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Researchers continue to seek understanding of industrialization as a state managed process. How to create and implement new industries based on advanced knowledge is on the policy agenda of many advanced nations. Measures that promote these developments include national capacity building in science and technology, the formation of technology transfer systems, and the establishment of industrial clusters. What these templates often overlook is an analysis of use. This chapter aims to increase the understanding of the processes that embed new solutions in structures from an industrial network perspective. The chapter describes an empirical study of high-technology industrialization in Taiwan that the researcher conducts to this end. The study shows that the Taiwanese industrial model is oversimplified and omits several important factors in the development of new industries. This study bases its findings on the notions that resource combination occurs in different time and space, the new always builds on existing resource structures, and the users are important as active participants in development processes.

The purpose of this paper is to study the development of the biotechnology industry at the industry and firm level when the financing environment becomes hostile and assess the reasons for this development.

An organizational evolution perspective to analyze the case of the German biotech sector was applied and its response to the hostile financing environment in the years 2002‐2004, which followed the burst of the high‐tech bubble at the stock markets. Population ecology and data from biotech reports to investigate the pattern of external adaptation processes at the industry level were used. The evolutionary economics perspective, multiple case studies of bioventures, and biotech reports to study internal adaptation processes at the firm level was employed.

The assumption of both external and internal adaptation processes was found in parallel is necessary to explain the evolution of the biotech industry in a hostile financing environment. Although external adaptation takes place to some extent through insolvencies and a reduced rate of new firm foundations, many bioventures adapt internally by downsizing, changing their business models, and entering into strategic alliances and M&As. This results in surprisingly weak consolidation at the industry level.

This paper provides an explanation why the consolidation of the German biotech industry in 2002‐2004 was much weaker than expected by experts. Moreover, the paper shows that application of population ecology and evolutionary economics in parallel well describes industry evolution and organizational change. Finally, the paper demonstrates how bioventures can adapt their financing strategies to hostile environments.

Building a bioeconomy requires efficient technology transfer and global linkages to exploit finite intellectual property exclusivity periods. Using a resource‐based view lens, this paper aims to assess the priorities, capabilities, and competitiveness of the emerging bioeconomy in India.

A triangulated design was used that involved interviews, case studies and a survey of 61 India biotechnology industry participants.

Two high priority capabilities were identified as being critical to fostering a competitive bioeconomy – access to talent and access to funding. Participants also identified the critical role of government in building and coordinating infrastructure, enabling critical capabilities, and accelerating bi‐directional technology and capital flows. This study reinforces the resource‐based view strategy framework regarding the importance of local context for biotechnology research.

Implications include the need for public‐private sector collaboration to strengthen industry infrastructure and enable biotechnology start‐ups, partnering between academia and government to accelerate technology transfer, and importance of seeking international investment and alliances early in a company's lifecycle to ensure sustainability.

These India‐centric lessons may be valuable in advancing knowledge for building successful biotechnology clusters, particularly for emerging market countries.

Building a bioeconomy requires efficient technology transfer and global linkages to exploit finite intellectual property exclusivity periods. The purpose of this paper, using a resource‐based view lens, is to assess the priorities, capabilities, and competitiveness of the emerging New Zealand (NZ) bioeconomy.

A triangulated design was used that involved four focus groups, 27 interviews, five case studies, and survey of 176 NZ biotechnology industry participants from a broad range of backgrounds such as scientists, managers, and investors.

Two high‐priority capabilities were identified as being critical to fostering a competitive bioeconomy – access to talent and access to funding. Participants also identified the critical role of government in building and coordinating infrastructure, enabling critical capabilities, and accelerating bi‐directional technology and capital flows.

Most biotechnology research and data has focused on the USA and European Union. This is one of the first studies of NZ biotechnology participants, and insights gained within this context are potentially applicable for increasing our understanding of building biotechnology industries outside established clusters.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the adoption of the open innovation paradigm in the bio‐pharmaceutical industry and investigate through which organisational modes (e.g. collaborations, in‐ and out‐licensing) open innovation has been implemented and how these modes are interwoven with the different phases of the drug discovery and development process. Open innovation is currently one of the most debated issues in management literature. Few contributions, however, have paid attention so far to systematically and longitudinally addressing the adoption of open innovation in a specific industry.

A two‐step research strategy has been adopted. First, a panel study of top industry representatives was organised to operationalise the concept of organisational modes of open innovation in the bio‐pharmaceutical industry. Second, the open innovation modes used by the first 20 pharmaceutical biotech firms worldwide have been documented over the period 2000‐2005 in the various phases of the drug discovery and development process.

A framework of analysis, establishing the relations between open innovation modes and the phases of the drug discovery and development process, has been developed and assessed in the industry, allowing the determinants of adoption of different modes and their managerial implications to be discussed and to relate them to the peculiarities of the biotech industry.

The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on open innovation by representing one of the first attempts to systematically and longitudinally assess the extent and particularly the determinants of the adoption of open innovation in a specific industry.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between organizational characteristics and presence in a board-of-directors (BoD)-network, in the context of the biotechnology industry. Accessing and integrating external knowledge is key to an organization’s success within innovative industries. This can occur through inter-organizational networks such as the BoD-network.

The authors apply a network analysis method (Robins and Alexander, 2004) and a logistic regression to a proprietary database of Belgian biotechnology organizations.

The authors conclude that some organizational characteristics influence the presence of a biotechnology organization in the regional BoD-network. Academic spin-offs, start-ups and small companies are more likely to be part of the regional biotechnology BoD-network. The authors also observe that organizations involved in innovative activities are prominently present in the BoD-network. Interestingly, key actors like universities or academic hospitals are less present in the network.

