Шумпетеровские чтения. Schumpeterian readings

M.S. Korolev

Perm, Russia

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH TO WORKING OUT AND DEVELOPMENT THE INNOVATIVE – ENTREPRENEURIAL ENTERPRISE BUSINESS MODEL

In article, the application experience of the project management approach to working out and development of the innovative-entrepreneurial enterprise business model is considered. The working out and development of the enterprise business model system, which is developed and takes place approbation, is described.

Keywords: projects management, business model, project management approach, balanced scorecard system, national research university.

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2. ВОПРОСЫ ВЗАИМОДЕЙСТВИЯ НАУКИ, ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ, ВЛАСТИ И БИЗНЕСА

(SCIENCE, EDUCATION, GAVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY

COLLABORATION ISSUES)

M. ŠPAČEK1

Prague, Czech Republic

G.F. OSTAPENKO2

Perm, Russia

COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO INNOVATION

This paper deals with various models and approaches to be applicable in collaborative innovation approach. The paper also specifically maps the history of the collaborative research in the Czech Republic as it has been recorded over past 30 years. New progressive concepts like open innovation should be certainly taken into consideration. One of the most relevant topics is bundling academic institutions and industrial companies to produce innovation in much more effective way than before. The paper shows how effectively collaborative approach between universities and industrial sector can contribute to knowledge transfer, shortening development time and reduction development costs. Cases from Czech and Russian University – Industry Partnership are mentioned.

Keywords: innovation, collaborative approach, collaborative research project, uni- versity-industry (U–I) partnership.

Introduction

The role of innovation in company value creation is beyond question. In this respect correlation between company value and relative investments to R&D was proven by several authors (Morris, 2003; Freitas I. M. B., Marques R.A., Silva E. M.P. (2013). Since the product life cycle is little by little shortening, companies pursue the most effective way of innovation management. That is why innovation communities are in search for nontraditional approaches to innovation which would enable shortening product life cycle as well as reduction of development costs. Collaborative approach to innovation development brings new quality to innovation process. One of the most frequently discussed concepts is

1Мирослав Шпачек – д-р экономики, MBA, профессор Пражского университета экономики, г. Прага, Чехия.

2Галина Фоминична Остапенко – канд. экон. наук, MME, доцент кафедры менеджмента и маркетинга Пермского национального исследовательского политехнического университета, г. Пермь, Россия.

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open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003, 2004). This concept enables external subjects to participate in innovation process and benefit from innovation in exchange for sharing their own know-how and technology base. Open innovation concept complements on traditional concept of close innovation and generates shareholders value from mutual sharing knowledge, technologies and intellectual property. Even if open innovation concept is still under exploration there are several examples which endorse its viability. Typically Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) launched International academic project LLP – Erasmus project “European Academic Network for Open Innovation” which has been scheduled for years 2013–2016. It consolidates 35 universities from 55 European countries (OI-net, 2015). The objectives of this projects can be broken down into following areas:

♦Fill the gap in terms of structured open innovation in Higher Education.

♦Demonstrate the integration of the European open innovation curricula.

♦Develop a European Community of Practice on open innovation observa- tory/think-tank.

♦Implement support actions to open innovation in Higher Education.

♦Build sustainability, shape the future of Higher Education.

♦Implement dissemination & supporting facilities from the very start and promote open approaches.

Another possible way of boosting innovation effort and maximizing gains from innovation is collaborative research and development which involves universities or research institutes on one hand and industrial companies on the other hand. Such a collaboration is usually supported by a national or European fund programs. Regarding collaborative approach, many countries of EU embarked upon research projects which are funded from various subsidy programs. These programs are usually more or less efficient. Companies in EU are under tremendous competitive pressure from Asian and American companies which are able to offer high utility products at affordable prices while EU with its bureaucratic system and strict rules is often lagging behind Asian and American “tigers”. That is why collaborative approach to innovation is put in spotlight. This concept is becoming of high interest since it shortens development time, reduces costs and facilitates technology transfer from the university to the industrial company.

1. The nature and benefits in collaborative approach

Before we reveal the importance of the collaborative approach it is appropriate to clarify what is “partnership” and what is “collaboration”.

