Approaches in Technology Entrepreneurship:
Dilemmas and Choices –
Bricolage Versus Breakthrough
Zhangjin Chen
Student ID: 8450274
Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship
Course Unite Code: BMAN61001
The University of Manchester
December 2012
CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2
2.0 Bricolage versus Breakthrough----------------------------------------------------------- 2 2.1 Starting Position at Different Levels----------------------------------------=---------3 2.2 Wind Turbines: A Mirror to the Approaches------------------------------------------3
3.0 Bricolage: An Effective…show more content… Rejecting the simple design Denmark had adopted, innovators in the US pursued a higher-level design. As their Danish counterparts were experiencing a slow, incremental process, firms in the US were engaged in a technological race. The Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) and later the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NERL), which tried to develop a knowledge base, together played an important role in the breakthrough approach. However, the gap between fundamental scientific principles and high-tech design made the theoretical-oriented models they generated of little significance to the industry (Garud and Karnoe, 2003). Obviously, actors in the US approach did not interact as effectively as those in Denmark. The poor interactions between actors and a lack of fundamental knowledge finally resulted in the failures seen in the US designs in the 1990s.
3. Bricolage: An Effective Approach
The success of Denmark's wind turbines industry has proved bricolage to be an effective approach. Path creation and the effective management of resources are components of the success.
1. Path Creation
In technology entrepreneurship, path creation involves the creation of new options through the combination and transformation of existing resources (Garud
