Small Business: Innovation, Problems & Strategy

Innovation is a fundamental determinant of value creation in business companies and can also become a key to successful economic growth. The innovative process and innovative effort of companies are explored and evaluated in this book. Some of the alternative strategies available to the entrepreneur are also examined, most notably the proposition that a selective approach to growth opportunities can be an effective remedy to the familiar limited sources of financing constraint. This book suggests transforming a model of tax compliance to a model of compliance in organisations. The model considers the power of authorities and trust in authorities as the main moderators of compliance. Procedural fairness and responsive regulation are discussed as ways of increasing trust in organisations. The start-up of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is attracting considerable attention due to their potential contribution to innovation. Using firm-level, industry-level, and regional data, this book examines the determinants of R&D investment by start-up firms in the manufacturing sector. The common features of the development of SMEs are also discussed. Business development services (BDSs) have the potential to provide significant assistance to developing countries, but the market for BDS products is underdeveloped. Thus, this book explores the different strategies to build capacity not to only disseminate transferred know-how, but also to localise know-how development. Finally, this book reviews some historical, interspersed with current unpublished, examples of how the commercialisation gap between science and business can be closed to the benefit of each. How the scientific/academic community can derive maximum benefits from collaborating with business is also discussed.