Within the literature, there is much reference to the characteristics of collaboration and partnership. Collaboration is the process by which people/ organizations work together to accomplish a common mission. The defining attributes of collaboration include that ‘two or more individuals must be involved in a joint venture, typically one of an intellectual nature in which participants willingly participate in planning and decision making’ (Henneman et al.,1995). Henneman et al. further argue that individuals consider themselves to be members of a team working towards a common goal, sharing their expertise and responsibility for the outcome. Gray (1989) defined collaboration as “a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can explore constructively their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what

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is possible.” Others have described collaboration as a process that enables independent individuals and organizations to combine their human and material resources so they can accomplish objectives they are unable to bring about alone (Kanter, 1994; Lasker et al., 1997; Mayo 1997; Wandersman, Goodman, and Butterfoss, 1997; Zuckerman, Kaluzny, and Ricketts, 1995).

The term partnership is closed to the term collaboration. In Partnership Theory Brinkerhoff (2002b) defines a partnership as a dynamic relationship among diverse actors, based on mutually agreed on objectives, pursued through a shared understanding of the most rational division of labour based on the respective comparative advantages of each partner. Characteristics referred to partnerships include: trust; the need for partners to share the same vested interest; the need for appropriate governance structures; the need for respect; common goals and agreed objectives and transparent lines of communication between partners; blurring professional boundaries, teamwork and joint working. Dynamic capabilities theory describes dynamic capability as a critical resource, which is the result of stakeholders’ partnership. Partnership synergy is an outcome of partnership functioning (Weise et al., 2001; Lasker et al., 2002; and Jones and Barry, 2011) which ought to be resulted in partnership effectiveness:

Collaboration and partnership are often used inter-changeably, sometimes within the same paragraph or even sentence.

From our point of view collaboration is a complex partnership in innovation development, when involving to this process parties trough establishing collaborative scientific agreements or scientific projects solve the complex problems of innovation acceleration, getting mutual benefit from working together.

Systemic view of innovation (Goh, 2005) that has driven the development of the National Innovation System (Freeman 1988; Lundvall, 1992; Nelson, 1993), the Mode 2 of the knowledge production system (Gibbons et al., 1993) and the Triple Helix Model (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000) argue for connections and feedbacks between partners, through interactive learning and the building of absorptive capacities through collaboration and partnership. The national innovation systems approach stresses that the flows of technology and information among people, enterprises and institutions are key to the innovative process (OECD, 1997). The innovative performance of a country depends to a large extent on how these actors relate to each other as elements of a collective system of knowledge creation and use as well as the technologies they use. These actors are primarily private enterprises, universities and public research institutes and the people within them.

Universities and industry have been collaborating for almost a century, but the rise of global knowledge economy has intensified the need for strategic partnerships that would go beyond the traditional funding of discrete research projects. Since the 1990s in the context of a technological revolution, the strategic mission of universities has moved beyond the tradition of teaching and research toward a “third mission” related to better ad-

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dressing the needs of industry and contributing directly to economic development. In the early years of the 21-st century universities are seen as more than important; they are viewed as critical to economic growth and innovation development, becoming a central actor of scientific and technological changes.

Universities act as an important driver of economic development and catchingup through their role in education and technology absorption, adaptation, and diffusion (Yusuf, 2007).

From the other side, companies’ business interests are to leverage on the universities resources, and in particular scientific know how, to explore the feasibility of commercial applications. So the firms are progressively adopting open innovation strategies to better access and integrate external sources of knowledge, leading to a stronger interest in collaboration with universities. New business models – such as “Open” or “Collaborative” Innovation create new IP cooperation opportunities on local and global level. The concept of open innovation has been introduced by Chesbrough (2003, 2006) focusing on business models structuring value propositions and partnerships to exploit the opportunities of technologies. The concept of open innovation at business level has been now widely accepted as an important paradigm, and empiri- cally-based studies are becoming available focusing on key issues such as IPR and patenting strategies. Open innovation means that companies should make much more extensive use of external ideas and technologies. This requires each company to open up its business model to let more external ideas and technology ideas flow in from the outside and let more internal knowledge flow to the outside. This Model of Open Innovation offer business the prospects of lower costs of innovation, faster time to launch and the chance to share risks with others.

The concept of ‘democratic innovation’ [Eric Von Hippel, 2005] adds the element of public participation and communities to innovation. Public policy may influence the propensity of firms to collaborate with universities and the scope of such collaborations in many different ways – through a direct role in providing funds to universities and R&D projects as well as through regulatory role which influences the rule sets of public universities and shapes the intellectual property rights regime. Another role of public policy is to provide necessary infrastructure and intermediate organizations such as technology transfer offices, science parks, and business incubators. Furthermore, governments can stimulate collaboration through soft measures, such as providing specific support services to firms/universities in the search for partners and conducting outreach activities to promote networking and raise awareness of the importance of collaboration.

