International knowledge gaining: Challenges and barriers among university spin-off firms

Industrial competence is increasingly dispersed across the globe, urging young high-technology firms to build knowledge relationships across national and continental boundaries. However, building such relationships is hampered by numerous barriers following from short in experience and education of founders of these firms. In this paper, we...

Effects of participation in standardization on firm performance from a network perspective: Evidence from China

A technical standards alliance (TSA) is a collection of firms organized for a common goal: developing, revising, and promoting technical standards. A firm may participate in standardization through one or more TSAs: its TSA network. However, little is known about the influencing factors and their boundary conditions for gaining firm-level...

Determinants of software-as-a-service benefits and impact on firm performance

Software as a Service (SaaS) is increasingly used by firms for sourcing business application software. SaaS can enable a cost reduction and quality improvement of existing operations and provide rapid and low-cost innovation. However, decision makers are unclear about how they can benefit from SaaS. This study contributes to filling this...

Innovation output of medical high tech companies: The influence of absorptive capacity and information availability

We are living in a knowledge society. Knowledge is considered as the most important production good in western societies nowadays. This study aims at gaining insights into the presence of knowledge and the conversion of knowledge into innovations at firm level. Three main concepts are used: information availability, absorptive capacity and...

Exploration of ambidexterity among SMEs in the Dutch Maritime sector: How SMEs align exploitation of existing products and pursue exploration of product innovations

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) tend to focus upon short-term profit in a crisis period, however the EU advised SMEs’ to invest in innovation and quality of products. How SMEs balance between these two contradicting strategies is seldom addressed. Therefore, this study explores how SMEs align their organization upon short term...

Are University Business Incubators Overprotective Parents?: A Knowledge as a Resource-Based Perspective on Growth of Academic Spinoffs using an Open Innovation and Absorptive Capacity Framework

University business incubators are a global rising phenomenon and have an imprint on the genetics of high technology-based academic spin-offs and are central to the triple-helix model of innovation systems for academia-industry-policy. Research focused on Regional Innovation System of Delft suggest that the high technology-based start-ups face...

On the factors affecting frugal innovation diffusion on Sub-Saharan Africa BoP: An evidence-based study using data from Participatory Rural Appraisal

Margot Wallstrom once argued that there can be no sustainable development without sustainable energy development. Despite several organizations already recognized that (rural) electrification leads to socio-economic developments and improvements related to health, productivity and education in 2013, 1.2 billion people – half of which in Africa –...

Looking for the Healing Innovation Process: An Explorative Study on the Critical Sucess Factors for Innovation Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry has been spending an increasing amount of money on R&D over the years. However, fewer drugs have been approved by the FDA and the EMA recently. This lack in innovation performance is a problem which needs to be solved in order to continue finding medicines for cureless diseases. Innovation lies at the heart of the...

How Social Networks Affect the Performance of the University Spin-offs

Networks and entrepreneurial behavior: Exploring their impact on the realized absorptive capacity as academic spin-offs grow older