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Research On Business Model Of Innovative Enterprises

Posted on:2013-09-02Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y M WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1109330434971166Subject:Management Science and Engineering
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Enterprises are the main carriers of innovation and innovative enterprises are the major components of national innovation systems in different countries. In China, as the Innovation Nations Strategy has been made and the Ministry of Science and Technology has launched the Program of Incubating Typical Innovative Enterprises, it is very helpful to make research on innovative enterprises. Therefore, innovative enterprises are now under the spotlight in international academic research. Peter Drucker asserted that innovative enterprises are a newly immerging type of enterprises, which are different from the traditional ones and becoming the main entities in modern economy. So, it is also very important to further the academic research on innovative enterprises.However, the current research has not made clear what innovative enterprises truly are. Most of the current researches put their emphasis on innovation activities instead of innovative enterprises. Economists depict the curves of cost and profit of innovative enterprises, and disclose social institutional impacts on innovative enterprises. These researches didn’t focus on the overall business logic of innovative enterprises and failed to make systematic description of how innovative enterprises operate. This dissertation sheds some lights on this issue by exploring the business models of innovative enterprises.Business model is taken as the guide framework to analyze innovative enterprises in this research. As a newly immerging concept and tool in network economy, it can explain and forecast new economy better than traditional theories such as the theory of strategy. The core of business model is the structures of both internal value activities and external value networks and the match among them. A successful business model is an efficient internal value chain in combination with external value networks which can create value by both make full use of external networks and exert internal resources and capabilities. Therefore, reasonable observations on modern innovative enterprises can be reached by analyzing their idiosyncratic business models.By means of comparative historical analysis, business models of four generations of innovative enterprises in west modem history are summarized. The first generation of innovative enterprises in industrial revolution period in UK aimed to maintain smooth production and product quality by employing local craft workers who carried out equipment improvement spontaneously; the second generation of innovative enterprises before1950s in USA struggled to satisfy massive market demands by setting up laboratories and hiring professional staff to develop mass production technologies; the third generation of innovative enterprises after WWII in Japan improved product and process technology by all-staff innovation, parallel R&D, and learning acceleration; while the fourth generation of innovative enterprises in USA new economy focuses on core technology and marketing through network-wide innovation and outsourcing. It can been seen that as sustainable competitive advantages evolved from production capabilities to core competences, then to knowledge assets, the business models of innovative enterprises evolved from technology management to innovation management, then to intellectual property operation. The modern western history shows that the value sources have changed from real products manufacturing to information products creation, and finally to knowledge products generation.It is proposed that modern innovative enterprises take knowledge creation as value sources, take innovation as core value activities, and take knowledge assets as main operation units. The main value activities of modern innovative enterprises include knowledge activities, innovation activities, and intellectual property operations. In order to carry out these activities, innovative enterprises cooperate with other partners such as individuals, institutes, universities, up and down partners, and even competitors, which together compose dynamic, complex, and open value networks. Since these networks are connected by knowledge assets, they are termed as knowledge assets value networks. By cooperation with players in knowledge assets value networks, modern innovative enterprises obtain information of sciences, technologies, and markets; acquire and create intellectual properties through internal innovation, co-innovation, intellectual property buy-in, license and cross license, etc.; and realize the value of intellectual properties by means of internal commercialization, company entrepreneurship, VC-backed entrepreneurship, sale, etc.; which together constitute the system of intellectual property operation for modern innovative enterprises.A conclusion is reached that business models of modern innovative enterprises are greatly influenced by external value networks which consist of industrial networks, complementary assets networks, and innovation networks. Therefore, modern innovative enterprises build their industrial networks, complementary assets networks, innovation networks, and internal value chains, which together form their idiosyncratic business models. For a modern innovative enterprise, its industrial network sets the area of innovation and scale of potential markets, its complementary assets network limits the ways of intellectual property commercialization, its innovation network defines the starting level and efficiency of its innovation, and its internal value chain secure its core resources and activities to make the best use and fulfill the demand of its external value networks. These components of internal value chain and external networks should match each other to form a harmonious structure. The important development of modern innovative enterprises results in business model innovation which involves great changes of at least one component. Besides, there are three structures of innovation networks of modern innovative enterprises, i.e. internal innovation pattern, orchestrator innovation pattern, and network innovation pattern. Meanwhile, there are three structures of complementary assets networks of modern innovative enterprises, i.e. internal IP commercialization pattern, orchestrator IP commercialization pattern, and platform IP commercialization pattern. A modern innovative enterprise might choose its structures of innovation network and complementary assets network according to external value networks and internal resources and capabilities, and then make its business model come into being.Following the theoretical hypotheses, cross case studies were conducted, with Baosteel Group Corporation selected as representative of traditional steel industry, Spreadtrum Communication Inc. as representative of newly-emerging ICT industry, and Infinity Fund Group as representative of financial sector. Based on second hand data and face to face interview with top managers, the reports of Baosteel development and "quality+scale" strategy, hybrid model of Spreadtrum, and IP bank model of Infinity were drafted and finalized with reviewers’opinions. This cross case study validated the three-stage model of innovative enterprises evolution, general and specific business models of modern innovative enterprises, which cast new lights on the problems of innovative enterprises, such as definition, IP operation system, endogenous innovation capability, path to incubate innovative enterprises, and types of enterprises in modern economy.
Keywords/Search Tags:Innovative Enterprise, Knowledge Assets Value Network, BusinessModel
PDF Full Text Request
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