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Does the Winner Take it All? : A Case Study on Entrepreneurs' Motivation in an Innovation CompetitionBema, Judith, Lundgren, Kristina, Malmsten, Ewa January 2015 (has links)
Confronted with an increasing diversity of social and global challenges, innovation competitions become an increasingly important tool to spur innovation amongst entrepreneurs. Based on a case study on three finalists of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Clean-Up XChallenge, this thesis aims to investigate what factors motivate entrepreneurs to take part in an innovation competition. Due to the fact that four years after the closure of the challenge nine out of ten finalists were still actively in the oil clean-up business, the authors further investigate on what the main motivational factors for continuing business after participation in an innovation competition are. Data was collected via in-depth interviews and analysed by applying the model of entrepreneurial motivation by Naffiziger, Hornsby and Kuratko (1994) as well as Gimeno, Folta, Cooper and Woo’s (1997) threshold model. Further, the authors conducted a case study on the finalists of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Clean-Up XChallenge, which was an innovation competition, initiated by the XPrize Foundation in 2010. The competition was a reaction to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 and aimed for finding better and more efficient oil clean-up solutions. Ten finalists were selected to test their inventions at one of the world’s largest testing facilities for oil spill clean-up technology. The findings suggest that the motivators for participation in an innovation competition include a desire for increased publicity and reputation, as well as the opportunity to test the technology. It was also found that factors such as the goal of the organisation and the perception of one’s product and business idea play key roles in the decision to participate in an innovation competition. Furthermore, the research shows that the business environment and a need for achievement influence the decision to partake. With regards to the motivational factors that encourage sustained entrepreneurship after participating in an innovation competition, it was found that the correlation between expectations, both regarding the outcome and the implementation process, upon entering the competition and the actual outcome, does not have a large impact upon whether operations are continued after the innovation competition has ended. Instead, it was found that the main motives for continuing operations are a strong psychic attachment to the business, as well as high costs of switching to another area of commerce.
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The scope and functionality of the National Innovation Competition as an instrument to promote academic entrepreneurship in South AfricaVutula, Noncedo 03 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This study focuses on academic entrepreneurship. It commences with a literature review
on international trends in academic entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on incentive
schemes used by selected countries to encourage innovativeness in academic
institutions. Linkages between these incentives schemes and the improvement in the
level of innovations made are demonstrated. This study will also show that in some
countries, such as Brazil and Finland, these innovation incentives have led to the
formation of start-up companies and an increased number of patents.
The international scenario in academic entrepreneurship is linked to the South African
scenario, as presented in the chapter on the science and technology landscape in South
Africa. The main focus of the South African scenario will be on the National Innovation
Competition (NIC), which is an instrument of the Innovation Fund specifically aimed at
encouraging and providing innovation incentives at the level of higher education
institutions. This research report also provide findings of interviews with different people
within the academic entrepreneurship fraternity as well as an assessment of the
differences between the winning and the non-winning business plans, which are used as
a basis of providing incentives to the winners of the NIC.
Recommendations are made in an attempt to provide solutions to the challenges
encountered in the NIC at both institutional levels, as participants, and at government
level, as funders of the NIC. This will hopefully improve the effectiveness and efficiency
of the NIC. Although the NIC was only started in 2004, it is envisaged that areas of
improvement can be identified at this early stage. This, coupled with the lessons learnt
from the international literature review, will provide a mechanism that will make the NIC
a powerful instrument to encourage innovation at HEI (Higher Education Institution)
level. The conclusions drawn from this report include lessons learnt from the
international literature review.
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