Knowledge intensive entrepreneurship: networking within and across boundaries

Entrepreneurship & Technology. Scientific advances are accelerating, changing technological and business paradigms while impacting firm organizations and industrial structures. One could assume technology entrepreneurship, the creation of new ventures based on technological innovations, is well researched. However, as Shane & Venkataraman (2003) note technology entrepreneurship while resting between two well researched areas, innovations management and entrepreneurship, has yet to be fully explored. Innovations management has often been synonymous with R&D management and product development and has been studied from numerous perspectives. There are different forms of innovative activity with different contextual origins and there has been substantial effort since Schumpeter (1934) in defining common elements of a wide range of innovations. The nature of different kinds of innovations have been studied, i.e. product, process, business concept, business model, incremental, radical, architectural, disruptive, and value innovations. Context has also been studied through the role of regional agglomerations of high technology high growth firms (see, for example, Van de Ven, 1986; Dosi, 1988; Dosi & Orseniego, 1988; Teece, 1988; 2000; Henderson & Clarke, 1990; Flynn, 1993; Saxenian, 1994; Henderson & Cockburn, 1994; Chan & Mauborgne, 1997, 1999; Russell, 1999; Koschatzky, 1999; Pitt & Clarke, 1999; Ensign, 1999; Leifer et al. 2000; Christensen & Overdorf, 2000; Westhead et al. 2000). Entrepreneurship is also a large discipline, but when focused on technology based firms the research has addressed such topics as the transfer process to entrepreneurial firms, strategy and financing in venture capital backed firms, intensity and diversity in early stage technology firms, the effects of the competitive environment on new technology firms, triggering factors for technology start-ups, etc. (Feldman & Ronzio, 2001; Autio & Kauranen, 1994; Thierstein & Wilhelm, 2001; Simon et al. 2000; Preece et al. 1999; Fried et al. 1998; Harmon et al. 1997; Low & Abrahamson, 1997; Carsrud et al. 1999; Roberts, 1991).