Based on those assumptions and the general belief that collaborations are “good things and should be encouraged” (Katz and Martin, 1997), the collaborative research process and project as a mechanism of knowledge transfer received a growing attention in recent years, both from public concern (European Commission, 2000; OCDE, 2003), academic world (Davenport et al. 1999; Hall et al. 2001; Hall, 2004; Johnson and Johnston 2004) and practitioners as a good way. Knowledge of how to fund, manage, facilitate, and conduct collaborative research will become core scientific and policy competencies in this century (see Hicks and Katz, 1996). Knowledge transfer, and broadly speaking knowledge management, is traditionally considered as an internal

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phenomenon, which implies knowledge assets management through building and reinforcement of competences (Amesse and Cohendet, 2001) within the organisation to ensure a positive contribution to the firm. From this perspective, when knowledge comes from an external source like through collaborative research project then the key challenge is to develop competences to acquire, communicate, apply, accept and finally assimilate its content (Gilbert and Corday-Hayes, 1996).

The collaborative research project has several strong theoretical advantages. First, the formalisation of interactions through a shared covenant precisely defines the objectives and responsibilities of each partner to ensure the success of the collaboration (Barnes et al., 2002). Secondly, it is a strong form of partnership (Landry and Amara, 1998) inducing a propitious ground for trust building. Thirdly, frequent personal contacts result in an efficient collaboration and the transfer of tacit knowledge between partners (Schartinger et al., 2002). Recent publications (Castiaux, 2006; Johnson and Johnston, 2005) made interesting attempts to apply this theoretical framework to interorganisational context. Those authors used the knowledge spiral of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) to explore collaborative modes and the creating process at stake in univer- sity-industry collaborative projects where personal contacts between academic researchers and the industrial partner create the appropriate ground for tacit and explicit knowledge sharing. The practical goal of researchers was therefore to develop management practices leading to successful innovative projects. Research universities are at the forefront of pioneering and development such practice trough UniversityIndustry partnerships. They are designed to run longer, invest more, look farther ahead and hone the competitiveness of companies, universities and regions. As an example, Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Russia together with small scientific and technological companies as well as big industry enterprises has launched largescaled complex innovation projects aimed to develop technological platforms which are conducted in close collaboration with research teams and scientists of the university. The realization of complex innovation projects is intended to develop the directions of “Aircraft propulsion engineering and gas-turbine technologies”, “Oil and gas production, mining operations, petroleum refining, gas and minerals’ processing”, “Nanoindustry”, “Urbanistics”, “Energy efficiency”. Big projects are currently being conducted in collaboration with “Motovilikhinskie plants” Ltd. and “Proton PM”Ltd. (PNRPU, 2015). The idea of two last mentioned big projects is the introduction of New Innovation Management Model based on self-organization and self-development principles, including a system of organizational and motivational mechanisms implementation in enterprises, what in turn stimulate the innovative leaders growth and accelerate the enterprise innovation development. The results of Model implementation have been introduced to Director Boards of both enterprises, as well as to PNRPU supervisors, reported and published at international scientific conferences, including IMECS Conferences, Prague, which annually organised by PNIPU and University of Economics in Prague (VŠE) in accordance with their mutual activity and long – term successful partnership in a field of innovation management and corporate sustainability.

The table 1 summarising the aspects of such a complex problem as U-I collaboration to innovation development. Barriers to this process which are well documented in the literature and which the authors have got from been included in U-I collaboration on practise are also presented.

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The Research University-Industry Collaborations: Processes and Benefits

