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- Brink, Johan, 1976
(författare)
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Accumulation, Boundaries, Capabilities and Dynamics - Explaining Firm Growth
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to further develop the theoretical understanding of the growth of knowledge intensive business organizations. The overall aim is to understand the growth challenges of emerging firms in the knowledge-based economy. In particular this thesis addresses several aspects of the growth of small bioscience based firms. In a world characterized by global markets and rapid information transfer, the existence of firms can no longer be justified by established products and defence of old positions. The traditional logic of economic activities and industrial organization has instead increasingly been replaced by dynamic Schumpeterian competition in which firms compete based upon knowledge and innovations. This thesis depart in the emergent theories of evolutionary economics which focus on economic action and firm behaviour in a restless disequilibrium and endogenous technological change (Nelson and Winter 1982). Within such a restless capitalistic society, new firms play a central role in economic development. As a consequence, economic as well as management researchers has increased their interest in entrepreneurship and industrial dynamics. The emergence and growth new firms have been found to relate to both the introduction and diffusion of new knowledge, innovations, as well as generators of new employment. The growth of new firms is hence vital to understand from the perspective of industrial dynamic throughout the process of Schumpeterian competition and technological evolution and in the longer perspective, economic growth. The thesis is structured around the general, puzzling phenomenon of the relative absence of growing firms within this specific technological and industrial context. In order to investigate the research problem a theoretical framework is put together along two main dimensions. The first consists of a review of the research field of firm growth including such as entrepreneurial and organizational aspects. The second dimension provides a theoretical outline regarding the specific industrial and institutional environment and thus presents a context in which these new firms evolve. The focus within this thesis is primarily on the growth of the individual business organizations. The initial research problem centres around the empirically evident relative low growth rates of bioscience based firms. As a consequence of this low growth rate of firms, the industrial dynamics is instead shaped by entries of new actors, creating a highly turbulent industry. According to the dominant theories of the firm, the reasons for performing activities within the institutional form of a business organization, resulting in economic advantages of being inside the boundaries. Such knowledge and innovation based competition should be seen in the context of the firm’s unique trajectory and as a process of accumulation of associated specific capabilities and distinctive competences. Innovation is thus a process of knowledge accumulation of both internal and external learning, influenced by the specific context in which the firm resides. The lack of growth of new knowledge intensive firms within this specific industry is thus found in the complexities of knowledge accumulation as generating firm capabilities for further actions. The pressure on innovativeness and the ability for firms both to foster and take advantages of knowledge raises several issues regarding growth of knowledge intensive business organizations. Altogether understanding firm growth within this context might potentially be seen as role models for increasingly knowledge intensive firms within other industries. Even with more modest implications such findings might have profound effect when limited to the studied industrial context.
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- Brink, Johan, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Conceptualizing and measuring modern biotechnology
- 2004
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Ingår i: The Economic Dynamics of Modern Biotechnology / McKelvey, M, Laage-Hellman, J. and Rickne, A./ Edward Elgar Publisher. ; , s. 20-42
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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- Brink, Johan, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Financing and privatizing a visionary research endeavor in proteonomics: The case of ProSci in Australia
- 2013
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Ingår i: How Entrepreneurs Do What They Do: Case Studies of Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship. - Cheltenham, UK : Edward Elgar Publishers. - 9781781005491
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter addresses the close linkages between how the firm can use public and private financing to act upon innovative opportunities. It also examines the complex linkages that the founder as well as venture capitalists extert upon the management and development of the venture. The case study concerns a company in proteonomics in Australia.
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| 11. |
- Brink, Johan, 1976
(författare)
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The development of capabilities during firm growth
- 2007
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Ingår i: Ride working paper series. ; , s. 26-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A major research strand within strategic management research views the firm as composed of firm-specific capabilities that may result in competitive advantages and firm growth. Most empirical and theoretical research within capability based strategy research focuses on established firms with inherited capabilities and examines the process of gradual change. Few studies have empirically explored the transformation of individual resources into organizational capabilities and the related firm growth from the very beginning. This paper explores and attempts to explain the transformation of individual resources into capabilities by using case studies set in the bioscience industry. More explicitly, this paper focuses upon the transformation and emergence of organization within growing science-based firms. Thus, the purpose is to explore if and how capabilities are formed from separate resources by analysing eight bioscience firms during their growth processes. The paper finds that a) the firms within the bioscience industry started with very different resource endowments, b) these firms were initially characterised by rather atomistic resources, c) the continued resource accumulation during further growth and expansion followed different pathways, d) the firms all went through a general processes of capability development, and that these processes were found within all these firms during firm expansion. These processes are here described by two broad themes. The first theme focuses around the processes leading to internal development of firm specific knowledge and an increasing specialization of individual employees. The second theme relate to processes around the development of a supporting context to the performed focal activities.
