Volume 7 - Issue 2

EJKM
Volume 7 Issue 2
Special issue ICICKM 2008

Designing a Strategy Formulation Process for New, Technology-Based Firms: a Knowledge-based Approach
Antonios D. Livieratos
Université Paris 11 Sud, France
BIC of Attika, Athens, Greece

NTBFs face a number of difficulties mainly associated with a lack of resources and entrepreneurial skills and in order to overcome these difficulties NTBFs strive towards flexibility while accelerating the development and commercialization processes by creating and/or entering business networks. By adopting a knowledge-based view for NTBFs and consequently placing knowledge in the centre of a systemic innovation model, knowledge networks constitute an asset for NTBFs. As this new form of cooperation takes multiple and often unpredictable forms it is thus essential to develop strategy formulation tools and processes that can help NTBFs face their challenges.

The present paper, which is the result of an action research project, presents a concept to cope with NTBFs by developing a generic process for strategy formulation. In order to build the strategy formulation process, this paper proposes a mapping technique that attempts to depict an NTBF’s tangible and intangible transactions as well as the strength of ties between the focal NTBF and its partners and the complexity of the knowledge. In developing the mapping technique, we have used a combination of the concept of weak ties, derived from social network analysis, with the notion of complex knowledge, as this combination was initially proposed by Hansen (1999). Additionally, a set of questions is proposed that have to be answered in order to pass from knowledge identification to knowledge transfer from a strategic point of view. In this regard, the presented methodology constitutes an effort on the one hand, to study the emergent patterns in what is considered to be a chaotic or disordered system and on the other, to stimulate the creation of new patterns in the system that would be consistent with the NTBF’s strategy.

Keywords: new technology-based firm (NTBF), innovation, strategy formulation process, value network, mapping technique, social network analysis, knowledge complexity

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