dissertation in pdf-format - Aalto-yliopisto

Developing innovation support services 393
Biographical notes: Jukka Siikonen is a Lecturer at the Savonia University of
Applied Sciences and a PhD student at the Department of Business and
Management, University of Eastern Finland, Finland. He has also worked as a
Management Consultant in Skenar Ltd. His current research focuses on the
renewal and innovation activity in small knowledge intensive business service
firms (KIBS). He is mostly involved with the nature of professional services
and service innovation. Among the papers he has written are issues related to
local development and innovation system.
Tomi Heimonen is a PhD student in the field of entrepreneurship at School of
Economics, Aalto University. His PhD project is focused on the characteristics
of high growth SMEs. Currenly, he works as a Project Expert at Small Business
Centre, School of Economics, Aalto University and a Partner in Skenar Ltd.
Jarkko Pellikka holds a PhD (Econ. and Business Admin.) in Entrepreneurship.
He is currently a Project Controls Leader in Honeywell Process Solutions. His
research focuses on commercialisation process of innovation in international
environment and business development in high technology industries. As a
Partner of Skenar Ltd, he also regularly works with private and public
organisations to design, develop and manage business models to enhance
competitiveness in several industries. His research has been published in
journals including International Journal of Technology Transfer and
Commercialisation, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Management and International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship.
1 Introduction
Endogenous growth theories (Bresnahan et al., 2001; Cooke, 2002; Marshall, 1920;
Porter, 1998; Storper, 1992) lack both the ability to explain why certain firms operating
within a given region grow rapidly, and the ability to predict which firms will grow most
rapidly. In attempts to enhance traditional growth theories, entrepreneurship researchers
(in particular) have been interested in explaining characteristics of single firms’
performance and hence have analysed symptoms of growth from various firm-based
perspectives (see, for examples, Chrisman et al., 1999; Davidsson and Wiklund, 2000;
Delmar et al., 2003; Evans, 1987; Gibb and Davies, 1990; Littunen and Virtanen, 2005;
2006; Moreno and Casillas, 2007; Pasanen, 2003; Sandberg and Hofer, 1987; Storey,
1994).
Previous studies focused at firm-level have underlined that innovation is one of
the most important sources of growth. Therefore, innovation policies in Europe have
been strongly targeted to enhance the creation and exploitation of innovation, particularly
in the small firms that are perceived as being important sources of innovation (e.g.,
Blakely, 1994; Bridge et al., 1998; Malecki, 1997). At the same time, many small,
growth-oriented firms have become increasingly dependent on external knowledge
sources due to their incapability to generate all the knowledge required for the creation
and commercialisation of innovation (Cormican and O’Sullivan, 2004; Pellikka and
Lauronen, 2007). However, previous studies have reported that regional innovation
support services have failed to meet these requirements (see e.g., Kaufmann and Tödtling
2002; Pellikka and Virtanen, 2009; Pellikka, 2008). Therefore, it is essential to develop
innovation support services that are specifically targeted to support small technology