Clarifying Determinants of Business Innovation Capabilities for Technology Driven Entrepreneurial Firms

摘要

Due to lack of systematic studies and clear definitions, managing business innovation is still relatively a challenging task for business leaders, especially entrepreneurs of Information Communication Technology (ICT) firms and technology driven firms. Entrepreneurial firms focussing on technology or specifically information technology and digital services are constantly pressed for innovating their services and products. Innovation theories are evolving into distinct disciplines bridging applied engineering approaches to external open innovation. This article aims to explore the determinants for managing business innovation capabilities with special reference to technology firms who have superior engineering advantage, yet lacking business focus. This is done by secondary research review of recent literature for the key constructs and sub-constructs of business innovation. Also a select public qualitative data sources such as interviews and talks by innovation experts are contrasted to propose a set of candidate sub-constructs and determinants for practical managerial application by technology firms as well as other entrepreneurial ventures. By combining the key innovation subcontracts, an improvised Business Innovation Determinants Triangle is proposed with fifteen innovation determinants. Thus this study contributes to the existing knowledge by bridging the academic and practitioners' views of applied engineering to business innovation. Proposed determinants can be used as input to systematic development of scaled business innovation metrics addressing different business model patterns and service business models in ICT focussed entrepreneurial firms for practical use.