a technology-based social venture and another undertaking health delivery. These ventures
enabled user interaction and feedback and enlisted public-private partnerships. The cases show
how social ventures can develop innovative business models that combine internal resources
with external resources from their ecosystem in order to build shared value. The conceptual
framework can be used to identify key features of other cases of entrepreneurial value creation in
conditions of povert
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