EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Putting policy into practice: an exploratory study of SME innovation support in a peripheral UK region

Brendan Galbraith, Rodney McAdam, Judith Woods and Theresa McGowan

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2017, vol. 29, issue 7-8, 668-691

Abstract: Focussing on a regional Government sponsored support programme for technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the aim of this paper is to conduct a multi-level exploration of the relationships between policy interpretation and support programme design and the development of innovation capability among participant SMEs within a U.K peripheral region. The Innovplus programme was designed and implemented in Northern Ireland to help nascent high technology companies become more competitive and to contribute to the goals of the Regional Innovation Strategy. A knowledge-based absorptive capacity framework is used as the theoretical lens to explore the relationships between policy interpretation and programme design and the development of innovation capability within participant SMEs. The findings show that the design of the Innovplus programme, while linked to a coherent Regional Innovation Strategy, lacks consistency in relation to the policy and practical interpretation of knowledge and innovation. This inconsistency is reflected in the practical design of the programme, limiting its effectiveness as a result. In terms of the development of innovation capability, it was found that recognition and development of nascent absorptive capacity drivers in potential form was essential before participant SMEs could transition to realised absorptive capacity.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08985626.2017.1325939 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:entreg:v:29:y:2017:i:7-8:p:668-691

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TEPN20

DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2017.1325939

Access Statistics for this article

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development is currently edited by Professor Alistair Anderson

More articles in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:taf:entreg:v:29:y:2017:i:7-8:p:668-691