Creating Innovative Opportunities: Lessons from Case Studies in Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship

This paper develops lessons about how and why the founders and ventures involved in knowledge intensive entrepreneurship (KIE) manage the process of venture creation. The meta-analysis of the 86 case studies is based upon as conceptual model (from a systemic literature review), linked to illustrations of the processes, and the 86 case studies in knowledge intensive entrepreneurship in Europe. These case studies were developed during the European Union research project AEGIS (Advancing Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Economic Growth and Well-being in Europe). The case studies are conducted at the individual, venture and firm. Hence, we do not here include case studies focusing on levels such as regions and sectors, which are rich but raise and address topics processes and variables than the foci of this paper. Nevertheless, a major point of this paper is that all case studies do demonstrate how the individual KIE ventures are dependent upon variables and processes in the surrounding innovation systems. The overall analysis of the cases provides insight into how KIE processes link the KIE venture and the innovation system, thereby highlighting e.g. the importance of knowledge networks to create innovative opportunities.