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402 J. Siikonen et al. 2 the firm’s innovation activity (number of innovations created during the years 2003 to 2005) the type(s) of innovation created and the degree of newness of the innovation(s) 3 innovations’ effects on the firm’s turnover. Before the survey, the questionnaire was tested with three entrepreneurs of KIBS firms, and the feedback was used to adjust it. All firms invited to participate were contacted by letter or telephone. Nearly 30% of the respondent announced that their businesses were so small or part-time in nature that they did not want to respond to the questionnaire. Of the returned questionnaires 213 could be used for the analysis, providing a satisfactory response rate of 19%. The first problem to be addressed in our empirical analysis of innovation activities of KIBS firms was to ensure that innovation and its effects on turnover growth of KIBS firms were adequately measured. In empirical studies of firms’ innovation, a common strategy is to measure innovation either by input or output indicators, even though there may be problems in measuring them (see Becker and Dietz 2004; Rogers, 2004; Tether, 2003). However, according to Rogers (2004), proxy variables can be used to measure whether a firm produced some type of innovation in preceding years. In this study we use this method, by dividing the dependent variable (turnover growth) of firm’s innovation activity into two classes: I and II (see Figure 1), according to whether firms’ chief executive officers (CEOs) claimed that innovations increased their turnover in 2005 through renewal and development activity between 2003 to 2005 by more than 25% or less than 25%, respectively. We then applied a stepwise logistic regression model to analyse the effects of the independent variables. The variables and operationalisation are provided in Appendix 1. Figure 1 Measurement of variables Based on the KIBS classification, we then analysed if there was any linkage between the impact of innovation and the firms’ class (I or II) by using logistic regression analysis (e.g., Cameron and Trivedi, 1998). We then attempted to identify, by means of logistic regression, dependent variables that influenced the probability of a firm having more than 25% turnover growth in the years 2003 to 2005.
Developing innovation support services 403 3.3 Firm-level data The use of innovation support services by small, high-growth T-KIBS firms is an uncharted research area. In the firm-level analysis, small KIBS firms are understood as those knowledge-intensive business services that derive their intermediate function primarily from the production and transfer of technology-related knowledge e.g., knowledge related to computer and associated IT services, R&D services or architectural and technical engineering services (NACE codes 72, 73, and 742/3). The research data were gathered from interviews with the firms’ CEOs, annual reports and interviews. The research data were collected from 12 small KIBS firms located in Eastern Finland. These case firms were selected via purposive sampling (Miles and Huberman, 1984) and the key informants approach was used to collect data from those case firms that used at least three different kinds of innovation support services during the preceding two years. The CEOs of the selected firms were interviewed because they were assumed to have the best overall knowledge and insight into their respective firms’ use of ISS. In the firms, the CEOs were also expected to see the implications of specific findings obtained during the research. Theme-based open questions were asked to explore the innovation support services used from different, flexible perspectives. In this respect, previous studies of the innovation support services used by small KIBS firms offered background information for the questions posed during the interviews. All the questions were first reviewed by three other academics and were pre-tested by conducting in-depth pilot-interviews with two managers. Participants were asked to comment on questions that needed development, and the final list of questions was adjusted accordingly. Initial contacts with the case firms were made over the telephone. Participants were interviewed during May and June of 2004 by means of a personally administered semi-structured theme interview, with a checklist of two groups of questions regarding: 1 background information and the history of the interviewee and the firm 2 information on the utilisation of innovation support services during the commercialisation process of innovation, including the type of services used, and the phase in which they were used. Interviews lasted, on average, 1½–2 hours. At the start of each interview, the respondents were asked to base their answers on innovations that they had recently commercialised. After that, the respondents were requested to give a detailed description of the innovation support services that they had used. The interviews were digitally recorded and organised into a usable form. Finally, the data were coded for analysis, by categorising the innovation support services used into a time-ordered matrix based on the structure of the commercialisation process in small T-KIBS firms. In addition, annual reports and other materials (e.g., process-charts) were used to obtain supplementary information. Descriptions of the interviewees and the firm-related case information are presented in Appendix 2.
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Aalto University publication series
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Author Tomi Heimonen Name of the do
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Acknowledgements This dissertation
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CONTENTS PART 1: Overview of the di
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List of Articles This thesis is bas
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1 Introduction Some scholars claim
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1 Introduction In addition, the dur
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1 Introduction Figure 1: Framework
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1 Introduction factors that affect
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1 Introduction 1.4 Key concepts and
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2 Literature review and conceptual
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3 Research methodology Constructivi
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3 Research methodology and the meth
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3 Research methodology The data use
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3 Research methodology 3.4 Models a
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3 Research methodology reliable. Se
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3 Research methodology concluded th
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4 Results, evaluation of the studie
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References Abetti, P. A. (2001). Ac
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References Bhide, A. (2000). The or
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References Creswell, J. W. (2003).
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References Golafshani, N. (2003). U
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References Leitch, C., Hill, F., an
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References Pellikka, J. and Laurone
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References Storper, M. (1992). The
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Appendixes Overview: Appendix 1: Ke
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Appendixes High growth When examini
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Appendixes profitability, liquidity
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Appendixes Appendix 1 Continued (Ke
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Appendixes Appendix 2 Construction
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Appendixes Appendix 2 Continued (Co
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not increased compared to Eastern F
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propensity for risk taking (Covin a
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2. Former studies and derivation of
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firm’s annual sales growth (Arund
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H4. Firm success has an impact on t
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other branches in which employment
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and Rao, 2008). Because of the unev
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Table 1. Characteristics of the dat
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firms from other firms. The data in
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Table 2. Logistic Regression analys
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Public R&D funding was shown to inc
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References Achtenhagen, L., Naldi,
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Kanter, R. (1985), “Supporting in
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Appendix 1. Corporate population ch
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Appendix 3. Distribution of personn
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12 Int. J. Business and Globalisati
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14 T. Heimonen and M. Virtanen we u
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16 T. Heimonen and M. Virtanen suff
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18 T. Heimonen and M. Virtanen Glan
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20 T. Heimonen and M. Virtanen 3.2.
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22 T. Heimonen and M. Virtanen diff
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24 T. Heimonen and M. Virtanen sepa
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