Research on SME Business Incubator – Adopt Knowledge Sharing

Research on SME Business Incubator – Adopt Knowledge Sharing
Mechanism under Event - Driven
Zhang xizheng, liang sheng
Business School, Hunan university, P.R.China,410082
Abstract: This paper has studied the problem of knowledge sharing mechanism in business incubator
among resource agents based on Resource-dependence theory. On the basis of Event-driven, This paper
put forward the mechanism of knowledge transfering and sharing ,the paper also conclude the model
based on the mechanism, moreover an example of knowledge sharing and transfering in a business
incubtor is analyzed and calculated.
Key words: MSE;business incubator; Resource-dependence; Knowledge sharing; Event-driven
．Introduction
1
Generally speaking, the medium- or small-sized enterprise does not have the resources superiority,
the network superiority, the market superiority and so on (K.Vesper,1983). Formerly researches show
that, only a very few part of enterprises can smoothly cross their initial stage of embark, because of their
lack of key domain knowledge (for example market, management) and the crucial resources (for
example fund) (K.Vesper,1,983). Generally speaking, founder chooses embark project based on their
former work experience and the knowledge, they have the product, technology and market knowledge
related to the embark , but, they perhaps do not have the commercial skill, the social network relations
and the sufficient capital [ 1 ] .In order to support the development of the medium- or small-sized
enterprise, since 1980’s, the appearance of incubator in the various countries, and receives generally
takes. Also becomes in the national science and technology innovation system research to the enterprise
hatching research the hot spot [ 2 ] At present the researches mainly concentrate on introducing
experience, analyzing and appraising the function [ 3 ]. While very few research on the function of
incubator from the aspect of knowledge network, therefore this article launches the research on the
question of knowledge sharing in the medium- or small-sized enterprise under the environment of
incubator.
，
．The hatching mechanism in incubator
2
2
．1 Business incubator :resources introduction to the the medium- or small-sized enterprise
The enterprise hatching provides the service of abundanting the insufficient knowledge,
constructing the network and the gaining resources (S.Birley,1,985). The target of enterprise hatching is
to help Entrepreneur company to develop its own knowledge, ability and resources, hence to urge it to
realize economical independence when it graduates from the incubator[ 1 ] According to the
Resource-Dependency Theory, the enterprise incubators have the resources compensation to the sitting
company, and realize knowledge sharing. The Resources Dependency theory develops from 1970’s, and
it mainly concerns about the organization and its compatibility to the environment [ 4 ]. The basic concept
of the Resources Dependency Theory is: Any organization can not be self-sufficient, all organization
must carry on the exchange with the environment, the environment is the important condition for the
survival of the organize. The demand for gaining resources brings the dependency on the exterior unit,
the importance and scarcity of resources decide the essence and the scope of the dependency.
This article put the function of the enterprise incubators mainly in two big aspects, on one hand, it
is to provide the crucial resources factors to the hatching enterprise. The Factor introduction Theory
believes that, the success of a person or an organization is constituted by a lot of core essential factors,
such as the project, team, management, market, fund, social resources, each core essential factor also
can disassemble a certain small essential factors. If an enterprise develops not good or has not obtained
the success, it does no have the question in the whole, but one or two core essential factor has problems.
If the outside can help to accurate judge and involve to solve the problem, the enterprise then can
173
develop or obtain success very well[5]; On the other hand, it is to provide the knowledge sharing
network for the hatching enterprise. A successful enterprise incubator can form its powerful knowledge
network, generally speaking, this is the need for successfully hatching the enterprises. The knowledge
network actually is a dynamic network process that the knowledge and the information of each
enterprise and agency can unceasingly communicate. Because of the congenital knowledge and the
resources inferiority of the hatching enterprises, it can encounter the behavior barrier and the
management barrier frequently under the general competition environment, while the advantage of
entering the incubator is to share its knowledge network, thus the hatching enterprise has the possibility
to obtain the necessary resources, hence obtains success. the Figure 1 shows this process.
