Guido H Baltes

LEGIC, a technology provider in the field of identification technology, has successfully mastered a challenging transformation from being analogue-driven to becoming a digitally driven business model. It began as a product business, which because of proprietary features had some stickiness. This, however, diminished and the product commoditized over the maturation of its market. Faced with this situation, LEGIC initiated a bold move to transform the business model from south to north, ie from a non-sticky product business to a platform business. Integrating its physical product offerings with software and service components, it managed to leverage its technology competences, an established partner network and brand assets into an innovative holistic offering. Not only has this been successfully launched in one of its key vertical markets, but it has also enabled LEGIC to successfully re-enter market segments it had lost during the maturation of its industry. LEGIC and its roots in the ID technologies market Since 1992, LEGIC has designed and provided contactless radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for ID applications, ranging from access control and time and attendance to e-ticketing. The company was launched by Kaba AG, a Swiss-based, internationally leading provider of innovative access solutions for the security industry. LEGIC acts as a self-sustained company in the smartcard market, serving its partners, amongst them the Kaba Group. RFID technologies are at the heart of what is frequently addressed as the 'internet of things' (IoT), and has revolutionized how we can identify objects and people. Such systems consist of one or more transponders, carrying identifying information, and a reader that accesses (ie 'reads') the identifying information stored on the transponders without line of sight. RFID applications span a large number of areas such as access control (eg automobile ignition keys) and ID management (RFID-enabled passports) or payment (eg proximity card features in credit cards). But it also deals with asset tracking (eg automated check-in and checkout of stock or cattle tracking) and activity monitoring (eg medication intakes of elderly people). The internet of things now aims to connect people and things any time, anywhere, for interacting, communicating and sensing purposes, based on exchanging data and information. Contactless identification is one of the core technologies that provides infrastructure for this seamless interconnection with a dynamic global network with self-configuring capabilities. Here, RFID

—Validity of the business model is a key indicator for buying into ventures in the early-stage. Business models of early-stage ventures decrease in validity when developing the business over the progressing stages of the business life-cycle. By doing so, the ventures are validating their business model when building transaction relationships to the surrounding value network. In prior research, we developed a research design based on existing business innovation proposals (onepager, pitch decks, business plans) that is assumed to evaluate the status of business model validation. The core hypothesis of the research design is that transaction relations represent a strong anchor between the business model and the business reality, thus providing information on the business model validity. In this research, we test this hypothesis by designing and analyzing a survey that was directed to founders taking part in a business plan competition. We compared the relationships described in the submitted business plans to the relations explicitely stated in the follow-up questionnaire. We identified that the described relations to customers, investors, and people (human resources) match the relationships expressed in questionnaires quite well. A significant disagreement, however, exists in the relationships to suppliers. We conclude that there is still a theoretical and empirical gap that leads to disagreement between business plans and reality in the group of suppliers. (Abstract)

Growth is a key indicator of the prosperity of an economy. In today's Germany the " Gründerzeit " still describes a period of enormous economic growth. Factors that lead to growth haven't been investigated in the context of the different life cycle stages of early-stage technology ventures so far. This paper proposes a model of early-stage ventures' growth based on factors. From a theoretical angle, we look at the business from the market-based view (MBV) and the resource-based view (RBV) on strategy in the longitudinal perspective of the business life cycle. With this view we get to know what are the stage specific needs and processes of new technology based ventures in order to provide appropriate support. We tested different potential growth indicators for the model with a questionnaire-based survey which was answered by 68 high-tech entrepreneurs. The results suggest that growth factors are stage specific in their relevance. While leading to growth in one stage, certain factors evince no or even negative influence on growth in other stages. Moreover, RBV factors as seen more relevant for the growth than the MBV factors. Further research requires a large and representative population to validate the results.

— We examine to what extent a transaction relation-based value network maturity status of New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs) is related to their survival. A specific challenge of NTBFs is their lack of market-orientation, which is why the maturity of the ties they form towards the market in terms of customers, financiers, personnel and partners is supposed to be a strong indicator for survival. We analyze a sample of 170 NTBFs by capturing their value network status from business plans and defining their survival status using secondary research. Simple statistical tests and regressions suggest that the official registration of the business is a pre-step for survival that requires industry-specific value network dimension strengths. A sub-sample survival analysis shows that for all NTBFs that have reached registration, regardless of their industry, a stronger customer value network maturity dimension prevents from failure and is thus a significant predictor for survival. Moreover, the analyses partly support the idea that NTBFs from the IT sector are less dependent on a strong value network in the financier dimension to survive. The results are of relevance for both practitioners and researchers in the innovation system: a better understanding of the factors impacting on NTBF survival can help to provide more tailored support services for young firms, increase the effectiveness of resource allocations, and provide a basis for further research.

