Getting the right recipe: collaboration strategies for radical and incremental innovators in services. Research Paper No 77

Published: 2 September 2019

Successful innovation requires both effective idea generation and commercialization. Here, we investigate the benefits of alternative collaboration strategies across the idea generation and commercialization stages of the innovation process. Does collaboration generate complementarities between stages of the innovation process? Or, as external collaboration is costly and risky, can having too many partners be detrimental for innovation performance? 

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Please email [email protected] for the full paper.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation

State of Small Business Britain 2019

Published: 27 June 2019

The State of Small Business Britain report 2019.
The increasing levels of political uncertainty in the UK sets the context for this review of trends in the small business community in mid-2019.
We seek to provide an overview of business confidence and the extent to which that is reflected in the key datasets we have been monitoring for many years. We focus on the following:
• Business Confidence
• Job Creation and Destruction
• Entrepreneurship
• Firm Growth
Alongside this we will highlight some of the key messages coming out of our core research programme, which provide insights into current debates on high-growth, productivity and management practices.

Innovating into trouble: When innovation leads to customer complaints. Research Paper No 76

Published: 15 April 2019

This paper examines the unintended consequences of innovation. We show that innovative activity can have adverse outcomes in the form of increased customer complaints with the potential for reputational and financial damage. Complaints may arise directly from adverse reactions to innovative services or service failures where firms prioritise innovation. Our empirical analysis focuses on legal services in England and Wales. Survey data on innovation by legal service providers is matched with complaints data from the UK Legal Ombudsman. This allows us to identify causal links between innovation activity and subsequent customer complaints. Our analysis reveals that higher levels of innovation activity increase the probability and number of consumer complaints. We identify how firms can reduce the potential for consumer complaints by adopting collaborative innovation strategies and engaging in multi-functional teamworking. Our results have strategic, regulatory and policy implications

Associated Themes

Micro-Businesses in Ireland: From Ambition to Innovation

Published: 3 April 2019

This report presents new information on the ambitions, growth aspirations and innovation levels of Irish micro-businesses.
Micro businesses, typically businesses with 9 employees or less, play an important role in stimulating innovation, employment and growth. Despite this, relatively little is known about this important segment of the business population as such businesses are often excluded from official surveys. This report presents the findings of a survey conducted on micro-businesses in Ireland.
Ambition plays an important role in ensuring businesses achieve their full potential. The survey conducted during the course of this project reveals that one in four micro-businesses in Ireland want to build a national or international business. Within Ireland, micro-businesses in the West are amongst the most ambitious nationally. Interestingly, however, business and personal ambitions are broadly similar for male and female micro-businesses owners. For many people flexibility is a key personal motivator for running their own micro-business.
This report provides the first detailed information on the uptake of digital technologies by micro-businesses in Ireland. The results suggest that Irish micro-businesses perform well, adopting digital technology at a faster rate than their counterparts in the UK and particularly the USA. Micro-businesses in Ireland also compare well internationally with respect to introducing new or improved products and services. Finally, the report emphasises the importance that micro-businesses, due to their scale and access to technology, should not be left behind larger businesses in the global digital revolution.
This report describes new and unique survey data on established micro-businesses with 1-9 employees in Ireland. The report focuses on the ambitions – business and personal- of the owners; as well as innovative activity and the uptake of digital technology within micro-businesses. In Ireland, most micro-businesses are mature, and many are home-based. They are closely related to the families which own and run them.

This report represents a collaboration between University College Cork and the UK Enterprise Research Centre. Views in the report are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsoring organisations.

