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Abstract
Both researchers and policy-makers have made increasing efforts to identify ways to foster and support entrepreneurship and small technology businesses in modern, dynamic business environments in order to promote economic growth. A process that is recognized as playing a key in this context, particularly in rapidly moving, high technology sectors, is commercialisation. However, a number of important aspects of commercialisation have not yet been subjected to through empirical analysis, including: the nature of the commercialisation process in small technology firms; the firm-related activities involved in the commercialisation process; and ways in which the commercialisation process can be efficiently supported and developed by the regional support organizations. Using twelve cross-cases in high technology industry, the study shows that both internal activities and external support services need to be considered in any attempt to improve the commercialisation process in small technology firms, which seem to differ from large companies in several pertinent respects, for example in terms of the internal resources devoted to commercialisation. The small technology firms' capabilities to identify, acquire and effectively use particularly knowledge-based resources during the commercialisation process plays a highly critical role. It is also necessary to focus on the right activities at the right time during the commercialisation process, and the results imply that some major challenges encountered during the commercialisation are often due to misalignment of activities and resources provided.
Keywords: Small firms; High technology; Commercialisation process; Innovation; Development
1 Introduction
Globalisation, technological developments and rapidly changing customer requirements have increased the significance of small technology firms due to their ability to create and exploit innovation (Allocca & Kessler 2006). According to Schumpeter's (1934) milestone study, entrepreneurs play a crucial role in the creation and exploitation of innovations, and technological innovation in particular is recognised as a prime requirement for stimulating productive capacity and ensuring global business success (Kozmetzky et al. 2004). Consequently, both researchers and policy-makers have made increasing efforts to identify ways to foster and support entrepreneurship and small technology businesses in modern, dynamic business environments in order to promote economic growth (Audretsch 2004). A process that is recognized as playing a key in this context, particularly in rapidly moving, high-technology sectors, is commercialisation (Fetterhoff & Voelkel 2006).
Previous studies have shown that realising the...