Innovation management in networks of entrepreneurial firms

摘要

The emergence of the knowledge era has put firms in a far more demanding environment. The abundance of information placed at the disposal of companies, shorter product life cycles and more demanding customers have become the norm. In this turbulent environment, technology-based entrepreneurial firms, such as New Technology-Based Firms (NTBF), are coping with enormous challenges to develop and deliver competitive products in spite of limited internal resources such as money, reputation and knowledge. Networks allow the entrepreneurs to overcome this resource shortage by tapping external resources without losing their flexibility and efficiency. This article introduces an innovation management process for participative networks of entrepreneurial firms, which covers the idea finding, project developing and innovation project phases. Based on interview case studies in Switzerland, management practices are described.