Papers by Magnus Klofsten
New Technology-Based Firms in the New Millennium, 2012
The aim of this paper is through a qualitative study to determine how efficient academic entrepre... more The aim of this paper is through a qualitative study to determine how efficient academic entrepreneurship training occurs in an academic environment and how these programmes are structured and organised. Data from 20 different university training programmes at 12 European countries were analysed. We used a check-list to gather information on these items: Promoter, programmes, target groups, key objectives and contents, actors involved, timing and budget, funding structure, staff involved, and support services. Data were collected via interviews with project managers and people in leading positions in the training organisations; secondary data such as documentation, strategic plans, brochures, and evaluation reports were also collected. Among other things, the results show that entrepreneurship training usually occurs in cooperation with regional actors, that the main targets are graduate and post-graduate students, and that they are financed by various resources – mostly of public o...
Introduction Intermediaries are important actors in the regional context, especially regarding li... more Introduction Intermediaries are important actors in the regional context, especially regarding linking various actors together in triple helix constellations (Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz 1998; Etzkowitz et al 2000). As organisations become more specialized, there arises a need for intermediaries that fill the gaps between firms, academia and policy actors. Nakwa et al (2012) have for example found that intermediaries have a vital role in promoting triple helix networks. They suggest that intermediaries have three particularly important roles: channeling resources to industry; brokering & linking triple helix actors; and boundary spanning through knowledge circulation facilitation.One type of intermediary organization that has grown in importance over the past decade is the so called cluster initiative (Ahedo, 2004). Cluster initiatives are organizations that visualize, explore and frame potential opportunities into useful middle-hands activities which become a formalized part of their p...
I detta kapitel presenteras ett praktikfall – Utvecklingsprogrammet – som visar hur det ar mojlig... more I detta kapitel presenteras ett praktikfall – Utvecklingsprogrammet – som visar hur det ar mojligt att, pa ett relativt enkelt och kostnadseffektivt satt, stimulera foretag som star infor (eller be ...
Sharing Knowledge Making a Difference: The Role of International Scientific Cooperation.
Over the past century, the pharmaceutical industry has been a major contributor of individual and... more Over the past century, the pharmaceutical industry has been a major contributor of individual and population health and societal wealth. Its products and services have contributed to longevity of large groups of patients and symptom relief from major diseases. However, during the past 2 decades, the innovative capacity of the pharmaceutical industry has lagged behind, and there have been concerns and discussions on the prevailing business model of the industry, and whether it needs to be refined and altered. Development of a new drug is a time-consuming and complex undertaking, which involves elements of discovery as well as process development. Recently, the average cost of developing a new molecular entity (NME) was estimated to be around U$800 million for small molecules and around U$1,300 million for biologics. If post approval costs for Phase IV studies, costs to gain regulatory approval in various global markets and costs for obtaining additional label claims for new indications are included and adjusted for cost increases and inflation, the cost estimates per NME increase to U$1,754 million for small molecules and U$3,911 million for biologics. Revenue streams from global market sales are only able to offset these escalating costs to a limited extent. The present dissertation focusses on the on-going change processes in the pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma). An important change process is related to open information and open intellectual property (IP) platforms. The work also relates to entrepreneurial orientation, inherent project uncertainty and decision modelling. In the biomedical field, there are an increasing number of stakeholders that collaboratively develop, package and build transactions around technology. Such open innovation model differs from the classical closed innovation model when openness is structured in open networks and business consortia. This thesis provides examples of how open innovation models function in the context of the pharmaceutical industry and how Life Science companies could design their IP-strategies to optimize the value extraction potential from open innovation in general and open IP platforms in particular. The present work also investigates perceptions of experts within the pharmaceutical industry and allied health sectors, with respect to entrepreneurial attitudes, intent and engagements during pharmaceutical innovation and new drug development. It was shown that positive attitudes and orientation towards entrepreneurship are perceived to be of high value for the early strategic selection and validation of the drug target area, for costs assessments and pharmacoeconomics, as well as for positioning and marketing of a new drug to patients and the public. Entrepreneurial traits were however judged to be less important for some major process steps during preclinical and clinical development. Based on real scenario cases, this thesis also investigates how employees make judgments in the pharmaceutical industry and allied health care sectors. Each case study relates to go/no-go decisions taken from the various steps in drug discovery through preclinical and clinical development (IND) on to market introduction (NDA) and treatment of the target population. Results revealed that there is