Abstract
Technological entrepreneurship as a research domain first began in the USA, with the seminal study by Cooper (1971) on the nascent Silicon Valley. Ordinary people and distinguished scholars alike think of this study whenever they come across the term technological entrepreneurship. The same is true for European followers, who t studied, disassembled, applied and then adapted the basic tenets and tools developed in the USA to their realities. Most of the time, they merely realised and tried to find explanations for the impossibility of replicating Silicon Valley in their own backyard, eventually looking for their own ways to achieve similar successes. This made Silicon Valley not only a role model for technology-driven entrepreneurship, but also a synonym for it, so that almost every attempt to spur technological entrepreneurship, whether in a local setting or in a remote part of the world, is often referred to as that area’s ‘Silicon Valley’.
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Notes
- 1.
Data refer to industrial enterprises above a designated size, with sales revenue over 5 million RMB operating in the manufacture of (1) medicines, (2) aircraft and spacecraft, (3) electronic and communications equipment, (4) computer and office equipment; and (5) medical equipment and meters.
- 2.
Even so, the reader should accept these numbers with caution, since by using the OECD/Eurostat (2005) classification, most of the time a new product is intended to be new to the enterprise concerned, or at best new to the market for the product.
- 3.
For more details about these cases, see Petti (2012).
- 4.
‘SASAC performs the responsibility as the investor on behalf of the state; supervises and manages the state-owned assets of enterprises according to law; guides and pushes forward the reform and restructuring of SOEs. SASAC appoints and removes top executives of the enterprises under the supervision of the Central Government, evaluates their performances, and grants them rewards or inflicts punishments. SASAC also directs and supervises the management work of local state-owned assets.’ Accessed November 2015 from http://www.sasac.gov.cn.
- 5.
Case studies were selected following theoretical sampling, with the main objective being to gain an overview of the different typologies of technology-based enterprises active in different sectors. Guangdong-based companies operating in high-technology sectors, producing or using information, microelectronics or new material technologies were selected for the study. The final sample of companies surveyed was composed of six small-to-medium-sized companies and four large enterprises. Eight were private/incorporated, and two were public-owned enterprises. Five of them were new technology ventures—of which two were at the start-up stage—and five were established technology-based firms. Four enterprises were operating in information technology, three in telecommunications, two in new materials and one in pharmaceuticals, producing a variety of products and services, mainly for the electronics, automotive, internet and health-care sectors.
- 6.
This situation is what Castrogiovanni (1991) would refer to as environmental munificence.
- 7.
However, the role of the Chinese government, given its socialist roots, is even stronger than the one originally analysed in Japan and in other Asian economies, which share with China a Confucian tradition but not a political system.
- 8.
This is an argument that has been questioned masterfully by Jacques (2009).
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Petti, C. (2016). Technology-Driven Entrepreneurship in Emerging Regions. In: Passiante, G., Romano, A. (eds) Creating Technology-Driven Entrepreneurship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59156-2_9
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