Perspectives on Innovation

Introduction

New knowledge which shapes and supports technological advance continually emerges in the academic institutions. It is a result of publicly financed, scientific problem-solving. As such, its generation is not (primarily) guided by application interests. However, such knowledge usually carries some commercial business potential. National economies differ substantially both in their capacity to exploit the opportunities and in the pace of doing so. These differences have been found to be a major source of competitive advantages in global markets (Porter 1990). New production technologies and products drive the process of economic growth and allow innovation rents to be appropriated. In recent years, one question has therefore attracted increasing interest both in economic research and in politics (Nelson 1993, Edquist and McKelvey 2000, Salter and Martin 2001). How does new knowledge from scientific research find its way into the commercial part of the innovation system? How does it support technological advance?

In this chapter it is argued that the transfer is essentially an entrepreneurial process. On the one hand, to understand that process, it is necessary to recognize the kind of actions and services involved in the entrepreneurial reshaping of the division of labor. In general, entrepreneurship requires command over suitable resources. In the case of knowledge-based entrepreneurship, these are, in particular, resources enabling the access to, and the exploitation of, new technological knowledge. Therefore, an essential part of entrepreneurial activity here is the organization of the knowledge transfer from academic research to commercial production and marketing activities.

On the other hand, the entrepreneurial process cannot fully be grasped without recognizing the constraints under which it operates.