Energizing the Distributed Innovation System with Entrepreneurship

Abstract

In the previous chapter it was shown that technology firms must generate additional revenues from their technical pool of expertise. They need to convert their existing technological resources into income by ‘exporting’ some of them. To do this, they engage with participants of the distributed innovation system. But this is not all. These participants also constitute external sources of technology. Technology companies must be proactive in reaching out for these sources and ‘import’ some of their technical expertise in order to complement their internal capabilities. Channelling additional expertise in this way allows the company to more effectively develop products and services for high value creation. It removes the constraints imposed by relying excessively on internal resources.