Competing in the Single Market - SMEs and ... - Erhvervsstyrelsen

By increasing SMEs’ access to technology, capital, product markets, among other things,strategic alliances and other partnerships, as well as networks and clusters enableSMEs to combine their generally inherent fl exibility and ability to adapt quicklywith the advantages of scale and scope generally only available to large corporations.(OECD (2002a), p.21.)Box 7: On the Triple HelixThe Triple Helix model illustrated below was coined by Etzkowitz et.al. in the late 90’s, andprovides a partly overlapping and partly complementary concept to innovation systems. Thetriple helix comprises universities and other knowledge-producing institutions; industry,including high-tech start-ups and multinational corporations; and government at variouslevels. While industry and government have traditionally been conceptualized as primaryinstitutional spheres, the new element presented in the triple helix modelis that the university is posited to be a leading sphere along withStateindustry and government.The Triple Helix is a spiral model that is non-linear, nonstaticand that focuses on the interplay between, within andIndustry Academiaoverlapping the actors to explain innovation. Its focus isto distil in which way industry, universities and publicactors serve as interrelated nodes in processes sustainingnew firm creation and the establishment of critical mass.The Triple Helix sees organisationally-overlapping andincreasingly flexible roles for the actors. Thus, the university can be seen as a firm founderthrough incubator facilities; industry as an educator through company universities, andgovernment as a venture capitalist.Source: Etzkowitz (2002)Whereas the notion of an innovation “system” may serve to broaden the scope of the policymakerto encompass the factors and reforms that may be most important for freeing up the potential forinnovation – irrespective of in which policy domain they are found – the cluster approach focuseson a specific set of activities and how they interact. The implicit assumption underlying the clusterapproach is that, if continued, close networking between geographically concentrated economicactivities with similar focus has the potential for bearing fruit and improving the competitiveness ofthe actors involved, as well as economic performance in a broader sense. The reforms that may bebrought about through application of the notion of innovation systems may be greatly important forfulfilling the potential of clusters to develop, however. Reversely, the dynamics inherent to clustersmay represent important assets and mechanisms from the viewpoint of policymakers concerned withinnovation systems.Strengthening innovative clusters is not just a matter of promoting networking or ICT. Rather,successful clusters tend to involve close cooperation between business, academia and government,and an element of knowledge creation and application which is highly collaborative and inter-linked.Other factors which play an important role in successful clusters are linkages and interactions capturedin the triple helix model – including inter-firm collaboration, public/private partnerships, industrysciencerelationships, and globalisation (for an explanation of the triple helix model see Box 7).54