What drives entrepreneurial action to create a lasting impact? The creation of new ventures that aim at having an impact beyond their financial performance face additional challenges: achieving economic sustainability and at the same time addressing social or environmental issues (Dean & McMullen 2007). These so-called hybrid organizations try to be congruent with their blended values, despite being under external pressure in the process of maturing the new venture (Mcmullen & Warnick 2016). This research explores not only the initial motivations of the entrepreneur as potential influence on the ventures' blended values, but also the source of finance.

— This paper builds upon the widely-used resource-based approach to explaining survival of new technology-based firms (NTBFs). However, instead of looking at the NTBF's initial resource configuration, a process-oriented perspective is taken by focusing on the entrepreneur's ability to transform resources in response to triggers resulting from market interactions. Transaction relations reflect these interactions and are thus operationalized with a suggested method for measuring the status of venture emergence (VE) applicable to early-stage NTBFs. NTBFs' value network maturity is reflected in the number and strength of their transaction relations in the four market dimensions customer, investor, partner, and human resource. Business plans of NTBFs represent the artifact that contains this data in the form of transaction relation descriptions. Using content analysis, a multi-step combined human and computer coding process has been developed to annotate and classify transaction relations from business plans in order to empirically determine NTBFs' status of VE. Results of the business plan analysis suggest that the level of transaction relations allows to draw conclusions on the VE status. Moreover, applying the developed process, first analysis of a business plan coding test shows that the transaction relation based VE status significantly relates to NTBF survival capability.

The business plan is one of the most frequently available artifacts to innovation intermediaries of technology-based ventures’ presentations in their early stages. Agreement on the evaluations of venturing projects based on the business plans highly depends on the individual perspective of the readers. One reason is that little empirical proof exists for descriptions in business plans that suggest survival of early-stage technology ventures. We identified descriptions of transaction relations as an anchor of the snapshot model business plan to business reality. In the early-stage, surviving ventures are building transaction relations to human resources, financial resources, and suppliers on the input side, and customers on the output side of the business towards a stronger ego-centric value network. We conceptualized a multidimensional measurement instrument that evaluates the maturity of ego-centric value networks based on the transaction relations of different strength categories that are described in business plans of early-stage technology ventures. In this paper, the research design and the instrument are purified to achieve high agreement in the evaluation of a business plan. As a result, we present an overall research design that can reach acceptable quality. The paper so contributes to the literature on business analysis in the early-stage of technology-based ventures and the research technique of content analysis.

— corporate entrepreneurship is one tool for established companies to strengthen their capabilities for strategic renewal and innovativeness. The question, however, which factors are influencing the success of a corporate entrepreneurship initiative requires further attention. The corporate entrepreneur who is acting as both the leader of embedded entrepreneurial teams and linking pin to the corporate, is providing one possible perspective. Based on 6 interviews conducted in 6 German organizations this study contributes to the understanding of the role of the corporate entrepreneur and how this role can be distinguished from other roles in the context of innovation.

The research in entrepreneurship is divided in two research streams, entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship. While entrepreneurship has been the subject of investigation for decades, corporate entrepreneurship however was less focused. This changed due to the rise of new technologies such as the internet and digitalization that changed industries in a fundamental way.
For mastering these volatile markets, an ambidextrous behavior is indispensable. Establishing a separated subunit within the firm is a common approach to solve the conflict  that arises since exploitation of the existing business and exploration of new businesses require conflicting frameworks ,.
Due to the lack of research in this area , this research project follows a qualitative approach to gain a deeper understanding of the corporate entrepreneur and how the organizational design influence leadership and performance. Therefore more than 150 interviews with several German companies that runs corporate entrepreneurship initiatives will take place between June 2015 and December 2016. The database will be analyzed with a multiple-case study approach that is recommended in literature. Therefore the transcribed interviews will be analyzed via open, axial and selective coding according the scheme of Strauss and Corbin. The results are expected to answer the questions (1) if and how the corporate entrepreneur type of person can be distinguished from managers and entrepreneurs and (2) the influence of the organizational design of the corporate entrepreneurship initiative on leadership behavior and performance of the embedded entrepreneurial team.