Motivation	Channels of	Barriers to U-I	Factors contributing			Benefits of U-I
factors	knowledge transfer	collaboration	to success				collaboration
Industrial partner	Participating in face	Identification to the	Start with a shared				Industry gets
has identified the	to face meeting and	relevant partner	vision and develop a			needed research,
problem to Research	networking activi-		strategy		new methodologies,
University	ties				stimulation in inter-
Industrial partner	Collaborative re-	Contractual negotia-	Based on leadership			nal Research and
has identify a poten-	search during the	tion (on goals, cost	and its development;		development. pro-
tial benefit by im-	research and con-	strategies, time, re-	Trust		grams universities
plementing and	sulting contract, dia-	sults and building	Formed the innova-		get funding, prac-
adopting the scien-	logs	long-term partner-	tive organizational			tice, future em-
tific different ap-		ship)	culture		ployment for under-
proaches, multidis-					graduate and gradu-
ciplinary including,							ate students
that associated with						education (smart
success						people), research
Income increasing	Ideas, know – how,	Intellectual property	Put the right people		(new knowledge),
can come with open	Intellectual property	management (rights,	in charge – those		and the knowledge
innovation processes	exchange	licenses, patents,	who cross bounda-		transfer to society:
between partners;		access mechanisms)	ries; team-building			entrepreneurship
shortening devel-					technology, exper-
opment time and							tise
reduction develop-						Society gets new
ment costs
Reputation increas-	Mutual publications,	Project –	Find the government		products and tech-
ing for both partners	conference,	management issues	and public support				nology.
	workshops			It is a balancing act
Industrial partner	Continuing	Technical capabili-	Promote a multidis-		in which everyone
need the external	education,	ties of selected team	ciplinary approach		has a shot at win-
expertise in R&D;		(involved in I-U col-	to research and				ning
University can pro-		laboration	learning
vide it.
External funding to	Personal contacts	Research orienta-	Focus on quality
the project (Indus-		tion, with focus on	instead of quantity
trial partner or Uni-		fast commercial re-
versity might have		sults in firms and on
limited resources in		basic research in
R&D field)		universities
Mobility and	Labour mobility	Ability to commer-	Involve smart peo-
employability	lifelong learning	cialize with appro-	ple, smart students
availabilities		priate returns	to the project

2. Collaborative approach to innovation in the Czech Republic

Collaboration between industrial companies and academic and scientific institutions has been always accentuated over several past decades in the Czech Republic. Apart from actual political development industrial companies and academic institutions strove to establish coalition which would be beneficial for both parties. Universities offered their excellent research and scientific background while industrial companies were motivated to implement and commercialize results of academic R&D in their facilities. Companies not

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only allocated appropriate funds to be dedicated to financing academic research but also shared their human resources with universities which facilitated technology transfer from universities to industrial companies. As an example which can be set is the development of aniline production which was performed in cooperation between Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague and Moravian Chemical Works in Ostrava (in 2000 acquired by Hungarian BorsodChem). Academicians as well as postgraduate students were involved in the development of aniline. If there hadn´t been for this productive collaboration such a sophisticated technology wouldn´t have come into existence. After having utilized this technology for almost 30 years this technology was licenced to Japanese company Tosoh in 2009. More than 10 % of worldwide consumption of aniline is now produced under BorsodChem licence.

Similarly Research and Scientific Association, which comprised Czech Academy of Science, Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague (VŠCHT) and chemical industrial company Spolana Neratovice, was deliberately founded as early as in 1980 for the sake of making the connection between basic and applied research on one hand and commercialization on the other hand more operational. Thanks to this establishment the production of complex pharmaceutical products in Spolana was put on stream in 1982. Implementation of new technologies were accompanied by filling almost 50 patent, authors of which were both scientists from the university and researches from Spolana Company.

After sweeping political changes in 1989 the connection between academic and industrial sphere was temporarily cut off. Development of financial tools which would ensure both institutional and project-dedicated subsidy was a plain idea only.

In 1993 Grant Agency of Czech Republic (GAČR) was founded. This establishment was a cornerstone for further state support of research programs. GAČR is an organizational part of the Czech state and its mission is to purposefully subsidize basic research from public financial sources. Such a support is grounded on the law No. 130/2002 Sb about the support of research, experimental development and innovation from public sources. It specifically deals with administration and management of both purposefully and institutionally dedicated public financial sources which are directly drawn from the state budget. In the same way applied research became a target for state subsidy program.

In 2009 Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR) was founded to operate under similar principle as GAČR. As opposed to GAČR which was focused on basic research support TAČR made an objective to support applied research. The aim of this government institution was to intensify and support collaboration between research institutions to be subsidized by the state and entrepreneurial sector. In ranks of its programs TAČR selected and consequently financed projects of applied research, experimental development and innovation. By means of TAČR new progressive technologies like nanomaterials applications were developed. Regarding nanomaterials Technical University in Liberec in Northern Bohemia (TUL) set up a Research Institute for nanomaterials, advanced technologies and innovation. Its aim is to contribute to the development of the region, which is traditionally oriented to technical industries. The Institute connects the laboratories of the technical disciplines at TUL and coopera-

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tion with major players in industry. Research programs are focused on areas of material research and competitive engineering with an emphasis on the usability of the research and development results in practice. TUL closely collaborates with reputable companies like Skoda Auto or Aquatest, s.r.o. to test nanofibers for the utilization in automotive and underground water treatment industry respectively. TUL also filed several patents concerning nanofibers (TUL, 2015).

