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This book explores how entrepreneurship can be taught ...through case studies, arguing that entrepreneurship education needs specific cases and case methods to teach students entrepreneurial skills and mindsets. Providing unique perspectives and examples on how case teaching can be applied in entrepreneurship education, the book draws together a wide range of real-life case studies.
This paper presents a systematic literature review of the intersection between intellectual property (IP) management and technology transfer offices (TTOs) in the context of universities in order to ...understand how TTOs manage IP. IP management is an important issue, as it both enables and restricts the utilization of research results and impacts the competitiveness of technology-based businesses. The literature review shows that previous studies of IP management in TTOs tend to adopt a simplistic view of IP management, recommending that all valuable inventions should be patented. Moreover, academic research into TTOs and actual TTO practices both appear to focus on improving efficiency and outputs measured in terms of numbers of patents, licenses and spin-offs. We call this established view the appropriation mode of TTOs and question it based on the logics of publicly funded research and modern IP management. In its place, we suggest the utilization mode of TTOs, in which TTOs manage IP from publicly funded research in order to govern innovation processes and enable utilization of research results in a broader sense. Several recommendations are provided for both researchers and practitioners.
•We review literature on intellectual property (IP) management in technology transfer offices (TTOs).•The view of IP management in this literature is too simplistic, focusing on privatizing research results through patenting.•TTO performance is typically evaluated by simple measures such as number of patents, licenses, and/or spin-offs.•TTOs should shift perspective from appropriation to utilization in order to realize the full potential of research results.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Incubators are initiated to accelerate the development of new technology-based firms. Policy actors see them as a tool to initiate or revive innovativeness in regions and universities as a way to ...commercialize research results. However, even though the intended results of the incubator are good it is not known how the incubator should be managed and organized in order to achieve this end. When faced with a new type of organizations analogies can provide insights gathered from other contexts. To contribute to the further understanding of incubators this paper discuss the implications, in terms of highlighted dimensions and further clarifications needed when using the analogy of a firm. The paper uses empirical findings from six incubators. The discussion shows it is not clear who is the actual customer of the incubator. For example, can the policy actors that provide the funding to the incubator be seen as a customer paying for the service of regional revival and the NTBFs customers when their fees are not in relation to the services they are provided? In the discussion it is suggested that the incubator can have many customers with different value creation processes or no customers depending on the viewpoint taken.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The future engineer is labelled an entrepreneurial engineer, having networking, teamwork, opportunity recognition, creativity, risk management, and discipline-specific skills. Therefore, ...entrepreneurship education is being increasingly introduced in engineering education. The various educational designs used to introduce entrepreneurship education have been discussed extensively, but a clear scheme for the classification of such methods is not available. In this study, a classification scheme for entrepreneurship education is introduced by building on prior frameworks and authentic learning situations to differentiate educational approaches and learning contexts. We explore and combine different models of entrepreneurship education offered at 10 technical universities in the Nordic countries. Through this exploration, we identify three categories of learning contexts, which we label 'imitation', 'pretence', and 'real,' adding to the three classes of educational conceptions identified in the literature and verified through empirical data: 'teacher-directed', 'participatory', and 'self-directed'. This leads to a six-class taxonomy for entrepreneurship education approaches.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
Production transfers are a result of outsourcing and offshoring decisions. Because of the strategic focus of the outsourcing literature, the operational issues of relationship development between ...sender and receiver and its impact on the transfer progress have not been fully depicted. The purpose of the present paper is to explore relationship development during production transfer. To fulfil this purpose, we studied three different production transfers and derived four propositions for further testing. Our main conclusions included that dependence and power gradually shift between the sender and the receiver and that the relationship between them sets the arena for what types of relationships can be developed between the receiver and the suppliers. Furthermore, short social distances can bridge cultural and technological distances to some extent, because it motivates the actors to bring their relationship into a more developed state. Finally, we noticed that the headquarters’ involvement can work both as an inhibitor as well as a converter.
