Serial innovators in the UK: does size matter?
Serial innovators in the UK: does size matter?
This article aims to shed light on the presence and importance of a significant number of small firms amongst serial innovators. Contrary to the common expectation in the innovative persistence literature, we posit that small serial innovators also benefit from operating within patterns of creative accumulation. However, it is in the quality of the technology and in the very nature of the knowledge accumulation process that the differences between small and large serial innovators can be found. Using a sample of 811 UK-based, highly innovative companies that patented over 66,000 inventions from 1990 to 2006, we find evidence in support of our theory. While large serial innovators experience higher innovation rates due to the scale of their innovation efforts, small serial innovators benefit more from processes of search depth characterized by the internal recombination of their previous knowledge. We find that important differences exist also in the very nature of the technologies being developed by small and large serial innovators.
23–47
Corradini, Carlo
39bbaf6a-312f-4c1e-a438-fdc6c757de5d
Battisti, Giuliana
f25a8a88-bb00-4dd4-91a9-ebbeaf1a36be
Demirel, Pelin
687c839d-b7dc-4914-972a-293ab9f014c2
8 February 2015
Corradini, Carlo
39bbaf6a-312f-4c1e-a438-fdc6c757de5d
Battisti, Giuliana
f25a8a88-bb00-4dd4-91a9-ebbeaf1a36be
Demirel, Pelin
687c839d-b7dc-4914-972a-293ab9f014c2
Corradini, Carlo, Battisti, Giuliana and Demirel, Pelin
(2015)
Serial innovators in the UK: does size matter?
Industrial and Corporate Change, 25 (1), .
(doi:10.1093/icc/dtu040).
Abstract
This article aims to shed light on the presence and importance of a significant number of small firms amongst serial innovators. Contrary to the common expectation in the innovative persistence literature, we posit that small serial innovators also benefit from operating within patterns of creative accumulation. However, it is in the quality of the technology and in the very nature of the knowledge accumulation process that the differences between small and large serial innovators can be found. Using a sample of 811 UK-based, highly innovative companies that patented over 66,000 inventions from 1990 to 2006, we find evidence in support of our theory. While large serial innovators experience higher innovation rates due to the scale of their innovation efforts, small serial innovators benefit more from processes of search depth characterized by the internal recombination of their previous knowledge. We find that important differences exist also in the very nature of the technologies being developed by small and large serial innovators.
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e-pub ahead of print date: 8 February 2015
Published date: 8 February 2015
Organisations:
Centre for Innovation & Enterprise
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Local EPrints ID: 376498
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/376498
ISSN: 0960-6491
PURE UUID: 8bba3c0d-e2c8-4246-ba1f-033d82673e5e
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Date deposited: 27 May 2015 09:31
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 19:43
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Author:
Carlo Corradini
Author:
Giuliana Battisti
Author:
Pelin Demirel
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