a major inter-individual difference between experts in their individual intuitive go/no-go/recycle decisions during the drug discovery and development process. This lack of coherence and wide variability with respect to the drug development cases selected may reflect judgment in the real world. Accordingly, increased openness, entrepreneurial awareness and orientation towards entrepreneurial engagements and skills may help the pharmaceutical business sector to improve vital parts of its value creation processes. Also, by modelling decision-making in real cases from initial drug discovery to late development and marketing, in pharmaceutical industry R&D, we demonstrated that rational decision-making can commonly be managed by a group of 10 – 15 experts when mean group judgments over a series of decision points are clear go decisions. However, when mean group judgments from one decision point to another vary from go to stop in a specific case, i.e. involves a recycle component, there will be a need to expand R&D expert input substantially. In such cases, the drug development processes more or less takes on the form of an open innovation process. Thus, our findings may be used to construct a new model on how to plan and model the size of expert input in structured decision processes similar to those practiced in the pharmaceutical industry. Based on the findings in this thesis, it may be concluded that high-tech innovation in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors show signs of movement from a closed to a more open innovation paradigm. This change is driven by several factors such as the possibility of rapid and unlimited communication through the Internet, the increasing global…
Frontiers of entrepreneurship research, 2010
This study is based on the assumption that new small firms are usually highly vulnerable and that... more This study is based on the assumption that new small firms are usually highly vulnerable and that the early processes of firm development can be investigated based on the venture’s degree of maturity according to different parameters that together forms a unity. Our aim is to investigate the following issues: (1) if and how the firms in our sample have developed according to our parameters dealing with the venture per se (e.g. business idea, offer, organisation and market issues), the team behind the venture and the surrounding network of the venture, (2) how the dynamics between these parameters work over time.
Science parks have from the very beginning been important and valuable tools for the development ... more Science parks have from the very beginning been important and valuable tools for the development of knowledge intensive economies. Most science parks have also strongly attracted talents, ideas, ca ...
Geographical regions as diverse as Silicon Valley, California and Linkoping, Sweden have been the... more Geographical regions as diverse as Silicon Valley, California and Linkoping, Sweden have been the sources of new technology and endogenously created innovations. Scholars and policymakers recognise that specific regions or clusters of businesses have the capability to engage in more innovative activities and new business formation and to experience higher employment growth than others. This dissertation uses qualitative methods to study various aspects of regional development and innovation. It is based on five papers by the author and colleagues with levels of analysis ranging from regional to firms’ first sales in order to capture the dynamics of both the top and bottom levels of regional development. It then uses these papers’ empirical material to address the research questions of (a) how a new scientific knowledge base becomes established and exploited in a spatial context, and (b) how people create and diffuse innovations in a social and spatial context. This dissertation’s ma...
This paper focuses on two major concepts in entrepreneurship training, namely coaching and mentor... more This paper focuses on two major concepts in entrepreneurship training, namely coaching and mentoring. A study of these concepts reveals at least two schools of thought: (1) coaching and mentoring are two parallel, distinct activities that can be used to support each other and (2) coaching and mentoring are not separate activities – coaching is considered part of the mentoring activity or mentoring part of the coaching activity. Data from 36 university-based training programmes and 450 coaching and mentoring cases at 7 Swedish universities were analysed. We used a check-list to gather information on 21 items linked to these four distinctive groups: (1) Structural issues (mission, form, and task), (2) Process issues (connection to programme content, meeting environment, problem solving, assessing the opportunity or idea, operative role, confidentiality, and networking), (3) Relationships (extent, meeting, initiative, homework, documentation, and follow-up) and (4) Character of the coa...
10:00 – 11:00 Introduction to the SHIFT project: Entrepreneurial support systems and their impact... more 10:00 – 11:00 Introduction to the SHIFT project: Entrepreneurial support systems and their impact Klaus Fichter, Borderstep Institute, Coordinator SHIFT project The role of SHIFT in ECO-INNOVERA Holger Gruenewald, Project Management Jülich, ECO-INNOVERA, Berlin, Germany Sustainable innovation in Europe: Trends and emerging topics Martin Charter, Director The Centre for Sustainable Design, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK The new Circular Economy Package and the Eco-Innovation Action Plan Lana Žutelija, Policy Officer, DG Environment, Eco-Innovation & Circular Economy The Green Action Plan For SMEs Eva Revilla, Policy Officer, DG GROW, Clusters, Social Economy and Entrepreneurship
Rapportens resultat kan sammanfattas pa foljande vis:Det ar mojligt att definiera generella kvali... more Rapportens resultat kan sammanfattas pa foljande vis:Det ar mojligt att definiera generella kvalitativa framgangsfaktorer pa klusterniva och dessa inkluderar klustrets verksamhet (ide, aktiviteter ...