In addition there were programs to be subsidized by either EU funds like program POTENTIAL or by Ministry of Industry, which announced program TANDEM. The former dealt with projects of innovative research to be aimed at the development of new (cutting edge) technologies, the latter combined basic and applied research. One of the “early birds” was thus grant program TANDEM which was dedicated both to the development of new technologies and significant improvement of existing technologies. Moreover the participation in TANDEM program was reserved to those entities only where academic institution like universities embarked upon innovation project together with industrial company. The results which were conditional for granting financial subsidy was full completion of the research and industrial testing or implementation of innovative technology.

Based on this mandatory requirements middle-size Czech Pharmaceutical Company PharmaComm, s.r.o. applied for the grant subsidy to be aimed at the development of very efficient active pharmaceutical substances (API). These active pharmaceutical substances are intended to be processed into final drug forms to be used for the treatment of various serious diseases like glaucoma or pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The company teamed-up with the Department of Organic Chemistry at Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague and developed new pharmaceutical technologies aimed at the production of prostaglandins based products which were properly validated and shortly after the development put in operation. Such a collaborative research proved to be beneficial from various points of view. Not only was joint effort of both institutions beneficial for state economy but also created transparent collaborative environment for possible boosting next collaboration. Taxable earnings generated on sales of these products significantly outstripped expenditure into this project.

Nowadays collaborative approach to innovation has become one of the key focuses of Research, Development and Innovation Council (RVVI), an advisory body to the Government of the Czech Republic (RVVI, 2015]. Even though the collaboration between industry and universities has been improving there is still a gap between actual status and expectation. Practical utilization of academic research in industrial practice is still in question. Academic research didn´t always react appropriately to industry needs, therefore it is necessary to place emphasis on technology transfer from university to companies which is the bottleneck of innovation effort.

Another part of collaborative research is performing research work for various professional associations which utilize results of the research for larger group of companies usually consolidated under umbrella of the association. These associations like Associations of Research Companies, Czech Top 100 and others can apply various methodologies and models which were developed by universities. As an example which can be set is the successful elaboration of Innovation Evaluation Methodology at

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University of Economics in Prague. Elaboration of this methodology is derived from the awareness of scarcity of metrics to be used for measurement of company innovation potential (Jiřinová, Scholleová, 2015). This methodology which is called SAII (Self-Assessment Innovation Index) converts all the aspects and parameters of innovation process in the company into one index which classifies the company according to its innovation status. This methodology consists of 40 questions which are broken down into five groups (conceptual activities, sources, managerial infrastructure, operation management of innovation process, evaluation of innovation outcomes) so that the company may easily recognize its strengths and weaknesses. In general each questions addresses one topic of innovation performance and maximum point to be scored from one question is five. Innovativeness ranking varies from non-innovative company, through poor innovative, well innovative company to excellent innovator (Špaček, 2015).

It is worth mentioning that universities are being pushed hard to fructify results of their research. It has become customary that applied academic research, must be properly transformed into commercial use otherwise the beneficiary of the grant must give the subsidy back.

Conclusion

Collaborative approach which places both academic and industrial subject on the common ground can be not only meaningful sources of competitive advantage but also a generator of shareholders value. It effectively combines knowledge, skills, sources and infrastructure of both parties. Such collaboration facilitates mutual exchange of knowledge base which is conditional for prospective success.

Collaborative approach to innovation takes into account that there is a lot of knowledge or know-how in universities which is not appropriately fructified. Both universities and companies are becoming aware of this unbearable situation and start to use this hidden potential.

It goes without saying that the benefits of university-industry collaboration in innovation development are wide-reaching. It can help coordinate R&D agendas and avoid duplications; stimulate additional private R&D investment; exploit synergies and complementarities of scientific and technological capabilities; they can expand the relevance of research carried out in public institutions; foster the commercialization of public R&D outcomes; and increase the mobility of labour between public and private sectors. Society gets the economic growth with new products and innovative technologies. It is a win-win situation for all parties included to this process.

Acknowledgement

This paper was elaborated in consonance with internal grant program Innovation (IGA2) at University of Economics in Prague.

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