Else
agent
knowledge
Existing
knowledge
Behavior
handicap
Entrepreneur
failure
Lacking
knowledge
SME
Manageme
nt
obstacle
Knowledge
sharing network
incubator
Lacking resource
successful
hatching
Factor
interposition
Existing
resource
Else
resource
Not Into
Into the incubator
the incubator
．
agent
图 1 Business incubator :resources interposition to SME
2 2 The knowledge network formation based on
θj
incubator
Knowledge sharing is the essential condition
for the development of enterprise incubator,it is
xij
also a need for the success of the hatching
xji
enterprises. From initial period, the knowledge of
incubat
organizing enterprise, the product manufacture and
θi
or
sales knowledge, to division of labor in
development period and cooperation knowledge,
new product development knowledge, to the
knowledge of participating in the market
competition in the maturation period, the breadth
and the depth of the knowledge sharing in
incubator extend. The network of knowledge
sharing may divide into the satellite-type structure
and netted-type structure [6]. But under the
enterprise incubator environment, the enterprise is
2 The knowledge network
all small and weak in the incubator, the degree of
formation based on incubator
its product market homogenization is not high, and
its knowledge does not have the homogeneity,
therefore the direct degree of knowledge sharing in incubator is generally low, while knowledge sharing
…
图
174
based on the incubator as intermediary is frequent, hence, knowledge sharing network is mainly a
satellite-type structure, like Figure 2.
2 3 The characteristic of knowledge network under incubator environment
1 Multiple scenes (hierarchical)
The hatching enterprise in the incubator is in the environment of a multiple knowledge scene. The
incubator itself is not a market, the product and the service of the hatching enterprise are needed to enter
in the market environment and must accept the supervising and managing of related department.
Therefore, under the incubator environment, the knowledge shared network has multiple background [7].
2 Dynamic
Here dynamic manifests in three aspects, one is enterprise incubator itself, the service level, the
operation knowledge and the amount of resources of incubator itself provides all to change; Two, the
hatching enterprise keeps changing unceasingly in its life cycle, either success or defeat, no matter what
is the result, its knowledge does preserve in the knowledge sharing network; Three, new embark
enterprise's entering and success enterprise's departing, can be accompanied by the resources change [8].
3 Multiagent
The main body is one of the important essential factors in knowledge sharing, it is the most
important resources of an organization. A certain number of knowledge main body and their knowledge
sharing relationships, constitute the knowledge sharing network. In the knowledge sharing network, the
recognition and the appraisal of important knowledge main body, are one of the questions which needs
to study in the knowledge sharing practice. Under the incubator environment, the knowledge main body
is multitudinous, firstly, incubator itself integrates many kinds of government main body function,
including industry and commerce agency, tax affairs agency, consultation organization, the appraisal
organization and so on; secondly each hatching enterprise is the resources main body [9].
．
（）
（）
（）
． The modeling of knowledge sharing mechanism in incubator
3
The knowledge sharing network model and its evolved mechanism in this article is based on the
Resources Dependency Theory (Salancik,1978). Resources Dependency Theory has two suppositions:
One, the maintenance of an organization needs many kinds of different resources, and these different
resources are impossible to be provided by the organization; Two, organization's normal operation is
constituted by many kinds of activity, and these activities are impossible to carry on in the organization,
therefore the organization must rely on the environment in order to exchanging resources,
simultaneously it must rely on the activity of other enterprises to maintain the normal operation. This
theory also think, the organization can control the environment based on its advantage, and it is not
merely the environment’s passive receiver. The knowledge is taken an important resource, the incubator,
with its hatching enterprises, form its own knowledge sharing network. Each knowledge main body can
directly or indirectly influence the other member enterprises by its own knowledge talent, and vice versa.
Therefore, here we borrow the Hubbell structure influence index model [10] to describe the knowledge
sharing network under incubator environment:
in dexi = ∑ Pij in dex j + in hi
(1.1)
i≠ j
With matrix representation is
in dex = [ I − P ]−1 in h
(1.2)
where
Proxy index is the influence degree of resource main body;
pij means j’s dependency on i
inh means the intrinsic knowledge endowment of resource main body;
I is the n n matrix
P is the n n matrix main diagonal element is null
The above model gives the simplification form of various resources main body. In fact, its function
process is extremely complex, it is not only related with the initial talent of various main bodies, but also
：
×
×
，
；
175
correlated with incubator event Ek, Ek ⊆ 2 , N = {1,2,K , n} , the knowledge shift and sharing is
N
actuated by the event.
