It is often not so easy for entrepreneurs to find the correlation between the success of an innovation process and the effort during the planning, development and realisation of the innovation. It is therefore difficult for them to pause and answer questions of the type “What specific elements have contributed to conceiving, developing and carrying out innovations in my business? How important was my intuition? My professional preparation? My experience in the sector?”, “What was the role played by my collaborators, their technical expertise, their commitment to the enterprise, their motivation?”, “In what way did the organisational system of the enterprise facilitate the development of the innovation? For what reasons?”, “How important were relations with actors external to the enterprise (e.g. suppliers, clients, business associations, universities and research centres) for the success of the innovation?”. Besides, the daily pressure of the activity relating to the operational management of the business, the many day by day problems to be resolved and the necessity of always looking ahead so as not to be excluded from the competitive context, often mean that the entrepreneur does not have time to reflect on such questions. However, the “history of the innovation” slowly becomes more and more “unfocused”, the “rules” for the success of an innovation remain confined within the “tacit” knowledge of the entrepreneur. When the entrepreneur is stimulated to reconstruct the history of the successful innovation, to reflect on what resources determined the success of the innovation, what problems it was necessary to face and how these were resolved, so these elements may provide the basis for developing a process of organisational learning able to help the entrepreneur and his collaborators understand how to manage the development and realisation of new successful innovations. Considering the above issues, the authors propose a methodology aimed at helping the entrepreneur in reconstructing the history of the principal innovations undertaken by the firm and to bring to light the way in which his skills, those of his collaborators and the possible collaboration with subjects external to the enterprise have contributed to the success of the innovations. The methodology was developed by a work group composed by researchers and representatives of the Business Associations. The methodology was developed over several meetings, during the course of which the researchers illustrated their methodological proposals, which then passed to the scrutiny of the representatives of the business world. This way of operating made it possible to develop a methodology which is both scientifically structured and fitted well to the specific settings of Small Businesses.

EVALUATION OF RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES TO SUPPORT SMEs’ INNOVATION PROCESS / Rippa, Pierluigi; Capaldo, Guido. - ELETTRONICO. - (2009), pp. 112-118. (Intervento presentato al convegno RENT tenutosi a Budapest nel November).

EVALUATION OF RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES TO SUPPORT SMEs’ INNOVATION PROCESS

RIPPA, PIERLUIGI;CAPALDO, GUIDO
2009

Abstract

It is often not so easy for entrepreneurs to find the correlation between the success of an innovation process and the effort during the planning, development and realisation of the innovation. It is therefore difficult for them to pause and answer questions of the type “What specific elements have contributed to conceiving, developing and carrying out innovations in my business? How important was my intuition? My professional preparation? My experience in the sector?”, “What was the role played by my collaborators, their technical expertise, their commitment to the enterprise, their motivation?”, “In what way did the organisational system of the enterprise facilitate the development of the innovation? For what reasons?”, “How important were relations with actors external to the enterprise (e.g. suppliers, clients, business associations, universities and research centres) for the success of the innovation?”. Besides, the daily pressure of the activity relating to the operational management of the business, the many day by day problems to be resolved and the necessity of always looking ahead so as not to be excluded from the competitive context, often mean that the entrepreneur does not have time to reflect on such questions. However, the “history of the innovation” slowly becomes more and more “unfocused”, the “rules” for the success of an innovation remain confined within the “tacit” knowledge of the entrepreneur. When the entrepreneur is stimulated to reconstruct the history of the successful innovation, to reflect on what resources determined the success of the innovation, what problems it was necessary to face and how these were resolved, so these elements may provide the basis for developing a process of organisational learning able to help the entrepreneur and his collaborators understand how to manage the development and realisation of new successful innovations. Considering the above issues, the authors propose a methodology aimed at helping the entrepreneur in reconstructing the history of the principal innovations undertaken by the firm and to bring to light the way in which his skills, those of his collaborators and the possible collaboration with subjects external to the enterprise have contributed to the success of the innovations. The methodology was developed by a work group composed by researchers and representatives of the Business Associations. The methodology was developed over several meetings, during the course of which the researchers illustrated their methodological proposals, which then passed to the scrutiny of the representatives of the business world. This way of operating made it possible to develop a methodology which is both scientifically structured and fitted well to the specific settings of Small Businesses.
2009
EVALUATION OF RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES TO SUPPORT SMEs’ INNOVATION PROCESS / Rippa, Pierluigi; Capaldo, Guido. - ELETTRONICO. - (2009), pp. 112-118. (Intervento presentato al convegno RENT tenutosi a Budapest nel November).
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11588/366671
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