Innovationsbeteende i mindre företag : Studier av internationalisering och användande av onlinekanaler i mindre företag

The spread of information technology and the dissolution of international borders have had a significant impact on the challenges and opportunities faced by today's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Innovative behaviour on the part of SMEs is a prerequisite for a successful transformation of the opportunities offered by these structural changes into growth and profitability. Thus, the overall aim of this thesis is to advance the understanding of small firms' innovative behaviour as manifested in the adoption of online channels and internationalisation. This doctoral thesis consists of an introductory chapter and six self-contained essays. The introductory section develops a general analytical framework for the thesis by reviewing the literature on innovation and organisational innovativeness and identifying key determinants and processes. The first four essays seek to explain a firm's propensity to adopt online channels and suggest that firm size and a firm's willingness to cannibalise, i.e. a firm's readiness to reduce the actual or potential value of its earlier investments, differentiate between adopters and non-adopters of online channels. Expectations of alienating resellers through online channel adoption may prevent a firm from adopting. Customers' pull, competitors' push and previous use of the Internet turned out to be strong drivers of online channel use. The fourth essay employs a two-wave research design and highlights that changes that occur in the technological and economic environment in which firms operate can, over time, change a firm's pattern of decision-making from innovation adoption to conventional cost-benefit approach. Essays five and six focus on the internationalisation of SMEs. In particular, essay five focuses on the process aspects of internationalisation and suggests that early importing has a modest direct influence on exporting, and that early importing activity indirectly enhances a firm's international experience and capabilities. Essay six investigates how competitive interactions affect internationalisation and suggests that cooperation with competitors, or coopetition, is a noteworthy internationalisation motive. This thesis contributes to the literature on innovation, internationalisation, electronic marketing and small business management and demonstrates that the dynamic forces associated with innovative behaviour affect SMEs adoption of online channels and how they work with customers and suppliers abroad.Spridningen av informationsteknik och en kraftig ökning av handel och samarbete över ländergränser har haft en betydande effekt på de utmaningar och möjligheter som dagens små och medelstora företag (SMF) står inför. De små och medelstora företagens innovationsbeteende är dock en förutsättning för att de framgångsrikt skall kunna ta tillvara de möjligheter som dessa strukturella förändringar skapar för att åstadkomma tillväxt och lönsamhet. Således är det övergripande syftet med denna avhandling att utveckla kunskap om innovationsbeteende i små företag, så som detta manifesteras i användande av onlinekanaler och deltagande i internationaliseringsprocesser. Denna avhandling består av ett inledande kapitel och sex fristående essäer. I det inledande kapitlet utvecklas ett övergripande analytiskt ramverk för avhandlingen, utifrån en litteraturöversikt av begreppen innovation och organisatorisk innovativitet där de viktigaste determinanterna och processerna identifieras. De första fyra essäerna försöker förklara ett företags benägenhet till adoption av onlinekanaler och föreslår att företagets storlek och vilja att kannibalisera, dvs ett företags beredskap att minska det faktiska eller potentiella värdet av dess tidigare investeringar, skiljer sig mellan de som använder respektive de som inte använder kanaler på nätet. Förväntningar att återförsäljare skulle bli negativt inställda om företag börjar använda onlinekanaler kan hindra företag från att investera i dem. Karaktäristika hos kunderna, utmaningar från konkurrenterna och tidigare användning av Internet visade sig vara starka drivkrafter bakom användningen av onlinekanaler. I den fjärde essäen, som baseras på data insamlad under två olika tidsperioder, visas att de förändringar som sker i den tekniska och ekonomiska miljö i vilken företagen är verksamma, kan med tiden innebära att beslutsfattandet skiftar från innovationstänkande till traditionellt kostnads​​-nyttotänkande. Essä fem och sex fokuserar på internationaliseringsprocesser i små och medelstora företag. Den femte essäen studerar i första hand internationaliseringsprocessen och visar på att tidig erfarenhet från importverksamhet enbart har en mindre inverkan på omfattningen av företagets framtida export. Tidig importerfarenhet har emellertid även en indirekt positiv effekt på företagets proaktiva attityd till internationalisering. Essä sex undersöker hur interaktion med konkurrenter påverkar internationaliseringen och visar att samarbete med konkurrenter, eller ”coopetition”, kan ha en betydande effekt på motiv till internationalisering. Denna avhandling bidrar till litteraturen inom områdena innovation, internationalisering, digital marknadsföring och ledning av små och medelstora företag. Den visar att de dynamiska krafter som ligger bakom innovationsbeteende påverkar små och medelstora företags användning av onlinekanaler samt hur denna företagsgrupp arbetar med kunder och leverantörer utomlands

