The SSE/SSES research seminars continue with a seminar delivered by Charlotta Dahlborg on "Patterns of knowledge search – cases from product development processes in biotechnology spin-off companies", and Mattia Bianchi on "Selling Technological Knowledge: Managing the Complexities of Technology Transactions". The series is a perfect opportunity to get up to speed with the entrepreneurship research scene and meet and greet your fellow researchers.
Patterns of knowledge search – cases from product development processes in biotechnology spin-off companies
By: Charlotta Dahlborg
Abstract: It is widely known that entrepreneurial firms face considerable resource limitations and that they are therefore in search of new knowledge. But, how is that knowledge found? Companies that have been spun off from established corporations and universities are an important source of firm and employment creation, economic growth, and technological progress. Corporate and university spin-offs are usually created to commercialize new technologies which, in the biotechnology field, are often based on new scientific results. However, it is not clear how these spin-offs transform their inventions into new products that create value. It has been found in earlier research of entrepreneurial spin-off companies that they frequently lack essential resources, such as knowledge, capital and equipment. Such new resources need to be found, collected and combined with existing resources and thus transformed into new products and value. Lacking the right knowledge or receiving it too late is costly for companies and may result in competitive disadvantages compared with others that are more efficient in knowledge acquisition.
This paper focuses specifically on the search of new knowledge. In prior research it has been stated that what an organization knows at its birth will determine what it searches for, what it experiences, and how it interprets what it encounters. Hence, we intend to explore and characterize the process of knowledge search, focusing on practices and behaviors of individuals (e.g. project leaders and team members) taking part in the product development process. More specifically, we want to investigate what sources and channels that are used to seek knowledge and also how internal and external knowledge sources are used.
Charlotta Dahlborg is a PhD Candidate at the Unit for Bioentrepreneurship at Karolinska Institutet. Charlotta’s main research interest is in the management and organization of alliances in the biotechnology industry and how these influence the performance and value building of companies. She studies collaborations between different biotechnology firms and between biotechnology firms and research groups. Dahlborg predominately focus on two aspects of this, firstly the transfer process of knowledge and other resources between collaborators and secondly how the companies build alliance capabilities. The methodology used in this research project is case studies.
Selling Technological Knowledge: Managing the Complexities of Technology Transactions
By: Mattia Bianchi, Vittorio Chiesa, and Federico Frattini. (Mattia Bianchi will be present)
Abstract: With the diffusion of the open innovation paradigm, more companies are selling their technological knowledge, disembodied from physical artifacts, to other organizations in an attempt to maximize the rent-yield potential of the innovation process. However, extracting revenues from technology sale remains a challenge for most firms due to the complexity of this activity that results from the peculiarities of technological knowledge as an object of commerce. A study of 30 companies actively involved in technology sale and 75 single transactions illuminates two key aspects of technology transactions: (1) the challenges that the technology sale process entails; and (2) the practices that can be adopted to manage the complexities of technology transactions. This article provides CTOs and R&D and technology managers with insights into how to build a firm-level capability in selling technological knowledge.
Mattia Bianchi is Assistant Professor in the department of management and organization at the Stockholm School of Economics. He is also a research fellow at the Institute of Management of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. He holds a PhD in Management Engineering from Politecnico di Milano. Mattia’s main research areas are Open Innovation and technology licensing. He has published several papers, including articles in Technovation, Research-Technology Management and R&D Management. Mattia loves travelling (actually backpacking) around the world, skiing in the Alps and enjoying good food and wine with friends. For more information, www.mattiabianchi.com
