The importance of industrial innovation has received almost unequivocal support throughout the twentieth century as an essential precursor to economic growth and prosperity (Schmookler, 1966). It has been recognised that at the national, regional and company levels new products are needed in order to adapt to competitive and technological change or to grow by successfully exploiting new ideas or inventions (Schumpeter, 1961). At the company level the fundamental problem is to survive in an increasingly complex environment, characterised by dynamic markets, decreasing life-cycle of products and processes and rapid changes in consumer needs and preferences. To stay competitive under such conditions requires an innovative capacity for creating, developing or adopting new products. At the national level Schumpeter (1961) believed that innovation, not the free market, is the real dynamic force driving the democratic system and he suggests that if innovation is blocked, society must deteriorate into a centralised socialist bureaucracy much on the lines of ancient Egypt. From a regional perspective, areas that fail to adapt to changing macroeconomic conditions will be characterised by declining growth and economic and social deprivation (Ewers and Wettman, 1980). According to Ewers and Wettman (1980) the principle constraint to regional growth is a decisive bottleneck in innovation potential, where regions fail to aleviate the deleterious impact of industrial structural decline by adopting new technologies and opening

Barriers To Product Innovation in Small Firms: Policy Implications:

The management of "channel conflict" is perceived as one of the main barriers to the adoption of e-commerce by small firms. A great deal of research has been carried out on channel management in large firms but the issues and findings do not necessarily apply to the small firm context. This paper presents some new evidence, based on ten case studies (two referred to in depth), on how small manufacturing firms in the UK manage the potential conflict of channel distributions when adopting e-commerce. Some good practices are also identified.

E-commerce and management of channel conflict: evidence from small manufacturing firms in the UK

Mrs. S. M. Hill at the time of carrying out this research was a research assistant at Templeton College, Oxford, England, financed by a Leverhulme Trust Research Grant. Dr. K. J. Blois is a Fellow of Templeton College, Oxford, England. It has been established that a lack of marketing skills is a common cause of failure amongst new small technically-based firms. The activities of industrial distributors include many functions vital to successful marketing such as maintaining close customer contact. It would, therefore, appear that industrial distributors could play a role complementary to this type of small firm. However, the initial findings of this research indicate that such complementarity rarely exists.

New Small Technically-Based Firms and Industrial Distributors

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Lawrence M. Lamont

Papers

Marketing industrial technology in the small business