Identification of the Technology Commercialization Strategies of High-tech Small Firms

The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations found in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Advocacy, the United States Small Business Administration, or the United States Government. This report was developed under a contract with the Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, and contains information and analysis that was reviewed and edited by officials of the Office of Advocacy. However, the final conclusions of the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Advocacy. Purpose Small, highly innovative companies have been at the forefront in creating the industries of the future, but finding highly innovative companies is often difficult. This is because their innovations are sometimes found in their business strategies rather than the products they produce. The goal of this study was to capture the business models of innovative firms instead of classifying them by the goods or services they produce. A unique method was used to find these companies: searches of innovative terms on their websites. Searching for innovative terms on firms' websites determined that high-tech strategies could be found on known high-tech small firms but not on the control group. This indicates that this method holds promise for gaining insight into finding highly innovative firms. Highlights • " Serial innovators " (small firms with 15 or more patents in a five-year period) do not fit easily into business industry classifications. • Small firm websites tend to be geared more to describing the firm, or creating an image, than seeking customers. This transparency about the firm enables researchers to evaluate their websites to determine the firms' business strategies • High technology small firms tend to have common strategies, while their less innovative competitors tend to have varied strategies. • Factor analysis showed that search terms could be created to categorize firms into the following groups:-science-based product/service firm,-R&D organization or contractor,-product solutions provider,-highly specialized component/module/ consumable or raw materials suppler, and-specialized subcontractor. • The web searching method presented in the paper holds promise for capturing more than just business strategies, and in some circumstances could be a cost-effective way to replace surveys and reduce respondent burden. • Further research is needed to find out if this search method can determine categories for random individual firms. The study used six classes of firm technology strategies to evaluate which category firms match. From 80 small firm websites, …