Compared to large established firms, technology-based new firms (TBNF) seem well placed to produce breakthrough innovations although questions remain as to their adeptness at subsequent exploitation. Building on the innovation and strategy literatures, the study identifies two different...

How do large well-established firms renew themselves in an increasing turbulent environment? Is there a generic pattern of change or is each change journey rather idiosyncratic? We posed five questions about the nature of renewal patterns. First, how do firms combine external versus internal...

Managers of biotechnology companies face great technological and market risks in making investment decisions. Traditional investment decision tools such as the discounted cash flow (DCF) approaches are often deemed insufficient in the face of the highly uncertain environment surrounding...

We discuss in some detail two approaches to the replication of practices between units within an organization or a family of organizations. One approach involves the use of causal principles and the other relies on an extant working example (a template). Definitions are provided for the key...

This paper seeks to clarify the theory of project based organisations by highlighting a previously overlooked organizational form - temporary project based firms that are valued for their capabilities rather than their products. Such firms exhibit different characteristics from firms in existing...

There are central tensions between the two sides of the board’s functions: that of controlling and monitoring versus that of resource gathering and strategizing. Drawing upon a field study lasting 38 months involving 8 new ventures in the UK high technology sector, we took a close look at the...

The emerging knowledge-based view of the firm offers new insight into the causes and management of interfirm alliances. However, the development of an effective knowledge-based theory of alliance formation has been inhibited by a simplistic view of alliances as vehicles for organizational...

We explore how an incumbent firm’s internal knowledge and organization structure influences its strategic alliance formation. We propose that the firm’s knowledge breadth and the centrality of its R&D organization structure positively influence its absorptive capacity, and consequently, its...