Diversification and hybridization in firm knowledge bases in nanotechnologies

Commercialization networks in emerging technologies: the case of UK nanotechnology small and midsize enterprises

This paper investigates how small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) utilize networks to commercialize emerging technologies. We build on literature on SMEs and innovation, networks, and how innovation occurs within collaborative arrangements. Contrasting network types and their influences on commercialization outcomes are probed in the context of SME value chain positions. An exploratory study is undertaken to offer a framework and findings that provide context and insight. We consider roles of SME agency and strategy to put forward a framework of network types. Using a multiple case approach of a sample of UK nanotechnology SMEs, value-chain positions and networks for commercialization are examined. Data are collected through semi-structured primary interviews with managers and informants and from secondary business databases and other sources.

Commercialization outcomes are found to vary by SME network type and value chain positioning. SMEs can proactively create SME-led, peer-SME or broker-led networks that aid commercialization. SME-led networks enable successful commercialization of upstream and midstream products. Peer- SME networks are used for downstream commercialization. Broker-led networks facilitate commercialization in the upstream part of the value chain. Hybrid networks are used where SMEs pursue multiple commercialization strategies. Reactive approaches to networking and interrupted networks, regardless of value chain position, are unfavourable for commercialization. The study’s conceptual and managerial implications are discussed.

Engineers and Active Responsibility

Knowing that technologies are inherently value-laden and systemically interwoven with society, the question is how individual engineers can take up the challenge of accepting the responsibility for their work? This paper will argue that engineers have no institutional structure at the level of society that allows them to recognize, reflect upon, and actively integrate the value-laden character of their designs. Instead, engineers have to tap on the different institutional realms of market, science, and state, making their work a 'hybrid' activity combining elements from the different institutional realms. To deal with this institutional hybridity, engineers develop routines and heuristics in their professional network, which do not allow societal values to be expressed in a satisfactory manner. To allow forms of 'active' responsibility, there have to be so-called 'accountability forums' that guide moral reflections of individual actors. The paper will subsequently look at the methodologies of value-sensitive design (VSD) and constructive technology assessment (CTA) and explore whether and how these methodologies allow engineers to integrate societal values into the design technological artifacts and systems. As VSD and CTA are methodologies that look at the process of technological design, whereas the focus of this paper is on the designer, they can only be used indirectly, namely as frameworks which help to identify the contours of a framework for active responsibility of engineers.

Knowledge Diversity in the Emerging Global Bio-Nano Sector

As scientists are able to understand and manipulate ever smaller scales of matter, research in the fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology has converged to enable such radical innovations as lab-on-a-chip devices, targeted drug delivery, and other forms of minimally invasive therapy and diagnostics. This paper provides a descriptive overview of the emerging bio-nano sector, identifying what types of firms are entering, from what knowledge base, where they are located, and their strategic choices in terms of technological diversity and R&D strategy. The firms engaged in bio-nano research and development span the range from start-up firm to multinational pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical, and electronics firms: two thirds of bio-nano firms are relatively young and relatively small. The United States dominates this sector, with more than half of all bio-nano firms located in the USA. Even within this sector which epitomizes the convergence of technology, there is a broad range of technological diversity, with the most diverse firms overall coming from a base in electronics, the most diverse start-up firms coming from a base in nanomaterials, and the most narrowly focused firms coming from a biotechnology/pharmaceutical base. We find that hybridization has been the dominant knowledge diversity strategy, with 93% of the bio-nano firms with nano-patents holding multiclass patents.