This book focuses on the process of commercialisation and innovation management in small firms. Although commercialisation and new product development (NPD) has been covered quite extensively, relatively little attention has been given to how small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) engage with these issues. The book explores this topic in depth, taking a close look at the reasons why decisions are made and mapping this behaviour against established theories and “best practice” models of NPD and commercialisation. The book uses case studies to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial decision- making and commercialisation, and investigates how and why NPD and commercialisation decisions are made, which offers valuable insights from both a theoretical and applied perspective.
Jan Brinckmann analyzes how competencies of founders of new technology-based firms affect the development of their ventures. The research is grounded in competence-related literature and combines insights from entrepreneurship and management research.
Corporate Entrepreneurship and Venturing is positioned at the crossroads of the strategy and entrepreneurship fields. The common theme is how and why corporate entrepreneurship and corporate venturing can contribute to innovation and strategic renewal in large established companies, in particular it explores ways to balance exploitation and exploration in established companies. The issue is how the locus of entrepreneurship affects the way corporate entrepreneurship addresses the exploitation/exploration challenge. In some chapters corporate entrepreneurship is dispersed across the organization and they examine the key elements of an entrepreneurial culture and the organizational conditions that are favorable to entrepreneurial initiatives. The other chapters contribute to the discussion on the potential role of corporate venturing which is separated from the main parts of the organization. They examine the advantages and disadvantages of corporate venture capital programs as particular forms of focused corporate entrepreneurship.
Software quality is a generalised statement difficult to agree or disagree with until a precise definition of the concept of "Software Quality" is reached in terms of measurable quantities. Unfortunately, for the software technology the basic question of: • what to measure; • how to measure; • when to measure; • how to deal with the data obtained are still unanswered and are also closely dependant on the field of application. In the past twenty years or more there have been a number of conferences and debates focusing on the concept of Software Quality, which produced no real industrial impact. Recently, however, the implementation of a few generic standards (ISO 9000, IEEE etc.) has produced and improved application of good practice principles at the industrial level. As a graduate in PhYSiCS, I still believe it is a long way before the concept of Software Quality can be defined exactly and measured, if ever. This is way I think the AQuIS series of conferences is important, its object begin to provide a platform for the transfer of technology and know how between Academic, Industrial and Research Institutions, in the field of Software Quality. Their objects are: • to provide a forum for the introduction and discussion of new research breakthroughs in Software Quality; • to provide professional Software Quality engineers with the necessary exposure to the results of current research; • to expose the research community to the problems of practical application of new results.
Cusumano and Nobeoka the bestselling coauthors of MICROSOFT SECRETS, reveal how Toyota and other leading automobile makers achieve remarkable savings and growth by using shared technology and organisational capabilities across multiple projects. THINKING BEYOND LEAN explains how to manage product development more strategically and efficiently, focusing on a concept the authors call "multi-project management". In contrast, most books on product development deal with how to manage products one at a time. The basic idea of multi-product management is to create new products that share key components but to utilise separate development teams that ensure each product will differ enough to attract different customers. Taking up where THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD left off, THINKING BEYOND LEAN will change the way leaders do business now and in the future.
The importance of this volume is that it addresses the major pedagogical issues that inevitably arise in the context of entrepreneurship education. It represents a valuable source for those involved in the training and development of entrepreneurial skills and initiative. Economic Outlook and Business Review Can entrepreneurship be taught? Is it an art or a science? How is entrepreneurship learned? Another masterpiece by the European masters Fayolle and Klandt, this volume based on the 2003 Grenoble Conference will be useful for years to come, among educators and policymakers alike, especially those open to the emerging paradigm. Léo-Paul Dana, University of Canterbury, New Zealand This book discusses paradigmatic changes in the field of entrepreneurship education in response to economic, political and social needs, and the consequential need to reassess, redevelop and renew curricula and methods used in teaching entrepreneurship. Traditional and new questions and concerns are addressed, including: the development of business schools towards entrepreneurship education best-practice methods of learning and teaching entrepreneurship both inside and outside the classroom the design of effective teaching frameworks and tools the development of entrepreneurial behaviours and attitudes in students teaching the design and launch of new businesses. The issue of assessing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education is also raised. A theoretical and methodological framework is used to measure the impact and effectiveness of entrepreneurship education programmes on the attitudes and behaviours of students. Now more than ever, the book argues, research in the field of entrepreneurship education has to be encouraged and facilitated, and should drive the activity of entrepreneurship education providers. As such, this fascinating book aims to provide researchers, practitioners, teachers and advanced students engaged in the field of entrepreneurship with relevant and up-to-date insights into international research programmes in entrepreneurship education.
The ingredients for success in starting and developing a technology-based company aren't obvious. Why, for example, did Digital Equipment Corporation succeed--and indeed become one of the most successful high-tech corporations in the world--while dozens of other companies with similar beginnings fail? It is a question that demands careful consideration by anyone setting up a new company or who is interested in starting one. In Entrepreneurs in High Technology, Edward Roberts, a Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, offers entrepreneurs a goldmine of information on starting, financing, and expanding a high-tech firm. His book reveals the results of research conducted over twenty-five years on several hundred high-tech firms, and it reflects the insights of the author's own first-hand experience as a company founder, director, and venture capitalist. Focusing on firms in the Greater Boston area--many of which have had technological links with MIT--Roberts traces the origins and the evolution of the high-technology failures and successes. He examines the work experience and family backgrounds of successful technical entrepreneurs, their sources of funding, and the ways they respond to the challenge of business growth. He compares the track records of firms with multi-founder teams and firms with individual founders, contrasts the performance of consulting firms and research-and-development contractors against companies that start out with a product, identifies the factors that limit an enterprise's ability to raise outside capital, and explores the critical influence of marketing orientation on successful companies. In a penetrating analysis of highly successful ventures, the author reveals the importance of strategically transforming the company to a market-oriented focus, and he examines the widespread tendency, even among the most successful high-tech firms, to displace the founder before the company achieves "super-success." For anyone planning to start a technology-based enterprise, Entrepreneurs in High Technology is essential reading--an invaluable preview of the financial, organizational, and marketing issues that confront every new high-tech venture. For business and technology watchers, it is an informative account of the promise and the perils entailed in bringing innovative ideas to the marketplace.
A critical issue in research and development (R&D) management is the structure and use of evaluative efforts for R&D programs. The book introduces the different methods that may be used in R&D evaluation and then illustrates these methods by describing actual evaluation in practice using those methods. The book is divided into two sections. The first section provides an introduction and details on several popular methodologies used in the evaluation of research and development activities. The second half of the book focuses on evaluation in practice and is comprised of several chapters offering the perspectives of individuals in different types of organizations. The book concludes with an annotated bibliography of selected R&D evaluation literature, focusing on post-1985 literature, on research evaluation.
Nanja Strecker answers the question to what extend there is a relation between innovation strategy and a firm performance. The comprehensive empirical research consists of primary research complemented with secondary data and capital market data, making the outcome highly reliable.