•The paper contributes to filling the gap of understanding how the different relationships among the sender, receiver, and suppliers during production transfers develop over time and how the development in these relationships influence the production transfer progress.•The paper presents three cases of production transfer; Sweden to China, Sweden to Romania and Sweden to Hungary.•The production transfers are analysed using a business network framework in order to investigate the relationship developments on several aggregation levels.•Four propositions are derived for further testing.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Strategizing as networking has become a powerful theme particularly in the IMP tradition. This paper focuses on new ventures and how these develop through the relationships formed by them. ...Strategizing through network development concerns how the firm perceives its network of interconnected relationships and how it interacts with other actors in relation to these perceptions. The aim of the paper is to identify patterns in the network development of new ventures and in how their strategizing relates to this development. The paper is based on a longitudinal case study of three new ventures. The case study captures the firms' ‘stories’ of how the networks of relationships have developed since their start. Based on the case illustrations we identify three patterns of how the new ventures strategize in their networking and how they network in their strategizing. These patterns concern: (1) exploration and exploitation of similarities, (2) knowledge sharing among customers, and (3) developing relationships with mediating partners. All three rely on interaction with counterparts that provide access to external resources which is of particular importance for new ventures.
•Strategizing shifts from ‘what to sell’ to ‘who to sell to’, and then to ‘how to build a position in the network’.•We identify three patterns in how new ventures strategize in their networking and how they network in their strategizing.•Pattern 1: identifying similarities among customer needs to develop new products and other customer relationships.•Pattern 2: connecting customers to enable them to benefit from knowledge sharing in their uses of the product.•Pattern 3: relying on mediation to gain access to additional customers through partners who develop relationships.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Incubators are organisations or structures that usually offer five types of services in order to accelerate start-up development: access to physical resources, administrative services, access to ...financial resources, assistance with start-up procedures and access to networks. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the mediating role of the incubator. More specifically, it examines how the incubator's mediation is related to incubator firms' development of broader business networks. The primary data comprised 34 face-to-face interviews with 19 respondents from an incubator and its incubator firms and with other actors with which the incubator had a relationship. The paper offers three conclusions concerning how the network horizon influences the incubator's capacity to mediate relationships, the necessity for incubator firms to be proactive in order to utilise the mediation activities of the incubator and the influence of public-funding agencies in the development of incubator firms, which is based on their role as third actors in connected business relationships.
•The aim of the paper is to investigate the mediating role of the incubator.•The IMP approach is used to study how the incubator’s mediation affects the firms’ development of business networks.•First the paper finds that the network horizon influences the incubator’s capacity to mediate relationships.•Second, a start-up needs to be proactive in order to utilise the mediation activities of the incubator.•Third, public-funding agencies influence start-ups by serving as third actors in connected business relationships.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
This paper investigates sourcing decisions for new ventures. Sourcing decisions are especially problematic for start-ups because they lack resources, knowledge and legitimacy to evaluate and interact ...with suppliers. We develop and apply a framework that connects global sourcing, relationship development and attractiveness. Further, we investigate how new ventures develop their first supply chains by conducting an exploratory multiple case study of six Norwegian start-ups. Based on our findings, we develop three propositions regarding how start-ups mediate their lack of attractiveness through pre-sales and by choosing shorter supply chains and smaller suppliers. The implications for practice include emphasizing the importance of developing a business relationship with the supplier in parallel with making sourcing decisions. This study is a novel contribution to an underexplored topic, and we conclude by proposing a research agenda for future explorations of start-ups and supply chain development.
•Investigates how start-ups develop (global) supply chains using a multiple case-study.•Framework combines global sourcing and business-to-business relationship development.•Develops propositions on how new ventures mediate their lack of attractiveness.•Proposes a research agenda related to start-ups and supply chain development.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to identify forces (in the form of converters and inhibitors) of Lean Six Sigma adoption by studying the gradual adoption of Lean Six Sigma in a medium-sized ...Swedish manufacturing company. The paper suggests how the converters and inhibitors interact toward increased maturity of the adoption and, in this case, stagnation thereof.
Design/methodology/approach
– Thirteen interviews were recorded and analyzed to identify converters that were moving the process forward or backward, as well as inhibitors that caused it to linger.
Findings
– It was discovered that activities that had initially moved the process forward were not sufficient to move it beyond its current point. However, an increased knowledge of Lean Six Sigma throughout the organization now prevents the process from moving in the opposite direction. In this medium-sized Swedish manufacturing company, Lean Six Sigma becomes a framework for thought and communication during Lean work.
Research limitations/implications
– The study benefited from considering forces pushing the process forward as well as backward. Thus, the authors suggest that future studies will benefit from focusing beyond critical success factors that may at times are static in nature. As a limitation, for discussions about the past, the memories of interviewees, generally, may have a tendency to be biased.
Originality/value
– The paper contributes knowledge of Lean Six Sigma adoptions and how they may attain greater future success by reporting on difficulties and setbacks in the current gradual adoption process in a chosen company.
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