Research Sample

3.2.3.1 Choice of Sector and Number of Cases

The research data is drawn from a cohort of small businesses in the North-West of England which applied for and was successful in receiving funding to undertake an innovation project via a B2B innovation voucher scheme calledCreative Credits. The scheme was run by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), an independent body which funds programmes aimed at understanding and stimulating innovation in UK businesses. The researcher was part of the Warwick Business School team administering and evaluating theCreative CreditsScheme.

TheCreative Creditscohort comprised of 150 SMEs, typically trading within the services and retail sectors, and suppliers from the creative industries, whom they selected to partner them in their innovation project. NESTA’s scheme set base criteria which both the SME and their creative supplier needed to meet: They were required to be VAT registered, their main office had to be located in the Greater Manchester area, the number of

employees could not exceed two hundred and fifty, and their turnover had to be less than Eur46 million at the time of their application. The firms could be structured as a limited

company, a limited liability partnership, a general partnership or an industrial or provident society. The SME had free-choice in selecting their creative industry partner from an on- line gallery of creative businesses who had applied to be included. Creative businesses were also allowed to approach the SMEs direct.

NESTA’sCreative Creditsprogramme was devised to explore two earlier research findings. One, that supply chain relationships, in particular, may contribute to innovation through the variety of interactions that take place between buyers and sellers that support

exchanges of information and the generation of new knowledge (Royet al, 2004) and two, that there is evidence that firms with linkages to the creative industries had significant positive impacts on some dimensions of innovation behaviour. It seemed that firms with these stronger B2B linkages into creative services are more likely to introduce product innovations (Bakhshiet al., 2008).

The sample group used here provides an unusual opportunity to examine a large number of small businesses in a similar geographical location working together on an innovation project with similar time scales and with similar levels of project funding. .Small businesses are increasingly seen as an important focus of policymakers as they form a large part of any developed economic structure, most employment is concentrated in this group and they play an increasingly important role in economic growth and job creation (Hoffmanet al., 1998).

3.2.3.2 Choice of Research Organisations and Access

The SMEs which make up this research sample where those that took part in NESTA’s

Creative CreditsB2B innovation voucher scheme between 2009 and 2012. A profile of firm characteristics is found in the next chapter. The researcher, as part of the Warwick

was granted access to the data collected during the scheme for use in a PhD research project.

Predictor and outcome variables for organisational-level similarity could be constructed directly from theCreative Creditsdataset, but, the data for individual-level similarity needed to be collected from the sample group after the official end of the scheme. For the individual-level data physical access to the businesses was not required, but cognitive and virtual access to the innovation project leader was and as the businesses were no longer part of the scheme when Part B data collection began, access became more problematic. The difficulty of obtaining access in relation to more intrusive methods such as this has been recognised many times in the literature (e.g. Buchananet al., 1988; Easterby-Smithet al., 2008) though management and organisational research suggests that one is more likely to gain access where existing contacts are established (Buchananet al., 1988; Easterby- Smithet al., 2008;). Moving to quasi external-researcher status meant the researcher had to call on the continued goodwill of the parties involved. The mainCreative Credits

contact in the firm was approached by email explaining the purpose of the research, the benefits that researching innovation for small business offered, and details of what would be involved. A link to the on-line survey was included in the email. The researcher was aware that there may be several concerns on the part of the target organisation about being involved in the study. First, concerns about the amount of time or resources involved in the request for access (Easterby-Smithet al, 2008) and confidentiality and anonymity. To compensate for their time, the firms were offered a summary of the research tailored to reflect useful findings for their firm specifically, as suggested by Johnson (1975). One dilemma arose due to lower than ideal numbers who had responded by the deadline. The dilemma was around incentivising the respondents to complete the questionnaire by way of a prize. As the use of web-based surveys as a collection mode

continues to grow rapidly the value of utilising prize draws as incentives has increased. In order to gain the right number of responses, each respondent that completed the survey in full was told they would be entered into a prize draw for an Apple ipad. But even the incentive of winning a prize of this value did not persuade a large number of those invited to participate.

The Creative Credits programme was open to SMEs and the innovation vouchers were randomly allocated to 150 of those businesses which fitted the scheme’s criteria. The vast majority of those firms which applied to the scheme, however, were small or micro- businesses which were owner-managed. The results found in this study, therefore, relate very much to that type of group, and the method devised here may produce different results, for example, in very large MNCs or high-growth high-tech SMEs.