The authors show that studying full networks and heterogeneous groups of organization leads to a better understanding of the causal mechanisms and dynamics of inter-organizational networks. To better understand the network dynamics in a context as complex as the biotechnology industry, multiple networks need to be studied simultaneously.

The findings in this study allow for the development of policies addressing knowledge transfer, diffusion of management and governance practices, and the initiation and management of collaborative projects through the BoD-network. The authors observe a self-reinforcing dependency between innovative activities and BoD-network membership. This implies that policies aimed at stimulating innovation should also aim at increasing the target organizations’ presence in the BoD-network. Analyzing an organization’s innovative activities and position in the BoD-network allows for identifying those organizations that contribute most to the region’s knowledge transfer network and innovative capacity.

The authors combine two different research streams and are the first to study the complete BoD-network of a biotechnology industry agglomeration.

Biotech companies are generally faced with the paradoxes of simultaneously managing growth and innovation, as well as addressing explorative and exploitative aspects of innovation. Scholars have urged them to re‐evaluate their business model. The purpose of this paper is to explore how biotech companies in emerging economies address these paradoxes, focusing upon the nascent biotech industry in India, in order to investigate their growth and innovation patterns, as well as identify the challenges that they may face.

A qualitative data collection, using in‐depth interviews with representatives of organizations that deal directly with improving the quality of the business environment for biotech industry in India, as well as biotech entrepreneurs and leaders were undertaken. A total of 13 interviews provided insights related to innovation and growth that is discussed in the paper.

Data indicate that Indian biotech companies are ambidextrous and have managed to transcend the aforementioned paradoxes by developing and maintaining distinct organizational capabilities. They were found to pursue an integrated model of efficiency and innovation and utilize both exploitative and explorative aspects of innovation to fuel growth and innovation. The authors also found evidence of some of the characteristics of the “India Way”, proposed by Cappelli et al.

The authors conclude that Indian companies offer an opportunity for learning for American biotech companies with respect to building new competencies and balancing growth and innovation in today's competitive environment.

Despite being labeled as the “industry of the decade”, biotechnology has been neglected in technology and innovation literature. It is hoped that the paper's findings will generate interest in the study of biotech industries in emerging economies, to help scholars develop interesting new theoretical models of innovation and aid managers in coping with the innovation and change paradoxes that they are faced with in developing new products and services.

Economic interest groups such as seed, pesticide, feed, and food companies play an important role in supporting or preventing the production of genetically modified (GM) crops. The purpose of this paper is to examine firm managers’ attitudes toward GM technology, biotechnology R&D investment, and political lobbying activities.

Using data from surveys of 160 managers in the food, feed, chemical, and seed industries in 2013-2014, this paper employed three probit models to examine the determinants of managers’ attitudes, biotechnology R&D investment, and lobbying activities.

The results show that most Chinese agribusiness managers are concerned about GM foods and oppose its adoption. Nevertheless, one-third of the firms invest in biotechnology R&D and less than 15 percent of managers lobbied the government to change biotechnology policies. The econometric estimation results suggest that profit change expectation is the main factor affecting managers’ attitudes and biotechnology R&D investment decisions, whereas lobbying activities are significantly influenced by their attitudes and biotechnology R&D investment. In addition, managers’ attitudes toward GM foods also significantly influence firms’ decisions to invest in biotechnology R&D.

This paper has improved on previous research in two ways. First, it analyses the determinants of agribusiness firm managers’ attitudes toward GM technology, biotechnology R&D investment, and lobbying activities. Second, the methodology involves an analysis of agribusiness firm survey data in the food, feed, chemical, and seed industries, which is the first time to use such data to research on economic interest group in agricultural biotechnology field.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the social responsibility of universities and other higher education institutes in meeting the challenges faced by biotechnology and human resource development.

The challenges faced by biotechnology are discussed under three broad heads – exponential growth in biotechnology knowledge, commercialization and industrialization of the biotechnologies, and knowledge integration by various stakeholders of biotechnology.

The emergence of the knowledge society warrants that universities ensure that overall work of the academy is more relevant to the nation's most pressing civic, social, economic and moral problems and that there is an urgent need to have a fresh look at the approaches followed in biotechnology education and training, particularly with reference to developing countries. It is necessary to see how the different players (industries, university, society, government) concerned with biotechnology can act in unison and in a mutually beneficial way. An integrated approach to the field of biotechnology combining different subject areas is necessary and the courses and approach should reflect this.

Career counselors and those engaged in educational guidance are flooded with inquiries about biotechnology courses and their scope. It is observed, on the one hand, that the biotechnology field is starved of talent and, on the other hand, that there are several universities/colleges, particularly in developing countries, producing large numbers of unemployable graduates. Some serious thinking needs to be done urgently to overcome this problem.

An emerging stream of literature has observed that project-based organizations rely increasingly on a network of collaborations originating from the ongoing process of creating and dissolving relationships that bring new project opportunities. Project-based networks are widespread in knowledge-intensive and creative industries, such as life-science and biotechnology, nanotechnology, and software, film, and music industry. This chapter examines the structural characteristics of project-based network-ties in German biotech. We focus on the consequences of local versus international network ties for the innovative success of German biotechnology firms. The findings of our longitudinal event history analysis indicate that the most valuable learning drivers are international research alliances and centrality within the international research network. Surprisingly, we do not find any local effects: neither the density of a local research cluster, nor its diversity or age is of significance. Our results shed new light on the relevance of international linkages for firms that are engaged in project-based learning networks.