Prior partnering experience and preferred alliance partner diversity of small firms

Purpose: This study investigates how small firms develop preferences for varying levels of alliance partner diversity by applying a behavioral perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Data was collected via an original survey administered by the Swedish National Bureau of Statistics (SCB) of 1026 Swedish firms with 50 employees or less. Hypotheses were tested by specifying a series of fractional response regressions. Findings: The results show a U-shaped relationship between experienced and preferred alliance partner diversity in small firms, and further show moderating effects of firm age, prior growth and environmental dynamism. The findings suggest that preferences towards diverse alliance portfolios in small firms may arise, not only from well-informed deliberate strategic thinking based on prior experience, but also as a consequence of cognitive bias. Practical implications: Our findings suggest that: 1) small firms considering a wide variety of alliance partners should carefully investigate whether they are, in fact, capable of mastering a highly diverse alliance portfolio or if they are overconfident novices. 2) Holders of homogenous alliance portfolios should recurringly investigate whether homogeneity is due to informed strategy or inertia. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literatures on alliance partner diversity and behavioral alliance portfolio configuration by shedding light on the learning mechanisms that shape alliance portfolio strategies of small firms by explicating the complexity of how different experience levels of partner variety affect current alliance portfolio preferences

Small and medium-sized enterprises' internationalization and the influence of importing on exporting

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Cooperation with Competitors and Internationalization

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The impact of managers’ attitudes on SMEs’ growth in northern Sweden

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between managers’ attitudes towards growth and consecutive realized growth.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire to 4573 SMEs (35 % response rate) was used to measure growth attitudes. Realized growth was measured using four years of annual report data (2-year pre survey and 2-year post survey).Findings – Our findings provide indications that managers’ attitudes towards growth have a positive relationship to actual growth outcomes. Our results also show that zero-growth firms are different from both positive- and negative- growth firms with regard to attitude towards growth.Research limitations/implications – This study suggests that attitudes are a factor to consider when trying to stimulate growth and that it is important to consider zero-growth firm different nature. Our longitudinal approach overcomes some of the limitation of previous (cross-section) research in the area. Future research could also expand the analysis over a longer period and covering other cultural settings. Originality/value – Our analysis of the relationship between attitudes towards growth and actual outcomes extends the earlier work on the relationship between attitudes and intentions to grow. Furthermore, this paper advances the development of appropriate measurements for analyses of growth and attitudes to growth

The coopetition paradox and tension : the moderating role of coopetition capability

In this study, we apply a paradox perspective on coopetition to investigate the effects of coopetition paradox on managers' experience and perception of coopetitive tensions, and the role of coopetition capability in managing such tensions. We propose a theoretical model to posit that the intensity of coopetition paradox positively associates with managers' experience of external tension, which in turn lead them to perceive internal tension. Further, coopetition capability plays a dual role—moderates the relation between coopetition paradox and external tension, and reduces internal tension. We tested hypotheses on a representative multi-industry sample of 1532 firms in Sweden and the results confirm them. Our study contributes to understanding the critical role of coopetition capability that enables firms to maintain a moderate level of tension regardless of the intensity of coopetition paradox.

International coopetition for innovation : Are the benefits worth the challenges?

International coopetition has rarely been studied in relation to innovation. Further exploration of effects of international coopetition, i.e. the pursuit of simultaneous cooperation and competition, on a firm’s innovation performance is especially important as such a relationship is challenging with a high propensity to fail. This observation formed the point of departure for this study, which aims to increase the understanding of the effects of international coopetition on firm innovativeness and how these effects are conditioned on the magnitude of the organizational adjustments a firm introduces. We use an unbalanced panel of 9,839 firms that participated in four waves of the Swedish Community Innovation Survey between 2008 and 2014 as our empirical base. We illustrate that firms that cooperate with competitors internationally are more likely to exhibit higher propensity to introduce radical innovations, yet this effect is conditioned upon the magnitude of organizational adjustments. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of the implications of international coopetition and what a firm needs to benefit from it