Access to technological and financial resources for SME innovation

Editorial: The contributions to this special issue of the International Journal of Technology Management are all based on selected papers presented at the European Conference on Management of Technology held at Aston University, Birmingham, UK in June 1995. This conference was held on behalf of the International Association for Management of Technology (IAMOT) and was the first of the association’s major conferences to be held outside North America. The overall theme of the conference was ‘Technological Innovation and Global Challenges’. Altogether more than 130 papers were presented within four sub-themes and twenty seven topic sessions. This special issue draws on papers within five difference topic sessions: ‘Small firm linkages’; ‘The global company’; ‘New technology based firms’; ‘Financing innovation’; ‘Technology and development’. Together they cover a wide range of issues around the common question of accessing resources for innovation in small and medium sized enterprises. They present a global perspective on this important subject with authors from The Netherlands, Canada, USA, Ireland, France, Finland, Brazil and UK. A wide range of subjects are covered including the move away from public support for innovation, the role of alliances and networks, linkages to larger enterprises and the social implications associated with small enterprise innovation in developing countries.

Environmental features which limit organization and industry viability:a study of the footwear industry

This thesis proposes a conceptual framework for the analysis of organizational environments. Three primary segments of the task environment - the transaction environment, the industrial environment and the ecotone are delineated. The interrelationships between the organization and these three environmental segments are examined. It is suggested that the task environment i) defines the nature of the task confronting the organization and the economic, political and social position of the organization within this network; ii) influences the way organizations and industries are organized; iii) prevents recognition of the need for adaptation and change; and iv) limits the alternatives available to the organization should changes in the environment render existing technology, behaviour and structures obsolete. The British Footwear Industry provides an example of how this framework might be used to investigate the problem of industry decline and organization viability. It is argued that the explanations usually put forth to explain organization failure and industrial decline have not taken into consideration the environmental factors which affect organization and industry viability. The shift from national markets to global markets has altered the composition of the task environment and has changed the nature of competition from firm versus firm to environment versus environment. Organizations do not compete in the market, their products do. These products are often produced by organizations embedded in environments which are significantly different from the one in which the focal organization and industry are embedded.

Growth expectations and financial performance of small businesses:evidence from Latvia

By applying regulatory focus theory, this paper investigates the impact of both initial confidence and of exactness of growth expectations on subsequent financial performance of the small firms. Drawing on the unique data set based on the repeated survey design, we make one of the first attempts to explore the complexity of this relationship empirically. Overall the findings suggest that controlling for other relevant factors, including actual growth, the entrepreneurs having higher growth expectations perform significantly better later on in terms of profitability. In addition, education has a strong modifying effect: the impact of high growth expectations on subsequent profit performance is stronger for entrepreneurs with lower level of education.

Mortality and financial crises

Drawing on a dataset covering more than 100 countries from 1970 to 2007, we estimate the impact of different types of financial crises on male and female mortality. We find that only currency crises have a direct short-term impact on mortality rates. We stylize our reading of the key empirical evidence of this paper in the following way: of three distinct types of financial crises, it is currency crises that have a direct short-term impact on mortality rates, and this is particularly the case for males.