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- Brink, Johan, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Why do firms change? Sequences of opportunity and changes in business models and capabilities in bioscience firms
- 2007
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Ingår i: RIDE working paper series. ; :84426-015, s. 47-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Our paper sets out to explain how firms change and acts upon additional opportunities by analysing the development of three young bioscience firms by focusing on the relationship between experimentation of their business models and the capabilities that these firms gradually develop over time. We show that only by combining the initial technological capability with a more generic business capability, these firms were able to fully develop and pursue the initially perceived opportunity. Our analysis of these bioscience firms also reveal that the linkages between the initial technological capabilities that these companies develop are only indirectly related to subsequent opportunities acted upon. As the initial opportunity increasingly becomes economically or technologically irrelevant, the more recently acquired generic capabilities provided the firms with the ability to act upon new technological opportunities. That is, the initial technological capability of the firm is frequently not directly linked to the second pursued opportunity. We infer that as these initial capabilities generally are very technologically based they are also rather specific. Instead the link is by the necessary creation of the additional, and indeed more generic, capability within the firm. As these firms develop they are hence continuously leveraging only parts of their accumulated capabilities, meaning that they are both path-dependent and path-breaking in their development. The paper argues that a firm-based analysis of the development of capabilities and business models is warranted as a complement to the numerous sector-level studies of the biosciences. The internalist perspective of the co-evolution of capabilities and business models developed here cannot be substituted by industry or environmental explanations.
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- Lyngfelt, Anders, 1955, et al.
(författare)
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11,000 h of chemical-looping combustion operation—Where are we and where do we want to go?
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control. - : Elsevier BV. - 1750-5836. ; 88, s. 38-56
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- A key for chemical-looping combustion (CLC) is the oxygen carrier. The ultimate test is obviously the actual operation, which reveals if it turns to dust, agglomerates or loses its reactivity or oxygen carrier capacity. The CLC process has been operated in 46 smaller chemical-looping combustors, for a total of more than 11,000 h. The operation involves both manufactured oxygen carriers, with 70% of the total time of operation, and less costly materials, i.e. natural ores or waste materials. Among manufactured materials, the most popular materials are based on NiO with 29% of the operational time, Fe2O3 with 16% and CuO with 13%. Among the monometallic oxides there are also Mn3O4 with 1%, and CoO with 2%. The manufactured materials also include a number of combined oxides with 11% of operation, mostly calcium manganites and other combined manganese oxides. Finally, the natural ores and waste materials include ilmenite, FeTiO3 with 13%, iron ore/waste with 9% and manganese ore with 6%. In the last years a shift towards more focus on CuO, combined oxides and natural ores has been seen. The operational experience shows a large variation in performance depending on pilot design, operational conditions, solids inventory, oxygen carrier and fuel. However, there is at present no experience of the process at commercial or semi-commercial scale, although oxygen-carrier materials have been successfully used in commercial fluidized-bed boilers for Oxygen-Carrier Aided Combustion (OCAC) during more than 12,000 h of operation. The paper discusses strategies for upscaling as well as the use of biomass for negative emissions. A key question is how scaling-up will affect the performance, which again will determine the costs for purification of CO2 through e.g. oxy-polishing. Unfortunately, the conditions in the small-scale pilots do not allow for any safe conclusions with respect to performance in full scale. Nevertheless, the experiences from pilot operation shows that the process works and can be expected to work in the large scale and gives important information, for instance on the usefulness of various oxygen-carriers. Because further research is not likely to improve our understanding of the performance that can be achieved in full scale, there is little sense in waiting with the scale-up. A major difficulty with the scaling-up of a novel process is in the risk. First-of-its-kind large-scale projects include risks of technical mistakes and unforeseen obstacles, leading to added costs or, in the worst case, failure. One way of addressing these risks is to focus on the heart of the process and build it with maximum flexibility for future use. A concept for maximum flexibility is the Multipurpose Dual Fluidized Bed (MDFB). Another is to find a suitable existing plant, e.g. a dual fluidized-bed thermal gasifier. With present emissions the global CO2 budget associated with a maximum temperature of 2 °C may be spent in around 20–25 years, whereas the CO2 budget for 1.5 °C is may be exhausted in 10 years. Thus, the need for both CO2 neutral fuels and negative emissions will become increasingly urgent as we are nearing or transgressing the maximum amount of CO2 that can be emitted without compromising the global climate agreement in Paris saying we must keep “well below” 2 °C and aim for a maximum of 1.5 °C. Thus, biomass may turn out to be a key fuel for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), because CO2-free power does not necessarily need CCS, but negative emissions will definitely need Bio-CCS.
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