Technology-based ventures foster economic growth by accelerating knowledge-transfer. The public sector, interested in increasing their survival prospects, aims at allocating limited financial resources efficiently to foster regional innovation activity. Business coaching is seen as one of the main factors positively impacting on the performance of venture teams because it helps addressing the challenge of high-speed organizational change founders are facing. Though not much research is available investigating this type of supportive guidance applied to technology-oriented startups, it represents a key element of incubation and acceleration programs. Following the conceptual design of a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) study, this research program applies quantitative research methods in a business context to investigate the cause-and-effect-relationship between business coaching and venture survival. For the RCT study, a longitudinal sample of 450 early-stage startups will be recruited over three years by our project delivery partner bwcon. The Institute for Strategic Innovation and Technology Management (IST) has been granted access to venture data representing the basis for data analysis. Using this unique database of early-stage technology-based ventures from the German regional state Baden- Württemberg, a deeper understanding of the impact of coaching activities can be gained. Identifying underlying causal effects of the effectiveness of business coaching on venture survival capabilities may enable accelerators and entrepreneurship program providers to optimize their activities, which would in the long-run accelerate startup business growth.

Technology-based ventures provide an
important route for successful technology transfer [1], [2].
Their founders are supported in successful technology
commercialization by innovation intermediaries [3].
Accordingly, the performance of an innovation system, at
least to some extent, depends on the efficiency of these
intermediaries in terms of the impact of their scarce
resources on the survival and growth of technology-based
ventures. To increase their efficiency, intermediaries
typically optimize their “intake” by requesting a formal
business plan to base their selection on as a hygiene factor
[4]–[7]. Thus, some scholars argue that written business
plans show significant distortion as being produced only to
attract support from innovation intermediaries [6], [8].
Accordingly, they rarely serve for these addressees as a
source of information for analyzing the strengths and
weaknesses of ventures, in order to derive actionable
conclusions and more effectively support ventures [9], [10].
Addressees search for different indicators in business
plans for their evaluation [11]. The descriptions of these
indicators only evince little empirical proof for the
performance of technology-based venture’s [8], [12]. This
gap is herein addressed, in contrast to the lacking
empirical insight, as the most frequently produced artifact
of early-stage technology ventures is at the same time a
written business plan [10], [13]. This paper addresses this
gap by conceptualizing transaction relations described in
the written business plan as a means for working around
the inevitable inaccuracies and uncertainties that delimit
the explanatory abilities [14] of the snapshot model [10]
presented by a business plan. Using a qualitative content
analysis, we derive from the descriptions of transaction
relations in a written business plan valid indicators for the
maturity of the venture’s value-network in different
dimensions [15]. To this extent, this paper presents the
findings from a pre-study that was conducted based on a
sample of forty business plans from an overall population
of 800 business plans in a longitudinal sample from one of
Europe’s most active innovation systems, the regional
State of Baden-Württemberg. Such findings may be used
by innovation intermediaries to enhance their efficiency,
by enabling these to not only derive individual support
strategies for business acceleration but also to analyze the
impact of support measures by reliably monitoring
maturity progress in venture activities.

Within the framework of the FIDIAS (financial instruments for sustainable development in Alpine Space) project as part of the EU Transnational Cooperation Programme ‘ Alpine Space’, several feasibility analyses are conducted. The aim of the FIDIAS project is to develop innovative financial instruments and services to support local and regional authorities, business investment operators and green-tech small and medium sized enterprises to avail of the opportunities of financial tools. Thereby, FIDIAS pursues the objective to strengthen competitiveness and innovation of ‘eco-innovative’ small and medium sized enterprises in Alpine Space Regions. Thus, it should also support green-tech companies to find appropriate funding offers, and advise the financial service provider and the public authorities to provide valuable instruments. According to these aims, this thematic study gives an overview of the existing equity funding landscape in Baden-Württemberg, their value for green-tech companies, and what kind of measures may improve the situation where necessary. The aim of the feasibility studies is to find out if there should be so-called “green SME funds” established in the Alpine Space Programme to promote start-ups in the green technology and eco-innovation sector. As yet, there have been 5 feasibility studies conducted in the Alpine Space regions: Lombardy in Italy, Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alps-Côte d’Azur in France, and in Austria and Slovenia. This sixth study for Baden-Württemberg differs from the other five. In Baden-Württemberg, a diverse infrastructure of equity instruments supporting early-stage ventures in technology- and service-based industries already exists. Thus, a feasibility study does not seem appropriate – as the existing infrastructure serves as proof of feasibility – but instead, the sixth study should evaluate the benefit of the existing equity funding landscape in the regional state of Baden- Württemberg for start-ups and SMEs from the green technology and eco-innovation sector.

