Entrepreneurship and innovation education has derived from established university curriculum and the context is set of concepts and tools used in the corporate world. The challenge of transforming a start-up company into a business success needs different capabilities. It goes beyond the development of an idea and writing-up a comprehensive business plan. This study analysed over 200 technology-driven companies which have been created under the formal requirement of a business plan competition since 1996. The objective was to identify drivers for innovation and success. From the results, an agenda of entrepreneurial and innovation education was derived and is discussed.

The concepts of market orientation and innovation and their interrelationship with business success have been explored from a number of perspectives. However, research in this area has not explored the differences between start-up and mature companies. The research study acquired data from over two hundred Chief Operating Officers (CEO's) and Managing Directors from both start-up and mature companies. The results illustrate the differences in both types of company and reveals new insights with regard to market orientation and its constituent elements and its relationship with both incremental and radical innovations. Key research results are that strong competitor orientation, a key ingredient of market orientation, has positive relationship to incremental innovation for start-up companies but it is contra productive for mature companies. In mature organizations a strong customer orientation is associated with radical innovation.

No abstract

Successful innovation requires management and in this paper a model to help manage the innovation process is presented. This model can be used to audit the management capability to innovate and to monitor how sales increase is related to innovativeness. The model was developed from a study of companies in the high technology cluster around Munich and validated using statistical procedures. The model was found to be effective at predicting the success or otherwise of the innovation strategy pursued by the company. The use of this model and how it can be used to identify areas for improvement are documented in this paper.

The retail industry market environment is very competitive; thus, in order to maintain their competitive advantage retailers are required to continuously come up with innovative offerings and systems. This chapter aims to provide useful insights for the retailers regarding the correlation between market orientation and innovation. The chapter illustrates the differences in start-up and mature companies, and reveals new insights with regard to market orientation and its constituent elements, and its relationship with both incremental and radical innovations. Readers learn that strong competitor orientation, a key ingredient of market orientation, has a positive relationship to incremental innovation for start-up companies, but it is counterproductive for mature companies, where a strong customer orientation is associated with radical innovation. The focus is to understand the dynamics of the entrepreneur versus manager during the transition process as a company grows.