A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Maroun Jneid and Antoine Tannous
This article is divided into two sections; in the first one, a literature review about the successful criteria
of an entrepreneur was exposed. In the second section, a summary of the results obtained after our
qualitative study of (24 Lebanese entrepreneurs) was uncovered.
Section 1: Literature Review & Research Question.
2. Literature review
Based on many research articles we noticed that the main factors contributing on the SME’s
entrepreneur success in the early stage are exposed as follow:
2.1 The competitive advantage factor
Small companies play an essential in creating job and improving economy of a nation, but
unfortunately, numerous entrepreneurship ideas fail to enter their early stage because of the lack of
entrepreneurs’ knowledge and training. A study (Covin & Miles 1999) shows a relation between
entrepreneurial creativity and competitive advantage and also entrepreneurial commitment and
competitive advantage.
Corporate entrepreneurship has long been recognized as a potentially viable means for promoting
and sustaining corporate competitiveness. According to Schollhammer (1982), Miller (1983),
Khandwalla (1987), Guth and Ginsberg (1990), Naman and Slevin (1993), and Lumpkin and Dess
(1996), a good corporate entrepreneurship can lead to increase the competitive positioning of a
company and consequently improving its market share and opportunities.
And we note that, the label entrepreneurial should not be applied to firms that are not innovative.
Because according to Stevenson and Gumpert (1985), innovation is the "heart of entrepreneur-ship."
Likewise, Stopford and Baden-Fuller (1994 p. 522) observed that "most authors accept that all types
of entrepreneurship are based on innovations”.
Many variables lead to competitive advantages as indicated later in our article such as personal
creativity, business creativity, product development, product differentiation, entrepreneurial
commitment and human resources management. Asselineau & Cromarias (2011) add the proximity to
these variables. For them, a small business company can get advantages to grow from geographical
proximity to private companies and public institutions. Because of this proximity, SME can get
competitive advantage in building a one to one relation with them; this is not the case of international
companies supplying products into the national market.
2.2 The value chain analysis factor
According to Krajewski and Ritzman (2007), processes are a firm's basic activities that take inputs,
modify them and add value to them in order to create outputs aimed at the firm's end customer. It is
important to utilize a process view of the firms since a firm's competitive success is positively
correlated with the effectiveness of its internal processes.
Thus a supply chain can be illustrated as a flow of inputs (at different degrees) in a pipeline that
conveys flows of resources, e.g. inputs such as raw materials, services, financial resources,
information and logistics, that are processed and converted to outputs in an efficient manner.
If each activity in the value chain is well worked on by the entrepreneur, it will provide a (value)
competitive advantage for the company which is manifested by an added value different from the
competition to the final consumer. On the other hand, value equal cost, equal beneficial price will be
well perceived by the customer.
Adoram (2011) stipulate that competencies based on information, skills and know-how accumulated
at the firm can strengthen the firm’s core competencies. Such competencies are difficult to imitate and
substitute and thus are uniquely characterized and can be regarded as distinct sources of sustained
competitive advantage. In essence, core competencies are a firm’s unique resources based on
collective learning and coordination of the organization with regard to the workforce skills and the
ability to respond quickly to short-term changes in demand or supply, facilities, market know-how and
technology. Core processes such as inward logistics, production (just in time), outbound logistics,
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