Aim of this paper is to analyze the role played by technological brokers in sustaining innovation processes by acting as a bridging point between firms and knowledge creator centers. As literature highlighted, collaboration and partnership between Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and research centers can increase the level of innovativeness of an economy. What really happened is that usually they are not able to collaborate due to the lack of specific communication mechanisms and tools. The role of intermediaries is recognized as the best way to connect SMEs and research centers. Large part of practical experiences demonstrate this assumption and there exists bunch of scientific articles illustrating organizational and social aspects of intermediaries and the activities developed in the technological transfer processes. But literature is still poor of field analysis about competences and skills a technological broker should posses. Skills and competences of the broker are contextualized based on specific attributes of the environment the broker is involved in and also on the specific way it is structured the network of firms, institutions and research centers. In this paper it will be proposed a methodological proposal based on a competency approach theory to map the competence???s profile of a technological broker. The methodology is seek to test a set of competences knowledge broker should owned to improve the level of innovativeness in a specific geographical context. The competences??? mapping will be performed through a set of explorative case studies. Brokers will be interviewed in order to exploit the competences and the skills a broker should owned to manage the collaboration between firms and research centers. Starting from the literature review, a list of competences will be drop down. Then, interviews with brokers will be performed to test the list of competences in order to understand how to build a broker???s profile. Interviews will be realized in the Southern Italy. The research is part of a wider research project named REBASING, funded with support from the European Commission. Aim of this project is to replicate successful brokers experiences in Italy, by adapting broker???s methodologies to the Italian economical and geographical context. Partner of the project are Confindustria Veneto SIAV (Italy), University of Padua (Italy), Treviso Tecnologia (Italy), August Horch Akademie Gmbh (Germany), Tallin University of Technology (Estonia) Bergen University College (Norway) and University of Naples Federico II (Italy).
The Role of Intermediaries Sustaining Innovation Processes in SMEs: The Competences of Technological Broker / Capaldo, Guido; Cannavacciuolo, Lorella; Rippa, Pierluigi. - (2012). (Intervento presentato al convegno International Symposium on Entrepreneurship and Innovation tenutosi a Venezia nel 23-25 maggio 2012).
The Role of Intermediaries Sustaining Innovation Processes in SMEs: The Competences of Technological Broker
CAPALDO, GUIDO;CANNAVACCIUOLO, LORELLA;RIPPA, PIERLUIGI
2012
Abstract
Aim of this paper is to analyze the role played by technological brokers in sustaining innovation processes by acting as a bridging point between firms and knowledge creator centers. As literature highlighted, collaboration and partnership between Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and research centers can increase the level of innovativeness of an economy. What really happened is that usually they are not able to collaborate due to the lack of specific communication mechanisms and tools. The role of intermediaries is recognized as the best way to connect SMEs and research centers. Large part of practical experiences demonstrate this assumption and there exists bunch of scientific articles illustrating organizational and social aspects of intermediaries and the activities developed in the technological transfer processes. But literature is still poor of field analysis about competences and skills a technological broker should posses. Skills and competences of the broker are contextualized based on specific attributes of the environment the broker is involved in and also on the specific way it is structured the network of firms, institutions and research centers. In this paper it will be proposed a methodological proposal based on a competency approach theory to map the competence???s profile of a technological broker. The methodology is seek to test a set of competences knowledge broker should owned to improve the level of innovativeness in a specific geographical context. The competences??? mapping will be performed through a set of explorative case studies. Brokers will be interviewed in order to exploit the competences and the skills a broker should owned to manage the collaboration between firms and research centers. Starting from the literature review, a list of competences will be drop down. Then, interviews with brokers will be performed to test the list of competences in order to understand how to build a broker???s profile. Interviews will be realized in the Southern Italy. The research is part of a wider research project named REBASING, funded with support from the European Commission. Aim of this project is to replicate successful brokers experiences in Italy, by adapting broker???s methodologies to the Italian economical and geographical context. Partner of the project are Confindustria Veneto SIAV (Italy), University of Padua (Italy), Treviso Tecnologia (Italy), August Horch Akademie Gmbh (Germany), Tallin University of Technology (Estonia) Bergen University College (Norway) and University of Naples Federico II (Italy).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.