Institutional frameworks and innovation in the German and UK pharmaceutical industry

The Institutional Construction of Firms

“…Reconfigurational capabilities also involve innovation, but in a more radical, rapid and discontinuous way, such that core competences and skills become transformed, as when pharmaceutical companies developed new drug discovery methods that incorporated the knowledge and skills of biologists (Casper and Matraves, 2003;Gambardella, 1995), IBM turned itself into an IT services firm, and Corning Glass became a fibre optics company. Of course, in the extreme case of such changes, the whole firm becomes so transformed that it may be doubted whether it is still the "same" company, but most reconfigurations involve the restructuring of resources and redirection of activities into new technologies and markets, often with new skills and knowledge bases, rather than the wholesale destruction of existing organisational competences and administrative routines.…”

How macro-level sampling affects micro-level arguments: a rejoinder to Steven Casper

“…Accordingly, he finds that most biotech firms in Germany specialize and deliver incrementally innovative platform technologies, whereas most biotech firms in the UK specialize and produce radically innovative therapeutics. Elsewhere, Casper suggests a similar distinction between pharmaceutical companies which are less, or incrementally, innovative and biotechnology firms which are radically innovative (Casper and Matraves, 2003, in particular Section 3). Irrespective of whether the distinction is made between therapeutics producers and platform-technology deliverers within the biotech industry, or between biotech and pharmaceutical firms within the drug-making business, the simplifying assumption underlying Casper's sampling approach-using a firm's subsector or industry to identify its strategy-remains the same.…”

“…While I agree with Casper that defecting from national institutions is not without difficulties, I disagree that these difficulties and, ultimately, the sheer number of firms pursuing institutionally unsupported strategies constitute valid success measures. Finally, Casper suggests that the invention of NCEs is an indication of corporate success (see also Casper and Matraves, 2003, p. 1872-1876. Consequently, Casper portrays my research as biased, because it allegedly studies only successful RPI firms, i.e.…”

Institutional analysis of technical innovation

“…Deutsche Unternehmen haben sich z.B. auf die Entwicklung und Produktion von Instrumenten und auch von Software spezialisiert, die in der pharmazeutischen Forschung oder bei der Herstellung pharmazeutischer Produkte benötigt werden und die anders als die Endprodukte selbst kontinuierlich nachgefragt werden und entsprechend weiter entwickelt werden müssen (Casper und Glimstedt 2001;Casper und Matraves 2003). 3 …”