Creating Technology-Driven Entrepreneurship

The central role of technological entrepreneurship in transforming the current economic scenario has recently generated considerable interest. Its importance is related mainly to its capacity to support innovation, job creation, productivity and economic growth (Van Praag and Versloot 2007; EC 2013) and to promote sustainable smart development (SEECEL 2011).

Characterized by growing knowledge, turbulence and uncertainty, the current socio-economic scenario is largely recognized as an entrepreneurial economy. Technology-driven entrepreneurship arises as a strategic process and attitude for the competitiveness and survival of individuals, organizations and territories. Due to the nature of technologies as enablers for conception, execution and renewal of an entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurship of today is a knowledge-intensive and technology-driven process, different from the traditional entrepreneurship that is driven by the market. It is the knowledge-intensive nature of entrepreneurship to highlight learning as the key process accompanying the technology-driven entrepreneur. Embedded into a complex network of relationships, also identified as innovation ecosystems that are a favourable locus for disseminating and nurturing technology entrepreneurship, technology-driven entrepreneur is becoming a configurable learning actor, source and beneficiary of knowledge creation, diffusion and absorption, operated by a broad network of actors.

In today’s business landscape it is widely acknowledged that the long-term viability of any firm operating in dynamic and complex environments will ultimately be determined by its ability to le’n and innovate successfully (D’Aveni 1994; Hoopes et al. 2003). A virtuous cycle of creativity, research and development (R&D), knowledge generation, application and innovation has accentuated the rate of competition and change. Knowledge, competences and learning have emerged as the key drivers of competitive advantage, making organisations rethink the way they generate value and remain competitive.

Rethinking universities and higher education learning systems to promote the mindset and capabilities needed to trigger entrepreneurial initiatives has become paramount. Entrepreneurial learning requires unplanned, emergent, short-term and non-sequential development processes (Atherton 2007; Gibb 2002). In addition, the practical and emergent values of entrepreneurial learning emphasise innovative educational methods and pedagogical techniques for facilitating experiential learning, as opposed to the teaching of general principles (Honig 2004). Such values challenge the current linear academic systems and call for learning strategies, cultures, structures and processes that transcend planned knowledge transfer and acquisition (Rae 2009).

Creating an entrepreneurial mindset among the members of a society (public sector, private sectors, academia, etc.) is seen as a critical process in coping with uncertainty and complexity, but also as a mechanism for creating and thriving on these (Gibb 2005). This scenario translates into a need to equip individuals not only with an entrepreneurial mindset but also with the capability to design organisations of all kinds—public, private and NGO—to support effective entrepreneurial behaviour (Gibb 2005). Students at all levels of education, young entrepreneurs and those starting up businesses need to be equipped with an entrepreneurial mindset, defined by five constituent elements: (1) the capacity to think creatively, strategically, analytically and reflectively; (2) confidence in one’s abilities; (3) the ability to collaborate; (4) well-developed communication skills; and (5) an understanding of the current business context (Pollard and Wilson 2014).

Entrepreneurship and innovation are engines of economic growth and societal progress (Allen 2009; Wennekers and Thurik 1999). In particular, technology-based entrepreneurship has gained relevance as a driver of economic development and the renewal of regions and territories (Phan and Der Foo 2004; Venkataraman 2004). Its potential lies in the transformation of technology-grounded ideas into artefacts and technology applications with market value (Kirzner 1997; Venkataraman and Sarasvathy 2001).

In this chapter we look at entrepreneurs as permanent learners (Franco and Haase 2009). We posit that the networks to which the entrepreneurs belong play a crucial role in their learning process. It is widely accepted that being immersed in a network is strongly related to the sharing of similar cultural values. However, we know precious little about what the main elements of cultural values are that affect entrepreneurial behaviour and learning. Here we aim to provide an overview of the different theoretical perspectives on the role of cultural values so as to shed light on how those values might influence knowledge sharing in a network of companies. We empirically test the identified theoretical perspectives empirically in an original setting. We find that sharing similar cultural values contributes to creating a ‘fit’ between the entrepreneur and the network, which is mainly responsible for the circulation of knowledge.

Technology-driven entrepreneurship is largely recognised as a knowledge-intensive process and strategic asset for the competitiveness of individuals, organisations and regions. In this perspective, governments and supranational institutions have recently launched programmes for promoting the nurturing and development of technology-driven entrepreneurship, aware that regions and countries present different performances in promoting and sustaining innovative entrepreneurial processes. There is an urgent need to understand how and through which instruments governments can sustain the creation of technology-driven entrepreneurship. In this chapter, we focus on the European context, by starting with an understanding of the pillars and objectives of the Smart Specialisation Strategy as the political framework supporting the intelligent growth of the European regions up to 2020. The achievement of the ambitious objectives of Smart Specialisation is based on the entrepreneurial discovery process, starting from the valorisation of the key enabling technologies to create new entrepreneurial ventures as well as to renew and make the existing ones more competitive. The dynamics enabling this process of intelligent growth are coherent with the current debate on innovation ecosystems and the systemic approach to regional development. Aimed at providing an explanation of those trends and scenarios, the chapter will present some implications for the political agendas of institutions and researchers. After the identification and analysis of some best practices at the European level, the chapter explores a set of actions useful for defining a set of priorities for a political agenda able to support the development of entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours, mainly in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in universities and in public institutions.