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4 Results, evaluation of the studies and concluding remarks Littunen and Virtanen, 2009; Smallbone et al., 1995), including changes in leadership and organisational structure. It should be emphasised that even if the strategies of the ventures focus on very niche markets they may be very successful in the international market. For example, one case firm (Blancco Oy Ltd.) concentrates on data erasure and is a globally leading company in this niche. Entrepreneurs cite subjective measures of success, including independence, professional pride, family values and external recognition as their major motives and incentives for their entrepreneurial careers. These findings support the suggestion by Achtenhagen et al. (2010) that entrepreneurs give several meanings for growth and success, including both traditional performance indicators and others. The emphasis of the case SMEs is on customer needs and listening to customers. This finding is in line with the proposal by Barringer et al. (2005) that customer knowledge could be a useful new variable for analysing business practices. Sales organisation and distribution channels in international markets were seen to be the most important, especially for exports. This is consistent with findings by Chetty and Cambell-Hunt (2003), and it is not surprising since most sales of some case companies (e.g. Blancco Ltd) are generated in the international market. A resourcebased view and direct impact of resources were also evident in some cases, and major future challenges perceived by the case firms are connected with management of growth and internationalisation. Therefore, their management should adopt an agile strategy and be prepared to delegate and share responsibilities. Article IV addresses the following questions. What are the highly growing industrial branches in Eastern Finland? What characteristics distinguish firms in high-growing industrial branches from those in other branches, and what do these small firms require from regional innovation support services? In order to answer these questions the connections between innovation activity and high-growth were examined using three data sets, LRA and case study methods of analyses. The absolute and relative growth rates of firms representing diverse branches of industry were initially explored (using industry branch as a dependent variable in LRA), then the study focused on analysing one high-growth sector, KIBS firms. Analysis of the national-level data showed that the service sector was the fastest growing branch of industry from 2002 to 2005 in Eastern Finland. LRA identified several factors that differentiate the service sector growth firms from companies in other sectors. Firms that were successful and highly-growing were over-represented (relative to a priori probabilities) in the service sector, as were firms that had several auxiliary business names, young or had received public R&D funding. More specific analysis of the 52
4 Results, evaluation of the studies and concluding remarks service sector showed that KIBS firms were very well represented in the set of rapidly growing firms. Therefore, fine-grained analysis of the service sector focused on the KIBS firms. The results of the survey (n=213) showed that: the KIBS sector is relatively heterogeneous in terms of growth-targeted innovation activity, innovations were mainly incremental and imitation seemed to be the main competitive strategy of the KIBS firms. Of all respondents, 40% and 25% claimed that innovation had less than 10% impact and a marked influence ( 25%) on their firm’s turnover growth, respectively. Enhancement of products or services, the implementation of new products or services and accessing new markets or marketing-related innovation increased the probability of KIBS firms being classified as innovation-driven growth companies by the LRA-model. Innovation-related partnerships and networking seem to have had only minor effects on KIBS businesses. This might be explained by the finding that small firms are less often engaged in innovation networks than large firms. Furthermore, the innovation partnerships that the KIBS businesses formed were primarily with other businesses; relationships with science and technology transfer organisations were rare. Thus, SMEs appear to make limited use of the full potential of the available regional innovation systems. Results of the T-KIBS case studies (n=12) suggested that these firms simultaneously use diverse innovation services, including market-, finance-, technology- and internationalisation-related services. Market services, such as building distribution and retail networks, seem to be critical for selling products and services to end-users. Finance services were used primarily to obtain assistance with the funding of innovation projects organised by public and private organisations. Further, venture capitalists and business angels have been used by some of the firms. The firms that have experience of venture capitalists’ inputs stressed that they would like the venture capitalists to play a more active role in supporting activities for daily business, especially development of internationalisation. The respondents also stated that the venture capitalists should ideally have more experience of their industry. The technology services required included mainly scientific and professional knowledge of technology. External knowledge resources seemed to have particularly major importance during the commercialisation of technology. Internationalisation services played a vital role because the firms often produced highly differentiated products and/or services, and thus concentrated their activities in narrow market segments. Firms have to find international customers to secure their continued existence. However, internationalisation requires resources and limited knowledge-based 53
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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
Page 11 and 12: CONTENTS PART 1: Overview of the di
Page 13: List of Articles This thesis is bas
Page 16 and 17: 1 Introduction Some scholars claim
Page 18 and 19: 1 Introduction In addition, the dur
Page 20 and 21: 1 Introduction Figure 1: Framework
Page 22 and 23: 1 Introduction factors that affect
Page 24 and 25: 1 Introduction 1.4 Key concepts and
Page 26 and 27: 2 Literature review and conceptual
Page 46 and 47: 3 Research methodology Constructivi
Page 48 and 49: 3 Research methodology and the meth
Page 50 and 51: 3 Research methodology The data use
Page 52 and 53: 3 Research methodology 3.4 Models a
Page 54 and 55: 3 Research methodology reliable. Se
Page 56 and 57: 3 Research methodology concluded th
Page 58 and 59: 4 Results, evaluation of the studie
Page 70 and 71: References Abetti, P. A. (2001). Ac
Page 72 and 73: References Bhide, A. (2000). The or
Page 74 and 75: References Creswell, J. W. (2003).
Page 76 and 77: References Golafshani, N. (2003). U
Page 78 and 79: References Leitch, C., Hill, F., an
Page 80 and 81: References Pellikka, J. and Laurone
Page 82 and 83: References Storper, M. (1992). The
Page 84 and 85: Appendixes Overview: Appendix 1: Ke
Page 86 and 87: Appendixes High growth When examini
Page 88 and 89: Appendixes profitability, liquidity
Page 90 and 91: Appendixes Appendix 1 Continued (Ke
Page 92 and 93: Appendixes Appendix 2 Construction
Page 94 and 95: Appendixes Appendix 2 Continued (Co
Page 96 and 97: not increased compared to Eastern F
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Page 100 and 101: propensity for risk taking (Covin a
Page 102 and 103: 2. Former studies and derivation of
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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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392 Int. J. Entrepreneurial Venturi
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394 J. Siikonen et al. firms’ gro
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396 J. Siikonen et al. generally re
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398 J. Siikonen et al. determinants
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400 J. Siikonen et al. 3.1 National
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402 J. Siikonen et al. 2 the firm
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404 J. Siikonen et al. 4 Results 4.
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406 J. Siikonen et al. innovation a
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408 J. Siikonen et al. the responde
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410 J. Siikonen et al. activities i
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412 J. Siikonen et al. Eastern Finl
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414 J. Siikonen et al. Delmar, F.,
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416 J. Siikonen et al. Oerlemans, L
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418 J. Siikonen et al. Appendix 1 V
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