Clusters started recently became to be called as the “fuels” for national economic growth (Audret... more Clusters started recently became to be called as the “fuels” for national economic growth (Audretsh, 2000). They are seen as drivers for entrepreneurship and innovation through assisting firms with complementary competencies and creating arenas for collaborations (Oakey, 2007; Porter, 2000). Clusters combine different types of actors by providing linkages between them. Similar approach is raised in the Triple Helix model. These models highlight importance of variety of relations within clusters. The diversity of actors leads to the need for organizations specializing in intermediating between them. This is what we call a cluster-like organization – an organization that operate within a cluster and intermediate between different actors with a certain aim. They could be very small but in the same time take advantage of the size and resources of a cluster (c.f. Kaiser, 2003; Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff , 1998; Etzkowitz & Klofsten, 2005). In this paper we approach cluster-like organization...
This study examines whether early growth is important for the short- and long-term survival and d... more This study examines whether early growth is important for the short- and long-term survival and development of new firms. For this purpose, we use registry data for a specific cohort of Swedish fir ...
This thesis is about publicly funded support of technology-based ventures. These ventures are reg... more This thesis is about publicly funded support of technology-based ventures. These ventures are regarded as solutions to create growth and societal development. They are commonly originated from universities, institutes or other firms and their products or techniques are commonly new or at least different from the ordinary. They are therefore considered as being of higher risk than generic new firms, but if successful they may also give higher returns. Hence, a range of efforts has been undertaken to support them. However, concerning the issue of public support, gaps of research have been exposed. This thesis aims to give some answers on the question of what characterizes the public support given to technology-based ventures in Sweden. It elucidates two types of public support, the “configuration-type” and the “process-type” The first is studied by using statistical databases built upon the conditional loans and the innovation subsidies that were offered by Sweden Innovation Centre du...
Nar man ska stodja foretagande pa landsbygden ar det viktigt att skapa en kritisk massa av entrep... more Nar man ska stodja foretagande pa landsbygden ar det viktigt att skapa en kritisk massa av entreprenorer, foretag och stodaktorer i den aktuella regionen. Mangfalden ar viktig och samordning mellan ...
Science parks have from the very beginning been important and valuable tools for the development ... more Science parks have from the very beginning been important and valuable tools for the development of knowledge intensive economies. Most science parks have also strongly attracted talents, ideas, ca ...
Small Business Economics
The interplay between health, entrepreneurship and small and emerging businesses is a research fi... more The interplay between health, entrepreneurship and small and emerging businesses is a research field receiving growing interest. Studies point to both health-related risks and opportunities, which have implications for the social and economic lives of entrepreneurs and employees in small and new firms. Research has been carried out in different disciplines, which have contributed in different ways to the understanding of this inquiry. As the field is still premature and interdisciplinary in nature, there is a need to establish boundarycrossing avenues for developing new knowledge on the topic. This ambition has led to the development of this special issue. The issue includes results from original research on working life challenges encountered by small and new businesses, approached from a variety of disciplines. In this introduction, we begin by tracing an overarching framework, to which we add brief descriptions of the contributing papers. To conclude, we outline future research goals and discuss how issues around mental health, regulation and work environment inspections, race, disability and gender issues and the growing gig economy will affect the conditions for healthy entrepreneurial work.
The Journal of Technology Transfer
Whilst doctoral students comprise a large group of researchers at a university and will potential... more Whilst doctoral students comprise a large group of researchers at a university and will potentially play important roles in the utilization and transfer of research results, prior research studies have paid little attention to the effect of entrepreneurship education on PhD students with a science and technology orientation. This paper seeks to address this gap in knowledge and examines four key elements in the design and evolution of good practice in entrepreneurship education for this group of students: (1) learning tools, (2) inspiration, (3) interdisciplinarity, and (4) boundary spanning networks. The paper illustrates the importance of identifying the balance between theory and practice that will attract students from across the spectrum of science and technology fields. It also shows that a hands-on experimental methodology is an effective pedagogical strategy that uses learning by doing as an essential tool in problem solving.
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Papers by Magnus Klofsten