Here event Ek is the innovation fund project application, the risk fund gain, the consulting activity,
the technical platform build, the informationization project introduction and so on. Every time, the main
body that affects mutually does not necessarily same, the dynamics of knowledge shift is dissimilar,
some main bodies do not lap over, certainly there is no direct knowledge shift between them. Here we
further use i=1 to express incubator itself, and suppose that in every event, there has the incubator
participation, namely the knowledge is directly shifted to the incubator in every event. Hence, the above
model can be changed to
in dex = [ I − P ( Ek )]−1 in h
(1.3)
Here, (P(Ek)is the updating knowledge-dependent matrix, and it is decided by the following mechanism
且
 Pij ( Ek −1 ), k ≥ 1, i, j ∉ Ek , i ≠ j

k
−
1
k −1
Ek
(
)
(
)
(1
Pij Ek = 
Pij Ek −1 +
− e ), k ≥ 1,
k
k

null , i = j

且i , j ∈ E , i ≠ j
k
(1.4)
Here, Ek will be educed by the event chart, and |Ek| is the radix of |Ek|
．Example analysis
4
Take the knowledge sharing network construction of the incubator (S Embark Service Center)
in the operation as an example. The S Embark Service Center constructed in 2001, through many
years of operation, this incubator begins to take shape, until now, it has hatched enterprise for more
than 200, and the “graduated” enterprise amounts to 29; The total hatching area is 32,000 square
meters, and the constructing area is 70,000 square meters, and it will amount to 100,000 square
meters in 2003, and it will continue to construct 60,000 square meters. For simplicity, here we just
choose 7 resources main bodies to analyze the evolutionary process and the result of the knowledge
network.
Table 1 S Embark Service Center’s events table
Anent
Events
E1
E2
E3
E4
E5
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
√ √ √ √ √ √ √
√
√ √
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√ √ √
√
…
Respect calculate
，2，3，4，5，6，7}
，2，5}
，3，6}
，3，5}
，3，5，6，7}
|E1|=7
|E2|=3
|E3|=3
|E4|=3
|E5|=5
E1={1
E2={1
E3={1
E4={1
E5={1
：
Example as Here, 1 means incubator, 2 means Venture capital organization, 3 means consultant
organization, 4 means software provider, 5 means hatching enterprise A, 6 means hatching enterprise B,
7 means hatching enterprises C, E1 means initial event, E2 means obtaining venture capital; E3 means
consultant activity; E4 means constructing technical platform, E5 means application for innovative fund,
A,B,C all apply for it, but only A is successful.
Actually, every Ek will be correspond to a knowledge dependent matrix Pij Ek (k=1,2,3,
), and
we can calculate the Pij Ek as the following chart.
（ ）
Table 2
Pij
1
（ ）
……
（ ）： The knowledge-dependent rate of j on i
P E5
2
3
4
176
5
6
7
0.310
1
0.407
0.133
0.460
0.304
0.232
0.133
0.133
0.310
0.133
0.133
0.133
0.353
0.304
0.232
0.133
0.133
0.133
0.232
0.232
2
0.310
3
0.407
0.133
4
0.133
0.133
0.133
5
0.460
0.310
0.353
0.133
6
0.304
0.133
0.304
0.133
0.232
7
0.232
0.133
0.232
0.133
0.232
0.232
0.232
（
Let’s suppose the intrinsic knowledge talent of various resources main body inh= 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0,
1.0, 1.0, 1.0 T, we can get index= 2.94 1.71 2.52 0.82 2.75 2.03 1.71 T , it shows that after
mutual affection of 5 events, the knowledge influences of resource bodies are changed, this result is
accord with the intuitionistic feeling.
）
（ ， ， ， ， ， ， ）
． Conclusion
5
All organizations must carry on the exchange with the environment , the environment is the
condition for the survival of an organization. The demand for resources make the organization to depend
on the exterior units, the importance and the scarcity of the resources decide the essence and the scope
of the dependency. This article has studied the knowledge sharing mechanism in the incubator
environment, and it also proposes the knowledge shift and the sharing mechanism based on the event,
and establishes the corresponding mathematical model. The research discovers the knowledge influence
of various resources main body is getting higher when they participate in more activities, this result
conforms to people's intuitionistic feeling.
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