Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must on the one hand innovate for company survival with the appropriate degree of product innovativeness, and on the other they need to collaborate and focus on core competences for efficiency matters. This research examines the relation of network characteristics and product innovativeness on innovation performance in SMEs. We tested hypotheses on the relationship between these three variables via data gathered from 60 SMEs, active in the medical devices sector. In this context we aim to offer consensus on the theoretical and empirical question of whether or not network characteristics and product innovativeness have a direct effect on innovation performance of SMEs. Results show no significant direct effect of product innovativeness on innovation performance. A positive interaction effect of multiple network characteristics on innovation performance was found, which confirms the significant importance of network configuration on innovation performance for SMEs. It indicates that, for SMEs in a highly regulated sector like the medical devices sector, the interaction of network characteristics is of crucial importance for high innovation performance. It is the combination of network characteristics that counts.

Prior to the recent global economic downturn, Ireland witnessed a decade of unprecedented economic growth. Almost overnight, the country’s labour base was transformed from one where decades-long emigration was the norm to a new and dynamic paradigm incorporating net in-migration. A significant element in Ireland’s economic transformation involved innovative marketing strategies and the role of Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs). SME’s were major providers for new jobs and this research addresses the key determinants of their success. This volume investigates a wide range of sophisticated, diverse and market-efficient strategies as adopted by Ireland’s SME’s to ensure global success.

What is the role of culture in the innovation dynamic of small firms within the context of their territorial environments? How do shared values, beliefs and practices underpin the knowledge production process that leads to innovation? In what way do symbolic aspects of social life shape European SMEs’ innovation processes? This volume gives an extensive insight into the complex links between culture and innovation in one of the key agents of economic life: SMEs and micro firms. The chapters employ different analytical and methodological strategies in regions of Europe to identify dimensions of culture, especially values, norms, skills and institutions, and to scrutinize which specific components of culture are relevant to firm innovation and to the more general dynamics of regional innovation. The original research presented shows how small firms learn, interact, compete and collaborate with other key agents of the innovation system. Taken as a whole, the volume points the way towards a more comprehensive framework for understanding the nature of innovation in SMEs and micro firms. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

In the first decade of the 21st century product development in networks was predicted to be of ever-increasing importance to businesses of all sizes because of changes in markets, in technology, in networks, and in the competences of Businesses. The growth in new products’ share of businesses’ total turnover and earnings were increasing at an unprecedented speed. The entrepreneurial innovations and technological improvements had resulted in the increasingly fast development of new products and services. Businesses and industries in different countries became increasingly more linked and interdependent in networks with respect to materials, business operations and particularly product development to match the wants and needs of the global market environment to high speed product development. Businesses were therefore encountering increasingly dynamic market fragmentation, shrinking time in market, increasing product variety, demands of production to customer specifications, reduced product lifetimes, and globalization of production.Networks were vital because the competition is not business against business, but network against network. Networks are vital because an increasing part of product development was carried out in all types of networks containing physical, ICT, dynamic, and virtual networks. Speed and pressure on time in product development seemed to continue to increase because customer demands for new products seemed to continue to increase. However, a Business seldom possessed all needed competences, and managers saw product development based on networks as an important solution to meet the strong competition of the future global markets and the strong demand for innovation and innovativeness. The evolution of market demands and focus (required) on competencies of businesses could be characterized as a development from a focus on efficiency, to a focus on quality and flexibility, to a focus on speed and innovativeness.This was why it was interesting and important to research and discuss product development and especially to understand high speed product development of individualized products in fragile market segments. Consequently, findings and learning on aspects like enablers, management tools, technological tools, product development models, product development processes and network tools to speed new product development are presented in this book.

This book contains the collection of papers presented at the conference of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 8.2 "Information and Organizations." The conference took place during June 21–24, 2009 at the Universidade do Minho in Guimarães, Portugal. The conference entitled "CreativeSME - The Role of IS in Leveraging the Intelligence and Creativity of SME’s" attracted high-quality submissions from across the world. Each paper was reviewed by at least two reviewers in a double-blind review process. In addition to the 19 papers presented at the conference, there were five panels and four workshops, which covered a range of issues relevant to SMEs, creativity and information systems. We would like to show our appreciation of the efforts of our two invited keynote speakers, Michael Dowling of the University of Regensburg, Germany and Carlos Zorrinho, Portuguese coordinator of the Lisbon Strategy and the Technological Plan. The following organizations supported the conference through financial or other contributions and we would like to thank them for their engagement:

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2011, held in Stavanger, Norway, in September 2011. The 66 revised and extended full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 124 papers presented at the conference. The papers are organized in 3 parts: production process, supply chain management, and strategy. They represent the breadth and complexity of topics in operations management, ranging from optimization and use of technology, management of organizations and networks, to sustainable production and globalization. The authors use a broad range of methodological approaches spanning from grounded theory and qualitative methods, via a broad set of statistical methods to modeling and simulation techniques.

Exploring the process of university collaboration from the perspective of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this book offers an in-depth examination of the collaboration process, dispelling the myth of the disengagement of these firms. Andrew Johnston and Robert Huggins present a thorough account of how SMEs can ‘unlock the ivory tower’ and gain access to university knowledge to support their own innovation.