The editors have tried to ensure the accuracy of this report but cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. They would like to thank the referees for their constructive comments on the draft document.
Studies indicate that most European new, technology-based firms (NTBFs) have been founded by relatively senior, highly-educated personnel coming from existing companies. These founders already have strong, industry and market links. A relatively small proportion have spun out of university or other public research facilities. However, this latter group has attracted particular attention from several interested groups, including governments and the scientific establishment. For governments, this has appeared to offer a means whereby public policy could have a direct and significant impact on economic development. Hence substantial public resources are increasingly being committed to support these developments in most industrialised countries. The founders of HEI spinouts are often academics aiming to commercialise nascent technologies and they face challenges which are less likely to arise for the founder with an industry background. The emerging technologies often commercialised in academic spinouts may have many potential applications. At the outset founders must make critical strategic choices of applications to develop, if they are to attract the substantial resources often needed for the risky development process. Some of these choices need an understanding of changing fashions in business models and investors' current preferences for particular industries. It is a difficult challenge for academic founders with little prior market knowledge and linkages, and no previous experience of professional investors and their requirements, to select the applications and business models which will support successful venture creation. This paper explores a number of key issues which surround these decisions and their relation to the changing business environment. It is concluded that the acceptability of novel technologies and products is mediated by systemic interactions which are illunderstood by industry and government.
For a number of years, pharmaceutical companies have been departing from a tradition of strict vertical integration, looking to external sources for at least some of their novel technology and products. The aim of this study was to determine whether (1) this is a long term, industry‐wide trend, or (2) merely a temporary or local response to acquire the technical capabilities of the biotechnology revolution of the 1970's, after which, with the new generation of technology in‐house, they will revert to primarily in‐house innovation. Analysis of secondary data on a representative sample of the fifteen largest drug companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland indicated that between 1977 and 1987, these pharmaceutical companies increased their external R&D alliances nearly six‐fold on average. A large and growing proportion of pharmaceutical companies’ R&D alliances are formed with biotechnology firms which have proprietary technology, due to financial and innovative pressures. Far from being temporary, this resort to external sources of technology in the pharmaceutical industry follows the trends of the wider industrial world towards functional specialization. Thus, biotechnology companies are increasingly taking on the role of suppliers of innovation.
Changes in contracting customs in the UK oflshore oil and gas industy have k d to changed relationships between companies, including the small, technology-based, oil-related companies which have been a source ofmuch innovation. Issues raised by the research reported here include the impact of these changes on the industrial network and supp& relationships ofthe industry. Continuing innovation is regarded by all industy members as being ofgeat importance for reducing costs and uncertainties in the North Sea industy. The changes within the industy have broken many ofthe linkages b e
t w e e n h s which mediated this innovation in the past. This paper Presents the initialjndings o f a project to a n a h~e the new relationships which are developirg and their impact on innovation. Ear4 conclusions include,in accordance with predictions3om theoly, that personal relationships assume relative4 zeat importance when industy norms are poor4 established, and that multipb relationships between jim under these circumstances are charactenied b y littk trust, incomplek integration of network knowledge and colEflcts of interest.
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