This research in progress paper elucidates the multidimensional phenomenon of autonomy which determines the
success of teams developing a new business in small and medium-sized high-tech firms. In a previous inductive
study we had revealed that this phenomenon is described through four autonomy dimensions: functional autonomy,
decision autonomy, structural autonomy and strategic autonomy. In this paper we operationalize these dimensions on
the basis of empirical findings discussed in literature and integrate the operationalized autonomy dimensions into a
theoretical model. Thereby the paper contributes to theory because autonomy as a multidimensional phenomenon is
not well understood in corporate entrepreneurship and respective models are barely available. In practice, the
challenge is to establish a level of autonomy that enables business development teams to experiment in market
interaction and at the same time enables the supervising manager to keep control over the new business. Our model
describes criteria that facilitate managers to balance the level of autonomy in this manner.

This issue of IBIS covers the proceedings of the 1st Workshop on “Productivity in Sales based on interoperability” which was held in April 2009 at Lake Constance. The workshop’s focus was on interoperability in context of improvements in sales productivity as well as increasing efficiency in dynamic sales reaction. The workshop was held and organized as a joined effort of the German Forum for Interoperability (DFI e.V. – www.dfi-ev.de) and the Research Group Community of Practice for Strategic Management Architectures (CoPS) at the Lake Constance University (HTWG Konstanz).
Interoperability may be defined as an integrated and seamless flow of Information and knowledge – from product management to research & development and further to production and sales. Sales forces in that respect are responsible for conveying the unique selling proposition of a firm towards the customers. Even further, sales is responsible for the integration of own products and services into the customer’s value chain.
Thus, the interface between product management/development and sales is of crucial importance. To cope with that, R&D and sales have to work hand in hand in order to make the customer realize the intended competitive advantages. Achieving this on the customer end goes far beyond a mere technical integration of IT-systems. Moreover, this capability to efficiently interact, collaborate and exchange information is a key challenge especially forced by the global markets and the resulting competition.
Already today, significant financial gain gains could be achieved in this field: In Europe between 30%-40% of total IT budgets is spent on issues tied to interoperability. Motivated by that, the founders of the German Forum for interoperability, DFI e.V. (www.dfi-ev.de), leading experts and research entities in Germany, have taken on the challenge not only to coordinate present research approaches within this arena but also to support the knowledge transfer into industry and management practice.
Therefore, the workshop was designed to build a bridge from research into application: About 90 experts and leaders from industrial companies followed the invitation and joined the workshop to meet and discuss with leading research management experts. The various contributions you will find in this issue present relevant and impactoriented scientific concepts as well as industry case studies in the respective field.
They focus impact-oriented on project experiences and how to create successful implementations. The case studies in particular highlight new and more efficient ways to strategically manage sales forces. The industry examples illustrate approaches as to how firms may develop a capability to quickly and innovatively react on changes in their competitive environment.
Thus, the findings presented may support you in improving the dynamic capabilities of your company. With emphasis on the tensioned area of sales and innovation the contributions highlight the importance of interoperability with respect to seamless business processes and systems. You will find contributions to sales management and value chain management as well as innovation and R&D. Leading scientist, experts and industry representatives present findings and insights from successful implementations and discuss the respective prerequisites. The ability to continuously innovate, the efficient management of complexity and increased speed of processes are amongst the most discussed topics.
This issue of IBIS is intended to present you with these findings in a comprehensible and convertible way. We hope that you will appreciate the presented contribution selected for this issue. Please note, as the Workshop was held in a German context, that the second half of articles is in German language.