Small Firms As Innovators

Utilizing a unique data set, Zoltan Acs and David Audretsch provide a rich empirical analysis of the increased importance of small firms in generating technological innovations and their growing contribution to the U.S. economy. They identify the contributions made by both small and large firms to the innovative process and the manner in which market structure, and the firm-size distribution in particular, responds to technological change. The authors' analysis relies on traditional theories of industrial organization and tests existing hypotheses, many of them previously untested due to data constraints. Innovation and Small Firms brings together two large data bases recently released by the U. S. Small Business Administration - one directly measuring innovative activity for large and small firms, the other providing a detailed census of economic activity for all manufacturing firms and plants across a broad spectrum of industries. Acs and Audretsch describe and evaluate the data bases in the context of the literature on innovation, market structure, and firm size. They present their findings on the presence of small firms, small-firm entry in manufacturing, small-firm growth and flexible technology, and mobility and firm size. They compare static and dynamic measures of small-firm viability and address the relationships between R&D, innovation, and productivity, and analyze the interaction between technological regimes and the role of government in innovation.

Features of the volume: comprehensive strategic profiles representative of small-firm populations; information from business surveys and administrative data sources for a better understanding of how strategies and activities relate to firm performance; and an exploration of how small-firm strategies and activities vary across a diverse range of operating environments- from manufacturing to services to science-based environments.

Small Firms as Innovators: From Innovation to Sustainable Growth provides a rich empirical analysis of innovation in the context of small business. The book first introduces the general innovation patterns present in small firms. It then progresses to demonstrate how these firms create and strengthen their innovation capacity, how they transform this capacity into real-world innovations and how these innovations are exploited for creating superior competitiveness that can be transforemed into sustainable growth. To conclude, this book offers both theoretical and empirical insights for measuring and managing innovation performance in small firms. Contents:IntroductionInnovation Patterns in Small FirmsThe Capacity of Small Firms to InnovateFrom Innovations to GrowthTowards Superior or Lost Competitiveness Innovation Engine to Forster Learning in Small FirmsConclusions for Moving ForwardAppendix: Details Behind the Figures Readership: Graduate students and researchers who are interested in small-firm innovation and sustainable development. Key Features:A new approach that shifts the focus from an innovation to an innovator A holistic understanding on the dynamics leading from innovation to growth and sustainable competitiveness This book focuses on small firms (departing from the usual focus group — larger firms)Keywords:Competitiveness;Innovation;Growth;Small Firms;Sustainability

This new book discusses the extent to which the Japanese economy encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. Although Japan has a strong reputation as an innovator, some people argue that this reputation is misplaced. Contrary to earlier expectations, the USA rather than Japan emerged as the leader in the biotech industries in the 1990s, and also many small firms in Japan supply only a few – or just one – other company, thereby limiting their view of the marketplace and the commercial opportunities within it. Despite the increase of international patents, international scientific citations and a positive technology trade balance, the Japanese innovation system is weak in giving birth to radical innovations. The book explores fully these issues, making comparisons with other countries where appropriate. It concludes that the Japanese innovation system has both advantages and disadvantages and contributes to a better understanding of how policy changes take place.

This book uses in-depth case studies to provide a structured analysis of open innovation practices in small and medium-sized enterprises.

What is the role of culture in the innovation dynamic of small firms within the context of their territorial environments? How do shared values, beliefs and practices underpin the knowledge production process that leads to innovation? In what way do symbolic aspects of social life shape European SMEs’ innovation processes? This volume gives an extensive insight into the complex links between culture and innovation in one of the key agents of economic life: SMEs and micro firms. The chapters employ different analytical and methodological strategies in regions of Europe to identify dimensions of culture, especially values, norms, skills and institutions, and to scrutinize which specific components of culture are relevant to firm innovation and to the more general dynamics of regional innovation. The original research presented shows how small firms learn, interact, compete and collaborate with other key agents of the innovation system. Taken as a whole, the volume points the way towards a more comprehensive framework for understanding the nature of innovation in SMEs and micro firms. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

This book provides an overview of the theory, practice and context of entrepreneurship and innovation at both the industry and firm level. It provides a foundation of ideas and understandings designed to shape the reader’s thinking and behaviour to better appreciate the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in modern economies, and to recognise their own abilities in this regard. The book is aimed at students studying advanced levels of entrepreneurship, innovation and related fields as well as practitioners (for example, managers, business owners). As entrepreneurship and innovation are largely indivisible elements and cannot be adequately understood if studied separately, the book provides the reader with an overview of these elements and how they combine to create new value in the market. This edition is updated with recent international research, including research and examples from Europe, the US, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The encouragement of the birth and growth of high technology small firms is a major goal of both national and regional government planning agencies. However, while there is broad agreement on the increasing value of this type of small firm to future industrial expansion beyond the year 2000, there is little hard evidence on which to base measures to encourage the rate of new firm formation and subsequent growth. This book aids policy prescription by providing a detailed study of regional variations in the management of innovation in high technology small firms. The empirical research considers all the major management factors that are inputs to the innovation process through a time-series study of innovation in British and American high technology small firms. In conclusion, results of this study form the basis of a radical new policy approach to the promotion of growth in high technology small firms.