Industry 4.0 is coming: Is digital adoption a new mechanism linking entrepreneurial ambition to business performance? Research Paper No 72

Published: 8 November 2018

The advent of Industry 4.0 emphasises the potential importance of digital adoption for sustained competitiveness. Here, based on new survey data for over 9,000 firms in the UK, Ireland and USA we consider whether digital adoption provides a new mechanism through which firms’ growth ambition is realised. Our analysis emphasises the commonality of factors linked to adoption in each of the three countries. Four key conclusions emerge.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation

Adoption of new technologies and organisational practices: are there innovation benefits? – SOTA No 7

Published: 16 October 2018

In increasingly competitive environments, the ability to innovate successfully is a key corporate capability, and depends on the wide-ranging, complex decisions faced by firms in their day-to-day operations. International studies report innovation returns from the adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs), although these returns may be lagged due to initial disruption effects. Likewise, work practices such as innovation strategies, innovation culture and leadership, team-working and multi-functionality are important for innovation. In addition, adoption decisions are not necessarily made in isolation, and there is evidence of higher innovation returns when adoption decisions are made simultaneously.
Individual business surveys rarely consider all three areas (innovation; technology adoption; work practices), therefore we know little about the importance of organisational culture as a pre-condition for the technology adoption–innovation relationship. In addition, longitudinal or panel data is necessary to investigate possible lags to any cause-and-effect relationships.

Associated Themes

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  Management and Leadership

State of Small Business Britain Report 2018

Published: 20 June 2018

The report brings together a range of the latest data and insights on the growth and performance of UK SMEs. It sets out key SME trends based on a round-up of the latest research evidence including analysis of the Business Structures Database and the Longitudinal Small Business Survey. It also reports on the key findings from the ERC’s first Micro-business Britain survey, and from the 2018 UK Local Growth Dashboard – an annual publication which presents growth metrics for start-ups and existing firms across a range of sub-national geographies, including LEP areas.
Launched at the ERC’s Annual State of Small Business Britain Conference 2018.

Organisational capital, exploration and exploitation: Econometric evidence for UK services firms. Research Paper No 65

Published: 8 February 2018

Across all sectors, firms face pressure to serve their customers better by innovating in the delivery of goods and services. Undertaking innovation involves a range of different activities, however, from exploratory knowledge creation or acquisition to commercial exploitation. This may create tensions due to the very different resource and organisational requirements of effective exploration and exploitation. Here, we draw on new survey data for five UK service sectors which separately identifies firms’ exploratory and exploitative activities, to identify those organisational practices which are associated with effective exploration and effective exploitation. Strong contrasts emerge, with more ‘organic’ practices associated with exploration and more ‘mechanistic’ practices better supporting exploration. We find no evidence, however, that those organisational practices associated with effective exploration have any detrimental effect on exploitation, and vice versa. Our results suggest very different organisational strategies for services firms adopting business models which emphasise exploration, exploitation or both.

Associated Themes

Innovation and HR practices in five professional service sectors A report for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills

Published: 30 June 2016

Innovation and HR practices in five professional service sectors, A report for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills
We investigated the link between human resource practices, innovation, growth and productivity growth in 900 firms across five UK service sectors: Software & IT Services, Accountancy, Architectural Services, Consultancy and Specialist Design.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation

Work organization and innovation in legal services: analysis from a ‘deep dive’ study. Research Paper No 45

Published: 24 May 2016

Despite its potential social and economic benefit, innovation in legal services has to date received little academic attention. Drawing on the largest survey of legal services innovation ever undertaken (c. 1500 firms) this paper explores the strategic, resource and environmental drivers of service and delivery innovation among solicitors, barristers and other legal service providers.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation

Innovation, quality management and learning: a dynamic analysis. Research Paper No 30

Published: 18 May 2015

ERC Research paper No 30
Quality improvement and innovation are central strategies for firms in an increasingly globalised marketplace. Implementing both quality improvement and innovation, however, poses significant managerial, organisational and technical challenges and may also involve significant lags before benefits are realised. Here, using panel data on a large group of Irish manufacturing firms and econometric analysis, we establish the dynamic influence of firms’ adoption of quality improvement methods (QIMs) on firms’ innovation performance. Our study highlights the short-term disruptive and longer-term beneficial effects of QIM adoption on innovation.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation

Creating value from embodied knowledge – the link between advanced manufacturing technologies and innovation. Research Paper No 31

Published: 18 May 2015

Research paper No 31
The ability to innovate successfully is a key corporate capability, depending strongly on firms’ access to knowledge capital: proprietary, tacit and embodied. Here, we focus on one specific source of embodied knowledge – advanced manufacturing technologies or AMTs – and consider its impact on firms’ innovation success.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation